Review: A memorable Mahler Second Symphony celebrates rebirth of Jacobs Music Center
Music Director Rafael Payare triumphs with San Diego Symphony and the new Festival Chorus in renovated downtown concert hall
All Stories
Music review: A new era for San Diego Symphony begins with its return to renovated hall
Celebrities and a brand-new fanfare by local composer Texu Kim welcome Rafael Payare and symphony home
Review: SummerFest delivers extraordinary concert merging chamber music and tap dance
Pianist Conrad Tao and dancer Caleb Teicher dazzle audience at La Jolla Music Society's SummerFest
Concert Review: San Diego Symphony summer opener a crowd-pleaser with conductor Gemma New
Russian pianist Olga Kern an impressive soloist in Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto no. 3
Review: Mainly Mozart All-Star Orchestra Festival shines in two La Jolla venues
Music Director Michael Francis leads thrilling performances at an outdoor amphitheater and indoor concert hall
‘The Robots’ an opera with a fine libretto in search of a better score
When Karel Čapek wrote his play “Rossum’s Universal Robots” in 1920, the battle against machines replacing human labor had been fought for more than a century, with humans invariably losing.Now,...
JACK Quartet concert combined 20th century moderns with 21st century eclectics
The 20th century was a time of musical revolutions and innovations. Composers searched for new harmonies, rhythms and forms.What doors are left to kick open this century? Precious few. With...
Pianist Stephen Drury celebrates the sonatas of Charles Ives in mesmerizing recital
The music of Charles Ives is the headwater of the American experimental music tradition. Previously unheard dissonances, multiple keys clashing against each other, different tempos sounding simultaneously, quarter-tone harmonies, musical...
Resena: El director chileno-italiano Paolo Bortolameolli hace magia musical con la Sinfonica de San Diego
Hasta que se completen las renovaciones del Centro de Música Joan e Irwin Jacobs, la Sinfónica de San Diego debe continuar con su existencia itinerante. El viernes de la semana...
Conductor Paolo Bortolameolli makes musical magic with San Diego Symphony
Until the renovations to the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Music Center are completed, the San Diego Symphony must continue its itinerant existence. Friday night found the orchestra at the California...
Music and technology successfully merged in performance of late Nono composition
On Thursday, San Diegans had a rare opportunity to hear the great 20th-century composer Luigi Nono’s penultimate work, “La Lontananza Nostalgica Utopica Futura” in UC San Diego's Calit2 Theatre.That title...
New trumpet concerto by Gabriela Ortiz wows San Diego Symphony audience
The audience at Mandeville Auditorium saw something strange Thursday evening. Soloist Pacho Flores strode on stage in front of the San Diego Symphony, perilously carrying two trumpets and a cornet.Following...
Cepromusic Ensemble brings a heady dose of modernist music to UCSD
Most new music groups are small affairs, three- to six-member outfits. When a 19-piece contemporary music group comes to town, it is a must-see event.Thus we ventured to UC San...
Project BLANK offers thought-provoking music, art installations at St. Paul’s
Last weekend, St. Paul’s Cathedral was transformed into a gallery and performance space by Project BLANK. From Thursday through Sunday evenings, two dozen American and Mexican artists and performers exhibited...
San Diego Symphony premieres Ukrainian composer’s grim, sardonic ‘Danse Macabre’
On Friday evening, the San Diego Symphony played to one of the smallest crowds I’ve seen at the Rady Shell.Was it the threat of rain that night? Cold weather? Lack...
Hausmann Quartet contrasts Haydn with new and old American composers
The California Festival ended on Sunday. The inaugural festival's website boasted more than 180 recent compositions performed by 100 statewide organizations since November 3.Among the festival's final concerts on Sunday...
Rhiannon Giddens and the Silkroad Ensemble transport the audience with ‘American Railroad’
Silkroad Ensemble pulled into San Diego's Balboa Theatre on Friday evening with their current show, “American Railroad.”Artistic Director Rhiannon Giddens and twelve multicultural musicians captivated a full house with music...
