Terry McNeill has produced piano recitals for 16 seasons in Mendocino, Sonoma, Napa and Marin Counties for the Concerts Grand series, and is an independent researcher on the life and art of pianists Josef Hofmann, Anton Rubinstein and Jorge Bolet. He resides in Santa Rosa, CA, and is an editor and staff music critic for Classical Sonoma.
Sublime was the word in the air at the Ukiah Symphony’s season opening concert Sept 22 in the Mendocino College Theater. Sublime in the event’s title and in the unfolding of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, K. 364, that occupied the concert’s first half.
Conductor Phillip Lenberg was joined by virtuosi Paul Yarbrough (viola) and Jassen Todorov (violin) in the three- movement work from 1789. In a reduced size orchestra of 23 players the conductor drew a warm contrasting sound to the sple... more
On balance the first concert of the Sonoma County Philharmonic’s 25th season Sept. 21 had symmetry - a masterful Mozart piano concerto, a world premiere of a trumpet work, and Tchaikovsky’s seminal Fourth Symphony, Op. 36, composed in 1878.
In recent years the Philharmonic’s orchestral strengths have been evident in first the winds (oboe, clarinet, bassoon and flute), followed by the brass and lows strings. All were on sonic display in the wonderful F Minor Symphony, where conductor No... more
San Francisco-based pianist Daniel Glover has played often in Santa Rosa, for Concerts Grand and Music at Oakmont, and Sept. 18 he returned to the Spring Lake Village Concerts series in a short program featuring Spanish music. One hundred attended.
Playing in an acoustically dry flat hard floor hall with an overfly bright piano, the pianist’s power was on nearly continual display, heavily pedaled, with little attention paid to the elegance, repose and warmth of many of the works. Highli... more
Innovative programming is alive at the Spring Lake Village Concert Series, with the usual piano trios and vocal groups upstaged by a recent formal solo harp recital and August 21 by Brass Over Bridges, an all brass quintet.
The short program in Montgomery Auditorium West included works by one of the performers and concluded with transcriptions of three of Ellington’s most memorable tunes – In a Sentimental Mood, Take the A Train and especially Satin Doll.
Just two pieces were on the Festival del Sole piano trio program Aug. 1 in Weill Hall, but they were a popular two – Mendelssohn’s D Minor and the Dvorák E Minor “Dumky,” Op. 90.
Violinist Pinchas Zuckerman led the proceedings with colleagues Amanda Forsyth (cello) and pianist Michael Brown. The Mendelssohn unfolded in a judicious tempo, with Ms. Forsyth initially underplaying the glorious two themes. Mr. Brown’s virtuosic playing was impressive, though from my seat at row L the acoust... more
The Festival del Sole, long a summer fixture in Napa Valley, moved in August to the Green Music Center and launched its first concert August 1 with three Russia-born musicians playing not a note of Russian music.
International star pianist Olga Kern, who played the Grieg Concerto recently with the Santa Rosa Symphony, was joined by virtuosos Viktoria Mullova (violin) and cellist Nina Kotova in an oddly mixed program before 350 in Weill Hall.
French composer Fauré was featured in many of this season’s Mendocino Music Festival’s concerts, the final one July 25 with seven songs and two chamber music works, one old and one new.
Before a full Preston Hall house soprano Sylvie Jenson sang the Le Jardin Clos cycle from 1914, ably partnered by pianist Susan Waterfall. These songs are far removed from the La Bonne Chanson cycle, and the popular En Sourdine and Clair de Lune. Dimly lit supertitles were shown behind the piano as aft... more
Mendocino Music Festival’s centerpiece each year has been the symphonic concert in the big tent, and for the 38th season conductor Allan Pollack programmed July 24 compositions of expected audience appeal but with mixed performance achievement.
The conductor’s own From and Ancient Book was in over 12 minutes an atmospheric suite that was approachable with faint John Adams musical references and concise architecture. There were also references to the Sibelius tone poems and Delius. The ... more
San Francisco-based pianist Robert Schwartz has been a frequent Mendocino Music Festival performer, and July 23 he played challenging recital in the Festival’s small Preston Hall before 100 listeners.
People expecting piano competition perfection would not find it here, but what they heard was a seasoned artist interpretating important pieces and educating his audience with perceptive pre-piece commentary that was often overly lengthy.
Bach’s E Minor Toccata opened in a convent... more
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 guitarist/composer Sérgio Assad’s transformation of five Chopin Preludes from his Op. 28. Following Mr. Zivian’s playing of each Chopin, the Assad reworkings in Mr. Teicholz’ masterful hands were a re... more
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 performers on stage when at least one of them was making music. Novel, and leading into a little Shubertiad with pianist Christine Wu playing four of the Ländler from D. 790, and the Moments Musicaux ... more
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 Violin in D Minor opened the program. The monumental Chaconne as an opener! In over 14 minutes Doori Na mounted a straightforward interpretation, unromantic and in quick tempo with the fast s... more
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 “Paderewska of the Pampas” was represented by three of her works and a movement of the B Minor String Quartet from 1896. Hearing these rather arcane pieces are why one attends summer festivals,... more
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 three of his pieces and additional works from his long ago colleagues.
The most substantial was Saint Saëns’ B-Flat Major Piano Quartet, Op. 41, rarely performed perhaps because of it... more
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 supporters of the Festival that often features quirky repertoire performed on conventional instruments in unconventional guises – gut strings, fortepianos, copious transcriptions. Things got go... more
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 Symphonies, a splendid start.
Seating the second violins stage left and omitting a podium, conductor Francesco Lecce-Chong was perhaps mimicking the small Beethoven orchestra of 1800, the ye... more
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’s monumental Goldberg Variations and Chopin’s 24 preludes, Op. 28, playing without score throughout and at the end showing no visible fatigue from the heroic task.
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 James Dunn Theater.
Before a full house that included numerous members of the musician’s families, conductor Jim Stopher fashioned a performance over a quick 47 minutes without score that featured co... more
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 some time, the last a splendid Manhattan Piano Trio’s reading in the Gualala Arts Center. Along with the “American” String Quartet it’s arguably Dvorak’s most often played chamber work, and cons... more
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 Symphony. The April 14 season ending concert is reviewed here.
First heard in 1904, the Mahler Fifth is a big mountain to climb, and the music from Tom Hyde’s opening trumpet summons call to the e... more
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 performance that was fluid but underpowered. But that was in a large hall, and many years ago, and this afternoon Ms. Porter had the requisite musical passion and sonic projection for the program’s... more
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 the Santa Rosa Junior College Chamber Series and the San Francisco-based group. Violist David Samuel spoke from the stage about the changes, and it was noted that he now occupies the stage lef... more
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 Francisco Conservatory, played the innovative and often boisterous work from 1835 with considerable elan and captivating phrasing. Clearly there are echoes of her brother’s music, especia... more
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 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 need... more
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 four Mozart songs, followed by seven from Schubert. The doyen of Northern California pianists, San Francisco based William Corbett-Jones, was Ms. Allen’s attentive and elegant musical partner, ... more
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 was commissioned and premiered by the Fry in November, and the composer was slated to be present for this performance before 70 attendees. The rainstorm and road closures in nearby Anderson Val... more
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 packed hall of 150. Eighteen schools provided the performers.
Conducted by Bobby Rogers, the 53 players began with Smetana’s Moldau Suite from Má Vlast, and completed the first part with part of ... more
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 SRS audition and initial performances with the Beethoven G Major Concerto, and here he again conducted it from the piano. He has played the Op. 58 throughout his career, eschewing forays into... more
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 composers, in classy arranges for her instrument. The tall golden Lyon and Healy concert harp was placed on the hall’s stage with a silk cloth shielding the seven pedals from view.
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 Brahms’ Op. 87 trios.
Joined by colleagues violinist Jennifer Cho and Judiyaba (cello) the ensemble jumped right into the Beethoven Allegro with its rhythmic first unison theme and a ... more
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 ensemble Cantabile performed Jan. 13 in the latest Series musical before and audience of 100, splitting a popular program with one half devoted to classical composers, and following intermission a m... more
North Coast solo violin recitals are exceptionally rare, the last one in memory was Gil Shaham’s traversal of six Bach works in Weill a decade ago. So it was with delight that Gary McLaughlin played sans piano in Healdsburg’s 222 Galley Dec. 1. Mr. McLaughlin has been a Healdsburg impresario for many years, producing the Brave New Music series and is currently the Classical Music Manager for the Gallery. Fifty Five attended and he played from score throughout.
Piano recitals seem to be rare events around here, with only Gustavo Romero’s Spring Lake Village concert in October the exception. There are no formal piano recitals this season in Weill or Schroeder Halls, SRJC’s Newman, Mendocino College or the College of Marin or the Marin Center. So it was refreshing to hear Einav Yarden in her sixth local appearance in the Music at Oakmont series Nov. 9 in Berger Auditorium.
Before 60 people she opened with two Hayden works, the popular F Minor ... more
The composer Gustav Mahler was reputed to say that a great symphony must encompass the entire world. That comment surely characterized the Santa Rosa Symphony’s Nov. 5 performance of the Mahler D Major in Weill Hall.
Over a long 58-minute second half the sprawling work from 1889 was passionately fashioned by Francesco Lecce-Chong, conducting without score, and at times the volume surpassed that of the Mexican Minería Orchestra in the same hall Oct. 20. It takes a big ensemble to perfor... more
A definition of great music is that it enters the ear with ease and leaves the mind with difficulty. That definition was on my mind Oct. 29 when the Sonoma County Philharmonic played its second concert of the season, with the themes of Schumann’s A Minor Cello Concerto staying in my mind for two days, and presumably for scores of the 250 happy attendees in the Jackson Theater.
The So Co Phil has an agreement with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music to engage a prize-winning student ... more
Texas-base pianist Gustavo Romero made his fourth Spring Lake Village retirement home recital appearance Oct. 25 with memorable and committed performances of just one composer.
Just one? Mr. Romero often focuses on the music of one composer each season, and in past appearances it has been Ravel, Debussy and Beethoven. This year it was Rachmaninoff, in the 150th anniversary of his birth, and his playing was easily up to the demands of the composer’s monumental D Minor Sonata, Op. 28.
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It’s a rare concert occurrence when the most popular classical concerto of all time is upstaged by music the audience never heard of. It happened in Weill Hall Oct. 20 when the 75-member Minería Symphony Orchestra of Mexico presented a powerhouse program of the Tchaikovsky B Flat Concerto and native pieces long associated with the Orchestra.
Conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto noted in his remarks from the stage that the evening’s three Gabrielas (composer Ortiz, pianist Montero, timpanist ... more
The 96th season of the Santa Rosa Symphony began with three Weill Hall concerts featuring conventional and popular works. Conventional yes, but the result can be wonderful when played as well as the Orchestra is playing. The Sunday Oct. 8 afternoon concert is reviewed here.
Sibelius’ D Major Second Symphony was easily the highlight in a monumental 54-minute reading led by conductor Francesco Lecce-Chong. Tempos throughout were never rushed, the potent strings of this professional Orch... more
San Francisco-based Lee Trio has been frequent Sonoma County visitors at Music at Oakmont and at the Spring Lake Village Series, and Sept. 27 they returned to SLV for a concert of very early Beethoven and very late Brahms.
The E-Flat Major Trio, Op. 1, No. 1, was especially well played, only in places sounding Haydnesque in the opening Allegro that had lots of energy with pianist Melinda Lee Masur’s alternating ascending scales with staccato and some short legato phrases. Throug... more
Sonoma County’s Philharmonic opened its 24th season Sept. 17 in the Jackson Theater with a program that looked pretty conventional – a Beethoven Symphony, Debussy’s popular Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun and, wait, ooops, a Tuba Concerto.
In my memory there has not been a local performance of a large scale work for Tuba, but soloist Jonathan Seiberlich joined guest conductor Dana Sadava with the Philharmonic in a rousing 13-minute traversal of the Vaughan Williams work from 1954. I... more
Returning to Santa Rosa Aug. 16 after seven years, Los Angeles-based pianist Dmitry Rachmanov performed an eclectic program before a full-house of residents in the Spring Lake Village retirement home’s concert series.
The opening three works, two of Beethoven’s late Bagatelles (Op. 126, G Major and Minor) and Chopin’s popular A-Flat Ballade, were well played but disclosed the house piano’s dry and too bright top end, increased by the hall’s poor acoustics. The B Minor Bagatelle had the... more
At the closing concert of most music festivals there is a tinge is sadness, with attendees knowing it will be a whole year before again the delights of semi-alfresco music and social camaraderie highlight the summer. It was that way with the last Valley of the Moon Music Festival July 30 at Sonoma Valley’s Hanna Center.
The program featured just two works, a transcription for piano quartet of Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony, and Tchaikovsky’s String Sextet in D Minor, Op. 70, with the ti... more
Mendocino’s Music Festival has always featured an eclectic menu through 37 seasons – jazz, pop, country, big band, blues, soul, classical. This year the center of classical music was Ravel with lectures and concerts.
The great French composer was most of the July 20 program in the Preston Recital Hall as soprano Kindra Scharich joined pianist Jeffrey LaDeur to perform before 75 people on a usual splendid coastal summer afternoon. The Festival’s lavishly printed program was printed lon... more
Concerts at the Valley of the Moon Music Festival, now in the ninth season, are frequently a mix of performances with professional-level interest and polish, and ones that never catch fire. It was that way July 16 in a Hanna Auditorium performance that was billed “the Piano as Orchestra.” No, no Wagner transcriptions or Bach-Busoni, but two sections of Clara Schumann and Chopin works, followed by Schumann's most popular chamber work.
Recently violinists have been playing Clara’s Three ... more
Closing a long season April 1 the Sonoma County Philharmonic, the North Coast’s premiere nonprofessional orchestra, performed just two large-scale works that demanded committed instrumental playing.
Before 200 in the Jackson Theater conductor Norman Gamboa had his hands full with the eight-part Fantastic Toy Shop, a Respighi adaptation of a group of Rossini’s music. Originally ballet music from 1919, the 22-minute Suite spotlighted just about every So Co Phil section, and the playing h... more
Russian pianists on American tours often play blockbuster programs, so it was no surprise that Alexander Malofeev’s s recital in Healdsburg’s posh 222 Gallery had Rachmaninoff’s monumental B Flat Sonata as the capstone.
The 21-minute work in the 1931 version received a thunderous reading that favored powerful pianism at the expense of refinement. Well, it’s that kind of a piece. It’s in three movements that sound almost as one, and throughout Mr. Malofeev built the many climaxes with ... more
The chance of having two virtuoso cello recitals in the North Bay in less than 30 days was not good. The sensational Steven Isserliss Napa recital Feb. 14 simply couldn’t be bettered, but Edward Arron’s Music at Oakmont recital March 9 came close. Very close.
With pianist Jeewon Park Mr. Arron made his third appearance on the Berger Auditorium stage in a program of mostly familiar music that was happily received by the largest MAO audience in recent memory.
In his spoken introduction to a Vallejo Symphony audience Feb. 26 conductor Marc Taddei pointed to the afternoon’s program with a wedding epigram: something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.
Well, the comment held true for the semi old (Grieg’s Piano Concerto) and the semi new (Julia Perry’s Short Piece for Orchestra) but really not for the concert’s highlight, Ravel’s complete Mother Goose ballet music from 1912. In 11 sections performed without pause, the richl... more
There were no real surprises in cellist Steven Isserlis’ Napa recital on Valentine Day, and perhaps none was expected. After all, he is among the elite of the world’s cellists, and in the crescent-shaped First United Methodist Church the full-house audience knew well the elevated musical experience they were to have.
Produced in Chamber Music in Napa Valley’s 42nd season, the recital did have one unique aspect - the concluding work was not a familiar demanding virtuoso sonata, but a so... more
A fortepiano recital is a rare thing indeed, and other than the frequent performances on the instrument by the splendid Berkeley-based artist Eric Zivian, one cannot think of a formal North Bay fortepiano event in decades.
Enter the enterprising folks at Healdsburg’s Raven Theater when they presented Austrian virtuoso Daniel Adam Maltz Feb. 12 in a concert that featured just two Sonatas each of Haydn and Mozart.
The pianist brought his own instrument, a replica of a 1792 piano ... more
On paper Sonoma County Philharmonic’s Feb. 1 concert didn’t look too promising – lightweight works by Grofé and Gotschalk, and four new short pieces set to local poetry. That view was misguided, and though the playing was not always revelatory, it indeed gave considerable pleasure to an audience of 110 in the Jackson Theater.
In what might have been a North Coast premiere, Gottschalk’s first Symphony (“Night in the Tropics”) was played during the two movements and 14 minutes as a study... more
Music Faculty members used to be obligated to play a formal recital each year, at least in conservatories. But fortunately Sonoma State’s most frequent faculty performers, pianist Marilyn Thompson and cellist Jill Brindel, perform around here regularly and were joined Jan. 28 by violinist Gail Hernández Rosa in Schroeder Hall with three disparate trios with disparate success.
Beethoven’s sprightly E Flat Trio (Op. 1, No. 1) opened the concert before a paltry audience of 70. Well, it wa... more
New York’s Frisson Ensemble mounted an eclectic program at the Redwood Arts Council’s Jan. 22 concert that was long on informality and high on convincing artistry. Eighty attended in the Occidental Center for the Arts.
Britten’s Phantasy Quartet from 1933 opened the formal program featuring oboist Thomas Gallant in an aggressive performance with cellist Julian Schwarz and an unidentified violist and violinist. There were limited performer IDs in the program or on the Ensemble’s websit... more
Arriving early Jan. 21 for the 3 p.m. organ recital in Schroeder Hall, this reviewer found an already engaged large audience with no organ sounding. It was Sonoma Bach’s popular “Bachgrounder” that precedes each concert, and long-time Music Director Bob Worth was describing from the stage the majesty of Bach’s Orgelbüchlein that constituted the event.
The ”Little Organ Book” comprises 45 settings of Lutheran chorales, and Syracuse-based organist Anne Laver selected 12 of the chorales th... more
Celebrated large ensemble visitors to Weill Hall have included the San Francisco Symphony and the American Bach Soloists (ABS), but neither of these prestigious groups have been heard here in many years. Schedules perhaps, or husky fees?
The San Francisco-based ABS rectified that hiatus with a sensational Dec. 18 holiday concert mostly of Handel, replete with virtuoso singing and instrumental performance.
In the Hall lit with red and green wall lights and 18 stage poinsettias,... more
Santa Rosas’s Church of the Incarnation has always been a local center for organ music, and Dec. 4 was the 25th anniversary of the installation of its splendid Casavant instrument that has 1,886 metal and wood pipes. What better way to celebrate the many years of service to church and area music than a recital of Bach?
The musical event combined with a full Evensong (Second Sunday of Advent) service that included the Church’s choir, organist Jun Kim and the warm direction of Rev. Steph... more
Russian born and Cleveland-based pianist Halida Dinova has had many engagements with the J-B piano emporium in San Rafael, and she returned there Nov. 20 for an afternoon recital of mixed and shorter repertoire.
Performing on the small stage and surrounded with 60 grands for sale or rent, Ms. Dinova opened with the popular Myra Hess transcription of Bach’s Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring. The tempo was extra slow and set the trend for much of the concert – careful and deliberate pace with cl... more
It was a daunting prospect - a fledgling college orchestra tackling the Shostakovich Fifth Symphony. Even conductor Alexander Kahn for the Nov. 19 concert in Weill Hall said from the stage that “programming it was a leap of faith.”
Not to worry. The 49-minute performance under Mr. Kahn’s artistic control was a singular success, the attacks good, the tempos over the four movements persuasive and the instrumental soloists fluent.
The D Minor Symphony from 1937 demands a large en... more
Russian based pianist Ilya Yakushev has had many North Coast engagements, playing recently in Mill Valley and Healdsburg, and Nov. 13 in the Redwood Arts Council’s Occidental 43rd season a recital originally postponed due to COVID restrictions.
As is currently the custom and part of Mr. Yakushev’s approach to an audience, the pianist spoke at length from the stage concerning the contrasting output of the composers of the first half, and sundry subjects having little connection with the ... more
What’s a surefire opening work for a symphony concert? A Rossini overture? Bernstein’s Candide? Gershwin? The Sonoma County Philharmonic’s opener Nov. 12 hit a home run with the sprightly Dance of the Hours from Act Three of Ponchielli’s Opera La Gioconda.
The 10-minute work featured harpist Christina Goodwin and the moderate tempo allowed the Orchestra to make the most of the many short pauses, soft attacks and then the jump to snazzy circus-like motives. Written in 1880 the short bal... more
Continuing a splendid series of downtown Friday evening concerts, Healdsburg’s 222 Art Gallery and Performance Venue presented the Viano String Quartet on Armistice Day in two widely contrasting works.
Contrasts indeed, as Haydn’s G Major Quartet, Op.76, No. 1, fits the Viano like an old shoe, the sound direct in the art space and the acoustics favoring cellist Tate Zawadiuk’s low register. Part of the six masterful works of the Opus 76, the genial four-movement work had lift and a bri... more
Redwood Arts Council’s long running concert series opened its new season Oct. 9 with a beguiling concert of music for cello and piano in the Occidental Center for the Performing Arts.
After considerable audience education talk from the stage, Washington D. C.-based cellist Carol Ann Bosco joined Sonoma County pianist Abbie Gabrielson to play Mendelssohn’s charming Song Without Words, Op. 109. It’s just over four minutes and showed many of the performance characteristics that would... more
People arriving at the Mendocino College campus usually have the same reaction – a lovely quiet place, birds chirping, sounds of distant tennis, hardly anyone around. Bucolic indeed, and that seemed the overarching theme of the Ukiah Symphony’s season opening concerts Oct. 1 and 2 in the College’s Center Theater.
The Sunday afternoon concert of Ponce, Bruch, Strauss and Dvorák is reviewed here.
Conductor Phillip Lenberg has broadened the Orchestra’s sound since taking the bato... more
On paper the Sonoma County Philharmonic’s Oct. 1 concert didn’t seem too attractive – an all-American composer program, maybe the usual Copland, maybe an Adams overture, some Gershwin and an obligatory short contemporary work that faded from memory by the concert’s end.
Conductor Norman Gamboa surprised many in a season-opening Jackson Theater audience with a delicious trio of performances, lively and fetching throughout, and following Mr. Gamboa’s educational pre-concert talk it was in... more
For classical music events at the newly-minted 222 Gallery off the Healdsburg Plaza are different. There is cabaret seating, artist rep Gary McLaughlin conducts extended pre-concert performer interviews from the stage, and before each programmed piece the performers frequently add to the verbiage ad infinitum. Well, it’s that kind of format at the 222, and for an audience of 125 Sept. 23 it was a rousing and successful concert.
Cellist Thomas Mesa and pianist Ilya Yakushev playe... more
In a recent Valley of the Moon concert review comments were made about repertoire that reflected summer at a festival – lighter weight music, much informality. The July 24 concert in the Hanna Boys Center appeared on paper to have muscle, and featured the music of Ives. Remarkably, though the idiosyncratic composer’s Piano Trio and some songs were performed, the musical impact was seldom weighty. Ives, not dense or unfathomable?
Coming at the end of the first half, the Trio from 1911 ... more
Is there such a thing as summer music? Something lighter than heard in the winter season, with much informality? The Valley of the Moon Chamber Music Festival specializes in this approach, and July 17 presented a concert in Sonoma Valley’s Hanna Center that even produced lightweight Brahms.
Before 90 people in the Hanna Center’s Hall came first Mozart’s popular E-Flat Major Trio, K. 498 (“Kegelstatt”) with exemplary clarinetist Eric Hoeprich, violist Seth Van Embden and the Festival’s... more
Indiana-based pianist Spencer Myer has been a welcome Mendocino Music Festival performer since 2010, and he renewed his personal connection with North Coast piano buffs July 14 in a short recital in Mendocino’s Preston Hall.
The afternoon was a mixed success, with Beethoven’s E Minor Sonata (Op. 90) opening the program before 75 listeners. In his remarks from the stage the artist mentioned the 1814 work as a threshold to the majestic five late Sonatas, and in many ways the opening mov... more
In years gone by Petaluma’s venerable Cinnabar Theater mounted two complete operas each season, but in COVID times alas it’s just one. But in this June’s run of six of Verdi’s La Traviata one was surely enough, if it was really good, and the June 19 performance was in every way splendid.
As with all Cinnabar productions since 1999, it was in English in the snazzy Donald Pippin translation. No supertitles needed at Cinnabar, and the small non-reverberant hall has direct sound and shor... more
After an extended COVID wait the Vallejo Symphony returned to the city’s Empress Auditorium April 23 and 24 with a program that easily proved the long layoff didn’t lesson the VSO’s legendary quality. The Sunday performance is reviewed here.
One of the highlights of the afternoon was the seldom-heard Rachmaninoff F-Sharp Minor Concerto, the early work that was a lifetime favorite of the composer, and featured San Francisco-based pianist Jeffrey LaDeur in a powerhouse performance that at... more
Continuing into the post COVID era the Sonoma County Philharmonic played a set of sensual concerts April 2 and 3 in Santa Rosa’s Jackson Theater, rich in instrumental splendor. The Sunday afternoon concert, attended by 250 (all masked), is reviewed here.
Anthony Perry’s laconic English horn solos floated through the concert’s opening Sibelius The Swan of Tuonela, a tone poem from the composer’s 1895 Lemminkäinen Suite. In just over nine minutes rich sound from the six cellos, a sopra... more
It’s often said that opposites attract, and the two piano trios performed April 2 did attract a full house at Healdsburg’s 222 Concert Series. And yes the Schumann D Minor (Op.63) and the Shostakovich E Minor (Op. 67), composed nearly a century apart, are pretty much antipodal.
Played by the Hollywood Piano Trio before 120 people in cabaret seating, the Shostakovich ended the concert’s first half in a lengthy and somber traversal that characterizes much of the composer’s writing in the... more
On paper Matt Haimovitz’s cello recital in Weill Hall March 25 appeared a bit routine– two Beethoven Sonatas, part of a Bach Suite and a Sonata, and perhaps a newly commissioned work and an encore.
