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Symphony
TWO OLD, TWO NEW AT THE SR SYMPHONY'S MARCH CONCERT IN WEILL
by Peter Lert
Saturday, March 23, 2024
Santa Rosa Symphony's March 23 concert combined well-known favorites with two new pieces. There are those who look down upon such “warhorses” as Tchaikovsky's violin concerto or Ravel's Bolero, but it must be borne in mind that such crowd pleasers do, indeed, bring the crowds to concerts to be pleas...
Chamber
NOT A SEVENTH BUT A FIRST AT SPRING LAKE VILLAGE CONCERT
by Terry McNeill
Wednesday, March 20, 2024
Felix Mendelssohn wrote six wonderful string quartets, pillars of the repertoire. But wait, there is a seventh, and the Telegraph Quartet played Fannie Mendelssohn’s E-Flat Major Quartet March 20 at the Spring Lake Village Concert Series. Before a full house the Telegraph, in residence at the San ...
THIRTY-THREE PLUS VARIATIONS AND AN OCEAN VIEW
by Terry McNeill
Saturday, March 16, 2024
In my career of reviewing hundreds of piano recitals, and personally producing more than 80, all have used grand pianos. Except one, Paul Smith’s commanding concert March 16 in Marin’s Muir Beach’s Community Center that had an upright instrument on tiny stage overlooking ocean. However, it was a g...
Choral and Vocal
A ST. JOHN PASSION FOR THE AGES
by Abby Wasserman
Friday, March 8, 2024
Bach’s Saint John Passion, 300 years old this Easter, may not be as well known as his Saint Matthew Passion, but it is a sublime musical experience. As performed by American Bach Soloists March 8 in Belvedere’s St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, it was profoundly stirring, and one did not have to be a ...
Choral and Vocal
SPLENDID SCHUBERT SONGS IN SANET ALLEN RECITAL
by Terry McNeill
Saturday, March 2, 2024
Classical music house concerts often slowly unfold, as some in the audience notice in the back of the room the champagne bottles and smell the lasagna. Musical attention wavers, but this didn’t happen March 2 in a lovely San Rafael home recital. An audience of 35 heard soprano Sanet Allen in fou...
Chamber
SHAW'S MICROFICTIONS HIGHLIGHTS MIRO QUARTET'S SEBASTOPOL CONCERT
by Peter Lert
Friday, March 1, 2024
As with cellist Amit Peled’s cello recital last month in the Sebastopol Community Church, a March 1 performance by the Miró Quartet in the same acoustically rewarding venue proved once again that heavy rain could not prevent a capacity audience from enjoying an excellent evening of chamber music. Fo...
Chamber
FRY ST. SQ PLAYS A DEMANDING 222 GALLERY CONCERT
by Terry McNeill
Friday, March 1, 2024
Continuing a string of exemplary chamber music programs, Healdsburg’s 222 Gallery presented Utah-based Fry Street Quartet March 1 over two evenings that included a movie, two demanding quartets and a newly minted work by a local composer. Newly minted? Gabriela Lena Frank’s A Psalm of Disquiet wa...
Symphony
YOUTH ORCHESTRA CHARMS BIG SPRING LAKE AUDIENCE
by Terry McNeill
Wednesday, February 28, 2024
Usually the Spring Lake Village auditorium stage is pretty empty, with a small chamber music ensembles. In February it was a solo harpist, and April’s concert will be a solo pianist. All that changed Feb. 28 when the 53 musicians of Santa Rosa Symphony’s Youth Orchestra took the stage before a packe...
Chamber
SPIRITUAL CHAMBER MUSIC MARIN TRIO CONCERT
by Abby Wasserman
Sunday, February 25, 2024
It’s difficult to write without superlatives about Chamber Music Marin’s February 25 concert by the trio of Jon Nakamatsu, piano, clarinetist Jon Manasse and violinist Jennifer Frautschi. There aren’t a lot of compositions for this ensemble, and while Mr. Nakamatsu and Mr. Manasse have been a perfor...
Recital
ELEGANT VOCAL MASTERY AT ROSES SIGNATURE RECITAL
by Pamela Hicks Gailey
Sunday, February 25, 2024
February was a month for sopranos in recital. Earlier superstar Renée Fleming and the highly touted young newcomer Magdalena Kúzma delighted audiences in very lovely and different art song programs in Weill Hall. Then Feb. 25 at Santa Rosa’s Church of the Roses, Sonoma County’s venerable choral cond...
