Salle: Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco

Evgeny Kissin delights an overwhelmingly enthusiastic San Francisco audience with Chopin and Shostakovich, but his Bach is less convincing. 

Sayaka Shoji and Salonen remain in close dialogue in a riveting performance of Shostakovich's First Violin Concerto. 

On a tour of the United States, Joshua Bell and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields perform Mendelssohn, Schumann and Vince Mendoza in Davies Symphony Hall. 

Dexterity, beauty, technical prowess and mastery, most expectations were met: most expectations were met in this duo recital in Davies Symphony Hall. 

As the news breaks that Esa-Pekka Salonen will be leaving at the end of his San Francisco Symphony tenure, he conducts the music of his fellow Finn, Jean Sibelius. 

After 50 years of performances with the San Francisco Symphony, including a quarter-century tenure as Music Director, Michael Tilson Thomas chooses Mahler’s Fifth Symphony for his final subscription concert. 

An exquisite rendition of Mendelssohn's Lobgesang makes one wonder why the work is not part of the regular repertoire.

In a program including both modernist and neoclassical works, Michael Tilson Thomas and the SFO emphasized the common traits characterizing Stravinsky's entire ouevre.