All of it happened, but the inclusion of virtuoso pianist Simone Dinnerstein turned the recital menu into a rare and scintillating corner of repertoire, all involving Philip Glass’s music. Mr. Haimovitz gave a foretaste of the pianist’s mastery of Glass with two short works, Overture and Phi... more
Following an Omicron hiatus, live music returned March 11 when the Redwood Arts Council in its 42nd season presented Amit Peled’s cello recital in Occidental’s Performing Arts Center.
Mr. Peled’s artistry has been heard often at the RAC, and uniquely the same program was performed at 2 and 7 p.m. Seventy-five attended the earlier concert, reviewed here, the cellist playing from score with the splendid pianist Noreen Polera.
Beginning with a long verbal introduction about Beeth... more
Berlin-based virtuoso pianist Einav Yarden brought an unfamiliar Bach program to her March 10 Music at Oakmont recital, her fourth appearance on the series, before a nearly capacity crowd in Berger Auditorium.
Bach unfamiliar? Well yes it was, as in addition to Johan Sebastian the artist performed a big chunk of C.P.E. Bach’s work, including two Fantasias, a lovely C Minor Rondo (Wq. 59/4) and a three-movement Sonata in D Major, Wq. 61/2. Known in the Gallant Style period as a perform... more
An entire concert of mostly 16th and 17th century music in a large hall might be considered an acquired taste, but this reviewer had that taste, as presumably an audience of 400 did in Weill Hall March 3 for Jordi Savall’s Le Concert des Nations ensemble.
Moving smoothly without intermission through seven extended sets, the 95-minute concert concentrated on French repertoire with two seven-string bass viols, baroque flute, violin, guitar, theorbo and a harpsichord painted robins egg blu... more
Russian pianist Ilya Yakushev arrived Jan. 23 at his Mill Valley Chamber Music Society recital with the repute of playing loud and fast and delivering charming introductory musical remarks to his audience.
He was true to form in Mill Valley’s Mt. Tamalpais Methodist Church, preceding Haydn’s splendid D Major Sonata from 1780 (Hob. XVI:37) with perceptive comments on the composer, as well as extolling the excellence of the afternoon’s bright sounding instrument and adding personal side... more
In a new season marketed as “Classical Reunion,” the Santa Rosa Symphony made a palpable connection with its audience at the early December set of three standing ovation concerts in Weill Hall. The December 5 concert, with 1,000 attending, is reviewed here.
Vaughan Williams’ popular Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis featured gorgeous string sound throughout, and as always the piece seems to evoke peaceful holidays and a sonic aura of the Middle Ages, the composer’s own “Lark Ascendin... more
There were many familiar faces Nov. 18 during Music at Oakmont’s initial concert of the season, but perhaps the most necessary were the three musicians of the Lincoln Piano Trio, the Chicago-based group that has performed often in Oakmont since 2006.
A smaller than unusual audience in Berger Auditorium warmly greeted cellist David Cunliff’s introductory remarks from the stage, and settled into listening to Bloch’s short Three Nocturnes for Piano Trio. These are lovely and often muted sh... more
In their first Jackson Theater appearance of the new season the Sonoma County Philharmonic presented Nov. 14 a program devoid of novelty, but showcasing the “People’s Orchestra” in splendid performance condition after a long COVID-related layoff.
Conductor Norman Gamboa drew a committed and boisterous sound from 13 brass instruments and timpanist Joseph Lang in Richard Strauss’ Festival Overture, a work from 1909 that is usually heard for full orchestra and organ. In the conductor’s ab... more
Leaving SRJC’s Newman Auditorium for the first time in decades, the College’s Chamber Concert Series presented a season-opening concert Nov. 14 in Santa Rosa’s Glaser Center with the four-musician Bay-Area based Ives Collective.
The season, the first given since 2020, is dedicated to Series Founder Norma Brown, the doyen of Sonoma County music for decades and a past college faculty member. The Glaser’s 350 seats are far less intimate than the cozy Newman Auditorium, but alas the Colleg... more
In the waning COVID pandemic the Marin Symphony is one of the last Bay Area orchestras to return to the stage, and they did with considerable fanfare Nov. 7 before 1,200 in Civic Center Auditorium, with resident conductor Alasdair Neale leading a demanding concert of Brahms, Schumann and New York-based composer Jessie Montgomery.
Brahms’ C Minor Symphony, Op. 68, was the afternoon’s final work and of course the centerpiece. Dating from 1876, the First Symphony is a sprawling piece cove... more
Long ago the Canadian violin virtuoso Gil Shaham played a program in Weill Hall of solo Bach, with a visual backdrop of slowly developing visuals, such as a pokey flower opening over four minutes. The Bach was sensational, and some in the audience liked the photos but many found them disconcerting, including this reviewer.
The Baroque ensemble Apollo’s Fire took the same stage Oct. 30 in essentially an all Vivaldi program, with a unique backdrop of colorful videos that were not discon... more
People attending the first Redwood Arts Council Occidental concert in 20 months found a surprise – a luxurious new lobby attached to the Performing Arts Center. It was a welcome bonus to a recital given by pianist Andreas Klein where the music seemed almost as familiar as was the long shuttered hall and adjacent art gallery. A happy return for all.
Sixty people heard the Germany-based artist give Bach’s Partita No. 2 a balanced reading, the articulation in the two-voiced Allemande<... more
People approaching the Windsor Green bandstand Oct. 3 for the Sonoma County Philharmonic’s season opening concert had some cause for concern. After 18 months of silence would the all-volunteer orchestra have enough musicians for a big movie music program? After all, performers can move, retire, or bail from the arduous work that goes into playing with an orchestra.
Worries were unfounded, as conductor Norman Gamboa led a strong contingent of 47 players under a warm mid-day sun with 400... more
The house of music has many rooms. That dusty adage was never truer than when Weill Hall Sept. 25 hosted a roaring New Orleans-style musical party, and less than a day later a mostly sedate Sonoma State University student orchestra performance.
Before a crowd of 200 conductor Alexander Kahn led a first have of two abbreviated concertos, and happily a non-shortened reading of Mozart’s 36th Symphony, the C Major “Linz,” K. 425.
In his remarks to the audience Mr. Kahn explained that t... more
A dramatic and unique start to the new Green Music’s Center’ 2021-2022 season exploded in a “Party for the Green” Sept. 25, a New Orleans (NO) style commotion featuring Jon Cleary and his Absolute Monster Gentlemen band, inside and outside of Weill Hall.
Beginning with a private gourmet dinner in the GMC’s Prelude Restaurant, and a reception (drinks only) on the Trione Patio, the first musical part came as Mr. Cleary mounted the Hall’s stage to ravage the concert Fazioli piano, playing ... more
Final summer music festival programs are often a mix of what has come before, with the theme and even a featured composer taking a last stage appearance, with a dramatic wrap up composition. San Francisco’s International Piano Festival defied the norm August 29 with an eclectic French-flavored program, mostly virtual and finally with an audience of 60 in the venerable Old First Church sanctuary (O1C) on Van Ness Avenue.
Directed by Jeffrey LaDeur, the “Les Années Folles” began with a t... more
In a departure from usual summer festival fare Julia Den Boer played an August 27 virtual recital in the San Francisco Piano Festival’s 4.5 season with four works, all mostly quiet but all in separate ways insistently demanding of artist and listener.
Throughout the 40 minutes there was nary a powerful forte or flying scale passage to be heard, most music being built on small clusters of notes with often wide separation between. Rebecca Saunders’ “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall” (19... more
Charles Griffes’ piano music is similar to that of Busoni, Reger and even Poulenc, in that there is a sporadic flourish of interest with concerts and scholarly work, then a quick fade into another long period of obscurity.
So, it was a delight to have an all-Griffes recital August 20 on the San Francisco International Piano Festival’s virtual series, played by Wisconsin-based pianist Nicholas Phillips. Video was effectively directed and the audio pristine, a bright piano sound making... more
Schroeder Hall was nearly full July 29 for the final pianoSonoma concert of their season, and presumably the draw and highlight for many of the 150 attending was Bach’s Concerto for Four Pianos. And that performance was probably going to be a North Bay premiere.
However, it wasn’t the highlight, that honor going to another premiere, the world premiere of Thomas Cabaniss’ Suite for Two Pianos, “Trinity Pass.” Each of the four sections was preceded by a segment of the composer’s ... more
The Valley of the Moon Chamber Music Series has begun several virtual and a few live concerts in its new seventh season, some broadcast from Sonoma’s Hanna Center Hall and some in posh local venues. July 24’s video had a small live audience and a well-produced video program of three works.
Titled “Friendship,” the concert began with two short pieces that passed without much notice – Louise Farrenc’s Impromptu and Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s Adagio. Eric Zivian played the piano in each, ... more
Faced with the impossibility of presenting concerts in the iconic large white tent on the bluff, the Mendocino Music Festival opted to use Ft. Bragg’s Cotton Auditorium for ten events in the abbreviated 35th season. San Francisco’s Alexander String Quartet played July 21 to a fully masked audience of 240, seats separated, and proof of vaccination required to enter the hall.
These small inconveniences were of course unimportant, as the ASQ gave their usual polished and convincing interp... more
Brave New Music sporadically produces concerts in and around Healdsburg, and July 10’s violin recital in downtown St. Paul’s Church must have been one of the first post-lockdown, post-be-extra-careful classical music concerts in Sonoma County's summer season.
New Music Founder Gary McLaughlin with his long-time pianist Rose McCoy presented a formidable program centered around two big sonatas, interlaced with four short works seemingly on the menu to give relief on a hot afternoon day, a... more
Gustavo Romero has been an admired visitor to North Bay stages, playing over a decade recitals at Dominican University, the Music at Oakmont concerts and at the Spring Lake Village Concert Series.
He returned June 2 to SLV in a virtual recital, videoed from his home concert hall the University of North Texas at Denton. UT/Denton has America’s largest music school, and Mr. Romero has been on the faculty there for many years.
Mr. Romero often focuses on one composer a season, bu... more
The inaugural concert of a new Mendocino County chamber group is a reason for celebration, and the Rubicon Trio made the most of a mixed musical menu during a May16 virtual concert.
Presented by the Ukiah Symphony Orchestra as the last in their “Salons with the Symphony” Series, the Rubicon began with the Op. 2 Buxtehude Trio Sonata. I can’t recall a Buxtehude piece on any North Coast program, save perhaps for a sporadic work at the Redwood Guild of Organist’s events. Pianist Ben Rueb... more
Completing the Green Music Center’s spring series series of “Green Room” virtual concerts, the St. Lawrence String Quartet played May 9 a lightweight program of two Haydn works. Lightweight perhaps, but in every way satisfying.
The G Major Quartet (Op. 76, No.1) began the music that was supplemented with interviews and commentary with GMC Executive Director Jacob Yarrow. A brisk tempo characterized the opening movement, with uncommon seating placing violist Lesley Robertson far right ... more
During the pandemic The Santa Rosa Symphony’s virtual concerts received their due in performance praise, but another series, Spring Lake Village, more quietly presented monthly virtual concerts to a select local audience.
May 5 saw the latest event, produced by impresario Robert Hayden, and featured Russian-American virtuoso pianist Dmitry Rachmanov in an eclectic hour-long recital of familiar but beautifully played compositions. The artist, faculty pianist at Cal State Northridge, is ... more
In a curious mixture of compositions, the Santa Rosa Symphony’s penultimate virtual concert of the season April 25 unfolded in ways both highly satisfying and a bit perplexing.
Directed by resident Music Director Francesco Lecce-Chong, the event followed a familiar format – several contemporary works capped by a larger-scale familiar piece that seemed to sweep away the sonic memory of what came before. Presumably many program selections are dictated by the number of available musicians... more
The venerable 41-year Redwood Arts Council Series in Occidental has joined the virtual recital world with low budget but artistically satisfying programs, mostly using videos filmed in the performer’s residences. March 28 saw the Tanya Tomkins-Eric Zivian duo present an eclectic program from their Berkeley studio, the fourth RAC event of the season.
As usual the musical mix was intriguing. Over the recent Beethoven anniversary year Mr. Zivian essayed the 32 Beethoven Sonatas using pia... more
Oboe and harpsichord recitals are a rare North Bay event, even in a pandemic environment where a formal hall setting isn’t available. So it was a delight Feb. 21 to experience on the Ukiah Symphony’s website a recital by Symphony oboist Beth Aiken and harpsichordist husband Tom.
The Aiken home visuals were simple and concert dress was absent, but the six-foot Flemish single manual blue case harpsichord had a soundboard lavishly decorated with flower designs, and Ms. Aiken played both a... more
Taped video concerts have pretty much dominated the recent fare for classical music fans, but sporadic live music making can still be found in the North Bay with outdoor chamber music. Of course with the obligatory social distancing and often decorative facial masks.
Four San Francisco Opera Orchestra string players presented two splendid quartets Oct. 22 in the garden of Marin virtuoso violist Elizabeth Prior. Ms. Prior made the introductions to 20 attendees and the sunny afternoon... more
Along with hosting its resident the Santa Rosa Symphony, Weill Hall has contracted to produce sporadic virtual programs of classical music, and began Oct. 17 with a charming three-part concert from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York.
Hosted with comely introductions by CMSLC directors Wu Han and David Finckel, the virtual program on the Green Music Center’s website began with a rarity, Geminiani’s C Major Sonata for Two Cellos and continuo. Underneath the lid of th... more
Similar to many North Coast musical organizations the Santa Rosa Symphony has scheduled a series of virtual concerts on video, spotlighting sections of the orchestra and the exuberant activities of its conductor Francesco Lecce-Chong. However, as an introduction to the season, a Sept. 12 gala video featured the 62 year-association of Santa Rosa residents Corrick and Norma Brown with the Symphony and Sonoma County music.
In a video spanning 69 minutes a bevy of musicians and SRS donors... more
Continuing a season of Redwood Arts Council successes, the Kouzov Duo performed an eclectic Valentine’s Day concert in Sebastopol’s Community Church before an audience of 125.
Beethoven’s charming Op. 66 Variations on Mozart’s “Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen” from the opera the Magic Flute was a bouncy opening, and cellist Dmitry Kouzov dug deeply into the strings at times, adding heft to what is a frothy piece that lasted just under 10 minutes. Pianist Yulia Kouzova played fluently and add... more
Memorable artistic interpretations of musical masterpieces are often at extremes, and with the Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier (WTC - Book I) that Jeremy Denk played in Weill Hall Feb. 13, the pianist was only sporadically at unique or ebullient musical ends.
But his playing wasn’t exactly at opposites, such as old classic recordings of Edwin Fischer (1936) with a modicum of damper pedaling, and Glenn Gould’s pointillism approach (1965), and currently Andras Schiff’s WTC readings with no p... more
Over many years the Sonoma County Philharmonic has played little French music, but perhaps this oversight was corrected Feb. 2 in a splendid all-Gallic program Feb. 1 and 2 in the Jackson Theater. Classical Sonoma reviewed the Sunday afternoon concert.
In his eighth conducting season with the So Co Phil, Norman Gamboa fashioned a performance of Debussy “Images Pour Orchestre” with a lot of musicians on stage, and captured the quiet introduction of the opening “Gigues” with many graded ... more
Sharing the stage with a local diva is a tough task for even seasoned musicians, but Napa College faculty soprano Christina Howell stole the show Jan. 26 when the Napa Valley Music Associates presented an eclectic program of mostly Mozart music. Somehow compositions of Sor and Beethoven joined the mix.
Before an audience of 200 in the downtown Napa First Presbyterian Church Ms. Howell appeared twice with pianist Mark Osten, singing three of Mozart’s most popular songs, and the “Et Incar... more
After a fire-related postponement of four months, the Sonoma County Chapter of the Music Teachers Association of California Jan. 25 gave their annual scholarship benefit in a charming Sebastopol home.
Showcasing local musicians in an intimate setting with two pianos, the first half highlights included violinist Richard Heinberg and pianist Sonia Tubridy in two movements from Bach’s E Major Sonata (No. 3, BWV 1016), followed by a suave Tango, written by Mr. Heinberg’s composer friend Ral... more
Conventional repertoire in uncommonly good performances highlighted the San Francisco Piano Trio’s Jan. 19 concert in the Occidental Center for the Arts.
Haydn’s No. 44 Trio (Hob. XV:28) came from late in his long career, when he was in and out of London, and received a sparkling reading that featured pianist Jeffrey Sykes’ stylish scale playing and good ensemble throughout the three movements. It was the first time Classical Sonoma has heard the Center’s new piano, replacing a small i... more
Having a new resident conductor on the podium for the Ukiah Symphony was an attractive invitation for a long-delayed visit to Mendocino College’s Center Theater Dec. 8. The insouciant Les Pfutzenreuter recently retired after decades of conducting the ensemble, replaced by Phillip Lenberg who also joined the College faculty. Clearly it was time to hear how the USO would sound under different leadership.
The initial answer was problematical, as the two Sibelius Valses (Romantique, Op. 6... more
Beginning with a scintillating reading of Rossini’s Overture to the Opera “Semiramide,” the Sonoma County Philharmonic performed a splendid program Nov. 16 in the Jackson Theater, and featured two additional works, one showcasing the winner of the San Francisco Conservatory’s Young Artist Award.
It’s pretty hard to not move your body with Rossini’s infectious rhythms and thematic charm, and the audience of 200 seemed to enjoy doing so, even with conductor Norman Gamboa adopting mostly p... more
It was a concert full of surprises Nov. 4 as the Santa Rosa Symphony responded to the area’s wild fires and evacuations with challenging, songful and somewhat unique music in Weill Hall. The last of a three-concert series titled "Master of the Modern Banjo" is reviewed here.
The evening began with two spiritual announcements from the stage, starting with Symphony President Alan Silow pointing to the powerful message great music gives to the North Bay undergoing physical affliction, and... more
There was a surprise at the Nov. 3 Vallejo Symphony’s 88th season opening Concert. Of the three works programed by conductor Marc Taddei, the Bartok E major Piano Concerto was the least craggy and sonically demanding. Bartok upstaged in musical impact? How so?
Before a nearly sold out Empress Theater audience Mr. Taddei omitted the usual season-opening Star Spangled Banner and after brief remarks regarding the year’s themes (“Great and Noble” and completing a cycle of Dvorák Symphonies)... more
Gualala Arts has been North Coast gem since 1980s, presenting a wide menu of musical programs in the charming small concert hall in the redwoods near the ocean in Gualala, and the Manhattan Piano Trio opened the new season Oct. 13. It was the fifth appearance in Gualala for this New York-based ensemble, with pianist founder pianist Milana Strezeva joined by Trio newcomers Solomiya Ivakhiv (violin) and cellist Sophie Shao.
Haydn’s G Major Trio (Hob. XV/25) opened the concert before an a... more
Season-beginning orchestra concerts usually feature a splashy mix of overture/fanfare, a sonorous symphony and a virtuosic concerto. Santa Rosa Symphony’s Oct. 6 opener in Weill Hall had a contrary design with two new works and a Richard Strauss symphonic showpiece tone poem. Sunday’s afternoon’s concert in the set of three is reviewed here.
Somehow a Beethoven Concerto slipped into the mix, with San Francisco based virtuoso pianist Garrick Ohlsson the soloist with resident conductor ... more
Continuing a decades-long search for innovative piano trio repertoire, Sonoma State’s resident Trio Navarro opened their current season Sept. 29 in Schroeder Hall with three works of mostly arcane and rigorous music.
Not rare of course was Mozart’s G Major Trio, K. V. 564, that opened the program in a buoyant performance with Marilyn Thompson’s warm piano sound. The Schroeder house instrument is voiced with less brilliance than the two stage pianos in Weill Hall, and the music sounded ... more
After last season’s schedule with one big repertoire work per concert, the Sonoma County Philharmonic opened its 21st season Sept. 28 with two, and both received committed if disparate performances under resident conductor Norman Gamboa.
The first half in Santa Rosa’s Jackson Theater opened not with the expected overture and a concerto, but with Brahms’ Third Symphony, Op. 90. In a pre-concert talk the conductor mentioned that the unobtrusive ending of the F Major Symphony was better s... more
Elizabeth Walter has had considerable impact on Petaluma’s classical music scene, actively promoting music programs in schools, producing concerts through her Sky Hill Cultural Alliance, and playing benefit concerts to raise funds for music in area schools. Sporadically she performs just for the music itself, and Sept. 22 found her in recital in the cozy Petaluma Historical Museum.
Programming four sonatas and playing from score throughout, the artist began with Mozart’s lyrical B Flat ... more
Itzhak Perlman did a rare thing for a classical musician in his Sept. 15 recital – he sold out Weill Hall’s 1,400 seats, with 50 more on stage. Clearly the violinist has an adoring local audience that came to hear him perform with pianist Rohan De Silva in a concert of two substantial sonatas mixed with lightweight fare and jovial commentary from the stage.
In each of his two Weill appearances over six years the artist has performed a conventional and conservative program that was desi... more
Marin-based pianist Laura Magnani combined piquant remarks to an audience of 100 Sept. 11 with dramatic music making in a recital at Spring Lake Village’s Montgomery Center.
Ms. Magnani’s eclectic programming in past SLV recitals continued, beginning with three sonatas by her Italian compatriot Scarlatti, this evening the C Major (K. 159), D Minor (L. 366) and the A Major (K. 113).
Her comments from the stage juxtaposed harpsichord technique (the instrument the composer used) with t... more
In most of the Mendocino Music Festival’s 33 seasons a single evening is given over to a staged opera, with bare bones sets, lighting, costumes, minimal cast and short length. No Wagner or Verdi here, no multiple acts and complicated production demands. Light and frothy are the usual, and so it was July 19 when the Festival mounted Donizetti’s charming “Elixir of Love” in the massive tent on the bluffs overlooking Mendocino Bay.
The two-act work runs a little over two hours and stage ... more
San Francisco based pianist Jeffrey LaDeur has become one of the most sought-after North Bay virtuosi, and cemented that reputation July 17 in a short but eclectic recital in Santa Rosa’s Spring Lake Village Chamber Music Series.
Before 140 in the Village’s auditorium Mr. LaDeur began with Schubert’s lovely E-Flat Major work from the Drei Klavierstücke, D. 946, a piece from the composer’s last year that juxtaposes an energetic section with modulations into with two poignant episo... more
Piano prodigies have always been a fascination for the music public, and the greatest of them (some were Mozart, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Saint Saëns, Hofmann) went on to legendary fame. George Li, who made is local debut at a Music at Oakmont recital April 11, was a remarkable recent keyboard prodigy that now is establishing an important international career at the age of 24. A Wunderkind is now a splendid recitalist.
His program was conventional and in many ways his interpretation... more
Closing their 20th season with their usual programming aplomb, the Sonoma County Philharmonic played a provocative set of concerts April 6 and 7 in the Jackson Theater, the Orchestra’s new home at the Sonoma Country Day School by the Sonoma County Airport.
Local composer Nolan Gasser’s Sonoma Overture, Op. 20, began the Sunday concert, only the second hearing of the work that premiered at the Santa Rosa Symphony’s gala Weill Hall opening event in 2013. It proved to be a bustling and bu... more
Closing their 87th Season March 30 and 31 the Vallejo Symphony has moved from a single weekend concert to a set of two, and the late March response was two full houses in the charming downtown Vallejo Empress Theater.
Conductor Marc Taddei opened the Sunday program with a rousing performance of Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3, Op. 72, and he drew from the orchestra many small but effective climaxes in the 16 minute work, with sterling flute and piccolo playing by Melanie Keller, an... more
Spring Lake Village’s monthly concerts usually clock in under an hour, but the March 8 Florestan Trio’s performance was more extended as so much good music was on tap for the 125 residents attending at Santa Rosa’s premiere retirement residence facility.
Four short pieces made up the first half, beginning with Handel’s G Minor Passacaglia for violin and cello in an 1897 arrangement by Johan Halvorsen. The variations were briskly played with much pizzicato and high register violin... more
Hard on the heels of the Trio Navarro’s late February concert in Sonoma State’s Schroeder Hall, Northern California’s other premiere resident piano trio, the Tilden, played an equally convincing program March 3 in Dominican University’s Angelico Hall.
Clearly each hall’s acoustics, stage pianos and group temperament contributed to subtle but discernable stylistic differences, with the Navarro perhaps more elegant and the Tilden more gregarious. Such differences in chamber music are alw... more
Sonoma County pop and country singing enjoys continued popularity but it rare to see a professional classical vocal concert announced. Diva Ruth Ann Swenson was once a local star, but she has long departed and not much virtuoso recital singing can be found in the North Bay. But the exception to this bleak landscape is the wonderful Carol Menke, and with pianist Marilyn Thompson the soprano gave a splendid recital Feb. 23 in Schroeder Hall.
Ms. Menke, constantly active with performing,... more
The 100 people entering Schroeder Hall Feb. 17 for a Trio Navarro concert were handed a program that appeared to feature two popular piano trios, Mendelssohn and Arensky. But continuing the Navarro’s tradition of repertoire exploration, the pieces were not the usual first Mendelssohn and first Arensky, but the second from each composer, the C Minor (Op. 66) and F Minor (Op. 73), respectively.
But first came Haydn’s B-Flat Major Trio (Hob. XV:20), a short effervescent work that puts th... more
Daniel Glover is arguably the busiest virtuoso pianist in the San Francisco Bay area, but rarely is heard in North Bay concerts. So 90 local pianophiles were anxious to hear him Feb. 17 in Petaluma’s charming small Cinnabar Theater, and they were rewarded with an eclectic program of sometimes unfamiliar but always intriguing music.
At the outset it’s important to know that Mr. Glover does not structure his recitals in the usual format, and he loves to provide extended remarks prior to ... more
The audience entering Weill Hall for Santa Rosa Symphony concerts Feb. 9-11 were presented with a program that on first glance appeared a curious patchwork – a great symphony mixed with a seldom heard concerto and two disparate overtures, and a guest conductor unknown locally. Monday night’s concert, the third in the set, is reviewed here.
