Reviews

I’m in the SF Bay Area, where we have many venues and world class performers who want to perform. It’s often one of their very few west coast engagements. 

2022 has an explosion of great concerts after the year off. Read my reviews here.


Review: Something Old, Something New

First symphony concerts of the 2022 season. The orchestra is in very fine form with new music director Esa-Pekka Salonen. The new programming employs a terrific balance of war horses, obscure classics and emerging composers.

Review: MTT’s Return

First symphony concerts of the 2022 season. The orchestra is in very fine form with new music director Esa-Pekka Salonen. The new programming employs a terrific balance of war horses, obscure classics and emerging composers.

Review: A Favorite Symphony

First symphony concerts of the 2022 season. The orchestra is in very fine form with new music director Esa-Pekka Salonen. The new programming employs a terrific balance of war horses, obscure classics and emerging composers.

Review: Salonen Ushers in a New Era of Mahler Interpretation

San Francisco has become a Mahler orchestra of global note. Often, and successfully, a conductor picks a sensible tempo and the music proceeds more or less down the white water. Salonen’s river is a little calmer at points and might drift towards a tide pool, and that’s ok. There’s an exaggeratedness in Mahler that often gets smoothed over or rushed past.

Review: John Adams Premiere of Antony and Cleopatra – Commissioned for the Centenary, San Francisco Opera

Unconvinced as ever that Adams lives up to his reputation as the world’s most decorated, performed and recorded living composer.

Review: First Time Back at the Symphony – 32nd Season Begins

First symphony concerts of the 2022 season. The orchestra is in very fine form with new music director Esa-Pekka Salonen. The new programming employs a terrific balance of war horses, obscure classics and emerging composers.