ArtsSF

WALNUT CREEK, CA—-The Diablo Symphony has gone through its ups and downs over the years more often than the shifting tides. This process can strengthen a group long term. In its heyday of the late 20thcentury, it hosted prominent composers like Lou Harrison and unveiled new works. Understandably the recent year and a half long pandemic has hurt. The long-awaited resumption at the Lesher Center Nov. 20-21 showed initiative in the Diablo repertory as guest conductor Emily Senturia took to…

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You were sure that you hit the wrong concert on the wrong night, unless you caught the fine-print program insert. Neither the conductor nor the opening symphonic work matched the earlier billing, which had featured the recuperating Michael Tilson Thomas on the podium of the S.F. Symphony. But MTT, still curtailing commitments, had given way to emergency fill-in Ludovic Morlot, most recently music director of the Seattle Symphony. And as you learned in the late-hour fine-print, the French-born Morlot had…

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With a resplendent silvery half-moon radiating over the City, you knew this would be a very special concert. Apprehension had been palpable as the recently retired music director Michael Tilson Thomas, turning 77 next month, underwent brain surgery to remove a tumor. Forced to cancel guest engagements with four orchestras, he made it back despite all adversity—a mite shaky, a mite cautious, but as confident and verbose as ever conducting the San Francisco Symphony. The instant he came on stage…

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The Spanish touch emanated at the S.F. Symphony this week, without a note of Spanish music played. The highly polished program spotlighting works both old and new emanated from conductor Gustavo Gimeno and pianist Javier Perianes. Gimeno deftly walked a tightrope contrasting two short modern pieces with standards by Mozart and Mendelssohn. The SFS trend of including a living composer nearly every time brought on the Korean-German composer Unsuk Chin, 60, in her brief but tumultuous “subito con forza” composition….

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