The Red Poppy Art House was described to us as SF's answer to NY's (Le) Poisson Rouge, the West Village venue which hosts alt classical music events, and which is so hip it will single handedly rescue classical music from its woes with younger audiences. Rouge as it is, the Poppy won't save classical music: it's too small for that. But it offers indeed a place to listen to music differently, with no fuss and a welcome intimacy. It's the only place "where the front row fills up last," announced a proud volunteer, mostly because you'd get in the way of the musicians on the carpet-delimited stage.

We had a second row seat for a performance of Duo Revirado, a violin-guitar team of alumni of the SF Conservatory. And indeed, we could hear the breathing of the performers, read the handwritten scribbles to add intonations and fingerings on the scores, and had to squeeze by them during the intermission as the backstage area doubles as the hallway to the restroom (singular).