San Diego Symphony presents ‘Diaspora’ by Billy Childs in California Festival opening concert
An unprecedented musical collaboration between California’s three largest orchestras commenced last weekend.The California Festival was spearheaded by Esa-Pekka Salonen, Gustavo Dudamel and Rafael Payare, the respective music directors of symphony...
McGill brothers delight Athenaeum audience in unusual recital for flute, clarinet and piano
Two of the finest wind players on the recital circuit teamed up Sunday evening to open the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library’s Chamber Concert Series.Flutist Demarre McGill is well known...
San Diego Symphony opens new season with audience-interactive Carlos Simon commission
Can music without words have philosophical or rhetorical meaning? How does a listener assign such meaning to a purely instrumental work?Two compositions performed during the San Diego Symphony’s season-opening concert...
Death was on the program for Sacra/Profana’s well-sung concert on Sunday
Sacra/Profana delivered on its name Sunday afternoon in a concert featuring both an Anglican mass for the dead and a secular cantata that might be performed at any memorial service.Sacra/Profana’s...
From soloist to substitute, composer-cellist Paul Wiancko took it all in stride
What does a string quartet do when one of its is too sick to play?If they’re lucky enough to be at a music festival, they can ask someone else...
Italian performers impress at Encinitas’ Tramonto Music Festival
On Friday evening, Aug. 4, I went to a music festival that featured outstanding international performers playin 20th-century music.Here’s the kicker: it wasn’t SummerFest.It was the second evening of the...
Thomas Ades enthralls SummerFest audience with dazzling pianism and profound chamber music
He played piano masterfully and captivated us with his compositions. Thomas Adès has left SummerFest, but the memory of his residency remains.There was perhaps no more impressive display of his...
Italian performers impress at Encinitas’ Tramonto Music Festival
On Friday evenin, I went to a music festival that featured outstanding international performers playin 20th-century music.Here’s the kicker: it wasn’t SummerFest.It was the second evening of the weekend-long Tramonto...
U.S. premiere of ‘Alchymia’ by Thomas Ades enchants SummerFest audience
Who’s the most successful Generation X composer? I vote for Thomas Adès. The 52-year-old Englishman’s operas, orchestral and chamber works please audiences as well as picky music critics.Thank the La...
SummerFest’s ‘Journey in Light’ concert a patchwork quilt
Most chamber music concerts begin with musicians walking onstage to applause from the house.Saturday’s SummerFest concert in La Jolla Music Society's Baker-Baum Concert Hall started with lights dimming to blackout....
Opera Neo excels in polished production of early Mozart work ‘Mitridate’
On Saturday Opera Neo gave a 21st century treatment to an 18th century opera composed by a 14-year-old. Their production of Mozart’s “Mitridate, re di Ponto” took place on the...
Rafael Payare and San Diego Symphony dispel June gloom at the Rady Shell
One couldn’t have asked for a nicer way to open the San Diego Symphony’s summer season than with the clear skies and warm temperatures at the Rady Shell at Jacobs...
Mainly Mozart offers memorable concert with pianist Anne-Marie McDermott
The Surf Sports Park in Del Mar was the scene for the second concert of the Mainly Mozart All-Star Orchestra Festival on Saturday evening. Like Thursday’s opener, it was another...
Mainly Mozart and Michael Francis make magic at Surf Sports Park
The annual return of the Mainly Mozart All-Star Orchestra Festival is always a happy occasion, and Thursday evening’s opening outdoor concert at the Surf Sports Park in Del Mar was...
Mainly Mozart and Michael Francis make magic at Surf Sports Park
The annual return of the Mainly Mozart All-Star Orchestra Festival is always a happy occasion, and Thursday evening’s opening outdoor concert at the Surf Sports Park in Del Mar was...
Project BLANK’s ‘No Exit’ production makes it an opera company to watch
Is there a burgeoning opera scene in San Diego?Project BLANK’s latest offering, "No Exit" by Andy Vores, confirmed that they are one more company very serious about producing operas here.Saturday...
