Music@Menlo opens tonight. It's the local equivalent of all these famous fancy summer festivals, Marlboro, or Tanglewood, without the hassle of leaving the bay. So tonight, you can listen to darn good chamber music, with a world class cast of musicians, or you can listen to Bug's Bunny's music. M@M was created in 2003 by a married couple, pianist Wu Han and cellist David Finckel. Finckel is the steadying hand in the Emerson String Quartet (interviewed by us here), maybe the most celebrated classical music chamber ensemble. He has studied with Rostropovich, has won all the acclaim any artist could hope for. Eight grammies! more ›

We caught Phil Setzer, the violinist for the Emerson String Quartet, being driven down between performances in Santa Barbara and Orange County. We hope it was in a stretch limo, as these guys have won eight Grammy awards and critical acclaim everywhere they go. They are the only chamber music group to ever win a best classical album grammy, and they even got two. So they better travel like the rock stars they are. They'll be up here on Sunday for a performance at Herbst Theater presented by SF Performances. They'll play the integral of Brahms string quartets, or, as we like to say, tunes from their latest CD. more ›

Total number of people pictured in this week's Swells: 83. more ›