Conductor Sarah Ioannides proved throughout the evening to have a firm control of the music and the wonderful SRS players, but offered no particular... more
Over the years the Ukiah Symphony’s concerts have been in the Classical Sonoma Calendar sections, but rarely has this Orchestra, now in its 39th season, had a full winter season concert review. The provocative Jan. 27 program in Mendocino College’s Center Theater seemed a good reason to reacquaint readers with developments for Mendocino County’s premiere ensemble.
Developments have been good. Now in his 29th season, conductor Les Pfützenreuter led a unique pairing of two three-piano c... more
Moving to a permanent new performance venue can be a perilous undertaking for an orchestra, with different acoustics, the loyal audience finding the new spot and infrastructure challenges of lighting and lobby and backstage operations. In their first concert Jan. 26 in Windsor’s Jackson Theater the Sonoma County Philharmonic managed to master the new hall and produced music at their usual high level before 250 people, with a repeat the following afternoon.
Cellist Edward Arron has been a welcome artist at the Music at Oakmont series, and after his Jan. 10 recital it’s easy to understand his popularity. His artistry is a complete package, with potent instrumental technique wedded to integral musical conceptions.
In a nearly flawless concert with pianist Jeewon Park Mendelssohn’s charming Op. 17 Variations were elegantly played with increasing energy and virtuosity in the first five variations. Ms. Park’s fluent sale passages combined wit... more
Each holiday season when a Classical Sonoma reviewer is assigned to cover a concert with Handel’s seminal Oratorio The Messiah, the question arises about what new commentary can possibly apply to the often performed choral work.
Well, if it’s the American Bach Soloists performing the piece, written in 1741 and the composer’s sixth in the genre, a lot can be said. In a Dec. 15 Weill Hall concert the sterling San Francisco-based ensemble, led elegantly by Jeffrey Thomas, produced a glori... more
In a splendid concert Nov. 11 the Music Teachers Association of California, Sonoma County Chapter, presented their sixth annual benefit concert before 40 avid listeners in the Santa Rosa home of Helen Howard and Robert Yeats.
Highlights of the performances, involving eight musicians in various performing roles, were Fauré’s Cello Sonata No. 1, played vividly by Sonja Myklebust with pianist Abbie Gabrielson; soprano Christa Durand’s two Barber songs (with pianist Mary Beard); and pianist... more
Returning to Weill Hall following a fire-related recital cancellation in 2017, pianist Peter Serkin programmed just three works in his Nov. 7 concert, three masterworks that challenged both artist and audience alike.
It needs to be said at the outset that Mr. Serkin takes a decidedly non-standard approach to Mozart’s B Minor Adagio (K. 540) and the K. 570 B-Flat Major Sonata, and to Bach’s Goldberg Variations that comprised the second half. Current international Mozartians (Andras Sch... more
Familiarity in chamber music often evokes warm appreciation, and it was thus Nov. 7 when the Chicago-based Lincoln Piano Trio made one of their many Sonoma County appearances, this time on the Spring Lake Village Classical Music Series.
Regularly presented by local impresario Robert Hayden, the Lincoln played an abbreviated program of four works, beginning with a short “Silver Dagger”, composed for them by Stacy Garrop. Pianist Marta Asnavoorian’s tapping the strings from above started... more
When the Berlin-based ATOS Piano Trio entered the cramped Occidental Performing Arts stage Nov. 3, the audience of 100 anticipated familiar works in the announced all-Russian program. What they got was a selection of rarely-plays trios, with a gamut of emotions.
Then one-movement Rachmaninoff G Minor Trio, Op. Post, opened the music and the Trio caught the surging Romantic themes, first warmly set out by cellist Stefan Heinemeyer. Attacks were clean throughout, though the sub-professi... more
Just two works were on the opening program of the Marin Symphony’s 67th season Oct. 28, Tchaikovsky’s iconic D Major Violin Concerto, and Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony.
Before a full house in the Marin Center Auditorium conductor Alasdair Neale set a judicious opening tempo in the brief orchestra introduction of the Tchaikovsky, setting the stage for the entry of few cadenza-like bars from soloist Dylana Jenson’s broadly lyrical main theme. There are many ways to interpret this 1878 wo... more
In somewhat of a surprise a sold out Schroeder Hall audience greeted pianist Steven Lin Oct. 21 in his local debut recital. Why a surprise? Because Mr. Lin was pretty much unknown in Northern California, and Schroeder is rarely, very rarely sold out for a single instrumentalist.
But no matter, and the young Curtis Institute-trained artist played a conventional but thoroughly exciting concert that drew two standing ovations. He began with a piece that was in every amateur and professio... more
Mostly known as a concert producer and indefatigable promoter of Sonoma County music, pianist Judy Walker stepped into the soloist’s role Sept. 23 in a sold out recital for the Concerts Grand House recitals series.
Two Scarlatti Sonatas, in D Minor (K. 213) and D Major (K. 29), began the hour-long event, and she played the first slowly with a lingering character, and the presto D Major with crisp attention to flamenco guitar mood and fast repeated notes in alternating hands. Th... more
Fresh from a triumphant tour in Latin America the Sonoma County Philharmonic opened its 20th season Sept. 22 in a celebratory concert in the Santa Rosa High School Auditorium.
Keeping to the evening’s orchestra history and past performance, conductor emeritus Gabriel Sakakeeny, who led the So Co Phil in a tour of China, was at the podium to direct one of his own works, The Lion and The Rose, which was composed in 1987 and premiered in 2008 in a concert in Santa Rosa’s Wells Fargo Center... more
Anastasia Dedik returned Sept. 17 to the Spring Lake Village Classical Music Series in a recital that featured three familiar virtuoso works in potent interpretations.
Chopin’s G Minor Ballade hasn’t been heard in Sonoma County public concerts since a long-ago Earl Wild performance, and Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata with Valentina Lisitsa was a distant memory from 2010, both in Newman Auditorium. The same for the warhorse B Flat Scherzo of Chopin, so it was good to hear music that is... more
Before a full house at the Occidental Performing Arts Center Sept. 9 the cello-piano Duo West, playing from score throughout, presented a recital that on paper looked stimulating and thoughtful.
Beginning with MacDowell’s To A Wild Rose (from Woodland Sketches, Op. 51), the transcription by an unannounced arranger made little impact and probably was something novel to most of the audience. An odd choice not explained, but the Fauré D Minor Sonata (Op. 109) that followed was explained b... more
Two thirds of the way through a stimulating 22-concert season the Spring Lake Village Classical Music Series Sept. 5 presented two splendid cello sonatas before 110 people in the Village’s Montgomery auditorium.
A duo for more than a decade, East Bay musicians cellist Monica Scott and pianist Hadley McCarroll began with Shostakovich’s D Minor Sonata, Op. 40, in a performance that captured the composer’s contrasts of contemplation and drama. Playing from score, as they did throughout, th... more
Long anticipated events, such as a great sporting game, gourmet feast, holiday trip or a concert, occasionally fall way short of expectations. The results don’t measure to expectations. With the Sonoma County Philharmonic’s Costa Rica concert June 19, the performance exceeded any heated or tenuous prospects. They hit the proverbial home run in a convincing gala performance in the capitol San José’s historic Teatro Nacionál on the third day of an epic week-long Orchestra tour.
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In a splashy bon voyage concert June 15 the Sonoma County Philharmonic Orchestra launched its June 17-25 Costa Rica tour, performing gratis in Santa Rosa’s Jackson Theater the repertoire for tour concerts in San José, Costa Rica’s capital, and in surrounding towns.
Conductor Norman Gamboa programmed works that have partly been on past Orchestra concerts in Sonoma County, including Frank La Rocca’s Crossing the Rubicon, the Symphonic Picture from Porgy and Bess, and the Elgar Cell... more
Concerts at the classy Spring Lake Village Retirement Home in Santa Rosa have admission limited to residents and a few guests, but the chance to hear a first cabin North Bay pianist June 6 brought a Classical Sonoma reviewer into the audience of 100.
The crowd numbers were unusually low due to a basketball playoff game on television and a special Bocce Ball tournament, but SLV Impresario Robert Hayden forged ahead and presented Marin-based artist Laura Magnani in a sparkling program of ... more
It's rare to have the opportunity to compare in a short period two performances of the same major Schubert work, in this case the great B Flat Piano Trio, D. 898. The chance came May 12 when the Valley of the Moon Festival musicians played it in Schroeder, just over a month since the Hall’s resident Navarro Trio gave a compelling reading of the work from 1827.
Surprisingly, the differences were greater than the similarities. The estimable Navarro uses a modern concert grand and the vi... more
Though Classical Sonoma seldom reviews student concerts, as ample North Coast concerts keep the staff of 11 reviewers busy. But the chance to hear the Sonoma State University Orchestra tackle St. Saëns’ majestic Organ Symphony April 29 was a rare opportunity and not easily to be missed.
Avec l’orgue (with organ) was the concert’s title, and since Weill Hall has no resident organ, an explanation is necessary. There was once a plan to have the Schroeder Hall organ’s sound connect... more
One of the anomalies in the long ago “Golden Era” of romantic pianism (about 1905 to 1940) is that the virtuoso giants of the time didn’t play Schubert. It took the German pianist Artur Schnabel to bring the beauties of Schuber’s work to the public’s attention, and now they seem to be on almost every contemporary piano recital.
Louis Lortie’s April 21 Weill Hall recital featured Schubert’s 38-minute G Major Fantasy Sonata, D. 894, for the entire first half. Mr. Lortie gave the work a s... more
Over the past two years the Vallejo Symphony has made big changes, moving from a stark middle school auditorium to the snazzy remodeled 1911-era downtown Empress Theater, and engaging Marc Taddei as its seventh conductor. April 15 was the season’s final concert of the 86th season.
In a programming novelty the same pianist, Cecile Licad, played in each of the season’s three concerts, and in this afternoon’s concert the St. Saëns G Minor Concerto, Op. 22, was a featured work. The compo... more
Listeners and yes even music critics usually prepare for a concert with research, checking recorded performances, looking at artist biographies and even reviewing sheet music. This was a difficult task for the April 14 Redwood Arts Council concert in Sebastopol’s Community Church, as the performers were mostly new to North Coast, and the program was mostly all arcane transcriptions. It was the final event in RAC’s 38th season.
Cellist Boris Andrionov has appeared at a previous RAC pro... more
Long time Classical Sonoma readers may recall many Trio Navarro concert reviews that lauded their virtuosity and interest in rarely played repertoire. The April 8 concert in Schroeder Hall before 85 chamber music fans featured sterling performances but had a mostly conservative menu of popular trios. Well, with three masterpieces in the trio literature, one can’t quibble.
Rachmaninoff’s early G Minor Trio (“Elégiac”) that began the second half was the only work could be said to be unc... more
At the core of the group of Valley of the Moon Music Festival (VOM) musicians is an ensemble of trios and duos, and as a trio March 31 Festival founders cellist Tanya Tomkins and pianist Eric Zivian joined British violinist Monica Huggett for a chamber music concert in the Green Music Center’s Schroeder Hall.
The concert was the second in a series, and titled “The Little Orchestra.” As in past performances, a piano from the abbreviated period of the programmed music (1788-1802) was use... more
Maurice Duruflé’s short and intense Requiem has been heard in Santa Rosa’s Church of the Incarnation before, but the March 30 Good Friday performance was stripped down in the number of performers, combining Cantiamo Sonoma and the St. Cecilia Choir with musical underpinning from organist Robert Young.
Before a packed Incarnation audience Carol Menke directed the 43-minute performance that was the composer’s 1948 transcription from the original versions that use an orchestra of various s... more
Convention in piano recitals has the artist coming on stage and playing. Canadian pianist Charles Richard-Hamelin walked on Schroeder Hall’s stage March 25 and didn’t play for six minutes, chatting with the audience. A risk for some artists. Then most programs include a contemporary or rarely played work (Ligeti, Anton Rubinstein, Alkan, Field). Mr. Hamelin programmed just conventional Schumann and Chopin. Another risk, and with easy comparisons with more established pianists than the 29-yea... more
Sonoma County Philharmonic concerts are continually artistically successful but on the Santa Rosa High School’s stage the orchestra rarely numbers above 40, and in the 900-seat hall audiences can be scant. Violinists can be in short supply.
An opposite scene occurred at the March 17/18 concert set where the stage was crammed with the full orchestra and two choirs, the Santa Rosa Symphonic Chorus and the California Redwood Chorale (Robert Hazelrigg, director). It looked like nearly 60 s... more
Pianist Anastasia Dedik has been an occasional North Coast visitor, playing with her Trio in Ukiah, and in recitals in Sonoma and with the Spring Lake Village series. She returned March 12 to Spring Lake (a retirement community, with Impresario Robert Hayden) in an abbreviated recital before a packed Montgomery Center Hall of 200 attentive seniors.
Beginning with three Bach works, the pianist was in a lively mood and Petri’s popular “Sheep May Safely Graze” transcription had steady rhy... more
German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter returned to Weill Hall March 2 in a recital curiously different than her appearance on the same stage several years ago, and also dissimilar to a recent San Francisco concert with a heroic Respighi Sonata performance.
On a rainy night before 700 fans Ms. Mutter and her wonderful decades-long pianist Lambert Orkis chose a program that was inquisitive but also inconclusive. The latter came at the beginning of each half, all Brahms, and began the short ... more
Greatness in a single musical composition carried the day Feb. 25 when the Takács String Quartet played Beethoven in Weill Hall.
Sweeping aside two first half pieces, the Takács tackled Beethoven’s penultimate Quartet, the monumental C-Sharp Minor, Op. 131, written in 1826. From the first notes (adagio, and fugue) from violinist Edward Dusinberre it was clear that a magisterial experience would unfold. In six movements, played without break, a set of curiously formed vari... more
Pianist Nancy Lee Harper made an elegant North Coast debut Feb. 24 in the Concerts Grand House Recitals series in a private Santa Rosa home.
Ms. Harper, for decades a performer and teacher in Portugal, has recently relocated to Northern California, played an all-Chopin recital that was comprehensive in repertoire and at many places thrilling. She began with an Op. Posthumous Waltz, then the Op. 43 Tarantelle, and closing the first part was the Op. 61 Polonaise-Fantasie.
Two weeks does make a hefty difference. Feb. 3 saw the diva Renée Fleming beguile a full Weill Hall house in a mix of Brahms, Broadway show songs and Dvorak chestnuts. It was a gala event with couture gowns and colorful extra-musical communication between singer and her rapt audience.
Dorothea Röschmann’s Feb. 18 recital from the same stage was sharply different, though the respective pianists (Helmut Höll and Malcolm Martineau) were uniformly excellent. The German soprano said not a w... more
North Coast chamber music fans have the luxury of two fine resident piano trios, with the frequently performing Trio Navarro at Sonoma State, and the Tilden Trio at San Rafael’s Dominican University. The Tilden plays less often, but their Feb. 11 performance brought several hundred to Angelico Hall to hear a sterling program.
A novelty opened the concert, Hummel’s E-Flat Major Trio, Op. 93, and it was probably a local premiere. There were flashes of his contemporary Beethoven in the ex... more
Ching-Yun Hu made a return Music at Oakmont appearance Feb. 8 in Berger Auditorium, reprising a recital she made in the same hall four years ago. Many of the recital’s trappings were the same, but the music Ms. Hu chose to play was decidedly different.
All afternoon the pianist was in an aggressive and speedy mood, beginning with the complete Rachmaninoff Etudes Tableaux, Op. 39. These nine works from 1917 are far removed from the more popular studies from Op. 23 and 32, and mostly po... more
Weill hall has mounted several exceptional piano recitals, with Garrick Ohlsson’s titanic Liszt concert, and of course Lang Lang’s two insouciant but also compelling performances topping the list since 2013.
But arguably the virtuoso violinists have on balance been more impressive, and thoughts go back to memorable nights from Gil Shaham’s six Bach works, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Christian Tetzlaff, Yu-Chien Tsong, David McCarroll, Alexei Kenny, Benjamin Bielman, Caroline Goulding, Vadim R... more
Though not new to Sonoma County, the Valley of the Moon Music Festival (VOM) concerts are relatively recent in the Green Music Center’s Schroeder Hall. So the first of three spring concerts Jan. 27 provided a picture of what’s in the repertoire leading up to their Festival this summer at Sonoma’s Hanna Center.
Cellist and VOM cofounder Tanya Tomkins opened the concert with remarks to the audience about 19th century musical romanticism as it centered on the world of Robert Schumann. The... more
Turning again away from conventional repertoire, the Sonoma County Philharmonic programmed Jan. 27 three works in what were local debut performances in Santa Rosa High School’s Performing Arts Center.
Nielsen’s Fourth Symphony, Op. 29, called “Inextinguishable,” closed the program with an extravaganza of orchestral color and virtuosic playing. Led with careful pacing by conductor Norman Gamboa, the work seemed shorter than its 36-minute duration, always a sign of a compelling conductor... more
The just closing 2017 year was a calamity for many, but locally in music there were joys galore, and it was fitting Dec. 30 have the balm of two Bach’s violin sonatas in a private Guerneville home recital hosted by the eminent musician Sonia Tubridy.
Violinist Richard Heinberg joined Ms. Tubridy in a program that began with the C Minor Sonata, BWV 1017. Both the four-movements Sonatas featured judicious tempos and made minimal reference to current Baroque music practices of minimal vib... more
The mid-December concert season seems for jaded reviewers to invariably include a Messiah performance, and perhaps a Messiah in a long string of similar and mundane performances. This was decidedly not the case when San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque mounted Handel’s eminent three-part 1742 Oratorio Dec. 10.
Before a Weill Hall audience of 1,000 conductor Nicholas McGegan fashioned an historically accurate and balanced Messiah reading that gave equal weight to the 24-personal chorus,... more
Franck’s wonderful D Minor Symphony is a rarity on today’s concert programs, and I can’t remember a North Bay performance in many years from any of the six resident area orchestras. So it was good to see the Sonoma County Philharmonic feature it in their Nov. 18 and 19 concerts at Santa Rosa High School. The first of the set is reviewed here.
The Belgian composer’s only Symphony is difficult structurally to perform, though underpinned by the recurring them in each of the three moveme... more
German violin virtuoso Christian Tetzlaff presented a critically successful Weill Hall recital Feb. 18, and returned to the same venue Nov. 11 with his admirable Tetzlaff Quartet in a program of Berg, Schubert and Mozart.
Clarity of ensemble has always been a hallmark of this Quartet, and contrapuntal clarity was in the forefront of their performance of Mozart’s E-Flat Major Quartet, K. 428. All of Mr. Tetzlaff’s trademarks were on display here: small ritards in the high register that ... more
Standard Weill Hall fall and winter classical programs are pretty routine – symphonic music, chamber, solo recitals – so it was a rare treat Nov. 10 when just two works from the 17th century were gloriously presented.
With such specialized compositions, period performers with commanding authenticity are needed, and with Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Charpentier’s Actéon the Les Artes Florissants ensemble from Caen, France, were an ideal match. Before an audience of 400 the seven singers... more
Russian pianist Denis Matsuev’s high velocity and frequently slam-bang virtuosity came to the Green Music Center last year with a thrilling and equally perplexing solo performance. So many in Weill Nov. 3 were interested to hear if his pianistic style would mesh well in a concerto, and with a fine orchestra. On this day it was the legendary Mariinsky Orchestra from St. Petersburg, under the baton of international star Valery Gergiev. Qualms were put to rest at the outset.
North Coast weather is turning cool and the nights longer, ideal for Tchaikovsky’s big boned symphonies. The Santa Rosa Symphony recently programmed the Fourth (F Minor Symphony) as did the San Francisco Symphony. Norman Gamboa’s Sonoma County Philharmonic just played the Tchaikovsky First, forgoing a previously programmed another local Tchaikovsky Fourth.
So it was no surprise that the monumental 1878 Fourth was the capstone of the Marin Symphony’s back-to-back concerts Oct. 29 and 3... more
Respighi’s B Minor Violin Sonata seems never to gain conventional repertoire status. Perhaps the great Heifetz recording is intimidating, and I can recall over many years just two local performances: Jason Todorov and William Corbett-Jones years go in Newman, and a titanic reading in March by Anne Sophie Mutter and Lambert Orkis.
Alexi Kenney may change the all this, as he played a scintillating performance of the 1917 work in his Schroeder debut recital Oct. 29 with pianist Renana Gutm... more
A concert with curious repertoire and splashy orchestral color launched the 19th season of the Sonoma County Philharmonic Sept. 30 in Santa Rosa High School’s Auditorium.
Why curious? Conductor Norman Gamboa paired the ever-popular Dvorak and his rarely heard 1891 trilogy In Nature’s Realm, with the uncommonly heard first Symphony of Tchaikovsky. The G Minor Major Symphony doesn’t have quite the emotional impact and tight construction of the iconic Fourth, Fifth and Sixth symphonies, ... more
A standard component of house concerts often involve listeners hearing the music but also smelling the lasagna and seeing the champagne in the adjacent kitchen. But it was not the case Sept. 3 at Sandra Shen’s Concerts Grand House Recital performance, as her riveting piano playing enthralled the small audience in an East Santa Rosa home.
The South Bay-based artist has played in Santa Rosa before, at the Spring Lake Village series produced by Robert Hayden, but this was Ms. Shen’s local... more
In the Valley of the Moon Chamber Music Festival’s penultimate concert July 30 the perennial issue of period and modern instruments was apparent. But only in the concluding Mendelssohn Trio, as the performances in the two first half works easily avoided instrumental comparisons.
Clara Schumann’s three bucolic Op. 22 Romances for Violin were beautifully played by Cynthia Freivogal and pianist Jennifer Lee, with the highlight the opening heart-on-sleeve andante. This was a romant... more
One of the purposes of summer music festivals is to present unfamiliar music in an attractive and often small audience setting. The Valley of the Moon Music Festival delightfully met these requirements July 22 and 23 with two concerts in the small hall at Sonoma’s Hanna Boys Center. Classical Sonoma attended the first concert.
Following lengthy introductory comments by pianist Eric Zivian, the artist played Bach’s first Prelude from the Well Tempered Clavier, and followed with Chopin’... more
Modern classical piano recitals are in two parts, with longer and perhaps more profound music proceeding perhaps shorter and usually stimulating lighter fare. In John Novacek’s July 13 Mendocino Music Festival recital the best playing came unexpectedly in the eight abbreviated works comprising the second half.
After intermission the Los Angeles-based artist began by choosing two of Shostakovich’s great Op. 87 Preludes and Fugues, the inaugural one from the set of 24 (in C Major) and th... more
It’s not really a secret, but Sonoma County’s best chamber music series is one without much notoriety or publicity. The concerts at Santa Rosa’s Spring Lake Village programs are only for residents and a few invited guests. Impresario Robert Hayden years ago honed his producer skills as founder of the well-known Music at Oakmont Series, and now he often mounts two Spring Lake Village concerts a month in an intimate setting with excellent acoustics. No other North Coast music productions can eq... more
Violinist Benjamin Beilman’s ravishing Mozart performance at last summer’s Weill Hall ChamberFest finale lured an enthusiastic crowd to Schroeder Hall May 14 to hear if his secure virtuosity was up to a program of demanding sonatas. He did not disappoint.
With the powerful pianist Orion Weiss in the mix the Janácek and Bartok No. 2 Sonatas were the core of a demanding afternoon, with the former perhaps the most memorable. Written in 1922 with echoes of the composer’s two string quartet... more
A composer’s first symphony rarely gives a clear indication of what beautiful complexities will follow over the years. Early Mozart and Tchaikovsky are examples, and the big exceptions to this axiom are the “firsts” of Beethoven, Shostakovich and Mahler.
Tackling Mahler ‘s D Major Symphony (No. 1,“Titan”) April 8 was the intrepid Sonoma County Philharmonic, playing before an audience of 300 in the Santa Rosa High School Hall. Conductor Norman Gamboa took moderate tempos throughout, ai... more
Piano Competition winners are in ample supply, and it’s often a hit and miss proposition as to their sterling interpretative qualities. However, the quadrennial Van Cliburn Competition in Ft. Worth has continually produced top-level artists, and the 2009 winner Haochen Zhang proved a formidable performer in his March 19 recital in Schroeder Hall.
The pianist began a demanding concert with two big Schumann works of opposite emotional content. The Op. 15 Kinderszenen came first and rec... more
Piano recitals since the beginning of the genre open with finger pieces - Scarlatti or Soler Sonatas, Bach, a Mendelssohn Prelude and Fugue or perhaps Mozart or Haydn. Sarah Daneshpour’s March 12 opening work at the Mill Valley Chamber Music Society series abruptly avoided the norm with the 10-minute Boulez “Incises,” written the 1990s. Clearly it wasn’t going to be a conventional recital played routinely or timidly. Recitals don’t begin with Boulez.
Israeli pianist Einav Yarden has been a frequent Sonoma County visitor, playing private recitals for Spring Lake Village and Concerts Grand, and twice performing for Music at Oakmont.
The Berlin-based artist returned to Oakmont’s Berger Auditorium March 9 with a program that was neither for connoisseurs nor for popular taste, but was full of rarely-played music from always-played composers. Somehow Beethoven’s magisterial A-Flat Major Sonata managed to get into the mix.
A tiny Schroeder Hall audience heard a flawless recital Feb. 26 by Yu-Chien Tseng, arguably the best recent local violin recital since Gil Shaham’s transversal of the complete Bach Suites in Weill and Frank Almond’s Oakmont recital in 2015.
Muscular playing was the afternoon’s norm, and with pianist Chang-Yong Shin Mr. Tseng dived headlong into Mozart’s lovely B-Flat Major Sonata, K. 454. Contrapuntal lines were lucid, as were Mr. Shin’s scale passages in the hall’s clear acoustics. ... more
Chamber music concerts featuring one composer can be tricky, but the Han/Setzer/Finckel trio made a Feb. 19 Weill Hall audience of 500 hear and to a degree see the boundless creativity of Beethoven.