Formidable fortepianist Sylvia Berry played classical works the way their composers might have heard them
It’s not every day that a fortepiano comes to town, so Bach Collegium San Diego’s Saturday concert featuring Sylvia Berry was an event worth attending. It was a treat to...
San Diego Symphony closes its season in spectacular fashion
The San Diego Symphony’s season-closer on Saturday night was a spectacular synthesis of all the strengths of this indefatigable company.Music Director Rafael Payare ionately conducted the eagerly responsive and technically...
Art of Elan presents a winning world premiere by Rand Steiger
Attending a new music concert is like panning for gold. Sometimes you are rewarded with a nugget or two. Less frequently, everything is worthless sand.But once in a while, every...
La Jolla Symphony celebrates new music with American Indian composer Leon Joseph Littlebird
The past year in music has been good for Indigenous American composers. In 2022, Raven Chacon won the Pulitzer Prize in Music, a first for an American Indian, and last...
Jerod Tate work shines in San Diego Symphony concert at Sycuan Casino
The San Diego Symphony has played in some unusual venues over the past two years: churches, an art gallery, school auditoriums. But the most unlikely place I heard them perform...
Midori masterfully plays Bach’s solo violin music for La Jolla Music Society
On Thursday and Friday evening at Baker-Baum Concert Hall, the La Jolla Music Society presented violinist Midori in the six Sonatas and Partitas for unaccompanied violin by Johann Sebastian Bach....
Four-hour chamber piece by Morton Feldman gets a rare and well-played airing at UCSD
In our short-attention-span society, the act of sitting in a concert hall for 247 minutes to hear a single piece of instrumental music may be one of the most radical...
La Jolla Symphony premieres wonderful new work by composer Alex Stephenson
Some music seems to exist outside of human intervention. A composer’s name may be on a piece, but the music appears to have ed through them as pure inspiration.The La...
Alisa Weilerstein’s solo cello concert shuffle-plays Bach and recent composers
On Tuesday, Alisa Weilerstein presented a concert of J.S. Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 in G major interleaved with five living composers.Who were they?Unless you grabbed a pamphlet-sized program on...
Argus Quartet soothes with persuasive performances of Indigenous composers
If you suffered from workplace or classroom stress on Thursday, Mandeville Auditorium on the UCSD campus was the place to be. There, anxious or weary souls could bask in the...
Vocal experimentation thrives in kallisti vocal ensemble concert
The music department at the University of California, San Diego, has always been an incubator for novel performance techniques.Half a century ago a Rockefeller grant enabled an Extended Vocal Techniques...
Pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard focuses on fantasias
There have been few piano recitals this season so thoughtfully curated as the one that Pierre-Laurent Aimard gave in Baker-Baum Concert Hall for the La Jolla Music Society on Sunday...
Steven Schick returns to La Jolla Symphony with happy results
The notion of return was prominent in Saturday’s concert by the La Jolla Symphony.Steven Schick came back to the podium in UC San Diego’s Mandeville Auditorium, his first official appearance...
Finnish sensation Tarmo Peltokoski makes promising U.S. debut with San Diego Symphony
Classical music loves a prodigy.A grade-school pianist who performs Beethoven? A teen-age violinist shredding Tchaikovsky? Step right up, folks! Watch them play! Buy their CD!Never mind that adults in your...
Pianist Leif Ove Andsnes makes a case for Dvorak’s rarely heard ‘Poetic Tone Pictures’
Antonín Dvořák was a master of orchestral and chamber music. But think of his piano music, and what comes to mind?That old recital chestnut the Humoresque Op. 101, No. 7...
Joyce DiDonato brings impressive singing and stage show to La Jolla
On Wednesday evening, America’s reigning operatic mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato made her long-awaited local debut courtesy of the La Jolla Music Society.From the minute one stepped inside Baker-Baum Concert Hall, it...
