Symphony

For their final concert of the 2024-2025 season the Santa Rosa Symphony programmed, in addition to a contemporary piece by Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz, two proven crowd pleasers: Gershwin’s 1925 Concerto in F, and Holst’s orchestral suite The Planets, composed during the first World War. These p...

Symphony

The Vallejo Symphony's final concert of the 2024-2025 season was performed April 27 in their usual venue, Vallejo's historic Empress Theater. Built in 1911 as one of the first small “movie palaces” in northern California, it went through various incarnations before being lovingly restored, complete ...

Choral and Vocal

The opera series at Healdsburg’s 222 Gallery closed its season April 26 in a splendid program given by virtuoso soprano Chelsea Hollow with pianist Taylor Chan. It was a smallish audience for this eclectic program of art songs and cabaret pieces, yet Ms. Hollow sang the vocal pyro techniques as if ...

In retrospect, Cantiamo Sonoma’s April 18 performance of Mozart’s Requiem sadly presaged the loss of Pope Francis on Easter Monday. Santa Rosa’s Church of the Roses was packed even more than usual for their annual Good Friday concert, and Carol Menke led a musically solid, powerfully heartfelt rendi...

Sonoma County Philharmonic’s season ending concerts always program a work that can be a stretch for the all-volunteer orchestra, and April 12 and 13 found Shostakovich’s demanding D Minor 5th Symphony the piece de resistance. The weekend pair of concerts, conducted by Norman Gamboa in his th...

Music department faculty recitals are a rare commodity on the North Coast, and over many years one looked in vain for artist performances at Santa Rosa JC, Dominican University, Mendocino College, Sonoma State University, Napa College and Pacific Union College. No so at College of Marin, where facu...

Chamber

“Frisson” means “a moment of intense excitement…a shiver,” and that’s what Frisson Nonet provided nonstop on March 30 at Mt. Tamalpais Methodist Church in Mill Valley. Their dynamic performances of works by Rossini, August Walter, Gershwin, Martinú and Ravel marked Chamber Music Marin’s season close...

Santa Rosa Symphony's March 22 concert might be thought of as encompassing both the old world (Mendelssohn's E Minor Violin Concerto, one of the cornerstones of the German Romantic period) and the new, with both an echo of the European late romantic period: Dvorak's Symphony New World Symphony (No. ...

Symphony

The Santa Rosa Symphony's February 23 concert included works from three distinct periods. Chinese American composer Shuyung Li’s Purple Mountains, premiered in 2023, while Brahms’ E Minor Symphony was first heard in 1885. Fitting between them was Leonard Bernstein's second, titled Age of Anxiety, ...

Chamber

The New England-based Parker Quartet was heard Feb. 15 as part of the Redwood Arts Council's concert series, in the acoustically rewarding Sebastopol Community Church. As is the practice at the RAC, the concert was opened by a local musician, Korean flautist Sungdu Bae, studying at Sonoma State Uni...

In what is hoped not to be a permanent departure, ECHO Chamber Orchestra moved its concert Feb. 9 from the First Presbyterian Church in San Anselmo to St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Oakland. The churches are similar, both having high vaulted ceilings and good acoustics. ECHO, led by musical director...

The virtuoso violinist Joshua Bell appeared Feb. 6 in Weill Hall in an unforgettable performance. I would say that he descended from heaven but that wouldn’t begin to completely describe the empyreal beauty that emanated from his Stradivarius instrument, made in 1713. Joined by pianist Peter Dugan, ...

Calling a Sonoma Philharmonic program “lightweight” might be accurate related to their recent powerhouse concerts of Shostakovich and the Frankenstein movie score adaption, but that would do a disservice to the Feb. 2 concert in the Jackson Theater of music with a Spanish flair. Beginning with a se...

Choral and Vocal

Santa Rosa born and rising Bay Area operatic luminary Nikola Printz graced the Schroeder Hall stage Feb. 2 in a hybrid concert/master class featuring four Sonoma State University voice student alums. Printz was a stellar participating singer as well as teacher. The master class is a coproduction o...

Recital

Spring Lake Village’s Concert Series tend to be short one hour events, often with a pot pourri of works, and Jan. 31 found Italian pianist Cristiana playing 15 works in a concise and novel group format. In a rare standing room only concert for 150 SLV residents, Ms. Pegoraro’s charming spoken intro...

Pierné’s Op. 19 Canzonetta for clarinet and piano, opened the Trio Navarro’s winter concert Jan. 26 in Schroeder Hall before an audience of 75. Played by guest artist Roy Zajac and Trio founder Marilyn Thompson, the Canzonetta unfolded as a charming waltz, in singing cantabile, with an occasional b...

The 222 Gallery Impresario Caroline Altman presented Jan. 26 another marvelous Opera Series recital entitled Songs of Life, Songs of Love. A nicely full room of about thirty art song lovers warmly welcomed a young soprano Morgan Harrington as she delved into a nicely varied, well-structured cache of...

Symphony

It’s refreshing to see a resurgence in performances of the works of Mahler. Once the province only of major metropolitan orchestras, it’s now increasingly common to find Mahler symphonies on the programs of smaller regional (and, in some cases, even volunteer community) orchestras. One such professi...

Symphony

At a pre-performance talk January 19 the Vallejo Symphony’s conductor Marc Taddei addressed an early-bird Empress Theater audience with tales of two composers, Haydn and Mahler. He characterized the program we were about to hear as “two approaches to our place in Nature.” He termed Haydn’s Symphon...

Recital

Before a packed Jan. 19 house in Healdsburg’s 222 gallery the Vieness Piano Duo played a nearly two-hour recital that seemed to evoke joy and often vivid musical excitement. Pianists Eva Schaumkell and Vijay Venkatesch, playing in two and four-hand formats, began most works with compelling spoken i...