CHORUS: DOZENS UPON DOZENS

CHORUS: DOZENS UPON DOZENS

MILL VALLEY, CA—Singing on pitch with no instrumental guidance is the trademark of the all-male Chanticleer ensemble, back home in Northern California for some dozen holiday concerts by these dozen male virtuosos of the ever-changing “Chanticleer Christmas” program. The wondrous group is offering holiday pieces written at the time of Columbus’ journeys right up to living composers and modern spirituals, spanning at least seven nations and three languages. The very breadth of the repertory changing every year is mind-boggling. The…

Read More Read More

HYBRIDIZING ‘DIDO AND AENEAS’

HYBRIDIZING ‘DIDO AND AENEAS’

SAN FRANCISCO—The imposing early English opera “Dido and Aneas” by Purcell came to us with an incomplete score for string orchestra. In an important U.S. premiere, the latest completion comes to us via Errollyn Wallen’s “Dido’s Ghost,” unveiled by Philharmonia Baroque at the Herbst Theatre in a semi-staged version. It turns a torso into an engrossing masque-opera of great vitality running nearly two hours in length, assuming you can follow the complex interweave of characters. Purcell’s 17th-century drama, based on…

Read More Read More

FIRES, FORESTS AND CRINGE-WORTHY EXERCISES  

FIRES, FORESTS AND CRINGE-WORTHY EXERCISES  

The weekend’s S.F. Symphony programs were downbeat more than upbeat leaving little to cheer about except the robust SFS Chorus under Jenny Wong. Well, maybe not that either. “Yes, they sang in Russian, but you couldn’t understand much of it,” a patron fluent in Russian divulged. This was the masterful oratorio of a Russian celebration by Igor Stravinsky, “Les Noces” (the Wedding), telling his century-old tale in his staunch neoclassical way, with soprano Lauren Snouffer playing the lead role of…

Read More Read More

RADICAL INVENTIVENESS IN STRING FOURSOMES

RADICAL INVENTIVENESS IN STRING FOURSOMES

BERKELEY—Striking enough were the unruly progressive touches in the Beethoven E Minor (“Razumovsky”) string quartet. On top of that came another four-movement string quartet, “Flow,” by Nokuthula Endo Ngwenyama, 47, breaking traditional bounds and expanding sonic boundaries with her world premiere. All this was poured out by the veterans of the Takács Quartet before a sizable audience at Hertz Hall on the UC campus Nov. 12, with the premiere composer in attendance. Enigmatic music is the new composer’s hallmark, giving…

Read More Read More

NEW AND NOVEL SOUNDS

NEW AND NOVEL SOUNDS

BERKELEY—-With some 100 groups participating, the California Festival: A Celebration of New Music  sprang to life with a bang as the San Francisco Symphony visited the Berkeley with all-modern music that was well-attended—a daring concert venture indeed. When it came to the world premiere, the students in the house were vociferous in their enthusiasm, perhaps most responsive to the rock-music blended into the orchestra by the black composer Jens Ibsen with his “Drowned in Light.” In his stimulating quarter-hour two-movement…

Read More Read More

FOLKSINGER’S MIDAS TOUCH WITH OPERA

FOLKSINGER’S MIDAS TOUCH WITH OPERA

The latest sensation in opera is the unorthodox “Omar,” written by the polymath folksinger Rhiannon Giddens, winner of a Pulitzer, MacArthur “genius” award and Grammy. With co-composer Michael Abels, she turned out the multicultural drama now staged at the San Francisco Opera. It is based on the true story of Omar ibn Sayyid, a 19th-century African-Arab Islamic savant and author who had been forced into slavery and shipped off to the cotton fields. The work is unique in opera annals,…

Read More Read More

BEETHOVEN’S 9TH, GALLOPING IN WHEN MOST NEEDED: A NIGHT TO TREASURE

BEETHOVEN’S 9TH, GALLOPING IN WHEN MOST NEEDED: A NIGHT TO TREASURE

It was a night all will recall, dripping with nostalgia and sentiment as the semi-retired MTT returned to conduct Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. With the elderly, ailing podium laureate back, the tributes by the full house were never more pronounced. Yes, a love-in, by any measure. And with not one but two wars raging on the far side of Earth, never were Beethoven’s choral messages of hope, “All men will be brothers,” with the following “Be embraced, ye millions,” more needed….

Read More Read More

THE NEW CONCERTO: A MINI OR A MAXI?

THE NEW CONCERTO: A MINI OR A MAXI?

The whirlwind known as the Swedish composer Anders Hillborg sprang his world-premiere “MAX” Concerto (No. 2, if you’re keeping count) on the world Oct. 12. It’s a curious piece, just 21 minutes long, in a single movement. By today’s standards, that might be identified as a mini-concerto for piano, offering subsections entitled Toy Piano, Soft Piano, Hard Piano, Ascending Piano, Mists and “Chorales and Echo Chamber,” with quasi-baroque segments. It’s like a salad containing delectable components from all over the…

Read More Read More

S.F. SYMPHONY’S SWEET AND SPICY MODERNS WITH THE FAST-PEDALING FIDDLER

S.F. SYMPHONY’S SWEET AND SPICY MODERNS WITH THE FAST-PEDALING FIDDLER

In presenting a rare and bold all-contemporary program, the SF Symphony attracted (in addition to a number of empty seats) a noticeably younger clientele, including a tattooed, T-shirted contingent usually encountered at rock concerts. The “sweet and spicy” program led off with the sharp Nordic spice of a world premiere—–a very bold, adventurous “Convergence” violin concerto by the Swede Jesper Nordin, which proved to be a triple-threat achievement involving at least four technicians to control the piece: In addition to…

Read More Read More

A LIGHTNING OPERA: FLASH AND DASH PRODUCE A HIT

A LIGHTNING OPERA: FLASH AND DASH PRODUCE A HIT

For our computer era we get the ultimate lightning opera, ideal for commuting city toilers in a perennial rush. All 20 scenes are pressed into 80 minutes of fast-flashing scenes, or four minutes an average segment. You’re carried along as if riding the crest of a wave. Packed in are gigabytes of drama about the flawed genius of the handheld, a brainy superman with super weaknesses. If only he’d have taken time to hold hands more often in his abbreviated…

Read More Read More