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From computers to cassette decks, ‘Machine Music’ delivered five unique audio adventures
Those plucky presenters of experimental music, Project [BLANK], kicked off its fifth season Saturday at Bread and Salt with “Machine Music,” a concert that promised — and delivered on —...
Grace and beauty in violinist Randall Goosby’s La Jolla Music Society debut
Randall Goosby is a tall, handsome young man who could easily be a model, but he wasn’t in La Jolla on Sunday afternoon to promote men’s wear.He came to Baker-Baum...
La Jolla Symphony & Chorus explores loss in premiere
Conductor Jeffrey Malecki took the podium Saturday evening in Mandeville Auditorium for the world premiere of Sang Song’s “Frozen Grief.”The title refers to a phrase coined by psychiatrist Pauline Boss...
Cellist and composer Clancy Newman beautifully plays 20th and 21st century American music
You don’t see many concert cellists who also write music. If those talents are combined, they are usually in someone who is a composer first and a cellist second.Luigi Boccherini,...
Pianist Emanuel Ax and San Diego Symphony charming in Beethoven concerto, but …
They can’t all be winners.Orchestras, chamber groups, soloists or opera companies take a risk when they pay a composer to write a new work for them. In the best possible...
Art of Elan concert, inspired by stained glass windows, a mix of the alluring, the mysterious and blind faith
A new installation at the San Diego Museum of Art was the setting for Art of Elan’s concert Wednesday evening, “Broken Windows.”Justin Sterling’s “Chapel of the Rocks” stands inside SDMA’s...
Hausmann Quartet concert ponders human impacts on nature
On Sunday aboard the SS Berkeley, the Hausmann Quartet completed another “Haydn Voyage.”The old ferry never left the dock, but the audience on board was transported to 17th-century England (Purcell’s...
A brilliant Ruben Valenzuela leads a stellar La Jolla Symphony in works by Joan Tower and Beethoven
The search for the new music director of the La Jolla Symphony & Chorus officially began this past weekend as Ruben Valenzuela led the orchestra in music by Joan Tower,...
San Diego Symphony plays new music for a new venue
There’s much to be proud about the San Diego Symphony and its music director, Rafael Payare, but their disregard of San Diego composers has been frustrating, to say the least.Chinary...
An unconventional concert by the Mivos Quartet brings the Arctic to La Jolla
If you attend a string quartet concert and the musicians are seated on platforms above you in the four corners of the hall, it’s a good bet that you are...
New season, new venue for Mainly Mozart All-Star Orchestra
Mainly Mozart concerts have been moveable feasts the past three years, thanks to COVID-19. When the pandemic shut down live performances in March 2020, the Balboa Theatre was no longer...
Rafael Payare and San Diego Symphony open season with a thrilling Verdi Requiem
On Saturday evening at The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park, the world dissolved into ashes and celestial trumpets summoned the dead from their graves.If that sounds histrionic, Verdi’s “Messa da...
Bodhi Tree aims high but doesn’t quite hit the mark in ‘Dido & Aeneas’
Take a 17th century opera and modernize it with anachronisms and topical references. It’s standard practice for directors and designers today.Publicity for Bodhi Tree Concerts’ production of “Dido & Aeneas”...
At La Jolla Music Society’s SummerFest, a spotlight on Caroline Shaw
After the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for music was awarded to Caroline Shaw, many composers outside of New York asked, “Who?”Shaw was better known then as a violinist and singer than...
At SummerFest, performance of Dvorak’s Piano Trio an unforgettable experience
The theme of this year’s La Jolla Music Society SummerFest is “Under the Influence.” It wasn’t entirely clear how Friday’s concert at Baker-Baum Concert Hall, “The New Romantics,” illustrated that...
Opera Neo handles ‘Ariodante’ with care
Six decades ago, opera companies began to revive musical dramas by Handel, but it was not until 2002 that San Diego Opera got in the game with “Ariodante.” In the...