Symphony
SOLO BRILLIANCE IN SANTA ROSA SYMPHONY CONCERT
by Terry McNeill
Saturday, February 17, 2024
In a program widely advertised as Kahane Returns, the former Santa Rosa Symphony conductor’s performance at the piano Feb. 17 was almost upstaged by a potent performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 1 and a sensuous small orchestra piece in its local premiere. If memory serves Mr. Kahane made his...
Opera
OPERA GEMS IN COZY SEBASTOPOL THEATER
by Pamela Hicks Gailey
Friday, February 9, 2024
It was indeed a huge loss to the Sebastopol theatrical community when Main Stage West folded several years ago, not being able to survive the financial ravages of the COVID pandemic. Likewise, when a few years previously the beloved People’s Music closed its doors after decades of being the musical ...
Choral and Vocal
LUSTROUS VOCAL SOUND AT KUZMA'S SCHROEDER RECITAL
by Pamela Hicks Gailey
Sunday, February 4, 2024
As the atmospheric river raged through California Feb.11, another flood was inundating Schroeder Hall, that of thrilling singing and piano playing, roaring out of the extraordinary young Polish American soprano Magdalena Kuźma and her equally gifted musical partner, pianist Marika Yasuda. These...
Symphony
HAYDEN'S SAXOPHONE CONCERTO AT SO CO PHIL CONCERT
by Ron Teplitz
Sunday, January 28, 2024
The Sonoma County Philharmonic produced a great program with their usual passion and dedication Jan. 27 at the Jackson Theater on Sonoma Country Day’s campus. Titled “American Shades,” it consisted of works by 20th and current century American composers. Michael Daugherty’s Route 66 was a driving...
Chamber
SPIRITUAL STRING MUSIC IN BLACK OAK ENSEMBLE'S MARIN CONCERT
by Abby Wasserman
Sunday, January 28, 2024
Black Oak Ensemble’s Jan. 28 concert at Mill Valley’s Mt. Tamalpais Methodist Church, one day after Yom Ha Shoah, the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, included two works by Jewish composers who met death in Nazi concentration camps: Gideon Klein and Sándor Kuti. Presented by Chamber Music Ma...
Chamber
VIRTUOSIC HARP RECITAL AT SPRING LAKE VILLAGE SERIES
by Terry McNeill
Wednesday, January 24, 2024
Not within memory has there been a formal North Coast harp recital, but Santa Rosa’s Spring Lake Village Concert Series produced one Jan. 24 with virtuoso harpist and consummate entertainer Anna Maria Mendieta. Before a full house Ms. Mendieta performed a catholic recital of works from mostly known...
Chamber
EMOTIONAL BLOCH PIECE HIGHLIGHTS PELED'S RAC RECITAL
by Peter Lert
Sunday, January 21, 2024
Heavy rain Jan. 21 did not deter a capacity audience from enjoying the excellent acoustics of the Sebastopol Community Church and a recital by Israeli American cellist Amit Peled, with pianist Peter Miyamoto. The recital’s theme was “American Landscapes,” and Mr. Peled is known for augmenting his r...
Chamber
OYSTER TRIO AT THE ROSE SIGNATURE SERIES
by Terry McNeill
Sunday, January 14, 2024
There is surprisingly a new piano trio around, The Oyster, supplementing pianist Marilyn Thompson’s preeminent North Coast Trio Navarro. Wait, Ms. Thompson was also at the piano for the Oyster’s Jan. 14 concert in Santa Rosa’s Church of the Roses, playing two of her favorite Beethoven “Geister” and...
Chamber
CANTABILE CHARMS IN MIXED 222 GALLERY CONCERT
by Terry McNeill
Saturday, January 13, 2024
Healdsburg’s 222 Art Gallery has become one of the North Coast’s most busy concert venues, fielding a large menu of multi theme events, some with cabaret seating, and longtime area violinist Gary McLaughlin produces attractive sporadic classical music programs. Ukiah based vocal instrumental ensemb...
Choral and Vocal
A GRAND DIVA'S SHIMMERING AND PROVOCATIVE RECITAL IN WEILL HALL
by Pamela Hicks Gailey
Thursday, January 11, 2024
Celebrated American opera star Renée Fleming returned in recital at Weill Hall Jan. 11 with pianist Gerald Martin Moore. Their program featured 19th, 20th, and 21st century works under the thematic umbrella of the inspiration nature bestows upon all facets of human artistic endeavors, and the curren...

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