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Month: February 2020

A Concerto for the Spirit of Today

A Concerto for the Spirit of Today

Among today’s mid-career violinists, the Southern Californian Leila Josefowicz proves herself a true tigress. The more challenging the score, the more she relishes bringing it to life. Where others might cringe, she revels. Composer-conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen wrote his violin concerto in 2009, and she’s virtually owned it ever since. Thorny, prickly, super-speed, clashing, call her violin role what you will. No concerto gives the soloist a more preponderant perpetuum-mobilerole and none I venture make greater demands on the soloist. I…

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SYMPHONY’S CANNONS AND CANONS

SYMPHONY’S CANNONS AND CANONS

The preview act of the music-director-to-be Salonen showed him to be refreshingly self-effacing, constantly putting the music at the forefront in place of the maestro or the podium. And that put a damper on any possible waves of public adulation and wonderment. He led off his guest stint with the S.F. Symphony with cannons and canons, but of a deeply grieving funereal sort, and went from the bang to the whimper, finishing with the underwhelming impact of Ravel’s fragile “Mother…

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BALLET’S BRAIN-TEASERS, HEAD-SCRATCHERS

BALLET’S BRAIN-TEASERS, HEAD-SCRATCHERS

Ballet and philosophy rarely converge. But there we were, with not one but two such examples of theorizing and thought-provoking choreography, venturing to convey concepts through movement. Good luck! Trey McIntyre’s world premiere “Big Hunger” explains it all (at least in the printed notes): The big hunger in humanity is the yearning for meaning, an existential clue to purpose. The scenic design’s massive structure (Thomas Mika) was a further clue: A prominently illuminated EXIT door on stage. This could symbolize…

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BE MY VALENTINE, MACBETH!

BE MY VALENTINE, MACBETH!

PALO ALTO, CA—The romance of Valentine’s Day came face to face with ghoulish rituals and murder most foul by that usurper Macbeth. Disastrous? Hardly. The plucky little opera company virtually sold out the house February 14th, emulating the mouse that roared. And it brought on high drama on its opening night, overcoming almost all adversity. This was that jinxed operatic “Macbeth,” by Verdi, out of Shakespeare—an unsettling tale so fearsome that theaters everywhere still leave one light burning on stage…

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MATT BROWNE’S PRICELESS SUBTLETY

MATT BROWNE’S PRICELESS SUBTLETY

ROHNERT PARK, CA—Composer Matt Browne will hate me for this, but I’m lavishing all my superlatives on his “Ephemera” finale of his new Symphony No. 1. His deft segment portraying the aftermath and total abandonment of a collapsed empire is a testament of total tranquility, tickling the ear tantalizingly with pearly droplets: a strum on a harp, a discreet lozenge from the piano, select notes on a vibraphone, and the viola section (so often taken for granted) waxing from the…

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Women Conquering Berkeley

Women Conquering Berkeley

BERKELEY,CA—The highlight of the Berkeley Symphony program the other night was, astonishingly, the surprise vocal encore running close to 10 minutes in length: The S.F. Girls Chorus singing a near-a-cappella work with mezzo obbligata,”Only in Sleep” by the Australian Eriks Esenvalds. If ever there was proof of the emergence of the creative female, it was in this mellifluous chorus for the girls as led by the SFGC director, Valérie Sainte-Agathe. How apt, the distaff triumph in this hot-and-cold evening focusing…

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