San Diego Symphony and conductor Jason Seber delight in ‘Philharmonia Fantastique’
Many composers have written pieces to educate children (and adults) about the different instruments of the orchestra. Few have endured like Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf” or Britten’s “The Young...
Opera Neo and Hungarian State Opera give a worthwhile hearing to a Mozart rarity
Mozart’s late operas — “Marriage of Figaro,” “Don Giovanni,” “Così fan tutte” and “The Magic Flute” — are some of the most beloved in the repertory. We imagine him tossing...
At SummerFest opening concert, four pianos raise a racket, but four violins sweetly seduce
The La Jolla Music Society’s SummerFest has returned, bigger than ever with 90 events in the span of four weeks.For Friday’s opening concert, bigger was not necessarily better, but those...
San Diego Symphony summer season opens with bracing Berlioz and rousing Ravel
The Rady Shell summer season opened Friday evening with Rafael Payare conducting the San Diego Symphony. The program consisted mainly of compositions inspired by art.Ravel’s brilliant orchestration of Mussorgsky’s “Pictures...
Mainly Mozart festival closes with magical performance of Schubert’s ‘Unfinished Symphony’
This year’s Mainly Mozart festival consisted of five concerts at the Del Mar Surf Cup Sports Park over the span of eight days. It’s less than we’ve been accustomed to...
Le Salon de Musiques mingles music, food and conversation
Does San Diego have too many chamber music series?Art of Elan, ArtPower, the Athenaeum Chamber Music Series, Camarada, Camera Lucida, the Central Library Concert Series, Echo, the Hausmann Quartet, La...
Steven Schick’s final La Jolla Symphony concert a happy success
A capacity crowd gathered at the Good Samaritan Episcopal Church on Saturday to hear Steven Schick conduct his valedictory concert as Music Director of the La Jolla Symphony and Chorus.Schick’s...
Spektral Quartet mixes music with art and audience participation
When an usher hands you five postcards and a pen along with your program, you know that this will not be your usual string quartet concert.The 5-by-7-inch postcards, each created...
Impressionism by the Bay: A celebration of brilliance by Rafael Payare and the San Diego Symphony
San Diego Symphony Musical Director Rafael Payare returned to the Rady Shell on Saturday to conduct a concert devoted to musical Impressionism.Although the program was not billed as such, Claude...
In Detroit Opera’s ‘X,’ a long-dormant Anthony Davis opera comes to life with marvelous singing and playing
When “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X” premiered in 1986, there had never been another opera like it.The Pulitzer Prize-winning Anthony Davis’ driving, eclectic score merged improvisation with...
Composers at SDSU music festival ponder COVID-19 and the Ukraine war
Since 2002, the New West Evolving Arts and Music Organization (NWEAMO) has brought composers and performers to San Diego State University for a weekend of contemporary music. In earlier years...
A refreshing La Jolla Symphony & Chorus program featuring Florence Price and Jennifer Higdon
The repertory of American orchestras is largely dedicated to music by dead, White, European males. Last weekend, the La Jolla Symphony & Chorus happily ignored that programming demographic.Saturday at the...
Jeremy Kurtz-Harris rises to the occasion, playing tango-tinged bass concerto with San Diego Symphony
Consider the contrabass, a loyal servant in the orchestra. Able to play some of the lowest pitches in the orchestra, it provides depth and bolsters tonal harmonies by reinforcing the...
Baritone Matthias Goerne captivates sold-out audience at Baker-Baum Concert Hall
In the last act of Richard Wagner’s influential opera "Tristan und Isolde," the mortally wounded Tristan perishes in his lover Isolde’s arms. It ends with Isolde so ecstatically consumed by...
Bach Collegium San Diego premieres a Spanish ‘Messiah’
Early music groups do not usually premiere a work by a major composer. They’d have to poke around in library archives, many of which are in Europe, to discover something...
Shostakovich served up well in Escondido by San Diego Symphony and Jonathon Heyward
It’s always worth a trip to the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, to hear the San Diego Symphony play. There’s no better place in the county to experience a...
