Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews: Leon Fleisher Political agendas aside, Leon Fleisher will tickle the keys, performing the Emperor concerto with the SF Symphony, and give a Master Class you can attend at the SF Conservatory. A San Francisco native,
Arts & Entertainment Summer in the City Symphony Series The SF Symphony's Summer in the City is all about giving the audience easy aural pleasure. The program we attended included Dvořák's New World Symphony, a Beethoven piano concerto No. 5, and a
misc How Good Was Your AIM? The eduction program is blowing twenty candles this year, so a slew of kids who went through it (22,000 a year!) must be now SFist commenters. Teachers, feel free to give us
Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews Benjamin Shwartz The mix sounded intriguing, and when we showed up there, there was a line the length of a football field out at the door. Alas. But the place was packed with a young,
misc The Philistine Has An SFist Polyphony We had a little San Francisco Polyphony of our own on our way to the SF Symphony concert yesterday night to see Gyorgy Ligeti's shimmerily-dissonant orchestral piece of the same name -- the
Arts & Entertainment The SF Symphony Rings In The Year Of The Rat However -- those of you who fear Chinese opera, take heed! The and the guzheng will be played. The concert is on Sunday Feb. 10, 4 p.m., at Symphony Hall, with tickets
Arts & Entertainment Let Us Praise Ragnar Bohlin It's never too late to break the ice, and we have an excellent opportunity: usually Ragnar's work happens in the background, and is acknowledged after each chorus performance, when he springs up on
Arts & Entertainment Son of the Return of John Adams. We made much about Philip Glass turning 70, and not of a single peep when John Adams turned 60 this past February. Aw. We feel bad, since the contemporary composer lives in Berkeley,
Arts & Entertainment Ives Got Music, Who Can Ask for Anything More? In the program notes, we see that this violin concerto was written for and created by Ferdinand David, a violinist virtuoso friend of Mendelssohn. SF Symphony Concertmaster Alexander Barantschik happens to play on
Arts & Entertainment Labeque and Call We chatted with Marielle Labeque half asleep, as we could only schedule the interview for the morning in New York, where she was performing with her sister Katia, conducted by her husband Semyon
Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews Pierre-Laurent Aimard We had quite a few questions for Pierre-Laurent: he is one of the prominent piano virtuoso right now, has won a Grammy award (for his collaboration with Susan Graham), his repertoire covers everyone
Arts & Entertainment Kurt Masur There were two highlights to the evening: an impeccable Totentanz by Franz Liszt with Louis Lortie soloing at the piano. As a composer, Liszt was much more an innovator than we give him
Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews András Schiff Someone told us a story of a famous pianist who believed in bringing culture to the people, and went to a factory in Italy to give a lecture in front of a piano.
Arts & Entertainment SF Symphony Opening Gala The SF Symphony Gala last Wednesday night, is one of the poshest events of the year -- a must-attend for anyone who’s anyone who has the right to live, breathe, receive adequate
Arts & Entertainment SF Symphony Season Preview The SF Symphony returned from its trip to Europe and kicks off its 2007-08 season tonight, with a sold out opening night gala featuring MTT and Renée Fleming. We find it ironic that
Arts & Entertainment MahTlerT In our haste on Tuesday, we forgot to mention that you could hear more MahTlerT (MTT and Mahler have become so imbricated that we had to create a shortcut) here (links to sound
Arts & Entertainment Das Klagende Lied Das klagende Lied is a three movement cantata, in which two brothers set out to find a flower that we'll allow one of them to marry a princess. The kind brother finds it,
Arts & Entertainment Downtown Symphony What's better than picking up a Beard Papa cream puff across from the Metreon over your lunch break? Eating that Beard Papa cream puff while catching the free symphony concert at Yerba Buena
Arts & Entertainment Symphony Outdoors We were so relieved when we ran into SFist Jim yesterday at the SF Symphony Dolores Park concert, because we knew his pictures would be so much better than ours! (His gorgeous shot
Arts & Entertainment SFist Today Other events: --The workers united -- have a whole month to celebrate! July is Laborfest month, and you can celebrate today at a poetry reading about growing up working-class at City Lights (5
Arts & Entertainment SFist Interviews James Gaffigan, SF Symphony Associate Conductor The Sunday concert features pianist Jeremy Denk in a Mozart piano concerto. Jeremy keeps an on-line diary, a blog as they call it, where he deconstructs the music, shining light on how the
Arts & Entertainment Hitting More than the Right Notes A finely modulated musicality pervaded his interpretation whenever Prokofiev gave him the opportunity, but the concerto is mostly a showpiece to display a dazzling technique, and Bronfman was up to the task, hands
Arts & Entertainment Russian Prokofiev, Russian Preview. There will be a party on Thursday night after the performance to start the Russian festival, which you can join too (ticket info here). We would suggest showing the Big Lebowski on a
Arts & Entertainment 25 Years Of The SF Youth Symphony Well, we can't speak for the behind-the-scenes drama at the SF Symphony Youth Orchestra, but we can pretty much guarantee that these players are a zillion million times better than we were --
Arts & Entertainment Arrivederci Hans, das war der letzte Tanz. Friday will be a farewell: it is the last "Friday 6.5 show" of the season, a last dance of sorts, if only to make sense of our title. The performance is at