The G Major Trio, Op. 1, No. 2, opened the afternoon’s Beethoven odyssey and one wonders why it is the least played of the early trios. Out of the shadows of Haydn’s trios, the G Major sparkled under joyous playing and brisk tempos, especially appropriate to the music.
Christian Tetzlaff’s Feb. 18 violin recital rolled along with lively and fresh readings of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert when the specter of Bartok’s granitic Second Sonata intervened. The sonic shock to the audience of 250 in Weill was palpable.
Composed in 1923 the 20-minute two-movement work is an insistent and often meandering Sonata that demands a lot from the listener, but even more so from a virtuoso executant. Though there are references to the composer’s Piano Sonata of thre... more
Longevity has its place in classical music. Composers and especially conductors live a long time, and venerable piano trios can linger for years. One can recall the great Cortot-Thibaud-Casals staying on the international scene for decades, and more recently Stern-Istomin-Rose, Oistrakh-Oborin-Knushevitsky and the Beaux Arts.
A Weill Hall audience of 600 welcomed Jan. 29 the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio on their 40th Anniversary tour, and they began quickly with Beethoven’s “Gasse... more
Sonoma County Philharmonic’s long history of featuring soloists from the neighborhood struck gold again Jan. 28 with a ravishing Mozart Clarinet Concerto performance with soloist Roy Zajac.
Before an audience of 300 the Santa Rosa High School hall the A Major Concerto (K. 626) unfolded gracefully with Mr. Zajac’s virtuosity everywhere in evidence. He played the work with the Santa Rosa Symphony several years ago, and the piece was prominent during last summer’s ChamberFest in Weill, wit... more
Each half of pianist Wei Luo’s Schroeder Hall recital Jan. 22 contained beguiling interpretations and consummate technical command of Shostakovich and Albeniz works, but each half finished with less than exalted playing.
Two of Shostakovich’s Op. 87 Preludes and Fugues opened the recital, from the wonderful set of 24 that are played often, and by such disparate artists as jazz pianist Keith Jarrett and the Russian Tatiana Nikolayeva (the dedicatee).
A standing room audience warmly greeted pianist Carolyn Steinbuck Jan. 15 in the season’s second Ft. Bragg Center For the Arts concert in Mendocino’s plebian Preston Hall.
Ms. Steinbuck, to be joined in the program’s second half by clarinetist Eric Kritz and cellist Marcia Sloane, programmed Schubert’s big B-Flat Major Sonata, D. 960. Schubert’s piano music is seemingly now on every recital program, but this is a recent development, and the first recording of a Schubert Sonata was as ... more
New England-based cellist Edward Arron played an encore recital Jan. 12 at Music at Oakmont’s Berger Auditorium that was a in almost every way a success and surely an audience delight.
Beginning with Bach’s G Major Sonata gamba the cellist and pianist Jeewon Park played the work that rolls along without a great deal of contrast or even excitement. Here the string vibrato is minimal and Mr. Arron underscored long held notes prior to the two Allegro movements, and juxtaposing plai... more
A rainy winter Weill Hall audience of 800 heard the Santa Rosa Symphony Jan. 7 in an eclectic program of four composers including a provocative harp concerto. The music was preceded by manifold stage announcements and somber recognition of SRS musicians that had recently died.
A rollicking performance of Rossini’s ‘Thieving Magpie” overture was a splendid opener, played at a quick tempo and spotlighting snare drum and dramatic percussion effects. All evening an eight-musician percussio... more
SSU’s resident Trio Navarro has a long history of presenting diverse programs in the piano trio format, with occasional out-of-area artists joining the mix. This familiar configuration was altered in an Oct. 23 Schroeder Hall concert with the deletion of the violin part and the addition of two sterling local wind players.
The “newbies” jumped right in with pianist Marilyn Thompson in a transcription of Fauré’s six-part Dolly Suite, Op. 56. In the opening “Berceuse” the flute (Kathleen... more
A touring virtuoso’s reputation often precedes him or her, and usually that’s a good thing. The reputation of a Renée Fleming or a Yo Yo Ma can guarantee a sold out hall, and possibly a great concert. But not always, and so there was some concern at Russian pianist Denis Matsuev’s Oct. 23 Weill recital that he would very well be another in a long line of fleet and heavy-handed Slavic pianists. And so it was mostly to be.
Curiously the program’s first item, Beethoven’s autumnal A-Flat... more
New York’s Trio Valtorna came to Music at Oakmont’s Berger Auditorium stage Oct. 20 with three disparate works, and in two of them instrumental sonic continuity was not a main goal.
But it was in the second half’s seminal piece, Brahms’ E-Flat Major Trio (Op. 40) for horn, violin and piano, that brought the audience of 150 and violinist Ida Kavafian, hornist David Jolley and pianist Gilles Yonsattel most happily together. The opening Andante was played with special emphasis on t... more
Itzhak Perlman has fashioned a career that encompasses more than virtuoso violin performance, and includes teaching, narrating musical documentaries, score editing, humanitarian projects, charity events and an often an easy “ah shucks” demeanor that is always beguiling.
With pianist Rohan de Silva Oct. 20 in Weill Mr. Perlman programed just four works, but a balanced four that delighted a full house in Weill that included 70 stage seats. I don’t recall recital stage seats since Lang La... more
Seasoned listeners for Beethoven’s symphonies and concertos know that interpretations can follow contemporary fashion, from the heroic and sonorous grand manner readings of the late 19th and early 20th centuries to the architectural approach after WW II, and even conductor Roger Norrington’s recent sleek and fast renderings.
In Weill Hall on Oct. 15, conductor Nicholas McGegan fashioned persuasive readings of Beethoven's Sixth Symphony and third Piano Concerto with his Philharmonia Ba... more
When driving into Guerneville Sept. 9 for the Amaryllis Trio’s house concert, a massive backlog of cars presaged a jammed musical afternoon. But for the cognoscenti the Trio’s music upstaged the big jazz festival crowds, and rewarded the 25 assembled in Sonia’s Tubridy’s charming hillside home with music of Beethoven, Lalo, Mendelssohn and Haydn.
It was a benefit for the River Choir, directed for many years by Ms. Tubridy.
Dramatic highlights included the Beethoven G Major Tri... more
In the penultimate concert July 30 of the Valley of the Moon Music Festival’s second season, the compositions of Schubert. Rossini and Beethoven were featured in a program titled "Star Power in the 19th Century." Iron Horse Vineyards provided the reception’s wines.
Classical Sonoma was unable to review this concert.... more
PianoSonoma’s second season in SSU’s Schroeder Hall began July 26 with a mixed program under the series appellation “Vino & Vibrato.” The set of student workshops and concerts, headed by Juilliard School pianists Jessica and Michael Shinn, puts artists in residence in close contact with Sonoma County adult musicians for two weeks each summer.
Titled a “Love Triangle” (Clara and Robert Schumann with Brahms), Clara Schumann’s Three Romances for Violin and Piano, Op. 22, had a shaky openi... more
Every summer music festival has a unique character, and the Valley of the Moon Music Festival in Sonoma has the singular character of stressing period instruments that sound well for mostly period repertoire.
In the Festival’s opening concert July 17 this was best in evidence for two Beethoven works, the “Kakadu” Piano Trio and the seven cello variations based on a theme from Mozart’s opera “The Magic Flute.” Eric Zivian, Northern California’s premier fortepianist, brought two of his ... more
Pianist Christopher Atzinger’s Mendocino Music Festival recital July 16 in the small Preston Hall looked formidable on paper larded with what might be said to be “non festival, non summer” music.
There were no light Gershwin or Schubert dance works, and for some the six pieces from Brahms’ Op. 118 are winter compositions that need ample cold, rain and fog. However, the Minnesota-based pianist paid no attention to this pedantry and played an echt 118, with the opening Interme... more
Mozart’s Opera “Abduction from the Seraglio” has a long reputation as being tough for singers, and it was with some trepidation that I entered the Mendocino Music Festival’s massive white tent July 15 to hear and see the new production from the 30th season. Not to Worry.
Conducted by Festival Artistic Director Allan Pollack, the three-act work from 1782 was staged with minimal sets and a small cast of six. As in past MMF operas the orchestra was placed behind the sets, and the tent’s ... more
SSU’s ChamberFest concluded its second season June 26 with what was predicted to be a capstone concert, the last in a sterling series of seven devoted to Mozart, Schubert and Mendelssohn. And the all-Mozart concert in Weill Hall came close to being the most memorable of all, but not quite.
Before an appreciative audience of 1,000 and a large compliment of Green Music Center benefactors and CSU officials, two works comprised the first half and were the afternoon’s triumphs. David Shifr... more
Though having just two acts, Mozart’s Opera “The Magic Flute” encompasses a jumbled fairy tale plot with complicated staging and myriad performers in demanding vocal roles. Petaluma’s Cinnabar Theater took up the arduous challenge of this 1791 work, among Mozart’s last, in a series of performances that opened on the June 10 weekend.
Even with intricate staging, an opera’s success usually rides on achieving a glorious performance of the score and vocal lines, and here Mozart’s composit... more
California has long been a big part of Midori Goto’s career, and she now teaches and tours from the USC campus in Los Angeles. After never performing in Sonoma County, the violinist’s area debut April 23 in Weill was a moderate success before an audience of 800 that included a large sprinkling of string players and local musicians.
The centerpiece of the physically diminutive virtuoso’s program were the Schubert C Major Fantasie (D. 934) and the great first Brahms Sonata in G Major, Op... more
Two program staples for the Sonoma County Philharmonic have been works of a Latin flavor, and spotlighting local soloists. Conductor Norman Gamboa has mounted intriguing Central American, Mexican and Spanish works for years, and flutist Kathleen Lane Reynolds, pianists Alice Zhu Lauren Xie, and trombonist Bruce Chrisp have recently been featured.
So it was no surprise at the April 9 concert in Santa Rosa High School that these worthwhile trends continued, with pianist Marilyn Thompson ... more
Jeffery Kahane spreads his musical largess widely. Since leaving a Sonoma County residence for Colorado the pianist has returned often for performances, the most recent the wildly successful ChamberFest series at the Green Music Center last summer.
April 10 found him again in Sonoma County, this time in recital before one of the largest attendances ever in Oakmont’s Berger Auditorium. It was a gala 25th Anniversary occasion for Music at Oakmont, and the artist mounted a probing perfor... more
Current fashion in orchestra season marketing showcases themes, and it’s de rigueur now, from the fledgling Sonoma County Philharmonic to the august San Francisco Symphony. Some of these themes are inane, but the Santa Rosa Symphony’s set of three concerts beginning April 2, with the event title “Rhythmic Vitality,” was singularly appropriate.
In the April 4 Weill Hall concert Britten’s Cello Symphony (Op. 68) and Falla’s complete music from the ballet “The Three Cornered Hat” ... more
There is a lot to like in John Rutter’s Requiem. Composed in 1985, it’s arguably the most performed large choral work of recent times, and it was a labor of love for choral director Carol Menke’s musicians in a memorable Good Friday concert in Santa Rosa’s Church of the Incarnation.
Splendid Requiems seem perfectly suited to Incarnation, and I recall recent Duruflé and Cherubini versions, and another Rutter directed by effervescent Ms. Menke three years ago. The March 25 concert befor... more
European orchestras on an American tour face a pesky single concert program decision – popular or provocative repertoire? The Polish Baltic Philharmonic landed squarely March 12 on the first option, a conventional all-Beethoven afternoon.
A Marin Center audience of 900 in San Rafael heard the 55 musicians from Warsaw in the concert’s opening Egmont Overture, Op. 84. It was a performance that caught the somber drama of the nine-minute work, and drama was the operative word for the enti... more
Chicago’s Lincoln Trio returned for a fifth time to Oakmont’s Berger Auditorium Concert Series Mar. 10 with a challenging and uncommon program that began with Rebecca Clarke’s Trio from 1921.
Starting a concert with this formidable work seemed risky, not because of the Oakmont audience but simply for the demands of the music, often acerbic involving a central powerful and knotty idea in all three movements. The Lincoln jumped into the fray with an opening movement and captured the mi... more
Parting can be such sweet sorrow, but better than either was the Cypress String Quartet’s farewell North Bay concert Feb. 28 in Schroeder. The group will disband in June in their San Francisco hometown.
Violinist Tom Stone’s remarks to the audience of 175 about Haydn set the stage for sure-footed performance of the C Major Quartet, Op. 76, No. 3. Schroeder’s acoustics seemed to favor cellist Jennifer Kloetzel’s sound, even the drone effects, but throughout the opening Allegro a... more
New York-based pianist Joel Fan hasn’t been a stranger to Sonoma County, having played in both the Concerts Grand and Music at Oakmont venues. February 11 he returned to Oakmont’s Berger Auditorium in an eclectic and often electric recital before 200.
Beginning with Ginastera’s first Sonata Op. 22, Mr. Fan gave the popular work from 1952 a pulsating reading that stressed the contrasting textures and meters. In the Presto double octaves didn’t fail him, and there was palpable my... more
Known for its novel programming, the Sonoma County Philharmonic has frequently engaged local soloists, with flutist Kathleen Reynolds and pianists Lauren Xie and Marilyn Thompson coming quickly to mind. In their Jan. 23 concert, featuring German composers, conductor Norman Gamboa united a rare mid 19th mini concerto for trombone with another Sonoma County soloist, Bruce Chrisp.
Playing the Ferdinand David Op. 4 Concertino, Mr. Chrisp gave the 1841 piece a convincing performance without ... more
In addition his brilliant pianism, Marc-André Hamelin has built a substantial international career by embracing unconventional repertoire and innovative transcriptions. Who else plays Catoire, Hofmann, Chopin-Godowsky, Dukas, Medtner and…Hamelin?
So the Canadian’s Jan. 22 Weill Hall recital was a surprise with the first and last works being popular Mozart and Schubert Sonatas. But they were great Sonatas, especially the opening Mozart D Major work (K. 576) that was played with easy gr... more
Audience members in Weill Jan. 16 that expecting a balanced, albeit conservative chamber music evening received a slight surprise with a scintillating Schubert Trio that upstaged two otherwise splendid works.
Schubert a surprise? In the hands of violinist Joseph Swenson, cellist Carter Brey and ensemble leader Jeffrey Kahane the E-Flat Trio (Op. 100) in 39 minutes never seemed long, though all repeats were honored. Musicians refer to the composer’s “heavenly length” and this performan... more
Program design for a piano recital is most often a decision to perform a few big sonatas and variations, sometimes by one composer, or a smorgasbord of shorter works. Sophia Sun chose mostly the latter in her local debut recital Jan. 10 before 150 in SRJC’s Newman Auditorium.
Sponsored by the Sonoma County branch of California Music Teachers Association, the hall was sprinkled with piano teachers and students, and Ms. Sun began with the big Bach Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue (S. 903). I... more
Hearing a symphony’s inaugural concert is a special event, and the Sonoma State Symphony Orchestra Dec. 11 launched what should be a prosperous musical life with a Weill Hall concert. The University Music Department has had permanent chamber, band and jazz ensembles, but never a flesh-in-the-blood orchestra. Now they do.
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On paper Composer John Corigliano’s "Voyage" seemed a unique opening, but the eight-minute version for strings passed without much notice or interest. It’s reminisc... more
Scintillating string playing has always been a feature of the Music at Oakmont concerts, but Dec. 10’s recital by violinist Frank Almond and pianist William Wolfram was exceptionally virtuosic and musically convincing.
The cornerstone of the performance came in the second half with a brawny reading of a titular work in the violin repertoire, Beethoven’s dramatic A Major Sonata, Op. 47 (Kreutzer). Playing without score, as he did the entire recital, Mr. Almond managed the fast tempo b... more
Mounting a production of the Mozart D Minor Requiem (K. 626) poses difficulties absent from the usual 50-plus minute performance time. Historical questions abound concerning authorship, placement of musical sections and even the murky commissioning process.
Director Bob Worth moved to solve these difficulties in a Nov. 20 concert in Sonoma’s St. Andrew Presbyterian Church by a unique trifecta. First he conducted the Sonoma Bach Choir and Live Oak Baroque Orchestra in short snippets il... more
One often hears of yet another new fiery Russian pianist, and the mental picture is of a 16-year old with octaves and temperament to burn. But older Russian artists can command a virtuoso’s seat the piano, as aptly proved by Mykola Suk in his recital Nov. 15 before 150 in Dominican University’s Angelico Hall.
Seventy years is of little consequence when a pianist has the vision and technique of Mr. Suk, and the recital juxtaposed two familiar works with several “old ghosts” in the reper... more
Conductor Norman Gamboa is known for innovative programming, especially with Latin-theme music, but in the Nov. 14 concert at Santa Rosa High School’s Performing Arts Hall he chose three familiar works by American composers But true to form a new piece from local composer Frank LaRocca was also in the mix.
Barber’s The School for Scandal: Overture, the composer’s first popular work, received slow tempos but had additional clarity of instrumental voices that Mr. Gamboa coaxed from the ... more
Mozart’s C Minor Quartet, K. 465, has had the sobriquet “dissonant” almost since its 1785 composition, but the word really doesn’t seem to apply. It’s a buoyant work, after an initial, deep melancholy and minor key clashes are overcome.
In their Nov. 13 Weill Hall concert the Juilliard String Quartet made the Mozart the evening’s cornerstone before an appreciative audience of 700 chamber music fans. All four movements received a reading of meticulous attention to attack, phrasing and... more
With the social and musical glamour surrounding the recent Lang Lang and Joshua Bell recitals in Weill, the Academy of St. Martin in the Field’s eight-musician chamber ensemble's Oct. 24 concert came as a calming musical breeze.
Known to lovers of fine orchestral playing through their scores of recordings, the Academy from London made their local debut with three works that spotlighted refinement and taste rather than high drama. What better way to begin a showcase of distinctive string... more
One would have thought that the glitz surrounding Lang Lang’s 101 Pianists Foundation program Oct. 4 in Weill would have upstaged chamber music at the same time in nearby Schroeder Hall. Not to worry, as the Trio Navarro continues to perform sometimes-neglected gems from the trio literature with a level of artistry that the Chinese superstar might grandly applaud.
In Rimsky-Korsakov’s My Musical Life he writes in 1905 that the works and life of his pupil Anton Arensky “…will soo... more
Lang Lang has performed three times in Sonoma County, all reviewed at Classical Sonoma, and I was anxious when he mounted the Weill Hall stage Oct. 3 to hear what might have changed in his playing since September of 2013.
The program was exactly the same as played in recent Paris and Torino recitals (on YouTube) so the unique nature of the readings was somewhat familiar. And as the New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini has written, at a Lang Lang concert one hopes for the be... more
Symphonic concerts with Latin programs usually have Copland’s El Salon Mexico, a suite from Chavez, and perhaps some Lecuana or Nazareth. Leave it to the Sonoma County Philharmonic and conductor Norman Gamboa to go in a different direction in their season-opening Latin Fiesta event Sept. 26 in the Santa Rosa High School Auditorium.
The afternoon’s major work, Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas Brasilieras No. 7, is not as well known as numbers 1 and 5, and it the longest and darkest of the set of ... more
A closing concert for a summer music festival, even a new series such as the Valley of the Moon Music Festival (VMMF), should be a capstone for the series. The recent Chamberfest Concerts at the Green Music Center, with all six Bach Brandenburgs as the finale, are an example.
Artists at the Festival finished the seven-event set August 2 with three mostly light-hearted works that underscored the period instrumental Festival sound. An oddity began the concert, Mozart’s B-Flat Major Pian... more
Completing the Mendocino Music Festival’s piano series July 22 was an energetic recital by returning Festival artist Spencer Myer. The nearly full Preston Hall audience was treated to a program, announced from the piano, that had broad musical appeal and panache.
Exploring the Festival’s Mozart theme, Mr. Myer played the G Major Sonata, K. 283, with grace, balanced scales and seamless right-hand trills. The following Adagio and robustPresto unfolded with
silky grace... more
Mendocino’s eclectic Music Festival gave a strong imprimatur to the Mozart theme July 22 with a radiant orchestral and vocal concert in the big white tent on the Mendocino headlands.
The Overture from “The Abduction from the Seraglio” (K. 384) opened the concert in an adroit reading that was a happy prelude to the anticipated singing and the famous final Mozart Symphony.
In the first half works associated with Mozart’s operas were heard, and the starring role was given t... more
Among the several North Coast summer festivals in 2015 is a new one, the Valley of the Moon Music Festival, directed by San Francisco-area artists Tanya Tomkins and Eric Zivian. It’s unique in presenting seven concerts of the Classical and Romantic eras with instruments designed and mostly built when the music was written.
Held in the new auditorium of Sonoma’s Hanna Boys Center, the series was inaugurated July 19 with a splendid afternoon of chamber works featuring clarinetist Eric Ho... more
Taiwanese pianist Ching-Yun Hu made a formidable Mendocino Music Festival debut recital July 16 in Mendocino’s Preston Hall.
A full house warmly greeted the diminutive artist, and she responded with a pensive and then dramatic performance of Scriabin’s Sonata Fantasy, Op. 19. Writers refer to this work as related to the sea, appropriate to this venue where at intervals the distant surf can be heard. This year is the 100th anniversary of Scriabin’s death, and the G-Sharp Minor Sonata h... more
Summer music festivals season tend to be launched each season with a sparkling audience-pleasing program, and the 29th Mendocino Music Festival opening concert was no exception July 11 with an all-Russian program in the big white tent concert hall on Mendocino’s breezy bluff.
Conducted by Artistic Director Allan Pollack, Shostakovich’s Jazz Suite No. 2 was an exciting beginning, a three-movement work from the 1930s that takes raucous orchestration to its zenith. The composer is a maste... more
“Well, you should have been there.” A trite saying used too often by concertgoers? Sure. But surely it was the appropriate adage for the final Chamberfest concert June 28 in Sonoma State’s Weill Hall.
Capping a nine-event series mostly in Schroeder Hall, Jeffrey Kahane led ensembles of up to 20 musicians in an extraordinary traversal of Bach’s complete Brandenburg Concertos. Written in the small Thuringia town of Cöthen in 1721, the six are multi-movement works of instrumental compl... more
Sonoma County organist James Harrod contributed the organ work analysis in this review.
Pianist Natasha Paremski had the stellar role June 26 in the third Chamberfest program in Schroeder Hall, beginning with Beethoven’s A Flat Sonata, Op. 110. Classical Sonoma was unable to review the Sonata’s performance, said by many in the packed hall to be seminal and inspiring.
Following the Beethoven, organist Malcolm Matthews played three variations of the German Advent hymn “Now... more
Jeffrey Kahane has done it again. After multiple Sonoma County appearances since leaving the Santa Rosa Symphony in 2006, the pianist and conductor has designed a scintillating summer concert series at Sonoma State’s Green Music Center – Chamberfest.
The first of nine concerts in a short five-day span June 24 featured a muscular program of Beethoven and Brahms, with a tiny Bach transcription as a tasty prelude. Beethoven’s early Op. 5 F Major Cello Sonata received a sparkling reading ... more
Verdi’s operas tend to have a visceral impact on listeners, the connection forged by emphasizing starkly realistic human emotions and glorious tunes for singers and richly hued orchestra writing. But not in his last opera written in 1893: Falstaff.
In only the Italian master's second comedy, Falstaff can seem at well over two hours drawn out and lacking the catchy melodies of the operas Rigoletto, Aida or Ernani. Petaluma’s Cinnabar Theater production began June 12, running for nine ... more
In a May 1 program that balanced vocal and instrumental virtuosity the American Bach Soloists closed their 26th season in grand style in Belvedere’s austere St. Stephen’s Church.
Led by the indomitable conductor Jeffrey Thomas the first half of the program featured a rarely heard cello concerto, a sensuous psalm setting and music’s most famous concerto for two violins. ABS concertmaster Elizabeth Blumenstock was joined by Cynthia Black in Bach's D Minor Concerto, BWV 1043, and the thre... more
Virtuoso instrumentalists frequently get together in a trio for a few concerts with the resulting playing being exciting but the performance sounding a little unfinished. This was decidedly not what happened with the Mutter-Bronfman-Harrell Trio April 19 in Weill, as the two works on the program had been played many times recently during their long American tour.
Beginning with the iconic Beethoven “Archduke” Trio in B-Flat Major, Op. 97, the group chose moderate tempos and eschewed o... more
Though the Santa Rosa Symphony is the Green Music Center’s resident orchestra, when the San Francisco Symphony plays Weill Hall they take total artistic ownership. In the penultimate of the four annual Bay Area run outs the SFS played a compelling program April 16 of four masterworks with flawless cohesion and virtuosity.
Using a reduced-size orchestra of no percussion and just three cellos and two basses conductor Pablo Heras-Casado directed a taut and balanced Haydn Symphony No. 44 i... more
In a balanced Music at Oakmont recital April 9 violinist Elena Urioste played an animated program featuring British and American composers, but with some compositional surprises.
The first came with Paul Schoenfield’s Four Souvenirs, a suite of four pieces that combined several dance forms that were at turns lighthearted and intricate, especially in the contrary motion lines of the complex final Square dance. This was snazzy music reminiscent of the composer’s popular “Café Music” and ... more
Concluding a stellar season March 28 in the Santa Rosa High School Auditorium the Sonoma County Philharmonic played a concert rich in orchestral symmetry, mixed with a piquant flute concerto.
The symmetry began with the afternoon’s initial work, Carlos Escalante Macaya’s five-part “Ineluctble…El Tiempo.” Composed as a dance suite, the work spanned 30 minutes had a sensuous mix of color, especially from the winds, harp (Dan Levitan) and a six-person percussion section. Led by timpanist... more
It’s rare in a symphony concert, even one with many surprises, that a soloist takes on two disparate concertos with mostly identical results. But it was exactly the outcome of pianist Olga Kern’s appearance March 21 with the Santa Rosa Symphony in Weill Hall.
