A few performances we caught, before the Thanksgiving holidays distracted us from writing them up: Bryn Terfel at Cal Performances, Aida at SF Opera and Yefim Bronfman with the SF Symphony more ›

The SF Symphony journey from Schubert to Berg continued on Wednesday with an intimate exploration of some lieder and chamber music, as well as the Lulu suite. The directions for the voyage (which continues tonight, tomorrow and next week) go like, start from Schubert, take a turn at Brahms, another at Wagner, when you reach Bruckner, go straight until Mahler, make a sharp left there, when you see Schoenberg, you'll have reached Berg. Not exactly a straight line, and not an obvious connection. more ›

Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 is a showpiece for a virtuoso of the keyboard, one with enough guts to tackle its challenges, and enough confidence to laugh at its difficult twists. Yefim Bronfman displayed more than guts and confidence, he showed some serious chutzpah. He impressed us last year in Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1, and renewed our awe Thursday night at Davies Symphony Hall with as solid a performance. He even got an extra brownie point for tongue-in-cheek creativity. more ›

Thursday, the SF Symphony opens a two week Prokofiev festival. They even have a fancy title: Russian firebrand, Russian virtuoso: the music of Prokofiev. We think they're trying to say that Prokofiev was Russian. He wrote five Russian piano Russian concertos which will all be performed by four Russian soloists: Yefim Bronfman, Vladimir Feltsman, Ilya Yakushev (he'll do two), and Mikhail Rudy. That's a pretty rare opportunity to hear all these concertos performed in such a short span by such distinguished performers. more ›