The San Francisco Contemporary Chamber Music Players headlined the third night of the Sweet Thunder Festival with a program of electroacoustic warhorses and world premières.
On the second night of the Sweet Thunder Electroacoustic Music Festival, Brooklyn based International Contemporary Ensemble presented a parade of short works by some of the genre’s stalwarts as well as a few newcomers.
The magical potential of electroacoustic music was on display Thursday evening in the cavernous, dilapidated pier that is Fort Mason’s Herbst Pavilion in San Francisco.
The Kronos Quartet celebrated its 40th birthday on Friday. In Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall, the ensemble explored its history with a performance of Black Angels but also offerred a few surprises.
“Timber”, the word, conjures images of trees falling in the wilderness as lumberjacks yell out, of fragrant wood crackling in a fireplace, and of stacks of lumber waiting to be crafted into furniture by carpenters’ rough hands. Michael Gordon’s 2010 work Timber is just as evocative.
A battle has been raging among the audiences of San Francisco concerts, and the conflict came to a head Sunday night at the Nourse Theatre. There were jeers and hisses and contempt lobbed into the air.
But it was not the Juilliard String Quartet they were angry with. It was each other.
The Juilliard was busy breathing life into one of Beethoven’s lesser works, his String Quartet No. 2.
The greatest bass drum part ever written, the thundering Wrath of God, shook War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco Friday night in a thrilling performance of Verdi’s Requiem. Embracing the vivid extremes of Verdi’s great work, conductor Nicola Luisotti marshaled the wonderfully unruly forces of the largest ensemble ever assembled on the venue’s stage.
When a conductor decides to lead a performance without a score, it really means two things. One is obvious: a deep and intimate familiarity with the music. Less obvious, though, is the implication of trust in the musicians of the ensemble. On Friday, young Spanish conductor Pablo Heras-Casado delivered a spectacular interpretation of Mendelssohn’s Symphony no.
Although opera, as a genre, is easily celebrated for its capacity to move and transport an audience, it is rare to be emotionally disturbed by one. Tobias Picker’s Dolores Claiborne, which received its world première by the San Francisco Opera this week, achieves such a feat. In doing so, it will certainly garner notoriety, both as well-deserved praise and well-deserved condemnation.
