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Monday, March 18, 2024
 Recent Reviews
CHORAL AND VOCAL
A ST. JOHN PASSION FOR THE AGES
by Abby Wasserman
Friday, March 8, 2024
Baritone Mischa Bouvier (A. Wasserman Photo)
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
William Corbett-Jones and (r) Sanet Allen 3/2/24
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
Miró Quartet March 1 in Sebastopol (P. Lert Photo)
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
Fry St. SQ March 1 at the 222
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
J. Nakamatsu J. Frautschi J.Manasse Feb. 25 (A. Wasserman Photo)
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
M. Thompson C. Menke Feb. 25
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
Conductor/Pianist Jeffrey Kahane
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
Mezzo Soprano Christa Durand
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
Soprano Magdalena Kuzma
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...
Local Concerts  
RECITAL REVIEW
Paul Smith, piano / Saturday, March 16, 2024
Paul Smith, piano

Pianist Paul Smith Feb. 16

THIRTY-THREE PLUS VARIATIONS AND AN OCEAN VIEW

by Terry McNeill
Saturday, March 16, 2024

In my career of reviewing hundreds and 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 good piano, the largest of its type (52” high) with the inherent flaws of thumpy bass, lazy damper application and restrictive action repetition. On balance, it was in tune and the artist needed everything working for his transversal of just one work, Beethoven’s mighty Diabelli Variations, Op. 120.

Mr. Smith, long associated with the College of Marin, started playing 25 minutes late as he seemed to know and cordially greet each of the 35 attendees, old friends perhaps that might not have gone west over the demanding Highway 1 hill road Dec. 16 and 17 to hear additional duplicate programs of the 1823 work in San Rafael.

Over 39 minutes, with some repeats omitted, the pianist fashioned a convincing performance of the piece, beginning with a bouncing reading of the banal theme. Fast variations were played fast, if not fleet, underscored by the constant character and tempo contrasts that are at the core of the work.

Highlights of the performance were, through the continual C Major key, continual alteration of mood and keyboard attack that diminished the feeling that it was a long labor to conclude, with piquant harmonies but no modulations. Quite the contrary, Mr. Smith’s virtuosity and obvious dedication to nuances and structural relationships in the music were compelling. The spotlight was on the creativity of the composer, a sterling pianistic achievement in this form that Mr. Smith clearly has mastered.

Prior to the evening’s pièce de resistance Mr. Smith presented witty and cogent remarks on Beethoven’s creative compositional process in Vienna, and in a program innovation performed several of the original waltzes commissioned by the publisher Diabelli, works by Moscheles, Hummel, W. A. Mozart (Jr.), Schubert, Liszt, Kalkbrenner and Czerny. Playing from score as he did all evening, Mr. Smith enjoyed illustrating with anecdote the snippets, most just 20 bars long.

For an additional Diabelli treat, the artist commissioned four local composers (Jules Langert, Ron Fein, Mark Volkert and Tara Flandreau) to contribute musical thoughts on the venerable theme, and played each with elan and what must have been curiosity on how often tenuous connections unfolded. All had no associations with their siblings, which was wonderful. Mr. Fein’s pastiche melded lyrical fragments and an abrupt ending, so different from Mr. Volkert’s slow-tempo work, sforzandos over held notes and left-hand rumbles, and Ms. Flandreau’s music of minimalist character.

Mr. Volkert and Ms. Flandreau attended, and received applause that was only surpassed by that given to Mr. Smith.

Events Calendar

SYMPHONY
Santa Rosa Symphony
Saturday, March 23, 2024
7:30 PM - Rohnert Park
Francesco Lecce-Chong. Geneva Lewis, violin
Hildur Gudadóttir: People Get Faces for String Orchestra; Tchaikovsky: D Major Concerto, Op. 35; Michael Djupstrom: Dreams of Flight for Orchestra: Ravel: Bolero Program continues March 24 (3:00) and...
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CHAMBER
Roses Signature Concert Series
Friday, March 29, 2024
7:30 PM - Santa Rosa
Musicians TBA
Annual Good Friday Concert. Program: Dan Forest -Requiem for the Living. Free admission; donations gladly accepted....
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RECITAL
Spring Lake Village Classical Music Series
Wednesday, April 3, 2024
7:00 PM - Santa Rosa
Frederick Moyer, piano
Program: TBA. SLV concerts are open to SLV residents and their guests...
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SYMPHONY
Ukiah Symphony
Saturday, April 6, 2024
7:30 PM - Ukiah
Phillip Lenberg, conductor. Anna Washburn and Aaron Westman, violin; Daniela Mineva, piano
Clara Schumann: A Minor Concerto, Op. 7; Bach: Concerto for Two Violins, BWV 1043 in D Minor; Wagner: Siegfried Idyll; Beethoven: Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 36...
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SYMPHONY
Ukiah Symphony
Sunday, April 7, 2024
2:00 PM - Ukiah
Phillip Lenberg, conductor. Aaron Westman and Anna Washburn, violin; Daniela Mineva, piano
Wagner: Siegfried Idyll; Beethoven: Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 36; Clara Schumann: A Minor Concerto, Op. 7; Bach: Concerto for Two Violins, BWV 1043, in D Minor...
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CHAMBER
Santa Rosa Junior College Chamber Concerts
Sunday, April 7, 2024
3:00 PM - Santa Rosa
Alexander String Quartet. Zakarias Grafilo and Yuna Lee, violin; David Samuel, viola; Sandy Wilson,
Haydn: C Major Quartet, Op. 33, No. 3 (Bird); Barber: B Minor Quartet, Op. 11; Korngold: D Major Quartet (No. 3), Op. 34...
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RECITAL
Music at Oakmont
Thursday, April 11, 2024
1:30 PM - Santa Rosa
Simoner Porter, violin. Pianist TBA
Program TBA Music at Oakmont concerts are for Oakmont residents and their guests....
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SYMPHONY
Sonoma County Philharmonic
Saturday, April 13, 2024
7:30 PM - Santa Rosa
Norman Gamboa, conductor
Michael Haydn: Symphony No. 25; Mahler: Symphony No. 5 Tickets: $15...
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SYMPHONY
Marin Symphony
Saturday, April 13, 2024
3:00 PM - Kentfield
Daniel Stewart, conductor; John Wilson, piano; John Freeman, trumpet
Montgomery: Starburst; Shostakovich: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 35; Mozart: Symphony in C Major, No. 41 K. 551 The program will be repeated at 7:30 p.m in the same hall, and April 14 (3 p.m...
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SYMPHONY
Sonoma County Philharmonic
Sunday, April 14, 2024
2:00 PM - Santa Rosa
Norman Gamboa, conductor
Mahler: Symphony No. 5; Michael Haydn: Symphony No. 25 Tickets: $15...
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