Surprises? The first came with her poetic but subdued performance in Rachmaninoff’s Op. 1 F-Sharp Minor Concerto. Choosing an approach removed from the standard heroism (recordings by the composer and compatriot Mikhail Pletnev)... more
Murray Perahia has built a long pianistic career based on performances of discernment, classical structure and impeccable taste. His playing always exudes a refinement and lapidary attention to musical detail. And so it was in his March 7 Weill Hall debut recital before an audience of 900, with a conventional program of balanced and celebrated works.
Opening the evening Bach’s 6th French Suite (BWV. 817) received a reading emphasizing careful dynamic control, fast tempos in the Courant... more
Les Pfutzenreuter is a conductor that gets around, moving from his Ukiah base at Mendocino College and the Ukiah Symphony to festival and concert appearances with many orchestras. February 22 found him with the Healdsburg Philharmonia in that Citys Raven Theater with works of Copland and Tchaikovsky.
Cellist Joel Cohen was the featured soloist in Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations, Op. 33, a work he played recently with the same conductor and the Ukiah Symphony. Here the Orchestra ... more
Orchestras on tour usually perform hefty display works to showoff their virtuosity and power. And so it was with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (OSR) Feb. 14 in Weill Hall. Big works, weighty display. And in a surprise the compositions by Stravinsky and Ravel in the second half did the rare thing of upstaging a popular Rachmaninoff piece with piano.
Debussy’s Ibéria opened the concert and the performance established the OSR as a resplendent ensemble with a charismatic leader. C... more
A Bruckner Symphony performance can be a demanding task for both the orchestra and audience, as each of the nine are long and musically wandering. But not all that wander are lost, as the Sonoma County Philharmonic proved in their Feb. 15 concert in the Santa Rosa High School Performing Arts Center.
Led by guest conductor Reginaldo Nascimento the SCP took on the E Major 7th (“Lyric”) Symphony in a performance that lasted 63 minutes. The work is long but it’s a heavenly length, the con... more
Notable cello concerts have recently graced Sonoma County with Edward Arron’s Oakmont recital and Yo Yo Ma’s sterling solo outing in Weill. So it was not surprising that Sæunn Thorsteindóttir walked onto the Schroeder Hall stage Feb. 1 with pianist Elizabeth Roe and found a packed house of non-Superbowl fans.
In the first half contrasts abounded, beginning with the charming Beethoven Variations on “Bei Männern” from the Magic Flute and ending with the demanding Britten Sonata fr... more
Often international-level instrumental duos are pickup couplings, one virtuoso’s schedule meeting another’s with the resulting desultory concerts. An exception would be the violinist Anne Sophie Mutter with her long-time partner Lambert Orkis, and the Nakamatsu-Manesse Duo.
The latter played a provocative concert Jan. 25 in the Mill Valley United Methodist Church, and the ten years of collaborative music-making of the two Jons was everywhere in evidence. Perhaps the recital’s major wo... more
Cellist Yo Yo Ma’s warm friendship with North Coast audiences entered a new chapter Jan. 24 in a standing-room only and stage seats Weill Hall recital. Playing three Bach Suites for solo cello, Mr. Ma could have echoed the young Liszt’s famous comment, “the concert is me.”
But the concert was really about Bach, and Mr. Ma’s dedication and mastery for these ever-fresh works composed in the early 1720s in Cöthen, Germany. Wearing a simple dark suit he walked quickly on stage to first of... more
David McCarroll and Roy Bogas opened the 2015 “Sundays at Schroeder” series at the Green Music Center Jan. 18 in a recital that featured admirable virtuosity and a provocative repertoire.
They began with Mozart’s two-movement E Minor Sonata, K. 304. The work is at turns is sinister and tranquil, and the two artists played a modest “question and answer” with many forte and piano contrasts. The elegant final phrases in the Tempo di Minuetto reflected the striking thematic developm... more
Napa Valley Music Associates 20th annual Mozart concert Jan. 11 was a mostly Mozart event at the Jamieson Ranch Vineyards, but five mostly romantic composers happily joined the musical mix.
Jassen Todorov was the featured violinist in two Sonatas, the F Major (K. 377) and the B Flat (K. 378), partnered with pianist Adrian Borcea. The acoustics of the winery party room were dead and the duo adopted a muscular approach to the overflowing energy of the K. 377 Allegro, the piano at times c... more
Rachmaninoff’s haunting cello sonata highlighted Music at Oakmont’s first 2015 concert Jan. 8 in the retirement community’s spacious Berger Auditorium.
In a reading that was both muscular and lush cellist Edward Arron and pianist Jeewon Park explored the ripe romanticism of the Russian’s 1901 G Minor work, replete with references from the F Minor Piano Concerto of ten years earlier. It was played sumptuously with initially fast tempos and piquant inner voices. Mr. Arron is a cellist w... more
Santa Rosa Symphony conductor Bruno Ferrandis put together a curious program mix Dec. 8 in Weill Hall that on paper promised a culture clash, but actually delivered a memorable musical experience.
Composers often fashion suites from orchestral works, and just as often the shorter suite can be more effective than the complete piece. Stravinsky’s 1920 ballet Pulcinella in the popular abridged form is a familiar concert piece, but the complete work comprised the program’s second half, and... more
Sonoma County Philharmonic conductor Norman Gamboa mounted a crackerjack program Nov. 15 to end the Philharmonic's 2014 calendar year. It was a balanced menu of dramatic orchestral playing, beguiling choral works and an intriguing piano soloist in Santa Rosa's High School Auditorium.
The evening's chief works were preceded by the charming Dvorak Serenade for Wind Instruments, Op. 44. For some the Dvorak might have appeared to be an opening "filler," but actually it was a feast for winds... more
Several surprises characterized the Santa Rosa Symphony’s Nov. 10 Weill Hall concert, the first being an almost full house on a Monday night after the same program was heard the two previous days.
The important surprise was how well the audience liked the thorny Dutilleux cello concerto, Tout un Monde Lointain (A Whole Distant World), written for Rostropovich in 1970 and played to the hilt by Swiss cellist Christian Poltéra. It was a courageous program selection by conductor Bru... more
Europe-based Kevin Kenner chose a husky program for his Marin debut recital Nov. 9 in Dominican University’s Angelico Hall, and elected three masterpieces from the Romantic piano literature.
Schubert’s C Major “Wanderer” Fantasy has nearly disappeared from recital programs, but it was a deft opening selection. It’s a work of momentum and drama throughout, and Mr. Kenner surprisingly was in no hurry in most of the earlier sections, using lots of damper pedal and emphasizing rumbling le... more
Part of the Trio Navarro’s sterling reputation rests with the rare repertoire they perform. So it was a bit of a surprise Oct. 26 in Schroeder Hall when they programmed popular works by Beethoven and Rachmaninoff. Somehow Max Bruch pieces managed to sneak into the mix.
The Bruch in a way stole the show. Four selections were played from a work transcribed from the original Op. 83 for viola, piano and clarinet. The Navarro performed Nos. 2, 5, 6 and 7, all in a minor key save for the la... more
Reporting on a recital by the Austin-based pianist Anton Nel is a predictably satisfying task. His playing Oct. 19 in SRJC’s Newman Auditorium mirrored a recital on the same stage nearly two years ago and showcased a high level of professionalism and artistry.
Beginning with Mozart’s D Major "Duport Variations," K. 573, Mr. Nel continued just where he left off in 2012, offering an urbane and witty performance. A cornucopia of small details--just a touch of pedal at phrase endings, pearl... more
Israeli pianist Einav Yarden has had several past Sonoma County appearances, but her Oct. 16 Music at Oakmont recital exhibited a new and attractive level of resolute programming, instrumental mastery and impressive musicianship.
She played three substantial works, including the opening Second English Suite of Bach (BWV 807), which was in many ways the most memorable. The Prelude was lively but never too fast, allowing clarity in the mainly two-voiced contrapuntal lines, and leading s... more
Three works composed within three years of each other were programmed in the San Francisco Symphony’s concert in Weill Hall on Oct. 16, but each was sharply different.
Before a nearly full house, conductor Stéphane Denève opened with Barber’s iconic Adagio for Strings, Op. 11, in a compelling but not overly intense 10-minute performance. Cutoffs were precise, as were the violin section attacks. Mr. Denève fashioned a short concluding fermata but momentarily stopped any audience respons... more
It’s not an easy task to upstage the virtuoso cellist Zuill Bailey, but Marin Symphony conductor Alasdair Neale did it convincingly in a Sept. 30 concert at the Marin Center Auditorium.
Mr. Bailey didn’t easily relinquish the starring role and played an eloquent and urbane performance in St. Saëns’ First Concerto, Op. 33, from 1872. For Mr. Bailey, a North Coast favorite, it was a surprisingly low temperature performance that had fast tempos and at times a legato that blurred scale p... more
For the first Sunday afternoon concert of their 16th season, on Sept. 28, the Sonoma County Philharmonic presented an all-Russian program that spotlighted intoxicating orchestral sonorities and heroic conducting from Norman Gamboa. He opened with a stunning performance of Kabalevsky's snappy overture to the opera "Colas Breugnon." This five-minute romp is reminiscent of Shostakovich's "Festival Overture," written 16 years later.
Renowned Irish violinist Michael d'Arcy followed with a fo... more
Planning a piano program around a single theme or name can be tricky because cutesy connections can easily displace artistic merit. Fortunately, Juho Pohjonen's Sept. 14 recital in the inaugural "Sundays at Schroeder" concert was a textbook example of a successful theme--ballades--supported by wonderful music.
Grieg's seldom-played G Minor ballade had perhaps the most convincing performance of the afternoon. Built on 14 variations on a Norwegian folk song, the work is the composer's bes... more
After years of chamber music frustration in Sonoma State University's Ives and Weill halls, the Trio Navarro basked in acoustical clarity Aug. 24 at their debut concert in the university's new Schroeder Hall.
The acoustics in Weill before small audiences, and with lush romantic chamber music, made blurred legato piano lines the norm. In Sunday's performance of Taneyev's D Major Trio, Op. 22, all was heard clearly. Pianist Marilyn Thompson joined cellist Jill Brindel and violinist Victor... more
Though many of the inaugural Schroeder Hall concerts had larger audiences than the Aug. 24 faculty and community musician event, few of them had such lovely music on display.
Some of the best were first, with ravishing music from SSU guitarist Eric Cabalo and Santa Rosa Symphony violinist Eugenie Wie. This fetching duo played Piazzolla’s “Historie du Tango” with bandoneon concertina effects and rich sonority. Ms. Wie played with minimal vibrato, and Mr. Cabalo exhibited subtle control o... more
What could end a wildly successful 10-concert inaugural weekend in SSU’s new Schroeder Hall? A resounding concert of manifold brass, organ and voice that turned out by a wide margin to be the overall audience favorite.
The long Sunday evening event put on display every piece of Schroeder’s vaunted acoustics. Led by organists James David Christie and Julian Wachner, 11 works--from Vivaldi to a new-age organ improvisation and a world premiere--showcased the elegant small hall.
Jeffrey Kahane returns frequently to Sonoma County in conducting and concerto performance, but rarely in recital. Two past solo events come to mind, a "fantasy" program where the Copland outshone the Schumann and Chopin, and an uneven concert capped by Chopin's F Minor Ballade.
A jammed Schroeder Hall audience heard Mr. Kahane August 23 in a short recital during the opening weekend's events. He began with Beethoven's C Minor "Pathétique" Sonata, Op. 13. After playing a riveting slow fi... more
A choral concert by the Sonoma Bach Choir was a fitting opening for the new Schroeder Hall at Sonoma State University on Aug. 23. After all, the idea for the Green Music Center came many years ago from Don Green, who at the time was singing in the Bach Choir, conducted then and now by Bob Worth.
The program offered an eclectic mixture of voice and organ music that was often preceded by Mr. Worth's erudite commentary and his reading of various poems. David Parsons was the versatile organ... more
PianoSonoma concluded its artist-in-residence performances August 3 in a sparkling Weill Hall concert where mostly new music overshadowed conventional fare.
Mendelssohn’s popular D Minor Trio began the program in a workmanlike performance that never quite caught fire. Tempos throughout were judicious, supported by the warm bottom register of cellist Julian Schwartz, and pianist David Aladashvili’s legato scale passages were, as usual for chamber music in Weill, often indistinct.
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At each Mendocino Music Festival a key evening is given over to a staged opera in the big tent, and last year Rossini’s frothy “Il Signor Bruschino” was an audience hit but hardly comprehensive operatic fare.
Times change. Mozart’s weighty opera Don Giovanni was given a propulsive but often confusing single performance July 18 before a sold out audience in the Festival tent.
Confusion began early with masked black-robed faces roaming the semi-bare stage and Dennis Rupp, perf... more
Pianist Robert Schwartz opened Mendocino Music Festival’s piano series July 17 with a set of works in a recital made for keyboard connoisseurs. His success was doubly gratifying for the artist as he had played on the same stage at last year’s Festival, but had to cancel most of the recital due to illness.
This year he began with Mozart’s challenging B-Flat Major Sonata, K. 570. It is a late work, full of contrapuntal interest, but his writer was unable to review the playing.
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Bach’s iconic D Minor Clavier Concerto was the centerpiece in the fourth day of Mendocino Music Festival events July 16 in the big tent concert hall, with San Francisco-based Stephen Prutsman the featured artist.
Conducting a chamber orchestra of ten from a lidless piano, Mr. Prutsman took fast tempos and a muscular approach throughout, eschewing subtlety in favor of driving rhythms and dramatic contrasts.
His approach to this contrapuntal masterpiece featured some novel trills w... more
Choral singing, especially unaccompanied by piano or orchestra, seldom gets exposure at a summer music festival. So it was a surprise July 16 to find the Mendocino Music Festival featuring a full program of a capella singing in downtown Mendocino’s Preston Hall.
Perhaps due to the local performers comprising the four groups, the hall was standing room only and the audience wildly appreciative of the singers. Ft. Bragg’s “Sine Nomine” (no name) led off with six songs, the most novel be... more
Napa’s Festival Del Sole’s summer resident orchestra, Sphinx, made a dramatic Weill Hall appearance July 15 with three star performers and a curious mix of pungent repertoire.
Violinist Pinchas Zuckerman received the biggest adulation from the audience, closing the first half playing Bruch’s G Minor Concerto, Op. 26, with his customary control and consistency. An old friend to the Concerto, Mr. Zuckerman played with fastidious if conventional phrasing through the three movements, and t... more
Though not as well known as the formidable Trio Navarro, the Amaryllis Trio has had an increasing chamber music presence since 2012 with manifold Sonoma and Marin County concerts. Sebastopol’s St. Stephen's Church and the Numina Center for the Arts hosted them June 27 in a sparkling concert of four composers' compositions.
Piazzolla’s popular "Four Seasons of Buenos Aires" began and ended the evening, beginning with the spring and summer movements and ending with fall and winter. This l... more
Hilary Hahn’s April 27 Weill Hall recital found the violinist entering the stage without her instrument, beginning ten minutes of comments about the program. She does these introductions well, and most of the audience enjoyed the discourse comparing Schubert's Fantasia for Violin with Schoenberg’s thorny Phantasy for Violin, and her recent commissioning project of 27 encore pieces.
And it was with this fresh set that she began with Welsh composer Richard Barrett’s three-minute “Shade,” ... more
In the season’s penultimate Sonoma Classical Music Society concert on Sunday afternoon, April 13, Russian pianist Anastasia Dedik played an all-Russian program that was heavy on drama with just a modicum of lyricism.
Two Rachmaninoff Etudes Tableaux opened the program, the E-Flat Minor from Op. 33 and the F Sharp from Op. 39. These are stormy pieces with broad rhythms and, in the latter, loud doubled staccato chords. These pieces have a lot of notes in a short span and were played aggre... more
Northern California’s Trio Navarro presented just two works in an April 6 Weill Hall concert, an event with consummate playing, inspired drama and ample thematic richness.
Schubert’s B-Flat Major Trio, D. 898, was the evening’s highlight and was familiar fare for the estimable Navarro. The wonderful opening Allegro Moderato was initially played with restraint but became warmly lyrical in the exposition and development, yet devoid of any sentimentality. This is music of eternal sunshine.... more
On paper the Santa Rosa Symphony's March 23 concert in Weill Hall looked promising and even provocative, with a world-premiere concerto, a famous solo violist and two flashy Russian orchestral works. But as often is the case, in unexpected ways the whole was not equal to the sum of the parts.
Behzad Ranjbaran's new viola concerto was written for the Symphony and the eminent British violist, Paul Silverthorne, and closed the concert's first half before 1,200 on yet another balmy Sonoma C... more
An inaugural concert for a new area orchestra is a special deal, and the fledgling North Bay Sinfonietta’s March 14 concert in Santa Rosa’s First Presbyterian Church gave ample evidence of a bright future.
Organized and conducted by Cynthia Weichel, the Sinfonietta’s 30-plus members filled the cramped sanctuary stage and played four disparate works to a cheerful audience of 75. Boieldieu’s Overture to “La Dame Blanche” passed without much notice, the brass overly loud and Cynthia Shankl... more
As a harbinger of spring, the Boston Trio brought sprightly piano trios of Haydn and Beethoven to their Music at Oakmont concert March 13 in Berger Auditorium. Happily the long and weighty Dvorak F Minor Trio, Op. 65, didn't manage to dampen the warm afternoon's ambiance.
The Dvorak performance was the most memorable, with a perfect unison in the somber opening phrase from violinist Irina Muresanu and cellist Jennifer Culp, leading quickly to surging themes set out by pianist Heng-Jin P... more
After a decade-long absence, Gwendolyn Mok returned to the SRJC Chamber Series Feb. 16 in a gem of a balanced and elegant piano recital.
Before an audience of 140 in the College’s Newman Auditorium, the San Jose-based artist began with Beethoven’s early A Major Sonata, Op. 2, No. 2. She quickly caught the Haydnesque humor and charm of the opening Allegro, and in the florid slow movement the dotted notes in the right hand were sharply etched, and the piano tone was opulent. In the Rondo ... more
Laureano Flor is a bit of a Renaissance man: pianist, concert producer, computer-science teacher, sartorial personage. Many of his manifold talents were in place on Valentine's Day in a multi-performer concert for 75 in the renovated Sebastopol Center for the Arts.
The program's title, "Images of Music," was apt, with three of 19th-century landscape painter Frederick Church's works providing the backdrop for three of composer Daniel Baldwin's bucolic and plaintive pieces. Performed by c... more
Music at Oakmont in their eight-concert season features mostly instrumental ensembles, and rarely pianists. But when they do the pianists are pretty good. Ching-Yun Hu's performance Feb.13 in Berger Auditorium, for example, was at a first-cabin level of virtuosity.
A conventional repertoire first half included Chopin (the Second Sonata in B-Flat Minor) and Ravel’s "Gaspard de la Nuit," and the entire second part was pungent Spanish music. The Sonata emphasized the house piano’s bright t... more
In the classical music world, snazzy innovation and music puffery catch the headlines, but there is always a role for an instrumental group with long experience and impeccable artistic integrity. The Alexander String Quartet's Feb. 9 concert in the Sonoma Classical Chamber Music Series proved that decades of performance excellence could make an all-Beethoven program seem as familiar and cozy as an old house slipper.
Before a packed Vintage House audience, the Alexander opened with the 1... more
Sonoma State’s resident Trio Navarro presented an all-French program Jan. 26 but somehow the German Baroque composer Telemann’s Quartet in E Minor managed to open the concert before 150 in Weill Hall.
Featuring a flute, violin, cello and the University’s cute green harpsichord, the Telemann work from 1733 was a perky beginning, though the modern flute seemed novel after recently hearing American Bach Soloists Marin Concert that had lots of the mellower Baroque flute sound. Each of the s... more
Perfection in classical concert performance is a tough job, especially on a consistent basis. The redoubtable American Bach Soloists (ABS), however, manage to reach musical perfection often, and they did it again Jan. 24 in a sterling event in Belvedere's St. Stephen's Church.
Beginning their 25th season, and before a full house of 285, music director Jeffrey Thomas fashioned a long Bach program: two Cantatas, the B Minor Orchestral Suite and the wonderful Magnificat, BWV 1733. Before C... more
In an audacious programming twist, Sonoma County’s River Choir and instrumental colleagues performed Vivaldi’s Gloria (RV 589) Jan. 19 in two versions, distinct but also very much together.
Directed by Sonia Morse Tubridy, the 20 singers and instrumentalists in the dimly lit Guerneville Community Church first performed the popular 30-minute work in the normal fashion, the 12 parts having choruses, solo arias and short string, oboe and baroque trumpet interludes.
Pungent Romantic music dominated the Redwood Arts Council chamber music concert Jan. 18 in the Occidental Community Center, with an aesthetic pianistic introduction of two Bach Preludes and Fugues.
Pianist Eric Zivian brought heavy legato and a full tone to the Bach pieces in E-flat Minor (Book I, BWV 853) and C-Sharp Minor (Book II, BWV 872), taking a judicious tempo in both works and providing careful articulation and repose in the C-Sharp’s fugue. It was not Bach for those used to a ... more
Opening the new year Jan. 9 at Music at Oakmont the Boreal Trio played a program of two diverse and distinct parts, the emphasis on charm rather than drama.
The bucolic first half had lyrical and low-volume works by Schumann and Mozart, the latter's "Kegelstatt" Trio in E-Flat Major (K. 498) setting a tranquil tone. This trio doesn't have a menacing note throughout, but in past performances I have heard the piano and clarinet lines covering the viola. Here Juan-Miguel Hernandez' viola l... more
It was a “coming home for Christmas” event Dec. 14 when the American Bach Soloists (ABS) launched their 25th season with a glorious concert in Belvedere’s St. Stephens Church. The ABS was founded in 1989 in this venue, and chose the fortress-like church for presenting two Bach cantatas and a bevy of holiday music by seven composers.
Beginning with the fifth segment (“Ehre sei dir, Gott, gesungen”) of the massive six-part Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248, the ABS partnered this 11-section can... more
A major part of the Trio Navarro’s approach to chamber music has been discovery, as over many years they have explored novel (if not new or radical) corners of the small ensemble repertoire. November 24’s concert in Weill Hall was no exception as an unfamiliar piano quartet and trio were the evening’s most intriguing offerings.
Georgy Catoire’s lively and atmospheric A Minor Quartet opened the concert, and the Trio’s Victor Romasevich (violin), cellist Jill Rachuy Brindel and Marilyn Th... more
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet has made French piano music a principal part of his career, but his artistry extends to far more than Gallic masterpieces, as he convincingly demonstrated in a Nov. 22 recital for the SRJC Chamber Concerts series.
Before 180 in Newman Auditorium, Mr. Bavouzet opened with a sparkling reading of Beethoven’s "Waldstein" Sonata that featured sprightly tempos and precise articulation. The opening Allegro con Brio was so accurate that it could have been used for score dic... more
As with many orchestras, the American Philharmonic Sonoma County (APSC) produces programs with a theme, and the Nov. 16 concert in the Santa Rosa High School Performing Arts Auditorium had the title "Polish." But only Chopin's E Minor Piano Concerto was the genuine article, though the companion Third Tchaikovsky Symphony, Op. 29 ("Polish"), was the star of the show.
Alice Zhu was the soloist in the Concerto, the engagement related to her being awarded the Orchestra's young artist prize ... more
Pianist Gustavo Romero has become a frequent Sonoma County visitor, playing in several Santa Rosa halls and homes in recent years. On Nov. 1, he made his Marin County debut at Dominican University’s Guest Artist Series in Angelico Hall.
The Dallas-based artist eschews stage flair and keeps remarks to a minimum, instead sitting mostly motionless at the piano, left foot always on the shift pedal. He exhibits a palpable concentration on the matters at hand.
Soheil Nasseri opened the 23rd Music at Oakmont season Oct. 17 in a piano recital where words from the artist nearly overwhelmed the offered music.
Choosing an all-Beethoven program, Mr. Nasseri preceded the A Major Sonata, Op. 101, with words of personal introduction and humorous anecdotes. The wonderful sonata itself, from Beethoven's last period, was played rather perfunctorily, with plodding tempos and a lack of rhythmic interest. The artist described a non-musical program for the w... more
In a program with water and ocean themes the American Philharmonic Sonoma County (APSC) opened their 15th season Oct. 12 and 13 in Santa Rosa High School’s Performing Arts Center. The day was sunny and dry but the music was a saturated with color and often radiance.
Mendelssohn’s charming overture Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, Op. 27, opened the concert with strong playing in all sections, notably in the brass and the horns playing fluttering phrases. Conductor Norman Gamboa moved the... more
Along with pianist Garrick Ohlsson's formidable technique and artistry, curiosity has been a hallmark of his long career. Though playing the conventional repertoire superbly, he constantly ventures into unknown corners of piano music.
The centerpiece of his Oct. 12 recital at Weill Hall in Rohnert Park was the seldom-heard Liszt work Ad Nos, Ad Salutarem Unam, written for organ in 1852 and transcribed for piano in 1897 by Busoni. In 23 minutes, Liszt (or should it be Busoni?) bui... more
The Boston-based Gramercy Trio opened the SRJC Chamber Music Series Oct. 11 with three trios that leaned heavily on powerful thematic projection and trenchant sound.
Before 160 people in SRJC's Ellis Auditorium in Petaluma, the Gramercy opened with a muscular reading of Beethoven's massive "Archduke" Trio in B Flat, Op. 97. Pianist Randall Hodgkinson pushed the pace throughout the work, playing spiky but effective sforzandos and seemingly insisting on more sonority from violin... more
It’s always a recital of surprises when the exciting pianist Lang Lang plays. In a reprise concert from last season’s Weill Hall opening gala, the Chinese virtuoso eschewed 2012’s conventional format of Mozart Sonatas and Chopin Ballades and chose Sept. 17 a mixed bag of Chopin works that alternatively titillated and enraptured a full house that included 50 stage seats.
Mr. Lang’s pianism is startlingly complete with an inexhaustible command of technical details. Even in difficult cross... more
Launching the first fall season concert in Weill Hall, the San Francisco Symphony played a peculiarly challenging program Sept. 12 to an audience that was happy to encounter more than just the popular Tchaikovsky B Flat Piano Concerto.
