Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews Michelle DeYoung The SF Symphony kicks off its Schubert and Berg journey with a mix-and-match of the Viennese composers. Tonight, and repeating through Saturday (the last show in Cupertino), we hear Berg's Seven Early songs,
Arts & Entertainment SF Interviews Piano Sensation Yuja Wang Yuja Wang will dazzle us this week at Davies Symphony Hall, playing the dastardly difficult Prokofiev piano concerto #2 with MTT. Here she plays the concerto's scherzo with the YouTube symphony orchestra. She
Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews Stephanie Blythe We're not too sure what to think of this lede: Some singers travel with their pets, a poodle or a dachshund, perhaps. Stephanie Blythe, one of the hottest properties in opera today, is
Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews Jennifer Higdon Jennifer Higdon's blue cathedral will make its first appearance tonight on the program of the SF Symphony (at Flint in Cupertino, tomorrow through Saturday at Davies Symphony hall, along with a Mozart piano
Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews Leila Josefowicz We heard of Leila Josefowicz for the first time after she won a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2008. "Out of blue, $500,000, no strings," declares the fellowship's page. But! Some strings were
Arts & Entertainment This Sunday in Contemporary Music: the Switchboard Festival More music from composers that are not dead: the Switchboard festival at the Dance Mission Theater puts together the best contemporary music the Bay Area has to offer. Between 2 p.m. and
Arts & Entertainment The Composer Is Dead You have to enjoy the irony of a composer whose most widely played piece is titled The Composer Is Dead. Indeed, it's so popular that it got turned into the cutest, funnest children's
Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews Anne-Sophie Mutter The Sofia Gubaidulina residency with the SF Symphony continues tonight and tomorrow with the US premiere of her Violin Concerto No. 2, , with the magnificent Anne-Sophie Mutter as the soloist, for whom the
Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews Sofia Gubaidulina We came to chat music with Sofia Gubaidulina, and ended up with a physics lesson. Sofia is the Phyllis Wattis Composer in Residence with the SF Symphony, which means she's around to see
Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews Philip Glass Ensemble's Lisa Bielawa Philip Glass's Music in Twelve Parts has never been performed live in SF, despite its iconic status as one of the milestones of contemporary music. We find it strange, considering the embracing welcome
Arts & Entertainment Stephen Hough at the SF Symphony On a program featuring a McArthur genius/blogger and the promise of ecstasy, it's the unassuming Finnish symphonic tone poem which proved to be the wonderful surprise of the evening. David Robertson, aka.
Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews Carolyn Kuan Considering the weather lately, you might want to do your Chinese New Year celebration indoors. Always attentive to your needs, the SF Symphony is hosting a concert this Sunday at 4pm inside the
Arts & Entertainment SF Opera Forecasts End of Global Economic Crisis by 2nd Half of 2011 In a gloomy economic projection, the SF Opera seemed skeptical about the impact of the economic recovery package being discussed right now in Congress. SF Opera announced yesterday that the New Great Depression
Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews Christian Tetzlaff We're lucky to welcome Christian Tetzlaff, the latest in a string of young-ish super-talented violinists to grace a SF stage. He'll be at Herbst theater tomorrow night, with SFist interviewee and ace pianist
Arts & Entertainment Leonard and the Wolf We interviewed Leonard Nimoy the other day: he will narrate Peter and the Wolf this weekend, a holiday tradition! And the pointy-eared one had a, well, lapse of his dignified Vulcan composure. But
Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews Alisa Weilerstein Alisa concluded the previous season of the SF Symphony on a high note. Says -him again!- the Chron: She boasts a wonderfully large and expressive string tone, and she shaped the piece's
Arts & Entertainment Lang Lang at the SF Symphony Lang Lang's appeal draws beyond the boundaries of classical music. Our Chinese friend wanted to come with us because, says she, Lang Lang is "the Yao Ming of the piano." You don't get
Arts & Entertainment Dan Zanes' Holiday House Party We're giddily loving this award-winning album featuring these noteworthy musicians: the Blind Boys of Alabama, Nick Cave, San Francisco's own Kronos quartet, and Natalie Merchant. You need some serious mojo to get all
Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews Hilary Hahn We got the chance to phone Hilary, and well, that Tchaikovsky concerto, what's up with it? Actually, I just recorded it, she said. It will be a while before it comes out, but
Arts & Entertainment SF Opera: La Bohème When the SF Opera 08-09 season was announced, we were all excited by the weirder stuff, the Bonesetter's Daughter, or die tote Stadt. "Who needs another La Bohème?" we shrugged at the time.
Arts & Entertainment Opening the ZipperZ The Oakland East Bay Symphony opened its season last Friday with the world premiere of ZipperZ, a soaPOPera. Led by Michael Morgan, the orchestra joyously celebrated its 20th season (which continues next month
Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews the Guarneri String Quartet Tomorrow night, under the auspices of SF Performances at Herbst Theater, the Guarneri Quartet will play its last concert in San Francisco; they're hanging up their instruments after forty-five years of service. If
Arts & Entertainment The Elixirs of Love If you ever needed a cheer-me-up, we heartily recommend a sip of Donizetti's Elixir of Love, the effervescent show at the SF Opera. Or, two sips of it, since there's a family version
Arts & Entertainment This Weekend in Classical Music 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
misc Halloween Tonight: The Phantom of the Opera Davies has the best organ, with 9,000 pipes, the largest one in a concert hall in North America, and gosh, that movie is spooky for real. His nose! There is no nose!
