This Weekend in Classical Music

We're bummed that Thomas Adès' performance tomorrow at Herbst Theater will involve him solely as a pianist, and not as a composer: his compositions are all the rage on the modern music scene, and we do have a fondness for anyone who could write an opera about a sex addict. Still, his partneship with noted violinist Anthony Marwood is not chopped liver. They won't play Ades's own contemporary stuff (Marwood premiered Ades' violin concerto), but they won't revisit for the n-th time the Kreutzer sonata either: it's a fun, all Stravinsky program of violin and piano duets.

Talking about violinists, Sarn Oliver plays one for the SF Symphony. We chatted with him a couple years back, when the musician union was re-negotiating their contract and threatened to cancel a high exposure trip to China if management did not treat them like the sixth of the Big Five orchestras. Sarn was a spokeperson of sort for the cause, if we recall well. Turns out he's also a composer, and his Fanfare for Orchestra will make its debut with the Symphony Parnassus Sunday at 3pm, again at Herbst theater. The Parnassus Symphony is led by Stephen Paulson, who chairs the bassoon section with the SF Symphony and teaches at the SF Conservatory. They'll also play a piano concerto from Amy Beach, an American composer at the turn of the 20th century, and the 5th symphony of Sibelius.

Picture: Anthony Marwood