"Challenging" was the operative word for the Third Prokofiev Symphony, a work from 1928 that has few current podium champions. One conductor who loves the work is Michael Tilson Thomas, and he drew an inspired and brilliant performance from his orchestra.... more
In a surprise for Sonoma County chamber music, a scintillating piano and violin duo has seemingly become a yearly visitor. Appearing August 23 for a second time in Santa Rosa’s First Presbyterian Church, the Krechkovsky-Loucks Duo moved a standing room audience of 300 to wild applause in a benefit for the Living Room shelter program.
The concert of three sonatas began with Debussy’s last work, the wonderful G Minor Sonata from 1917. A brief piece of 13 minutes, the sonata demands refin... more
Mendocino Music Festival’s Alan Pollack usually has some musical surprises up his conductor’s sleeve, and at the July 19 Festival opera production he produced a unique coupling of lecture and music, set against the framework of a rarely-mounted 1813 opera.
As a way of extending Rossini’s frothy farce “Il Signor Bruschino” (the accidental son) Mr. Pollack preceded the one-act opera by speaking about enjoying opera to the audience from the stage, spotlighting Rossini and the composer’s fa... more
It's always a formidable task for a performer to appear last on a program after wildly successful performances earlier in the concert. That unenviable job fell to violinist Sarah Chang July 16 when she played the Barber Concerto, Op. 14, with the Russian National Orchestra in Weill Hall, following a splashy St. Saëns piano concerto and a riveting Shostakovich overture.
The Barber is ever lyrical, even in the perpetual motion finale, and throughout its 23-minute duration the bucolic natu... more
Programming the opening concert for the 27th Mendocino Music Festival is not a daunting task, but it’s one that should play to the strengths of the orchestra and the audience. No Schnittke or Elliott Carter in the mix. Conductor Alan Pollack deftly chose rousing and accessible works for the July 13 event before a boisterous full house in the massive white tent on the coast bluff.
Verdi’s overture to the opera “I Vespri Siciliani” launched the 23-concert Festival in a pungent performanc... more
Elina Garanca’s April 9 Weill Hall recital was a connoisseur’s program, eschewing the more popular song literature and concentrating on mostly subtle and evocative works of Schumann, Berg and Richard Strauss.
With pianist Kevin Murphy, the Latvian mezzo soprano, famous from the opera stage as a sumptuous Carmen, programmed four of Schumann's Op. 25 "Myrthen" songs and the introspective and demanding cycle "Frauenliebe und -Leben," Op. 42. Beginning with “Widmung,” the Op. 25 group was d... more
Sonoma State's resident Trio Navarro has a well-earned reputation for eclectic programming, and in their Easter Sunday concert in Weill Hall, they chose the familiar, the rare and the new.
The new was SSU faculty composer Brian Wilson's "And Ezra the Scribe Stood Upon a Pulpit," a trio for horn, violin and piano. It proved to be a tantalizing 14-minute score, beginning with a rumble and a descending sets of chords, with William Klingelhoffer's delicately audible horn emitting hushed sta... more
Good Friday concerts are always spiritual but often can be monotonous and overly long. Cantiamo and the St. Cecelia Choir’s exceptional program March 29 in Santa Rosa’s packed Church of the Incarnation was anything but mundane, and perhaps too short.
Conductor Carol Menke fashioned a balanced evening, concluding with John Rutter’s animated Requiem, written in 1985 for medium choir, small instrumental ensemble, organ and soprano soloist. The opening Introit (Requiem Aeternam) and Kyrie... more
Attending a Nina Tichman recital is a warmly familiar experience, as the Cologne-based pianist plays nearly everything in the standard literature with a professional command and artistic probity. There is sentiment in her playing but not sentimentality, attention to detail that is never fussy, and interpretations of intriguing music that are sober and thoughtful.
In her fifth recital in the Oakmont Concert Series on March 14, Ms. Tichman programmed a lively first half consisting of unfa... more
Violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter charmed a Weill Hall audience March 2 in a recital that eschewed popular works and elicited rapt attention from the 1,300 listeners present. Forgoing the staples of the Brahms and Beethoven sonatas, or the Franck and Prokofiev, the German artist played provocative and exciting music with her pianist of long standing, Lambert Orkis.
Lutoslawski’s thorny five-movement Partita from 1984 was played in the second half and was a tour de force for the violinist wit... more
Luxurious orchestration has always been a hallmark of Russian symphonic music, as was evident in the works of Liadov, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich performed by the American Philharmonic Sonoma County (APSC) at the Santa Rosa High School Performing Arts Hall on Feb. 23.
Guest conductor Mark Wardlaw led a novel work to begin the concert, Liadov’s "Eight Russian Folk Songs," Op. 58. This well-balanced suite from 1906 showcased many sections of the orchestra, with bassoonist Steve Peterson ... more
Pianist Lawrence Holmefjord-Sarabi returned to a hometown Healdsburg Raven Theater audience Feb. 13 in a piano recital heavy on finger busting virtuoso works but short on pianistic subtlety.
Charging into Beethoven’s C Major Sonata, Op.53 (Waldstein), Mr. Holmefjord-Sarabi disclosed that his interests are removed from instrumental color and subtlety, and that he is most happy with the loud and fast. Throughout the program he selected blockbuster display pieces to wow the audience of 20... more
Two one-act operas--Haydn's "The Deserted Island" and Vaughan Williams' "Riders to the Sea"--currently being mounted by Sonoma State University's music, theater and dance departments, reflect the University's usual innovative staging and production. On the Feb. 7 opening night Person Theater's 400 seats were two-thirds filled, overwhelmingly by students. Both operas were in English and had supertitles. Is this common for our common language?
Haydn is known mainly today through his mas... more
Two more disparate chamber works could not be imagined in Weill Hall Feb. 3 when the Trio Navarro presented the Shostakovich Trio in E Minor and Dvorak’s “Dumky,” also in E minor. Both masterpieces have riveting audience interest but are worlds apart in structure and harmonic language.
Dvorak’s trio, popular since its premiere in 1891, received a committed and generous reading from the Navarro. The muddy acoustics of the Nov. 18 Schumann Quintet performance by the Navarro Chamber player... more
The West County’s Amaryllis Trio began their winter concert season Jan. 26 in a charming Sebastopol home. Led by the ubiquitous pianist Sonia Tubridy, the Amaryllis programmed the entire first half with Schumann’s late third Piano Trio, Op. 110. A passionate and wild work, the trio demands an aggressive approach in each of the four movements. The Amaryllis adopted judicious tempos throughout, and the restless and slightly menacing main theme was deftly handed from violinist Lisa Doyle to cellist... more
Russian River’s winter concert season began Jan. 13 with two events at nearly the same location and time, both programs packed with abundant vocal qualities.
Sonia Tubridy’s River Choir performed their annual Winterfest concert in the Guerneville Community Church before 30 ardent listeners. The 12-member choir, diminished from their usual number because of illness, began with a series of short works of Susato, Mozart, Andrejs Jansons, Schubert and Bach.
Violinist Nigel Armstrong is becoming a virtuoso staple for North Bay concerts, having played locally over the past three years in private homes, with symphonic groups and in several formal recitals. January 5 found him giving a benefit recital for the Sonoma Classical Music Society in his Sonoma hometown in the west side Kenny residence. It was an exceptional afternoon of music making.
With pianist Elizabeth Dorman, Mr. Armstrong opened with Beethoven’s Romance in G Major, a 10-minute ... more
Completing a rich 2012 season, the Oakmont Concert Series presented a rare quartet concert Dec. 13 featuring the San Francisco Chamber Players. Marin pianist June Choi Oh, a frequent Oakmont performer with her Tilden Trio, brought along an admirable string company to an audience of 150 in Berger Auditorium.
A Telemann transcription in D Minor opened the concert with march-like playing in a pure Baroque style, the violinist Dan Carlson providing lithe phrasing over the piano’s continuo ... more
Listening to Anton Nel’s piano playing is similar to meeting a charming avuncular relative for a good meal – always much to savor. The Austin-based artist played a balanced and instructive recital Dec. 7 in SRJC’s Newman Auditorium as part of the College’s chamber music series.
Nel opened with a consummately played rendition of Bach’s seven-movement D Major Partita, BWV 828. In the Allemande, he lavished chaste tone and selected a slow tempo, playing off the dissonances. The Courante wa... more
In what must be the fall season’s last blockbuster Green Music Center concert, the San Francisco Symphony played a long awaited program Dec. 6 to an almost full Weill Hall audience.There was a palpable excitement when concertmaster Alexander Barantchik and then conductor Michael Tilson Thomas entered and happily acknowledged loud applause from the assembly and standing orchestra members.
The first half was extraordinary, a champagne orgy of orchestral sound that began with Strauss’ ea... more
Sonoma State’s estimable Trio Navarro, long at the center of the North Bay chamber music scene, morphed into the Navarro Chamber Players on Nov. 18 in a Weill Hall concert that was both exhilarating and puzzling. The trio’s violinist Roy Malan and cellist Jill Rachuy Brindel were absent. Taking their chairs and more were violinists Joseph Edelberg and Kathryn Marshall, violist Betsy London and SSU faculty cellist Judiyaba. The sole Trio Navarro representative was Marilyn Thompson, who anchored t... more
Programming an orchestra concert with Nordic music would seem to be simplicity itself: Grieg for romantic themes, Sibelius for instrumental virtuosity, Nielsen for a 20th-century harmonic component. The combination worked to perfection in the American Philharmonic Sonoma County’s Nov. 17 “Northern Lights” concert in Santa Rosa High School’s Performing Arts Auditorium.
Guest conductor Jovan Zivkovic kept a firm hand on the sonic proceedings, generating the same cogent and balanced sound ... more
Getting noticed in the classical piano world is a daunting task. With an avalanche of young artists, each seeming to play the Ligeti Etudes or the Liszt Sonata while texting a friend, novelty is an important part of getting audiences and having concertgoers pay attention to you.
Santa Rosa Junior College faculty pianist Rudolf Budginas has developed a unique parody of the formal piano recital, and he presented it Nov. 9 in the College’s Newman Auditorium before a packed house of titilla... more
In a memorable concert on Oct. 20, the American Philharmonic Sonoma County (APSC) opened a new season with a new music director and a new home in an historic Santa Rosa hall.
It was with some trepidation that old-time audience members, familiar with the Santa Rosa High School Auditorium from the Santa Rosa Symphony’s 30-year residence ending in 1982, arrived at the refurbished 900-seat venue. How would the “people’s orchestra” play in a hall famous for bright but indistinct acoustics? ... more
Austin-based pianist Gustavo Romero has a second artistic home in Sonoma County, having played three times on the Oakmont Concert Series and in a number of private concerts. He returned to Oakmont’s Berger Auditorium Oct. 18 to play a formidable recital of Bach, Beethoven, Debussy and Rachmaninoff.
In one of the longest programs in recent memory, Mr. Romero played three Beethoven sonatas, finishing the first half with the mighty “Appassionata.” Throughout the afternoon, he was never in ... more
An incessant topic of audience conversation about acoustics in the newly-opened Weill Hall – where is best to sit, can the oboe be heard - has tended since the inaugural gala weekend to overshadow the actual performances. Canadian soprano Karina Gauvin put many of those notions to rest Oct. 13 with a splendid recital of mostly French art song before a half-full house.
With pianist Michael McMahon, Ms. Gauvin presented six groups of songs in French that, although it’s the singer’s nativ... more
The show isn’t over until the shouting fades away. With the brand-new Weill Hall’s rear wall raised and the evening breezes flowing, the applause from the second and last encore of pianist Lang Lang’s Sept. 29 opening recital might have been heard all the way to Petaluma. It was that kind of concert, unique and memorable.
After more than a decade of construction delays and massive cost overruns, the centerpiece hall of the Green Music Center finally opened with the Chinese superstar kic... more
Cellist Jennifer Culp brought a surprise to her Oakmont Concert Series performance on Sept. 13 when she opened with Barber’s early Cello Sonata, Op. 6. Beginning with a tonal yet difficult to assimilate work was a good choice, as mostly familiar pieces filled out the recital before about 125 patrons in Berger Auditorium.
Partnering with long-time collaborator pianist Betty Woo, Ms. Culp played the three-movement Barber sonata with solid technical command and admirable balance with the p... more
Barbara Nissman’s pianism is best heard on her own terms, with little comparison to current performance practices. This was in evidence June 14 when the venerable West Virginia artist returned to Sonoma County, playing a long recital in the Oakmont Concert Series before 160 in Berger Auditorium.
The recital was long because of the artist’s spoken introduction (both incisive and silly) and because the program was packed with pieces associated with Ms. Nissman’s lengthy career, beginning... more
May 6 marked the American Philharmonic Sonoma County's final concert in the Wells Fargo Center, and with the Santa Rosa Symphony leaving Wells after mid-May, orchestra events may soon be a dim memory in the venerable hall.
An audience of 950 sat through the usual bevy of announcements and raffle prizes, along with candidate conductor Norman Gamboa's slightly inane descriptions of what the concert's two compositions meant to him. But it was that kind of event, and the crowd was heavily s... more
Local boy makes good was the operative theme March 26 when violinist Nigel Armstrong played a recital before a jammed Andrews Hall in downtown Sonoma, the event produced by the Sonoma Chamber Music Society. From Mr. Armstrong’s initial entrance with pianist Marilyn Thompson to a final raucous encore, the audience seemed to hang on every note and bodily movement of the young violinist.
The first half, consisting of Beethoven’s “Spring Sonata” and the Debussy Sonata, was problematical. An... more
Prospects for exciting Santa Rosa Symphony concert on March 19 were all good: three alluring soloists, two primo Beethoven works and John Adams' beguiling symphonic suite "The Chairman Dances." To a full house in the Wells Fargo Center, the program mix spelled success.
The effervescent suite from Adams’ opera "Nixon in China" (1985) was a shrewd opening. The fabric of sound favored the percussion and tympani sections, whose gongs and woodblocks were often used in spicy syncopation. The ... more
Pianist Joyce Yang came to her Newman Auditorium recital March 16 with a bevy of extravagant press notices and a contented audience. Why contented before a note was played? The SRJC concert committee provided a lavish reception before, not after, the recital, honoring the annual Randolph Newman recital tradition. So there was a warm and perhaps sedentary glow in the packed hall when Ms Yang stepped to the instrument for the first of four Scarlatti Sonatas.
A popular way to reach a wide classical audience is to find a musical niche, playing unfamiliar works with an uncommon passion. Lara Downes has been an ingratiating niche pianist for years, presenting programs of Roy Harris, William Balcom and Aaron Jay Kernis, and lately a unique recital built around Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Before a Newman Auditorium audience Feb. 26 Ms. Downes brought her “13 Ways of Looking at Goldberg” program in the fifth recital of the Concerts Grand season.
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The adage that no woman is a prophet in her own home town was, as usual, proven false Feb. 19 when Ukiah native Elizabeth MacDougall gave a warmly satisfying piano recital in Mendocino College’s Choral Room under the auspices of Concerts Grand.
Ms. MacDougall’s artistry has long been admired in the Mendocino County community, and for this recital of three works her audience packed the small room and heard a committed and serious presentation, beginning with Bach’s G Minor English Suite,... more
It’s a rare occurrence in a cello recital that each programmed piece was both a masterwork of the literature and flawlessly performed, admitting nothing but awe and warm satisfaction from even the most seasoned string aficionado.
Such was the thrilling Redwood Arts Council recital of Boris Andrianov Feb. 11 in Occidental's Performing Arts Center before a packed house of 200. How does a flawless cello recital unfold? First a powerful pianist is needed, and the Russian Virtuoso Alexand... more
Sonoma County’s insouciant American Philharmonic opened the first of its three spring concerts Feb. 5 with the Corsair Overture of Berlioz, and the work characterized the entire afternoon in the Wells Fargo Center – loud, flashy, trenchant and exciting.
Music Director candidate Evan Craves, formerly the APSC’s concertmaster, conducted largely without score, rare today and especially given the works at hand. It was even rare in the past, though Von Bulow conducted Tristan, Meistersinger... more
If the nearly 300 people at a Feb. 4 Ukiah concert are an indication, the Deep Valley Chamber Music series has finally arrived. One of the best-kept secrets in North Coast music, Deep Valley has been presenting increasingly challenging repertoire and first-cabin musicians since 2008, and the “Midwinter”concert in First Presbyterian Church was provocative and ultimately satisfying.
Provocative? Chamber music by Dohnanyi (his Serenade for String Trio) and Elgar (his A Minor Piano Quin... more
Virtuoso Korean pianist Yoonjung Han had tough barriers to surmount in her Jan. 19 Tiburon recital. Plying a repeat date for the Thursday Marin Musical Club after a 2011 recital had been cancelled, the Curtis Institute-trained pianist found an audience of 60 eager to hear her program, but was confronted with a sub professional piano wholly inadequate for her artistry. Additionally, the instrument reportedly had no pre-concert preparation and was unable to effectively respond to Ms. Han’s deman... more
The program for Alexander Barantschik’s violin recital Jan. 15 in Newman Auditorium was not at first glance auspicious. And not because of the merits of the four sonatas, as all are masterpieces of the standard repertoire. The critical quandary was that the program was so conventional, the pieces comfortable for the artist, who as the San Francisco Symphony Concertmaster presumably has minimal practice time in less-often-played repertoire. Sonatas by Elgar, Faure, Respighi, Dohnanyi, Paderews... more
Musical detours can bring unexpected surprises, and on New Year’s Eve this writer’s drive to Petaluma’s Cinnabar Theater party stopped early for chamber music at the downtown Historical Museum. Sponsored by the Museum and the Sky Hill Cultural Alliance, the concert with gratis holiday refreshments featured two string players from San Francisco and local pianist Elizabeth Walter.
Handel’s Passacaglia, the last movement of the G Minor Harpsichord Suite (BWV 432) was played in John... more
Danish virtuoso Egon Petri once commented that most pianists “spend their melodic purse in small coin.” Elena’s Kuschnerova, in her second Concerts Grand appearance Nov. 20, would have none of that approach, playing a mercurial recital that left nothing on the table in the wake of her potent musical personality.
In SRJC’s Newman Auditorium the Russian dynamo, now living in Baden-Baden, took on Schumann’s mighty Symphonic Etudes, Op. 13, as the first half’s major work. These 12 studies... more
An old musical friend was juxtaposed with two not-quite-so-old interlopers Nov. 6 when the venerable Trio Navarro opened their 2011-2012 season at Sonoma State University’s Green Music Center 1028. Mendelssohn’s iconic D Minor Trio was the old shoe and Trios by Bridge and Turina were the unfamiliar fare.
In a surprise program alignment the rarely-played Bridge C Minor Fantasie Trio and Turina’s Op. 35 Trio comprised the long second half, and both works are episodic and difficult to g... more
Inaugurating a new recital hall piano is always a celebratory event, and Dominican University in San Rafael did the celebration right Oct. 9 when faculty pianist June Choi Oh opened the Guest Concert Series’ 11th season in Angelico Hall.
Choosing works that displayed the full range of the Bösendorfer 290 and her formidable artistry, Ms. Oh began with graceful account of Schubert’s popular B-Flat Major Impromptu, Op. 142, No. 3. Arguably Schubert’s most enchanting set of variations, f... more
John Boyajy is one of the Bay Area’s most active pianists, but he seldom ventures out of his Marin County lair to present his legendary eclectic recitals of famous and rarely-heard composers. Sept. 16 found him at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts, with colleague Nicki Bell, to play familiar music in a resounding and unique way.
What was unique about the evening? First, Mr. Boyajy began with a solid and texturally clear reading of Schubert’s lyrical A Flat Major Impromptu from Op, 14... more
Oakmont’s popular concert series, now in its 20th year, usually programs just two pianists in a 12-concert season. However, producer Robert Hayden’s eclectic taste guarantees that the selected pianists will play provocative works, and it was again so June 9 when Israeli artist Einav Yarden presented a bifurcated program before 150 in Oakmont’s Berger Auditorium.
In an admirable first half, Ms. Yarden began with the 11 Beethoven Bagatelles, Op. 119, a change from the announced Op. 33 Ba... more
Balances in an orchestral concert, especially works from just one nation’s composers, are tough to graciously achieve. The Ukiah Symphony’s closing concert May 15 was heavily weighted with boisterous Russian works, and balances to some degree proved to be a concert-long problem.
Somehow a quiet piece slipped in to begin the event, Borodin’s tone poem “In The Steps of Central Asia,” and it was beautifully played. Principal flutist Becky Ayers and principal horn Ben Robinson had the lus... more
It’s pretty rare that an entire classical music program contains just one work, and just 22 minutes at that. Sonia Tubridy’s River Choir thought so much of Bach’s Cantata No. 4, Christ lag in Todesbanden, that they sang it twice in a program April 19, and repeated the Cantata April 26. And they performed it twice each time, and I’ll return to that later.
In the Guerneville Community Church before 35 listeners on the 26th the 13-person choir was joined by violinists Peter Wehaus... more
Continuing a stellar history of innovative piano trio programming, the resident SSU Trio Navarro closed their season April 24 in an Easter Sunday concert replete with two large novelties and a slightly more familiar work by Beethoven.
Before 90 listeners in the Green Music Center’s orchestra rehearsal room, the Navarro first tackled Rorem’s Spring Music, an eclectic 1990 work premiered by the Beaux Arts Trio. In five extended movements, the music isn’t easy to easily assimilate and in... more
San Francisco’s Daniel Glover arguably plays more concerts than any classical pianist residing in Northern California, and his wide repertoire of concertos and solo works are the envy of many musicians. San Rafael’s J-B Piano Emporium was fortunate to host Mr. Glover’s artistry April 3 and 35 music lovers heard an uncompromising program short on familiarity but long on intriguing music.
In the long awaited final recital of the eighth Concerts Grand season, Mr. Glover cast down a provoc... more
Concerts devoted solely to the music of Brahms are not that rare, and Sonoma County had one several years ago in the glorious “Norma Brown and Friends” event at SRJC. But an all-Brahms concert featuring just his cello music is novel, and a splendid example occurred March 29 in Napa’s Jarvis Conservatory.
In a fund raiser benefiting the Napa Valley Symphony, cellist Zuill Bailey joined colleague Awadagin Pratt in the two big Sonatas and several of the Hamburg master’s songs in cello tra... more
Marin Pianist John Boyajy’s concerts are never conventional. His usual mix of extended verbal introduction and musical performance can be unsettling if the balance isn’t right. In a Point Reyes Station recital at the Dance Palace March 27 all was in equilibrium, the music sparkling and the commentary persuasive and enlightening.
Before and audience of 90 on a wet and blustery afternoon the program began with Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Sonata in D, Op. 28, an innovative work from 1801. P... more
Dark and rainy skies parted March 20 at Santa Rosa Junior College for Concerts Grand’s last recital of the Santa Rosa season. However, the sun and warmth quickly brought a new and musical storm into the area, Russian pianist Evgeni Mikhailov’s virtuosity presiding through the works of Chopin, Schumann, Tchaikovsky and Mussorgsky.
Before 101 pianophiles in the small Newman Auditorium Mr. Mikhailov, having just ended a 25-concert American tour playing three concertos with a Polish orch... more
Steven Spooner is a pianist of many musical surprises. In his Feb. 27 recital for Concerts Grand in SRJC’s Newman Auditorium, the Kansas University artist sharply changed the printed program, beginning with a work of his own. The unexpected changes made a good recital, on paper, into an exceptional experience.
That work of his own, a meandering “new age” Etude in the fashion of jazz artist Keith Jarrett, worked well to quiet an audience of 90 in the chilly hall. The tune “My Funny Val... more
Even the most ardent classical music lover would be hard pressed to name a composer of stature that actually resides in the North Bay. Janis and Brian Wilson might be mentioned, and of course there are effervescent Charles Sepos and Healdsburg resident Charles Shere. And John Adams has a home north of Jenner. But for productivity spanning four decades, and manifold performances, only Marin composer Ron McFarland meets every qualification.
Friends of the Tiburon composer paid him homa... more
Piano recitals often split into two parts, the ostensibly profound scores first and after intermission lighter fare is played. Ryan MacEvoy McCullough’s Feb. 6 recital at Mendocino College unfolded in a different way, the blockbuster works appearing just at intermission and during the entire second half.
Produced by Concerts Grand and luring 35 people away from Super Bowl television sets, the concert began with the slowest performance imaginable of Liszt’s imaginative Sonetto Del Petra... more
Chamber music was launched in grand style for the 2011 year Jan. 14 when the American Philharmonic Sonoma County presented the first of three small group concerts featuring artists associated with the APSC.
Designed as a fund raiser to cover costs incurred from the historic tour to China, the concert at the Healdsburg Community Church preceded events at Santa Rosa’s Glaser Center and the charming Jacuzzi Family Vineyards in Sonoma. The performers, named “I Solisti di Sonoma,” donated t... more
Sonia Tubridy, along with Carol Menke the late Nina Shuman, must be noted as Sonoma County’s most multi-tasking musician. In addition the playing the piano for chamber groups and in shows, singing, playing the accordion and leading Klezmer groups, Ms. Tubridy has found time to lead a first-rate choir of 14, the River Choir.
In the first of two holiday concerts in Guerneville’s Community Church Dec. 19, the Choir presented thirty disparate works ranging from the time of William Byrd to ... more
Virtuoso pianist Garrick Ohlsson is clearly at the top of his game, the latest evidence being a blockbuster Beethoven Sonata recital Dec. 16 in Napa’s United Methodist Church.
Celebrating the Bonn’s master’s 240th birthday and coming off a project recording all 32 Sonatas, Mr. Ohlsson met a jammed Chamber Music in Napa Valley audience with a balanced program featuring the familiar, not so familiar and rarely played. Many in the audience of 300 have heard the artist numerous times in th... more
Bach’s massive output of cantatas, numbering more than 230 known sacred and secular works, provides a rich trove for the tradition of holiday choral concerts. Conductor Robert Worth chose four disparate examples of Bach’s compositional genius Dec. 9 in a concert combing a reduced-size Santa Rosa Symphony with the Sonoma Bach Choir and four exceptional soloists.
