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7/21/2024 - GUITAR UPSTAGES PIANO AT BRAZILIAN VOM CONCERT - Terry McNeill
Valley of the Moon Music Festival / Tanya Tomkins and Coleman Itzkoff, cello; Rachell Ellen Wong, Anna Presler, Juliette Greer and Keir GoGwilt, violin; Liana Bérubé, viola; Dan Turkos, bass; Marc Teicholz, guitar; Nikki Enfeld, soprano; Eric Zivian, piano
It’s a rare event when virtuoso pianist and jack-of-all-trades Eric Zivian is upstaged. Nonetheless, it happened July 21 at the wildly successful Valley of the Moon Festival concert at Sonoma Valley’s Hanna Center. The upstager was virtuoso guitarist Marc Teicholz, playing famed Brazilian guitaris...

7/18/2024 - RARELY PLAYED BEACH TRIO HIGHLIGHTS PIANOSONOMA CONCERT - Terry McNeill
pianoSonoma / Gabrielle Chou, violin; Michael Dahlberg, cello; Sasha Kasman Laude and Christine Wu, piano
Arriving attendees at the July 18 PianoSonoma Schroeder Hall concert saw something new at stage right, behind the house piano – two sofas, a side table, lamp, a wine bottle and six musicians. It seems the performing brotherhood of this eclectic summer festival spilled over to have all the performer...

7/16/2024 - HEADY MELANGE OF MUSIC AT PIANOSONOMA FESTIVAL OPENER - Terry McNeill
pianoSonoma / Doori Na, violin; Michael Dahlberg, cello; Gabrielle Chou, Sasha Kasman Laude and Peter Dugan, piano; Riley Mulherkar, trumpet
PianoSonoma, the perennial summer visitor to Sonoma State’s Schroeder Hall, launched its tenth season of four concerts July 16 with a tasty program mix of mostly contemporary works. In these programs novel repertoire and presentation are de rigueur, and oddly Bach’s Chaconne (BWV 1004) for V...

7/14/2024 - GRIEG SONATA HIGHLIGHTS ECLECTIC VOM FESTIVAL PROGRAM - Terry McNeill
Valley of the Moon Music Festival / Nikki Enfeld, soprano; Tanya Tomkins, cello; Jennifer Frautschi snd Juliette Greer, violin; Liana Bérudé, viola; Eric Zivian and Adonis Gonzalez, piano
Valley of the Moon’s eclectic Festival ended its first full weekend of events July 14 with sparkling and varied concert that spotlights the Venezuelan pianist/composer Terese Carreño. Somehow Grieg, Brahms, d’Albert, Chopin and Rossini got into the mix. Before a large Hanna Center audience the “P...

7/13/2024 - JOSE WHITE'S MUSICAL ERA EXPLORED AT EXCITING VOM FESTIVAL CONCERT - Terry McNeill
Valley of the Moon Music Festival / Davet Boyadjiev, lecturer
Valley of the Moon Festival’s first full concert July 13 had several compositions with a potpourri flavor, centered around the Cuban violin virtuoso José White. White (1836-1918) lived in Havana and Paris and was associated with many of the musical luminaries of the day, and the program featured th...

7/11/2024 - TENTH SEASON VOM FESTIVAL OPENER AT THE HANNA CENTER - Terry McNeill
Valley of the Moon Music Festival / Adonis Gonzalez, piano
Valley of the Moon’s ebullient Music Festival launched its tenth season July 11 at Sonoma’s Hanna Center, a last minute opening concert relocation from the Valley’s Bartholomew Park location due to the 100 degree weather. Air conditioning was indeed needed for a select group of kindly doners and su...

6/9/2024 - THE SRS ON THE ROAD TO 100 - Terry McNeill
Santa Rosa Symphony / Francesco Lecce-Chong, conductor
Symphony seasons everywhere now have themes, often cutesy and having little relationship to the music, but the Santa Rosa Symphony June 9 launched something special, relevant and overarching – the Road to 100. Beginning the journey to their 100th season the orchestra performed two Beethoven Symphon...

6/8/2024 - TWO BIG WORKS IN BOEPPLE'S MUSIC AT OAKMONT RECITAL - Terry McNeill
Music at Oakmont / Hans Boepple, piano
In his long career San Jose-based pianist Hans Boepple rarely travels to play formal recitals in the North Bay, but he arrived June 8 with a long and demanding program of just two works in Music at Oakmont’s Berger Auditorium. Before the MAO’s largest audience of the season the artist tackled Bach’...

6/2/2024 - MESMERIZING CONTEMPORARY WORKS FEATURED AT CANTIAMO SONOMA'S SEASON ENDING CONCERT - Pamela Hicks Gailey
Cantiamo Sonoma / Carol Menke, director
Cantiamo Sonoma closed out its 2023-2024 season June 2 with another marvelous program of a capella jewels. Santa Rosa’s St. Seraphim of Sarov Cathedral was nearly full on a warm Sunday afternoon, and listeners were treated to an hour of deeply moving and contemplative selections. The acoustics of St...

