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What happens when you sit two internationally acclaimed piano soloists down at one piano? In the case of ZOFO, the San Francisco based piano-four-hands ensemble, you get something energetically and electrifyingly out of this world. And when you throw five unique world premiere works into the mix, the resulting combination is even more impressive.

The San Francisco Symphony recently returned from an exhausting six-city, ten-concert tour of Asia and now enter the month of December with a selection of seasonal, festive performances.

As classical music ensembles strive to reach out to a broader audience, the search for different performing venues outside the traditional concert hall and church settings is a common goal among many. However, the 43 year-old concert series at Old First Concerts continues to present its successfully diverse array of concerts under the same roof: the Old First Presbyterian Church in San Francisco.

The seventh of the Concert Programs at the annual Music@Menlo summer chamber music festival was entitled “Impassioned.

The Napa Valley is famous for its picturesque countryside, stunning weather and fine wine. With the ambitious Festival del Sole concluding their seventh season on Sunday night with a concert featuring two titans of classical music - Joshua Bell and Hélène Grimaud – they proved that “wine country” has even more to offer the Northern California region than that which makes them one of the premier de

With the official season at a close, the San Francisco Symphony’s “Summer and the Symphony” is well underway with a collection of concerts designed to attract and welcome all audiences. Friday night’s offering was a collaboration with circus troupe Cirque Musica, partnering classical and popular repertoire with a variety of dazzling cirque acts.

The San Francisco Bay Area made another strong case for itself as a focal point for contemporary music on Saturday night. The setting was Trinity Chapel in Berkeley which hosts the Trinity Chamber Concerts series. This particular concert, entitled On and Off the Keys, simultaneously marked the culmination of their 10th annual season and the beginning of the Festival of Contemporary Music.

This past weekend offered a taste of the great British summer with temperatures soaring into the high 20s. And yet, despite the lure of an afternoon spent reclining on the sunny beaches of the South Coast, large crowds flocked to the Lighthouse in Poole to watch the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra perform in their annual Benevolent Fund Concert, led by Portuguese conductor Rui Pinheiro.

As I sat in Herbst Theater last night awaiting the appearance of clarinetist Richard Stoltzman and guitarist Eliot Fisk, my mind wandered to the analogy of food and wine. With an abundance of delectable cuisine and fine wine across the world, the combination of such pairings are endless.

Master violinist and conductor Itzhak Perlman has done it all. He has appeared with every major orchestra throughout the world, is the recipient of four Emmy awards, has collaborated with composer John Williams as violin soloist in Steven Spielberg’s Schinder’s List and featured at the inauguration of President Barack Obama along with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and clarinetist Anthony McGill.

Five years on from her historic appointment as the first woman to head a major American orchestra, Marin Alsop took to the stage of Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley Friday night with a swagger, leading the impressive Baltimore Symphony, the orchestra with whom she has made her mark as one of the world’s leading conductors.