Part of the Donald and Maureen Green Orchestra Choral Series, the concert was the first of three and drew 350 Bach aficionados... more
Carolyn Tewari must be the most active performing pianist in Sonoma County. In addition to teaching, she has a full schedule playing in retirement homes, churches and concert halls, and has a penchant for music by women composers and partnerships with colleagues.
On November 19 she joined her duo partner of long standing, Jazmin Aliakbari, in a joint recital of eclectic music in the Sebastopol Center for the Performing Arts. The two women switched at the piano from primo to segu... more
Kenn Gartner is Marin’s eclectic pianist, and his playing Nov. 18 during a short recital in Tiburon’s Community Congregational Church underscored his inquisitive musical and intellectual nature.
Sponsored by the decades-old Thursday Musical Club, the concert featured mostly familiar music of Bach, Haydn, Liszt and Chopin, but with many unconventional touches. Mr. Gartner performed most of these pieces March 21 in a recital for Concerts Grand at San Rafael’s J-B Piano Store, but in the ... more
Another chapter in the North Bay’s homage to the Schumann bicentennial occurred Nov. 14 when Russian pianist Ksenia Nosikova played two Schumann works in a Newman Auditorium recital filled with musical rarities.
Performing on the fourth Concerts Grand series event, Ms. Nosikova (faculty artist at the University of Iowa) began not with Robert but with Clara, playing the latter’s Notturno in F Major, a lyrical and often sentimental work. The piece received a deft reading with judicious t... more
After a long dry spell Sonoma County seems to be seeing a flood tide of fine violin playing. David McCarroll, Roy Malan, Michael Ludwig and Vadim Gluzman have played recent concerts, and San Francisco State University Professors Jassen Todorov and William Corbett-Jones continued the trend in a dramatic recital Oct. 31 in SRJC’s Newman Auditorium for the Concerts Grand series.
Before an audience of 112, sprinkled with string players, Tartini’s G Minor Sonata (Devil’s Trill) launched the... more
Schubert’s Piano Sonatas often receive a mixed audience reaction, despite their craftsmanship, sunny tunes and drama. When all the repeats are played, and sections morph into more sections, to some they can seem wandering and overly extended. But not to seasoned musicians, as the prolongation is a heavenly length.
It was this blessed length that pianist Carolyn Steinbuck found Oct. 24 in a Mendocino College recital, the second in the Concerts Grand season. Schubert’s A Major Sonata, ... more
Oakmont’s monthly Concert Series produces just a few solo piano recitals each year, and they usually feature out-of-the-ordinary repertoire and performers of international caliber. October 21’s recital presenting Daria Rabotkina was no exception to the established norm, the young Russian capably playing three big works to a Berger Auditorium of 175 with consummate ease.
The entire first half was devoted to Prokofiev’s Ten Pieces, Op. 75, taken from the ballet Romeo and Juliet. From 19... more
Sara Daneshpour’s Oct. 17 recital launching the 8th Concerts Grand season began with what might be called anxious anticipation from the audience in SRJC’s Newman Auditorium. The program contained mostly brawny virtuoso works, and the first appearance of the petite pianist brought to many minds the thought that musical demands could trump the young artist’s abilities. At the recital’s end, no one in the hall had any such doubts. Big things do come in small packages.
An appreciative audience greeted Gwhyneth Chen Oct. 3 when the pianist launched the Ukiah Community Concerts Association’s new season. And the artist’s mood, mostly lyrical and relaxed, seemed to match that of the audience of 225 that crowded the New Life Community Church.
The program contained five Chopin Nocturnes, including the E-Flat as an encore, and in the initial Op. 32 works a recital-long pattern emerged. Ms. Chen possesses a lovely touch, deft control of cantilena, variation... more
Old friends returned Sept. 19 as the Stauffer Duo, long associated with the Santa Rosa Junior College Chamber Series, return for their 30th anniversary recital in Newman Auditorium. It was the first of the season’s six concerts, with a lively 177 in attendance and the anticipation of a challenging program including two modern works and some solo pianism from a mostly unknown composer.
Currently emeritus professors at San Diego State University, cellist Thomas Stauffer and pianist Cynt... more
Pianist Lara Downes is a proselytizer, a woman on a mission to spread the gospel of American classical music of the early 20th century. Ms. Downes brought her musical discourse to Petaluma’s Historical Museum Sept. 8 in the penultimate concert of Cinnabar Theater’s Summer Music Festival.
Beginning with the popular Barber Excursions, Op. 20, from 1944, the pianist quickly fashioned was to come in the evening’s additional works – large-screen computer generated photos mixed with p... more
Beginning the fall chamber music season August 12 in Oakmont, Chicago’s Lincoln Trio played a disparate and demanding program with consummate artistry before 200 in Berger Auditorium.
But it was not the previously announced program, as the group, in their third appearance on the Oakmont Concert Series, dropped the Trio by contemporary composer Lara Auerbach, and began the first half with Bloch’s Three Nocturnes for Trio, written in 1924.
But no matter, as the playing of the tightly-... more
British pianist Paul Roberts played a recital in two disparate parts July 11 in Mendocino Music Festival’s piano series in Preston Hall.
Before 65 people Mr. Roberts planned the initial part around music of Ravel and Liszt, each with extensive descriptive titles. The pieces were preceded by a lengthy verbal introductions, set out in Mr. Roberts’ unique blend of historical description, philosophy, musical analysis and a sporadic dash of gossip. The pianist is a superb speaker, witt... more
In a high-energy program of Russian music, conductor Allan Pollack and his Festival Orchestra opened the 24th Mendocino Music Festival season in grand style July 11 in the massive white tent on the Mendocino headlands bluff.
Even before the downbeat for the Shostakovich “Festival Overture,” Op. 96, the excitement in the tent was palpable. On mounting the podium, Mr. Pollack received a standing ovation mixed with yells and whistles. Clearly the audience honors his decades of musical wo... more
Ukrainian pianist Elena Ulyanova made her Sonoma County debut June 10 in an Oakmont Concert Series recital that was conventional in repertoire but quite agitating in performance. The pieces played were nearly a reprise of her November, 2008 recital in Tiburon’s St. Hilary Church, sans the big Rachmaninoff B-Flat Sonata.
Ms. Ulyanova has a passionate musical personality and her playing in Berger Auditorium before 200 people may not have been to the taste of most piano aficionados. She ... more
For nearly 25 years the Alexander String Quartet has been the preeminent chamber music group in Northern California, but despite many invitations they have never appeared on the popular Oakmont Concert Series season. Schedule conflicts with the SRJC Chamber Series and the Quartet’s far-flung travel commitments were finally overcome May 13 when the esteemed foursome appeared on the Berger Auditorium stage before 225 chamber music aficionados.
In a concert dedicated to the memory of Lore... more
Spring thunder from sunny Italy was the order of the day April 18 when Sicilian pianist Sandro Russo closed the seventh Concerts Grand season with a dramatic recital at Santa Rosa Junior College.
In an 80-minute program before a Newman Auditorium audience of 120 Mr. Russo disdained the usual opening works of Scarlatti and Mozart and launched into a powerful rendering of Liszt’s magnificent “Variations on Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Sagen,” based on a Bach Cantata first heard in April... more
Pianist Elenor Barcsak has consistently been in the forefront of Marin musical life as a teacher, MTA branch President, supporter of manifold causes and a chamber music player, but seldom finds time to mount a solo recital. April 15 found her accepting the soloist’s role in Terra Linda’s Christ Presbyterian Church, performing a recital of some unfamiliar music and some Chopin gems.
Sponsored by the Thursday Marin Musical Club, the concert’s first half featured unfamiliar music of Franc... more
In a finale to a year of literature-based programs (“Season of the Scribe’) the Marin Symphony April 13 presented a curious mix of compositions that purported to have a common romantic theme. Preceding the sonic splendor of Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll and the “Prelude and Liebestod” from Tristan und Isolde was an eclectic first half of works by Samuel Barber and contemporary composer David Carlson, both well outside the 19th-century romantic pale.
Chopin’s bicentennial received another boost March 28 as pianist Zeynep Ucbasaran played a Newman Auditorium concert devoted mostly to the works of the great Polish master.
In the penultimate series recital in the seventh Concerts Grand season, Ms. Ucbasaran presented a program built around three of the Scherzos, with bookends of Adnan Saygun’s Aksak Studies one through five, and a Liszt paraphrase. The richly chromatic Polonaise-Fantaisie, Op. 61, from late in Chopin’s short life, wa... more
Marin pianist Kenn Gartner takes his musical life in big chunks. He has a large load of private students, conducts choral groups, is part of a South Bay opera company and composes when time permits. On Bach’s birthday, March 21, he found time to tackle a large recital program at San Rafael’s JB Piano Company as part of the Concerts Grand series. He even brought his own piano to the store’s small stage.
It was fitting to begin with Bach’s “Concerto in the Italian Style,” BWV 971, and ... more
Nina Tichman is a pianist with an artistic vision that puts clarity and proportion above all else. In her Oakmont Concert Series recital March 10, one of many she has played in Berger Auditorium, these sterling qualities perfectly served the concert’s opening music of Schubert, in this case the E Flat Sonata from 1817, D. 568.
Ms. Tichman’s subtle phrasing and nuanced cantabile, added to the bright treble of the piano, caught inimitably the wistful nature of the opening movement. Da... more
It’s seldom that the high points of a piano recital are contained in repertoire that is short, dissonant, unfamiliar and mostly loud. At Lydia Artymiw’s March 7 recital for Concerts Grand in SRJC’s Newman Auditorium, the music of Kurtag and Messiaen had for this reviewer emotional impact far beyond their succinct duration and novel rhythms
Before a small audience of 63, Ms. Artymiw preceded the performance of three of Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jésus with a cogent an... more
In a sharp change from past concerts, the Trio Navarro gave an abbreviated program Feb. 28 in Sonoma State University’s Ives Hall, reflecting a temporary substitution in personnel. Marilyn Thompson, the Trio’s founding pianist, was absent due to pending shoulder surgery, and the anticipated trios of Cassadó and Catoire could not be managed in the available rehearsal time. What was presented was a blend of some familiar works and something quite rare.
Ukrainian-American virtuoso Valentina Lisitsa came to her Feb. 21 Santa Rosa recital carrying the fame of a massive YouTube video presence and as among the handful of the most popular woman pianists on the international scene. Whether she is among the best remained to be seen and heard.
Performing for the Concerts Grand series in SRJC’s Newman Auditorium, Ms. Lisitsa took on a program of staggering breadth – Schumann’s “Kinderscenen,” the Appassionata Sonata of Beethoven and the entire... more
Recitals entirely devoted to the works of Chopin are not rare, and the 200th anniversary of the great Pole’s birth has already spawned world-wide concerts of his music and for memorializing his artistry. What was basically new in pianist Gustavo Romero’s Oakmont (Feb. 18) and SRJC (Feb. 19) recitals was how he structured the program. The four tumultuous Ballades (Ops. 23, 39, 47 and 52) didn’t constitute the second half, and the Ballades were not played in the usual order. Though the two rec... more
In the fifth set of Santa Rosa Symphony concerts in the current season, conductor Bruno Ferrandis programmed a world premiere and ended with a familiar Schumann symphony. In between were Chopin’s F Minor Piano Concerto, Op. 21, with soloist Berenika Zakrzewski, and Schumann's "Manfred" overture.
Berhzad Ranjbaran’s “Mithra” was the premiere, part of the Magnum Opus series of new works commissioned by a Silicon Valley philanthropist and played subsequently by three Bay Area orchestras. I... more
Conductor Asher Raboy, in his final season with the Napa Valley Symphony, has established in a 20-year tenure a responsive orchestral sound and an interest in large and crowd-pleasing works. During a Jan. 31 concert in Yountville’s Lincoln Theater, Mr. Raboy had the opportunity to shine in two massive Russian pieces from two disparate composers.
Ukrainian-American pianist Valentina Lisitsa was the soloist in Tchaikovsky’s B-Flat Piano Concerto, Op. 23, and in the opening Allegro non... more
Innovative but not necessarily exciting programming characterized the Kirkwood Piano Quartet’s Jan. 14 performance in Oakmont’s Berger Auditorium.
Unfamiliar works were perhaps the reason for an audience count far less than the usual Oakmont Concerts Series event, and the Kirkwood played a first half of rarely-heard music: Bridge’s one-movement “Phantasy” and a Stanford Quartet in F Major, Op. 15. The dreamy Bridge, from 1911, has many contrasting sections with echoes of late Faure.... more
Marin pianist John Boyajy can’t be neutral about any important musical matter. He has passion and the ability to speak extensive words about that passion, and his excitement about Schubert, Bach and Mozart was everywhere in evidence in a duo recital with soprano Bryn Jimenez Jan. 3 in Novato’s All Saints Lutheran Church. Fifty-Five attended on a gloomy and cold day
Beginning with Schubert’s B-Flat Impromptu from Op. 142, Mr. Boyajy set the afternoon’s stage with a reading replete wit... more
After many decades of attending concerts, a listener (or reviewer) faces a tough decision after hearing a first half that in some way is not a complete artistic whole. Leave early or stay for the promising second part? In almost every case not hearing the music that follows intermission would be a mistake. It was thus at the College of Marin (COM) Symphony Orchestra’s concert Nov. 22 at Unity Church on the old Hamilton Air Force Base.
Just two works comprised the program, the fi... more
Sacramento State’s Richard Cionco followed a string of CSU faculty pianists into the Concerts Grand recital series Nov. 15, playing a concert that featured eclectic music rarely heard in the North Bay. Mr. Cionco’s breezy stage presence and audience repartee belied the complexity of the music, and he consistently delivered the goods to a small group in SRJC’s Newman Auditorium
The cornerstone of the recital was the 28-minute “American Variations” by New York composer Sunny Knable, in it... more
Anticipation was in the warm air Sept. 20 in Santa Rosa’s Newman Auditorium. In addition to being the first Concerts Grand Series recital of the year, there was excitement surrounding the Armenian pianist Nareh Arghamanyan, making her Northern California debut amid extravagant press notices and comparisons with such artists as the young Alicia de Larrocha.
Beginning with Mendelssohn’s best work for piano, the Op. 54 Variations Serieuses, Ms. Arghamanyan stated the theme slowl... more
Planning and performing an All-Russian program is not a hard task as long as a solo pianist is the executant. The Slavic keyboard literature, even excluding the 19th Century, is vast, and Russian expatriate Olga Vinokur dipped into the works of five notable Russians in her Sept. 10 Oakmont Concert Series recital. Ms. Vinokur, a New York resident by way of early years in Russia and studies in Israel, gave a committed but largely low-key concert for 200 attendees in Berger Auditorium.
Now in its 23rd season, the Mendocino Music Festival has a reputation for combining innovative crossover programming with the delights of summer on the North Coast – ocean breezes, warm morning fog, Victorian village flower gardens and memorable cuisine. For Roy Malan’s violin recital of July 15, the program was a little novel and a little conventional, but the artistry was first cabin.
Joined at the piano by Stanford University faculty member Kumaran Arul, Mr. Malan’s usual efferves... more
California Summer Music is a musician’s workshop, rotating between college campuses that put young players in small classes with masters of their respective instruments. Sonoma State University is hosting the 2009 event for three weeks in July, and the CSM faculty had a chance July 5 to show the troops how strings and a piano can sing, albeit with non-traditional compositions.
Before 125 avid listeners in the Fred Warren Auditorium, string and piano performers played a concert consist... more
When does the local concert season actually end? Well, it usually is just before July 1, and it’s usually a hot day. Both benchmarks were satisfied June 28 when Santa Rosa’s Numina Center produced the last concert of the 2009 season, a chamber pot pourri, before 125 appreciative listeners.
Copland’s “As It Fell Upon A Day”, a c. 1923 bagatelle for clarinet, flute and soprano, began the program with insouciant flair. Joined by Santa Rosa Symphony musicians Roy Zajac (clarinet... more
It’s not often that listeners have a chance to hear what arguably is the best work in a single classical genre, especially a concerto. On May 29, the Napa Valley Symphony offered just such an opportunity in Yountville’s Lincoln Theater when they performed the magnificent Dvorak Cello Concerto with veteran soloist Lynn Harrell.
Cello aficionados looking for a performance similar to Yo Yo Ma’s lyrical flights or Rostropovich’s magisterial intensity would have been disappointed, as Harrell... more
Season-ending chamber music concerts, especially in the spring, often feature repertoire of a less-demanding nature, light as May breezes. The Trio Navarro would have none of that at their May 17 concert, programming two massive piano quartets, both demanding focus and stamina from the performers and the 60 listeners in Sonoma State’s Ives Hall.
Adding the wonderful violist Nancy Ellis to their longstanding ensemble, the Navarro plunged first into the Piano Quartet of William Walton, wr... more
Gila Goldstein isn’t a household name in North Bay music, but as a visiting virtuoso the New York resident has played here a lot: three recitals in San Francisco’s Old First Church series, another in a stately Marin hilltop home, one for Concerts Grand, and at least one Sonoma County home concert. May 14 found her at the Oakmont Concert Series’ Berger Auditorium, her third recital there, with a varied program of virtuoso works for the piano.
Goldstein, trained in her native Israel and a... more
Aaron Copland’s orchestral scores are so familiar as to seem old-shoe, even when his not-so-familiar Third Symphony dominates a program. Such was the case May 5 when the Marin Symphony performed an all-Copland concert in the Civic Auditorium in San Rafael.
The novel part of the program was at the podium, where seasoned East Bay conductor Michael Morgan substituted for the symphony’s ailing music director, Alasdair Neale. Nothing in the “Hoedown” from Rodeo or in the perennially s... more
Pianist David Korevaar brought a curiously unbalanced program to the Santa Rosa Junior College Chamber Series on March 27 for the SRJC season’s final event. Unbalanced because the first half consisted of essentially unknown works, whereas the second half consisted of Schubert’s most popular piano sonata.
Korevaar, who teaches at the University of Colorado, began his recital in the half-full Newman Auditorium with Brahms’s Variations on a Hungarian Song, Op. 21, No. 2. A master of... more
The odds for a successful piano recital didn’t look good. It was an unknown pianist from Russia via the University of Arkansas, playing for a new production company in the little-used small hall at the Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa — on a 110-year-old Henry Miller piano. Despite these long odds, Jura Margulis played an intriguing if not wholly satisfying concert on March 10 in front of 30 appreciative listeners.
Margulis played the opening Chopin Mazurkas (Ops. 30, Nos. 3 and 4) aggressiv... more
After a week of rain, a “mostly Schubert” concert on March 8 in Santa Rosa’s Friedman Center was a welcome blue-sky tonic. As the Russian virtuoso Anton Rubinstein once said, “Ah, Schubert, sunshine in music.”
Produced by Absolute Music, the concert honored founders Alfred and Susanne Batzdorff on their 65th wedding anniversary, and the 150 attending came to applaud the ever-young couple and sample some of the Viennese composer’s best works for small ensemble.
Having a third piano trio resident in the North Bay along with the Navarro and Tilden trios is a joyous prospect, as each will provide varied aural perspectives on the rich trio literature. The newest group, the Sequoia, played on March 5 in the cozy Great Room of Santa Rosa’s Spring Lake Village before 75 attentive listeners.
Joining pianist Florence Aquilina and violinist Gary McLaughlin, both SRJC faculty members, was Santa Rosa cellist Laura McClellan, whose sonorous instrument was ... more
People attending pianist Elena Kuschnerova’s March 1 Newman Auditorium concert came with anticipation of a challenging afternoon, as the Russian’s presence on YouTube and a comprehensive website disclosed a wide range of repertoire and powerful command of the instrument. I don’t believe anyone was disappointed.
Part of the Concerts Grand series, the recital’s first section was all German, appropriate as Kuschnerova lives in Baden Baden, and it’s the 200th anniversary of the birth of Fel... more
Concerts featuring two pianos have been on the upswing in Sonoma County, due mainly to the work of the Twenty Fingers Club, a group of well-trained amateurs devoted to conventional and arcane repertoire for 176 keys and six pedals. Club members don’t perform as often as they would like, as two-piano venues are rare.
The Sebastopol Center for the Arts solved the venue problem with a February Two-Piano Festival, bringing in a second instrument for five concerts and a gaggle of performers... more
Reactions from listeners to the music of Philip Glass usually are of two types. One group flees quickly from the hall and concludes that Glass is a mere shadow of the greater minimalist composers Reich, Adams and Riley. Others, with more patience and curiosity, give the music time to unfold and, especially in Glass’s operas, uncover sonic gems.
In the Napa Opera House on Feb. 19, Glass played a 90-minute recital of his music at the piano. A full house of 500 greeted the composer, who an... more
Russian pianist Halida Dinova returned to familiar territory on Feb. 12 — the recital stage at San Rafael’s JB Piano Emporium — and produced a concert short on major repertoire works but long on charm and drama. The small audience well knew what would be forthcoming: an evening of virtuoso playing, the best post-recital reception in Marin and a collegial atmosphere of shared musical delight.
The evening’s single work of extended duration, Haydn’s E-Flat Sonata (XVI 52), received a leisu... more
The Russian pianist Dmitry Rachmanov is a careful and attentive player with ample power when needed, and he brought these qualities to a Super Bowl-day audience Feb. 1 at SRJC’s Forsyth Hall. Though the repertoire was a little conventional, the performances were probing and memorable.
In several ways the opening work, Beethoven’s Variations in F, Op. 34, was the most finished presentation of the afternoon, the fifth recital in the current Concerts Grand season. All was in place – rhythm... more
Marin pianist Ken Iisaka has been getting around lately, playing frequent concerts, competing in high-level competitions, writing about music and investigating rare repertoire that incites new interest. But he is seldom heard in a formal winter recital setting, with a good piano, and with somewhat standard compositions. The oversight was remedied January 25 when he presented four big works at San Rafael’s JB Piano Emporium under the auspices of the Concerts Grand piano series.
Sonoma County has a long and cordial history of music in private homes, the most prominent examples being the many events in Corrick and Norma Brown’s living room, and the monthly jazz concerts in Ernie Shelton’s Sebastopol home. Now the local chapter of the Music Teacher’s Association of California has inaugurated a fund-raising house concert series, which launched on Jan. 18 in a recital by pianist Peggy Nance in a Santa Rosa home.
Nance, a specialist in French music, programmed three... more
Violinist Philippe Quint’s third appearance on the Santa Rosa Concert Association stage Jan. 11 was indeed the charm, easily surpassing his two previous recitals in the Wells Fargo Center. He displayed both consummate virtuosity and audience appeal.
In a program divided equally between familiar classical works and arcane selections, Quint and pianist Dmitry Cogan were an ideal pair, opening with an amiable reading of Mozart’s E Minor Sonata, K. 304. Good balance was the order of the da... more
Many components go into a fine piano recital — the artist’s technique, rhythmic control, range of tonal colors, choice of repertoire, and even stamina. All can combine to make a first-rate performance. But in recent local recitals, a key part for listeners — the aspect of being thrilled — has gone missing. Not so for Bay Area hero Jon Nakamatsu, who provided thrills across the musical spectrum on Nov. 30 in a sensational Newman Auditorium recital for the Concerts Grand series in Santa Rosa.
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In the annual Randolph Newman recital at SRJC Nov. 21, pianist Barbara Nissman played a long and intensive concert with two monumental sonatas at the core, Prokofiev’s Sixth and the Liszt B Minor. Everything else on the program, heard by an almost full house in Newman Auditorium, seemed a little beside the point when Nissman charged headlong into these two pillars of pianistic drama, composed about 100 years apart.
Beginning with short but illuminating remarks to the audience, Nissman ... more
A pianist planning a West Coast debut recital in front of a fashionable and cosmopolitan audience faces a daunting prospect, especially when playing virtuoso works familiar to all. Ukrainian pianist Elena Ulyanova surmounted most of these obstacles Nov. 14 with formidable energy at Tiburon’s St. Hilary Church. The event was the second Concerts Grand recital of the year and part of the wildly popular classical series produced by St. Hilary Music Director Vince Stadlin and Cantor Kenneth Graham.
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Trio Navarro, Sonoma State’s resident ensemble, played the second of their season’s four concerts on Nov. 9 in Ives Hall, juxtaposing three rarely heard works of disparate length and impact.
The concert began with Rachmaninoff’s early G Minor Trio (“Elegiaque”), composed in 1892, long before the more revered works in the composer’s canon. The composition received a full-throated reading, with proper references to the Tchaikovsky Trio of a decade earlier and a wonderful cello line from J... more
The proverbial “no person is a hero in their own backyard” was certainly false Nov. 2 when pianist Elena Casanova attracted the largest solo classical audience in memory to her Mendocino College recital, launching the sixth Concerts Grand season.
Before 210 partisans in Center Theater, Casanova tackled an eclectic program centered on Beethoven and Latin music, with a quick side trip for two dreamy Liszt works. The Third Consolation, performed before the Third Liebestraume, brought from... more
It’s a flood tide for piano trios in the North Bay. For years SSU’s Trio Navarro has given numerous wonderful concerts, and recently the Tilden Trio (San Rafael) and the fledgling Sequoia Trio (Santa Rosa) have entered the fray. October 16 found a travelling troupe, Chicago’s Lincoln Trio, proving again the viability of the classical combination of piano, violin and cello.
Before an Oakmont Concerts Series of 200, the Lincoln began with Mendelssohn, but not the most popular of trios, th... more
An old business axiom has it that “ten years means a career,” and with the American Philharmonic Sonoma County making that anniversary, the tenth’s season first concerts October 11 and 12 brought more than the usual anticipation. This orchestra, which began in Cotati, has overcome manifold hurdles to become a formidable musical force in the North Bay.