6/1/2024 - TWENTY FOUR PLUS ONE AT THE 222 JUNE 1 - Pamela Hicks Gailey
The 222 / Eugene Brancoveanu, baritone. Pianist TBA
The 2024 season has already produced three notable Sonoma County song recitals - Renée Fleming at Weill, Magdalena Kuzmà at Schroeder, and Carol Menke at the Church of the Roses - three wonderful and very different singers and programs. June 1 a fourth was added to this list as baritone Eugene Bra...

5/18/2024 - RECONCILIATION THEME IN MARIN ORATORIO CONCERT - Potter Wickware
College of Marin / Laura Wiebe, director. Shawnette Sulker, Sara Couden, Michael Orlinsky and Glen Hall, soloists. Joel Paulino, narrator
Conducted by Laura Wiebe, the Marin Oratorio chorus performed works by Vaughan Williams and Fauré at College of Marin’s James Dunn Theater. The May 18 program Lux Perpetua is reviewed here. A theme of consolation and reconciliation unfolded with Vaughan Williams’s An Oxford Elegy, a music-poetry hy...

5/13/2024 - TAO'S GERSHWIN AT SRS CONCERT IN WEILL HALL - Peter Lert
Santa Rosa Symphony / Francesco Lecce-Chong, conductor. Conrad Tao, composer and piano
Perhaps one might ask what is “new” and what is “old,” music. Should we set an arbitrary division at, say, 100 years? Those of us who came of age in the 1960s might have considered works by Brahms, Tchaikovsky, or Wagner as “old” music, yet at that time much of it was less, some much less, than 100 ...

5/12/2024 - FATEFUL TRIUMPH IN COM'S TCHAIKOVSKY FIFTH - Terry McNeill
College of Marin / College of Marin Symphony Orchestra. Jim Stopher, conductor
A nonprofessional orchestra tackling a demanding symphony is an exciting experience for everyone involved. The Sonoma County Philharmonic recently climbed the mountain with Mahler’s Fifth, and the College of Marin Symphony Orchestra followed suit May 12 with the Tchaikovsky Fifth in the school’s Jam...

5/5/2024 - BURST OF FLIGHT WITH THE VIANO QUARTET IN MARIN - Abby Wasserman
Chamber Music Marin / Viano Quartet
Few classical compositions based on bird song soar higher than Haydn’s Quartet in D Major, Op. 64, No. 5 (“The Lark”), the Viano Quartet’s opener May 5 at Chamber Music Marin. As first violinist, Lucy Wang played the lark’s part on the high E string with admirable fluidity and purity of tone. Her ...

4/21/2024 - FAMILIAR AND NEW - TRIO NAVARRO'S SPRING CONCERT IN WEILL - Terry McNeill
Sonoma State University Department of Music / Trio Navarro. Tammie Dyer, violin; Jill Rachuay Brindel, cello; Marilyn Thompson, piano; Roy Zajac, clarinet
Familiar chamber music in concert always feels warm and cozy, and it was Dvorak’s often performed E Minor Trio (Op. 90 “Dumky”) that highlighted the Trio Navarro’s Schroeder Hall performance April 21. Played many times over the Navarro’s long career, oddly the Dumky hasn’t been heard locally in som...

4/14/2024 - MONUMENTAL MAHLER 5TH IN SO CO PHIL'S SEASON ENDING CONCERT - Terry McNeill
Sonoma County Philharmonic / Norman Gamboa, conductor
Each season the Sonoma County Philharmonic does a stretch, meaning they take on one composition that makes inordinate demands on their nonprofessional orchestra. That happened in the two concert April set in the Jackson Theater when Conductor Norman Gamboa programed Mahler’s monumental Fifth Sympho...

4/11/2024 - OAKMONT SEASON CLOSES WITH STRAUSS' PASSIONATE SONATA - Terry McNeill
Music at Oakmont / Simone Porter, violin; Pallavi Mahidhara, piano
Music at Oakmont’s stellar season closed April 11 with a recital of violinist Simone Porter and pianist Pallavi Mahidhari in the Berger Center Auditorium before an audience of 75. It was the soloist’s Oakmont debut, though locally she played the Beethoven Concerto with the Marin Symphony in a perfo...

4/7/2024 - MORE GOLD THAN KORN AT ALEXANDER SQ CONCERT - Terry McNeill
Santa Rosa Junior College Chamber Concerts / Alexander String Quartet
Parting is such sweet sorrow. The venerable line was on many minds April 7 at the Alexander String Quartet’s concert in Santa Rosa’s Glaser Center. Sorrow not from the three programmed works, but because the Alexander is not touring anymore, and this concert will be the last in a long history of ...

3/29/2024 - VIBRANT GOOD FRIDAY REQUIEM AT CHURCH OF THE ROSES - Pamela Hicks Gailey
Church of the Roses / Carol Menke, conductor. Cantiamo, Chancel Choir. Liesel Hall, mezzo-soprano; Connie Vocature, soprano; Drew Bolander, tenor.; Terri Baune, violin; Kathleen Reynolds, flute; Abigale Summers, cello; Laura Reynolds, oboe; Wendy Tamis, harp; Suzanne Chasalow, horn; Allen Biggs, percussions; Robert Young, organ
It’s always a thrill to hear something wonderful for the first time. For this year’s Good Friday March 29 concert at Church of the Roses, conductor Carol Menke chose composer Dan Forrest’s celebrated Requiem for the Living, a memorable work. Composed in 2013, this beautiful, petite requiem (five mov...

