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Month: May 2015

FLOCKING JOYOUS BIRDS FROM ITALY

FLOCKING JOYOUS BIRDS FROM ITALY

And Schubert’s Morbid Romanticism The New Century Chamber Orchestra is an elite string ensemble having an unabashedly emotional approach to music. Such is the guiding philosophy of Nadja Salerno-Sonnenburg, its music director as well as lead violinist. And she never shies away from arrangements that permit borrowing from a broader repertoire. The keystone of the season finale was the effusive “Death and the Maiden” opus by Schubert as arranged by Gustav Mahler. This is an extraordinary passionate work of depth…

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STUNNING SYMPHONIC NIGHT

STUNNING SYMPHONIC NIGHT

SFS’ Sensitive, Soulful Bartok & Mozart They put it all together, with inspiring sensitivity as never before. Pairing two repertory staples plus a new curtain-raiser is hardly news. But with the expert performances, the pindrop silence, and the sense of awe, this one proved one of the great symphony concerts of recent years. It was the San Francisco Symphony taking on one of the great 20th-century works, written by a dying man driven far from home by war: Bartok’s Concerto…

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REQUIEM FOR A CHAMBER-CONCERT SERIES

REQUIEM FOR A CHAMBER-CONCERT SERIES

LOS GATOS, CA—-In affluent Silicon Valley, of all places, a salient chamber-music series in a beautiful intimate church just bit the dust after 16 years. The church bells in the steeple should have tolled on the hillsides when the Sunset Concerts at St. Luke’s Church played the grand finale May 22. With just a 150-seat capacity, despite people hanging from the rafters, the ticket income could not close the gap, and volunteers to keep running the program were in short…

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OAKLAND BALLET’S EFFUSIVE GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY

OAKLAND BALLET’S EFFUSIVE GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY

14 Ballets Mark the 50th’s Ambitious Concert Program OAKLAND—The classic bedtime story has a young girl beset by all manner of hardships having the perfect dream. The Oakland Ballet had its perfect dream with its gala 50th-anniversary performance at the Paramount Theatre May 23. The troupe laboriously put together a program to top all pot-pourri ballet programs, spotlighting 15 snippets of its ballets new and old showing off a smart, and thoroughly integrated ensemble. Included were six (!) short world…

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BERNSTEIN’S ‘CANDIDE,’ A HIT IN CONCERT

BERNSTEIN’S ‘CANDIDE,’ A HIT IN CONCERT

It’s a Cynical Ill Wind, Blowing Very Well OAKLAND—Pulling off an enhanced concert version of Bernstein’s sprawling stage work “Candide” was a fitting season-ending achievement for the Oakland East Bay Symphony, with 11 solo singers plus chorus supplementing the orchestra. It marked the fitting cherry atop the 25-year OEBS stint of Music Director Michael Morgan, who had been a protégé of Bernstein himself more than 30 years ago. A large and enthusiastic crowd saluted this chameleon of a work, unlike…

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SHIFTING SHOALS, SHIFTING FAMILY TIES

SHIFTING SHOALS, SHIFTING FAMILY TIES

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New Play at Berkeley Rep By Carol Benet artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area theater Weeks starting May 5, 2015 Vol. 17, No. 53 BERKELEY — Tarell Alvin McCraney’s “Heads of Passes” is a faith-based play with a topline cast about family conflicts in the Deep South, loosely based on the Biblical “Book of Job.” With added rewrites after its Berkeley Rep run, it will be headed to New York City. Playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney is big…

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