A season-launching concert should open with something special, and Stephen Main’s “Overture for a New America” had a decidedly populist,... more
Pianist Kenn Gartner is not an artist who makes small statements. In his Aug. 31 recital with soprano Margo-Sherelle Alexander at Guerneville’s Russian River Conservatory, he produced lots of disparate sound, including enough volume to compete with the Labor Day Weekend celebrations at adjacent properties.
Produced by Conservatory Director Seth Montfort, the concert was a warm-up for Gartner and Alexander’s upcoming appearance in San Francisco’s Herbst Theater. The duo’s program, presen... more
Seth Montfort’s Russian River Conservatory seems to have a lock on classical music premieres for the North Bay and Sonoma County, with nearly every concert in his Guerneville mortuary-turned–concert-hall bringing arcane repertoire to small but knowledgeable audiences. Concerts produced by Seth are adventures.
Rimsky-Korsakov’s Piano Concerto in C Sharp was the featured work on Sept. 21, with Montfort at the Conservatory piano and Gabriel Sakakeeny conducting the Mortuary Orchestra of Gu... more
Joel Fan is a pianist on the move. On August 14, in his second Oakmont Concert Series performance in the past three years, he commanded the stage with boundless energy and gave an eclectic program heavy on thunder and excitement.
His concert was billed as music from North and South America, but somehow Beethoven's A-Flat Major Sonata, Op. 110, was squeezed in to end the first half, and it received a committed performance, full of nuance and occasional mystery. The opening Moderato Canta... more
Antonio Iturrioz may not be a familiar name in local classical music households, but he has quietly become the most active solo pianist in the North Bay. He also seems to be intrigued by rarely performed virtuoso music—works other pianists avoid at every turn—and he is a scholar of Leopold Godowsky’s life and art.
July 13 found Iturrioz playing a benefit for Restorative Justice, a support group in the criminal detention system, in a dormitory at Santa Rosa’s Ursuline High School. Ninety... more
Classical music in the North Bay has lately been blessed by a number of piano trio concerts, including Roy Bogas’ Trio (Gualala Arts Center), Eric Zivian’s Trio (Occidental Chamber Series), the Sequoia Trio from SRJC and of course the preeminent Trio Navarro from Sonoma State. The Tilden Trio, the newest kids on the block, made an auspicious entrance July 10 at Oakmont and quickly demonstrated they belong at the top of their profession.
Formed in 2004 by former Juilliard classmates, the... more
On paper, the closing concert of the Tiburon Music Festival June 28 seemed a chancy venture. Two well-known piano concertos were to be performed with a soloist and an orchestra of just five string players. No winds, brass or percussion, no weight in the sections to produce mighty sound to honor the mighty Haydn and Beethoven.
The musical results? Impressive, convincing in their own way, but giving no great desire to displace the originals.
Launching a fledgling music festival with two contemporary chamber operas is a little unusual, but the opening Tiburon Music Festival concert June 21 was a successful if not quite memorable event. Before 100 people in Tiburon's classy St. Hilary Church's Parish Hall, operas by Marin-based composers Ron McFarland and Vincent Stadlin were given, the latter a world premiere, with a repeat performance June 27 at 7:30 p.m. The Festival, directed by College of Marin faculty member Paul Smith, will f... more
Sonoma's Classical Music Society closed its fourth season May 30 with a program partly piano recital and partly chamber music.
Presented to 80 people in Sonoma's Burlingame Hall, cellist Tanya Tomkins joined pianist Elizabeth Dorman in Beethoven's flamboyant A Major Sonata, Op. 69, comprising the entire second half. Both artists had an exuberant view of the score and the cello sound in the hall was distinct and warm. Ms. Tomkins needed all the sound she could muster because balance p... more
It was business as usual for the Trio Navarro on May 25, as they closed their season with a splendid concert for a small audience in Sonoma State's Ives 119 hall.
The Navarro programmed two popular piano trios with a less-familiar Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel work, the Op. 11 Trio in D Minor. As cellist Joy Rachuy Brindel remarked, all three trios were in D minor, and all ended in D Major.
The Mendelssohn-Hensel Trio is a dramatic work, restless and assertive, and full of Mendelss... more
Season finales for orchestras seem always to be memorable events, and the American Philharmonic Sonoma County concert on May 18 was no exception. Before an audience of 900 at the Wells Fargo Center, the county's 'other' orchestra provided a rousing ending to an adventuresome season.
How adventuresome' In earlier concerts this season, this orchestra of mainly non-professional performers played Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring' and Scriabin's 'Poem of Ecstasy.' Sunday's menu, aimed at young a... more
The young Polish pianist Rafael Blechacz arrived May 8 at the Oakmont Concerts Series with quite a bit of musical baggage, including winning the 2005 Chopin Competition (the same competition that launched Garrick Ohlsson's career in 1974) and playing on several ubiquitous You Tube snippets. He was touring the Bay Area, and his debut here was eagerly anticipated by a large crowd, including many pianists, in Berger Auditorium.
Blechacz didn't disappoint with his initial offering, Mozart's... more
Thelma Ahner, doyen of the Sonoma County singing community, died June 19 at her Santa Rosa home. She was 98.
Known for her vibrant dramatic soprano in opera, operetta and Broadway musicals with the stage name Thelma Dare, Ahner moved to Sonoma in 1963 and began teaching privately and also opening with her husband a Swiss chocolate shop in the Coddingtown Shopping Center.
Early years were studies at the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music, Chicago Music College and Hollywood Oper... more
Impresario Robert Hayden celebrated his 101st birthday Dec. 7 with a short but festive concert in an Oakmont home before 16 friends.
Performing Finzi’s Five Bagatelles and the Brahms E-Flat Sonata, Op. 120, were clarinetist Roy Zajac and pianist Judy Walker. During the buffet reception Mr. Hayden left his chair and played two abbreviated works with Mr. Zajac, to the delight of his admirers.
The event came a year to the day after Mr. Hayden’s 100th birthday concert at Spring La... more
Two hundred admirers of Norma Brown, doyen of Sonoma County classical music, honored her June 26 in a Memorial program in Weill Hall. Ms. Brown died at 89 in May of last year.
Following introductory remarks by Corrick and Derek Brown, San Francisco’s Telegraph Quartet played Ravel’s F Major Quartet, and when the final chords were heard a 12-minute photo montage of Norma’s life unfolded on the screen above the Weill stage. After a lengthy intermission one of Beethoven’ last Quartets, th... more
With the death of Brian Lloyd in late January from pancreatic cancer, Sonoma County lost one of most eminent musicians and stellar personalities.
Known mostly for his attachment for 15 years to the Sonoma County Philharmonic Orchestra as cellist, past Board president and musical cheerleader, Mr. Lloyd’s long career encompassed science as a IBM staff physicist, arts administration, social justice, conservation crusades, political discourse and activism, lake sailing, and being devoted hu... more
A contingent of Redwood Empire America Guild of Organists met March 10 at the posh Jacuzzi Winery, located at the south end of Sonoma Valley, to inspect and play on the facility’s pipe organ. Built before 1900 and installed for a century in a Sonoma Church, the instrument was purchased by the Cline and Jacuzzzi families and relocated into the voluminous barrel room at Jacuzzi. It has a tracker action and sprightly painted pipes.
Pictured at the event are (l to r) REAGO Dean Paul Blanc... more
Sonoma County organist Douglas DeForeest, for many years one of the best known local organ virtuosos, died in Santa Rosa Nov. 13 of undisclosed causes.
Born in 1933 in New Jersey, DeForeest graduated from the Kansas City Conservatory of Music and studied with Richard Purvis. He was for many years the staff organist in San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral, and called Mendelssohn and Andrew Lloyd Weber his favorite organ composers.
He is survived by his business and personal partner ... more
Pearl Harbor Day seems an inappropriate time for a celebration, but the gala produced for Santa Rosan Robert Hayden’s 100th birthday was indeed an uplifting event.
Held in the auditorium at Mr. Hayden’s Spring Lake Village residence, 60 people gathered to honor the founder of the Music at Oakmont Series, the SLV Musical Series, and a dedicated four-hand piano music performer and cultural raconteur. Music was provided by the Trio Navarro, with violinist Arron Westman, cellist Jill Brind... more
North Coast musician and impresario Sonia Tubridy died Nov. 26 in her Guerneville home from cancer. It was the second recent local loss of a musician of manifold talents, following in May the death of Santa Rosa pianist and teacher Norma Brown.
Manifold talents characterized Sonia, as she was a choral director, pianist, soprano, klezmer artist, violinist, and played the cello and accordion. She was fluent in German, Hebrew, English and French, and was deeply involved in Israeli cultur... more
Sonoma County has lost the doyen of classical music May 13 with the death of Norma Brown. A comprehensive obituary appeared in the May 15 Press Democrat, splendidly written by Diane Peterson.
For decades a titular figure in North Coast chamber and symphonic music, Norma was the founder of the Santa Rosa Junior College Chamber Music Series, and taught in the College’s Music Department. Her connection with the College and the Concerts Grand piano recital series was part of this writer’s... more
During the Pandemic the Mendocino Music Festival has hosted several virtual programs, with singers and instrumentalists, several with local artists. Festival co-director Susan Waterfall’s pre-recorded program Feb. 26 regarding Debussy’s Preludes was expected to continue the series of live performances with an educational bent.
So it was surprising to find both that the program was concerned with Book II of the Preludes 1 to 6 (I had prepared Book I) and that Ms. Waterfall would not pla... more
North Coast Symphonic Music during the Pandemic is alive, but mostly on idle. The Santa Rosa Symphony is featuring three video programs (Oct. 11, Nov. 15 and Dec. 13) from Weill Hall, and presented a charming gala program Sept. 11 spotlighting the contributions by Norma and Corrick Brown to the SRS and the North Coast musical community. The 69-minute video was reviewed at this website, as well as the Oct. 11 concerts conducted by Francesco Lecce-Chong. All three concerts are taped in advance... more
A full house at Santa Rosa's Church of the Incarnation Jan. 20 heard unpublished vocal, organ and instrumental music by David N. Johnson, performed by local musicians. The Redwood Empire Chapter of the American Guild of Organists produced the event.
Participants in the concert included (left to right) Stephen Shaver, tenor; Julia Shaver, soprano; Jim Gibboney, baritone; Dave Hatt, organ and piano; Robert Young, trumpet, Jim McCammon, clarinet; and Teal Johnson, daughter of the composer... more
During the Sonoma County Philharmonic’s June 17-24 Costa Rica tour, three concerts were played, with the titular event being the splendid June 19 concert in San José’s Teatro Nationál. This seminal concert was the featured review on the Internet at Classical Sonoma.
However, the two concerts in provincial towns were in many ways more packed with non-musical excitement. On the day of the concert in the Paraiso Cathedral the entire group stopped at the Cachi Music School for an imp... more
Nearly a decade ago the Sonoma County Philharmonic took a concert and cultural tour of China, led by its founder and then conductor Gabe Sakakeeny. Many of the participants described the eight days as logistically challenging and arduous, but also artistically successful.
The So Co Phil tours again June 16 -25, this time to Costa Rica with three concerts, local musical education and exploration of the country’s rich environmental and cultural sites. Ninety-seven musicians, volunteers ... more
Long-time Sonoma and Mendocino County music aficionado Jack Power died May 11, at age 73. Details on the cause of death and where he died were not available as of July 1.
Jack was known to friends as the best pianist among surgeons, or the best surgeon among pianists. He never lost an opportunity at the end of house concerts or at medical industry conventions to play the available instrument, and specialized in Latin American music and Argentinian “milongas.”
Northern California’s grand signor of music criticism, Robert Commanday, died Sept. 3 in his Oakland home. He was 93.
Best remembered for 30 years as the San Francisco Chronicle’s critic, Mr. Commanday with visionary success founded in 1993 an online music service, San Francisco Classical Voice, which survives him. SFCV was the model in 2004 for the Internet’s North Bay Classical Music which developed into the current Classical Sonoma. Known widely for his choral conduc... more
In a flurry of surprise announcements, Zarin Mehta has been named Executive Director of the Green Music Center complex at Sonoma State University.
Mehta, 75, was for 12 years the Executive Director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, and in Sonoma Country media and the New York Times said “it’s the opportunity to create a public, to create culture. I will be there as long as it takes to make this thing a huge success, because the people merit it.
Long time Sonoma County musician Carolyn Wiester died Feb. 3 in Rohnert Park after a year-long struggle with cancer.
Ms. Wiester was closely associated with activities of the Redwood Chapter of the American Guild of Organists and was a past Dean of the Organization. She was also a pianist noted for her Bach interpretations and taught extensively in her Santa Rosa studio before moving in 2010 to Rohnert Park. Ms. Wiester was a recognized scholar of church music.
Five performances of Sonoma State University’s two-opera production, Haydn’s “Deserted Island” and Vaughn Williams’ “Riders to the Sea,” are scheduled for mid February in the University’s Person Theater.
Dates are Feb. 13 at 1 p.m. (performance with piano replacing the orchestra) and at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 14, 15, 16 and 17.
Additional information of soloists and a review of the opening night’s performance are at Classical Sonoma.
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The virtuoso French organist Sophie-Véronique Cauchefer-Choplin gave a master class Oct. 20 in Santa Rosa’s Resurrection Parish, associated with her recital in the same venue the following afternoon.
Peter Duranceau, prepared by local organist David Parsons, worked with Ms. Cauchefer-Choplin on Vierne’s Arabesque (Pièces en style libre), Clérambault’s Duo (Second Suite) and Noëls by J. F. Dandrieu.
In the photo above the artist (left) is shown with Peter Duranceau, Julie Duranc... more
With all the news revolving around the opening of the Green Music Center, another exciting new building for music has seemingly slipped under the cultural radar. The Sebastopol Center for the Arts is moving to a larger facility, the County Veteran’s Building on High Street in Sebastopol. A festive ribbon cutting is set for Dec. 7.
Opening doors in 1988 and subsequently in several Sebastopol locations including the present remodeled warehouse on Depot Street, the Center's move to the... more
After 20 seasons of producing classical chamber music programs, the Russian River Chamber Music Society has suspended concerts for the coming 2012-2013 season.
Founder and Artistic Director Gary McLaughlin announced that the Board of Directors, headed by President Richard Kagel, is considering several performance and funding models in anticipation of again producing small-group chamber music late 2013.
Russian River Chamber Music produced four to six events each season in sever... more
Marin’s Music Chest’s 2012 winners were announced April 19 and each will perform May 6 at 12:30 p..m. in San Domenico’s School Auditorium. The School is at 1500 Butterfield Rd., San Anselmo, CA 94960. Pictured above are the winners: Front Row (l to r) Stephanie Oh, Chloe Fung, Hallie Jo Gist, Katarina Lee, Jeremy Goldwasser and Max Smiley. In the Back Row (l to r) are Laura Arthur, Colin Wells, Kuni Migimatsu, Kenji Bellavigna and Caitlin Gowdy. Not in the photo were R. J. Pearce and Hayaka... more
Winners for the 2012 Etude Competition have been announced after April 1 auditions in Santa Rosa Junior College’s Forsyth Hall.
Continuing a long tradition and originally sponsored by the Santa Rosa Etude Club, the Competition is now independent and managed by Director Peggy Nance. The Santa Rosa Optimist Club is the current and helpful sponsor. The Competition included young musicians in four counties in four divisions, and a formal recital for the winners is set for Saturday, Apri... more
This article is the first in a series concerning the coming SRS season’s seven sets of concerts and an opening gala.
A new concert hall and an old orchestra are not strange bedfellows, as witness the Santa Rosa Symphony, which will play its first formal Weill Hall concert at Sonoma State University’s Green Music Center on Sept. 30. Known as the preeminent regional orchestra in the west, the SRS is an excellent fit for the palatial Weill and its vaunted, but yet to be fully teste... more
Recently the Santa Rosa Symphony announced its inaugural Green Music Center calendar with a daunting schedule of seven sets of concerts, each program having a snazzy title and seemingly designed to showcase the acoustics of the 1,400-seat Weill Hall. The 2012-13 season, the Orchestra’s 84th, presents a number of unique challenges for the Symphony and its conductor since 2006, Bruno Ferrandis. A complete season schedule can be found on the Symphony’s website (www.santarosasymphony.com) or by call... more
Sonoma County’s preeminent organization of teachers of singing, the Redwood Empire Chapter of NATS (National Association of Teachers of Singing) held their annual recital Oct. 29 at Santa Rosa’s First United Methodist Church. The fund-raising event supports the spring scholarship auditions for local singers.
In a program titled High Tea and High C’s, 14 teachers held the stage vocally both during and after an exceptionally varied group of novel teas and exotic sandwiches were ... more
Announcing its 59th year, the Marin Symphony has set five pairs of concerts for the 2011-2012 season spotlighting an eclectic array of works, beginning with an all-Tchaikovsky event October 2 and 4.
Conducted by Alasdair Neale in his tenth year in Marin, Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio Italien will be followed with the B Flat Piano Concerto with soloist Orion Weiss. Two overtures complete the popular program, the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy and the 1812. The Tchaikovsky First is the most popular... more
Ukiah’s innovative Symphony announced its 2011-2012 season May 27, a season of rich variety and featuring new groups of mostly local soloists in Mendocino College’s Center Theater.
Under the baton of veteran conductor Les Pfutzenreuter, four classical music concerts have individual themes, leading off with the Best of the Baroque Sept. 17 and 18. Featured Symphony performers include violinists Margie Rice and Holly Fagan in Bach’s Double Concerto and Jeff Ives soloing in Telemann’s Vi... more
Celebrating its new 79th season, the Napa Valley Symphony will present seven single concerts, all on Sundays, in Yountville’s Lincoln Theater Napa Valley with a series of guest conductors.
Made in Napa is the season’s theme and features three compositions by composers of the greater Napa community. This is a rarity for North Bay orchestras, and one work is by NVS Executive Director Richard Aldag. The CEO of an orchestra writing a big work for an orchestra!
Santa Rosa pianist Gail Embree recorded May 5 Schumann's multi-part Carnaval, Op. 9, and the CD has just been released.
One of Schumann's most popular and demanding works, Carnaval has been a favorite of virutosi since its composition in 1835, and has been played in the North Bay Concerts Grand series in the past four years by Dmitri Rachmanov, Jon Nakamatsu and Nareh Arghamanyan.
Ms. Embree moved to Santa Rosa in 2009 from Santa Barbara where she had an active teaching and p... more
Cellist Chris Jennings, 44-year veteran of the Marin Symphony, retired from the orchestra at the season-concluding concerts May 1 and 3 at the Marin Center in San Rafael.
Joining in 1967 after auditioning, Ms. Jennings and the Symphony were then playing to audience members seated in bleachers in a local high school. Current Musical Director Alasdair Neale officiated at the ceremonies honoring the sterling musical services of Ms. Jennings.
... more
The Marin Music Chest, a 78-year old organization which presents annual scholarships to Marin County students studying classical music, has announced its 2011 scholarship award winners and two May concerts featuring solo performances by each student musician. Scholarships of $800 each were awarded to junior musicians ages 10 to 13. Scholarships of $1,200 each were awarded to senior musicians ages 14 to 19.
The 2011 prize winners are Kenji Bellavigna (clarinet), Stephanie Oh (violi... more
The North Bay’s Etude Competition auditions produced 13 winners April 10 in a spirited event at SRJC’s Newman Auditorium. Musicians ages 11 through 18 participated.
Sponsored by generous contributions by the Optimist Club and directed by pianist Peggy Nance, the Etude Competition is the premier event of its type in the North Bay, and young musicians from four counties competed. The thirteen winners will perform April 17 at 3 p.m., again in the intimate Newman Auditorium, and there is... more
The Santa Rosa Symphony has announced a Summer Music Academy at the Sonoma Country Day School July 11 through July 29.
Comprising workshops for individual instruments and ensembles for string, woodwinds, brass and percussion, the Academy’s early bird discount deadline is April 15. The deadline for financial aid is June 1, and tuition ranges from $285 to $390. The final performances will be Saturday, July 30.
The Santa Rosa Symphony has complete details at 546-8742
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After years of moribund fund raising and uncertainty about the future, the Green Music Center at Rohnert Park’s Sonoma State University appears to be closer to finally opening.
New York banker, financier and philanthropist Sanford Weill, a recent purchaser of a lavish Sonoma County estate, donated $12,000,000 March 22 to the Center which had been plagued by massive cost overruns and questionable management since planning began in 1998 and construction bids let in 2003. Mr. Weill has ... more
Long-time Sonoma County musical figure harry Fry died March 8 at his Oakmont home. He was 84 and suffered from cancer.
Mr. Fry was born in Sheffield. England, and graduated in physics from Sheffield University. In World War II he was involved in war-related industrial research and in the late 1960s moved to Utah and Lubbock, Texas, becoming active in both places in radio broadcasting and in singing groups. He was a bassoon player but his first love was the choral literature, and was ... more
Marin’s Music Chest has launched its annual scholarship audition program to provide financial assistance to support Marin County students studying classical music.
Students in woodwinds, brass, string instruments, piano, percussion and voice are encouraged to apply. Applicants must be Marin County residents for a minimum of two years, and have at least two years of study prior to the audition.
Scholarships of $800 are available for each division in the Juniors, and the applica... more
First information from the American Philharmonic’s trip to China, sent by trumpet player Philip Beard:
From December 28 – how is the trip? “The trip is exhausting but fun. Three concerts under our belts so far, at Dalian, Taizhou and today in this incredible performance hall called the ‘Oriental Cultural Center’ in Shanghai. Not huge crowds but respectable and very appreciative.
We are all hammered. Jet lag plus 5 a.m. wake up calls to make 7:30 a.m. flights is difficult.... more
North Coast music lovers mourn the loss of Nina Elizabeth Shuman, who died peacefully in her home Dec. 12 after a 30-month battle with cancer.
Born April 27, 1954, in New York City, Ms. Shuman was surrounded by music and art from childhood summers in Santa Barbara, where her father, Davis Shuman, a trombonist and faculty member of The Juilliard School, taught at the Music Academy of the West. Her mother, Shirley, was an artist, and her brother, Mark, is a cellist with the New York City ... more
Corricks, Santa Rosa’s unique downtown store, is celebrating its 95th anniversary with weekend musicales and exceptional art in November and the first week of December.
Hosted by store President Kevin Brown, the events will run from Nov. 13 to December 5, Saturdays and Sundays, noon to 2 p.m. In addition to the piano playing on the west mezzanine, other instruments and singers will be featured. There is no cost and the ambiance of Christmas gifts in the wonderfully-decorated store ... more
One of Sonoma County’s most stalwart music fans, H. G. (Jim) Burns, died in Santa Rosa July 6 from cancer after a year-long.
Born June 2, 1918, in Los Angeles, Jim taught psychology at Los Angeles City College for 30 years prior to moving to Santa Rosa in 1995. Blinded by glaucoma at five, Jim had a life-long devotion to the piano and played his Steinway M in his west Santa Rosa mobile home through retirement with any partner available in four-hand music, specializing in Schubert, jazz... more
Olga Samaroff is a forgotten name in the pantheon of pianists, but in the first two decades of the twentieth century, she was among a small and select group of great women concert artists, including Sophie Menter, Teresa Carreño, Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler, Adele Aus de Ohe and Julie Rivé-King.
Born in San Antonio with the name Lucy Hickenlooper, Samaroff played the standard repertoire to perfection and only began to step out of the virtuoso spotlight when she married the flamboyant con... more
To my memory Alicia de Larrocha played only once in Sonoma County, a cold Sunday afternoon in 1969 in the Santa Rosa High School auditorium. The local piano wasn’t adequate and a concert instrument was sent from San Francisco. The Sonoma State faculty pianist of the time, Steve Cosgove, was wild with anticipation of her coming to this (then) small town. Her Rachmaninoff Preludes, comprising most of the second half of the standing-room only recital, still resounds in memory. The octaves of th... more
Solo piano recitals in the Santa Rosa area have had an inauspicious history. In fact, there really wasn’t much of a solo piano season in the past. The SRJC Chamber Concerts series would usually feature only one high-caliber pianist each year in its special Randolph Newman concert, including such luminaries as Earl Wild, Jean Philippe Collard, and Marc-Andre Hamelin. Meanwhile, the Santa Rosa Symphony and Corrick and Norma Brown brought pianists with international reputations to the Santa Rosa Hi... more
An orchestra's announcement of the coming season's programs is a propitious time for reflection. Are there repertoire trends with a new conductor? Why has a particular soloist been selected? Will the Shostakovich Fourth ever be programmed? Can more choral works be heard?
The Santa Rosa Symphony's 2008-2009 season brochure provides some welcome answers.
A new season can't open without a gala, and this one comes on Sunday, Sept. 21, at the Jackson Theater, preceded by a Vintner... more
Steve Osborn certainly heard playing in Shaham's Bach where the tempos were extra fast. Yes, no grass grew under the virtuoso's bow. Perhaps on this night in Weill the violinist's mood demanded speed in phrases and didn't pay attention to the long line? He has just recorded the six pieces, so the CD will provide the proof about what Shaham thinks is his Bach statement. Fritz Ernst
Even the 1 1/2 hour drive in mad holiday traffic and avoiding a hair raising traffic accident didn't prevent us from experiencing the charm and spirit of Beth Zucchino's holiday organ recital. The creative program was combined with the perfect ambiance for the Bach and Boely (likely a California premiere) and also showed the organ at its best. Beth chose registrations that were perfect for the early music and the Boely especially was fluidly played. But most important, Beth projected her love of the music. Jean Alexis Smith
Steve Osborn caught perfectly the tenor of the SRS concert, and how Ms. Lisitsa connects with an audience. At the Monday night event she played with great flair, and in the Totentanz, abandon. In the "Minute Waltz" encore she added two notes at the end, for the left hand, a charming touch. The E Flat Concerto was good without being great, and the Totentanz resounding. Her accurate contrary motion skips were a delight to watch. Benno Cortot, Santa Rosa
Steve - your article looks good on the screen.
Yes, let's doan update in the near future on a handful of additional halls. It;'s a service to readers that the halls, as well as the programs, are examined and discussed. TM