3/23/2024 - TWO OLD, TWO NEW AT THE SR SYMPHONY'S MARCH CONCERT IN WEILL - Peter Lert
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...

3/20/2024 - NOT A SEVENTH BUT A FIRST AT SPRING LAKE VILLAGE CONCERT - Terry McNeill
Spring Lake Village Concert Series / Telegraph Quartet
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 ...

3/16/2024 - THIRTY-THREE PLUS VARIATIONS AND AN OCEAN VIEW - Terry McNeill
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...

3/8/2024 - A ST. JOHN PASSION FOR THE AGES - Abby Wasserman
American Bach Soloists / Soloists and the American Bach orchestra. Jeffrey Thomas, conductor
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 ...

3/2/2024 - SPLENDID SCHUBERT SONGS IN SANET ALLEN RECITAL - Terry McNeill
Allen House Concerts / Sanet Allen, soprano; William Corbett-Jones, piano
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...

3/1/2024 - SHAW'S MICROFICTIONS HIGHLIGHTS MIRO QUARTET'S SEBASTOPOL CONCERT - Peter Lert
Redwood Arts Council / Miró Quartet
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...

3/1/2024 - FRY ST. SQ PLAYS A DEMANDING 222 GALLERY CONCERT - Terry McNeill
The 222 / Fry Street Quartet. Robert Waters and Rebecca McFoul, violin; Bradley Ottesen, viola; Anne Francis Bayless, cello
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...

2/28/2024 - YOUTH ORCHESTRA CHARMS BIG SPRING LAKE AUDIENCE - Terry McNeill
Spring Lake Village Classical Music Series / Santa Rosa Symphony Youth Orchestra. Bobby Rogers, conductor. Henry Miller, violin; Samuel Oryn, narrator
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...

2/25/2024 - SPIRITUAL CHAMBER MUSIC MARIN TRIO CONCERT - Abby Wasserman
Chamber Music Marin / Manasse-Nakamatsu-Frautschi Trio. Jennifer Frautschi, violin; John Manasse, clarinet; Jon Nakamatsu, piano
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...

2/25/2024 - ELEGANT VOCAL MASTERY AT ROSES SIGNATURE RECITAL - Pamela Hicks Gailey
Roses Signature Concert Series / Carol Menke, soprano; Marilyn Thompson, piano.
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...

2/17/2024 - SOLO BRILLIANCE IN SANTA ROSA SYMPHONY CONCERT - Terry McNeill
Santa Rosa Symphony / Conductor Emeritus: Jeffrey Kahane, conductor, piano
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...

2/9/2024 - OPERA GEMS IN COZY SEBASTOPOL THEATER - Pamela Hicks Gailey
Music to My Ears / DeAnne Reeder, Jill Wagoner, Morgan Harrington and Jill Morgan Brenner, soprano; Mark Kratz, tenor; Patrice Kurdish and Christa Durand, mezzo soprano; Spencer Blank, piano
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 ...

2/4/2024 - LUSTROUS VOCAL SOUND AT KUZMA'S SCHROEDER RECITAL - Pamela Hicks Gailey
Green Music Center / Magdalena Kuzma, soprano. Marika Yasuda, piano
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...

1/28/2024 - HAYDEN'S SAXOPHONE CONCERTO AT SO CO PHIL CONCERT - Ron Teplitz
Sonoma County Philharmonic / Norman Gamboa, conductor. Andrew Harrison, saxophone
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...

1/28/2024 - SPIRITUAL STRING MUSIC IN BLACK OAK ENSEMBLE'S MARIN CONCERT - Abby Wasserman
Chamber Music Marin / Black Oak Ensemble
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...

1/24/2024 - VIRTUOSIC HARP RECITAL AT SPRING LAKE VILLAGE SERIES - Terry McNeill
Spring Lake Village Classical Music Series / Anna Maria Mendieta, harp
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...

1/21/2024 - EMOTIONAL BLOCH PIECE HIGHLIGHTS PELED'S RAC RECITAL - Peter Lert
Redwood Arts Council / Amit Peled, cello; Peter Miyamoto, piano
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...

1/14/2024 - OYSTER TRIO AT THE ROSE SIGNATURE SERIES - Terry McNeill
Roses Signature Concert Series / The Oyster Trio. Jennifer Cho, violin; Judiyaba, cello; Marilyn Thompson, piano
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...

1/13/2024 - CANTABILE CHARMS IN MIXED 222 GALLERY CONCERT - Terry McNeill
Cantabile / Anna Combs-Johnson and Michelle Rivard, vocal; Joel Cohen, cello; Elena Casanova, piano
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...

1/11/2024 - A GRAND DIVA'S SHIMMERING AND PROVOCATIVE RECITAL IN WEILL HALL - Pamela Hicks Gailey
Green Music Center / Renée Fleming, soprano. Gerald Martin Moore, piano
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...