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SF Symphony Music Director Michael Tilson-Thomas Announces Retirement

Michael Tilson-Thomas, the music director for the SF Symphony, has just announced today that he will step down from his post after the 2019-20 season. That season will be the 25th

Arts & Entertainment

Anthony Reed Hosts Operatronica, And SFist Reviews 'La Traviata' and 'Echoes'

Scroll below for two classical music reviews from the past weekend: Traviata at SF Opera and Echoes with the Kronos Quartet. This season, Operatronica will blend exactly what its ungainly portmanteau says it

Arts & Entertainment

SF Symphony Celebrates Oktoberfest With Resident Conductor Christian Reif

SF Symphony Resident Conductor Christian Reif. Photo by Terrence McCarthy/SF Symphony. To coincide with the last day of Oktoberfest in Munich, the SF Symphony hosts on Tuesday its own version of the

Arts & Entertainment

SFist Reviews: Daniel Hope Partners With The New Century Chamber Orchestra

The New Century Chamber Orchestra opened its season with a new concertmaster, violinist Daniel Hope. The match would rank a 97% on OkCupid, if the orchestra's profile had checked: handsome, passionate,

Arts & Entertainment

SFist Reviews: Homicidal Princesses Elektra And Turandot At SF Opera

Elektra: I once caught Ben Stiller's A Night at the Museum and thought: what a tragedy. Obviously, I wasn't the only one: The production crew at SF Opera decided

Arts & Entertainment

Exclusive: Mezzo-Soprano Isabel Leonard Discusses Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein would have turned 100 next year. He and SF Symphony musical director Michael Tilson-Thomas were buddies. Lenny considered MTT his musical son. Not coincidentally, the Symphony will present a slew

Arts & Entertainment

SF Symphony Opening Night Gala Features Yo-Yo Ma, And A Rousing 'Bolero'

The SF Symphony Gala kicked off the orchestra's season on Thursday night, later in September than usual as MTT was on tour with the Vienna Symphony orchestra. Often enough, classical music

Arts & Entertainment

A Preview Of The 2017-18 Classical Music Season In The Bay Area

The new classical music season kicks off this weekend with Turandot, which was the center of the opening night gala Friday at SF Opera, and continues tonight (Saturday) with Elektra. On Sunday, the

Arts & Entertainment

Oakland's West Edge Opera Creates a Monster In 'Frankenstein'

Frankenstein, by Libby Larsen is an opera in fifteen scenes based on the well known Mary Shelley story: Victor Frankenstein in his lab, possessed with the hubristic desire to create life, animates a

Arts & Entertainment

SF Opera's Merola Program Produces Endless Cinderella Stories

Just like in the Cinderella story, through the Merola Opera Program, some young and deserving singers are plucked from obscurity by a kind fairy, they get 10 weeks to come to San Francisco

Arts & Entertainment

SF Symphony Closes Out Season With Berlioz's 'Romeo and Juliet'

Over last weekend, the SF Symphony ended its 2016-17 season with some fireworks: a dazzling performance of Berlioz's Romeo and Juliet. Like his Requiem, Romeo and Juliet is an odd

Arts & Entertainment

Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg Departs New Century Chamber Orchestra

After nine years as artistic director, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg is leaving the SF-based New Century Chamber Orchestra. She has earned, and the ensemble has organized, a farewell festival with three concerts: one

Arts & Entertainment

SF Symphony Performs Monumental Berlioz Requiem

Until a run this week-end, the SF Symphony had not performed Berlioz' Requiem in almost thirty years. Part of the reason is logistics: it requires an expanded orchestra and three choirs,

Arts & Entertainment

SF Symphony Celebrates The 70th Birthday Of Berkeley-Based Composer John Adams

I was listening to a radio program on what makes something popular, in between two events hosted by the SF Symphony to honor Berkeley composer John Adams' birthday. He turned 70 last

Arts & Entertainment

Composer Jonathan Dove Discusses 'Flight,' His 1998 Opera About A Refugee Trapped In An Airport

As a respite to the disheartening stories about refugees being stranded at airport, we offer an opera about a refugee stranded at an airport. And this one is a comedy, just what the

Arts & Entertainment

SFist Reviews: Mason Bates's Cello Concerto with Berkeley Symphony

Mason Bates made his mark as a composer by breathing a fresh energy with the addition of electronic beats in his orchestral works. A composer for the symphony by day, he moonlights as

Arts & Entertainment

SFist Reviews: SF Symphony's Semi-Staged 'das klagende Lied'

Lotfi Mansouri, when he ran SF Opera, had persistently tried to convince MTT to conduct an opera there. It never happened. To hear MTT leading vocal works in SF, we had to settle

Arts & Entertainment

SFist Interviews Sarah Bonomo, Co-Founder Of One Found Sound

One Found Sound, a democratically run orchestra that performs in unusual venues, puts together three concerts a year. On February 3rd, at 8pm, at Heron Arts, they conclude their short season with a

Arts & Entertainment

'Rhythm Is Universal': Legendary Tabla Performer Zakir Hussain Talks Bay Area Show With Mickey Hart

Zakir Hussain is the picture boy for the tabla. Literally, he's one of the images on the Wikipedia page for this Indian percussion instrument. As music has gone global, so has

Arts & Entertainment

SFist Reviews Andrea Chenier, Dream of the Red Chamber and more

The SF Opera seasons continues now with Don Pasquale and opening this week-end, The Makropulos Case in the same excellent production as a couple years ago. Previously, the company presented the Chinese-

Arts & Entertainment

SFist Reviews: <i>Jenůfa</i> and <i>Don Carlo</i> at SF Opera

The SF Opera Summer Season concludes with three productions: a steamy Carmen by provocactive director Calixto Bieito, which we won't review but you can check for yourself for free tonight (Saturday)

Arts & Entertainment

Cal Perfomances' 'La Passion De Simone,' Reviewed

La Passion de Simone, presented by Cal Performance as part of the Ojai North Festival last past weekend, chronicles the life of Simone Weil. A French Jewish philosopher, Weil converted to Catholicism and,

Arts & Entertainment

SFist Interviews Tenor Brian Thorsett

The presenting organization Curious Flights took off in 2013 to feature the rarely heard corners of the modern music repertory. Over the weekend, at the San Francisco Conservatory, they introduced the West Coast

Arts & Entertainment

SFist Interviews Classical Musicians Susan Graham, Celine Ricci And Ruth Felt

We chat with three women in classical music with notable events this weekend. First Susan Graham, who will sing Cleopatra in a Berlioz cantata with the SF Symphony and MTT. Then Celine Ricci,

Arts & Entertainment

Talking Herrmann, Hitchcock, And Vertigo: An Interview With Kim Novak

Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo may be the greatest movie of all time. It wouldn't be in that conversation without great acting performances by Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak, and a