Joshua Bell, Academy of St. Martin orchestra offer mostly lively program of Bach, Barber & Beethoven
There is a well-known phenomenon at orchestra concerts: the more empty seats in the second half, the more famous the soloist in the first. Call it Celebrated Soloist Syndrome.The San...
In Baker-Baum Concert Hall, Rafael Payare leads an exquisite San Diego Symphony
The term “classical music” signifies a wide range of styles, from J.S. Bach to Stravinsky. The Classical era in music has a much narrower focus, from roughly 1730 to 1820.The...
In Costa Mesa’s Segerstrom Concert Hall, a glorious San Diego Symphony soars
There were plenty of empty seats in Costa Mesa's Segerstrom Concert Hall on Friday. The Russian National Orchestra had canceled its American tour months ago, replaced that evening by the...
In La Mesa, San Diego Symphony delivers an impactful performance
With COVID-19 on the decline, it might seem bad luck for the San Diego Symphony that Copley Symphony Hall is closed to undergo infrastructure upgrades. For most American orchestras, the...
La Jolla Music Society’s tap-meets-classical music concert a hit with the audience
For over a century, choreographers have taken concert music and added dance, in ballets such as “The Spirit of the Rose” or “Les Sylphides.” Visual movement complemented pre-existing music.Genres where...
Finally back indoors, San Diego Symphony delivers an electrifying performance
Over the last 35 years, the San Diego Symphony has faced bankruptcies, sudden conductor departures and managerial troubles. Nevertheless, it's always managed to hang on, and over the last decade,...
Pianist Zoltan Fejervari impressive in San Diego debut
On Sunday afternoon, a lanky, unassuming fellow ambled across the stage at Baker-Baum Concert Hall. He sat at the piano without any fuss and began to play.If there were any...
Delayed due to COVID-19, Myriad Trio finally premieres successful work by Timo Andres
Any group comprised of flute, viola and harp has to champion new music. There’s not a substantial number of works written for that configuration.The Myriad Trio has commissioned at least...
Percussionist Steven Schick gives Fresh Sound a delightful sendoff
For 24 years, Bonnie Wright’s Fresh Sound series curated local talent and brought new music specialists to San Diego. On Friday evening, adventurous listeners came to the White Box Theater...
The Gesualdo Six wonderfully sing Renaissance composers
A loud, long and purely sung major chord cut through the resonant space of St. James by-the-Sea, a sonic laser beam that raised goose bumps.This surprising, beautiful sonority was sung...
San Diego Symphony sparkles with conductor Edo de Waart
The San Diego Symphony’s concert on Saturday was billed as “Edo de Waart & the Russian Romantics,” and it certainly delivered on that.Principal guest conductor de Waart led the orchestra...
Leonidas Kavakos and Yuja Wang: two experts in complete control of their music
The faster someone can play an instrument, the greater they are.That’s a fallacy many nonmusicians believe. They equate speed and agility with talent.While it’s true that it can take years...
After a long silence, Art of Elan makes some joyful noise at San Diego Museum of Art
We didn’t realize how much we need live music until the pandemic took it away.Streaming concerts into our homes was no substitute for the ritual of friends and strangers gathering...
Pianist Alexander Malofeev a big hit in San Diego debut
On Sunday afternoon, a solemn, thin and intensely blond young man walked on to the stage of Baker-Baum Concert Hall. If audience did not know who he was, 2...
San Diego Symphony and Payare thrill in Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony
Fans expecting Rachmaninoff at Friday’s San Diego Symphony concert might have been disappointed that soloist Alexander Gavrylyuk would not play Rocky’s moody Piano Concerto No. 2 as previously announced. However,...
San Diego Symphony’s focus back to classical music is cause for celebration
As the San Diego Symphony focuses back to classical music this month, music director Rafael Payare conducted a concert Friday night at the Rady Shell at Jacobs Park — a...
In Mainly Mozart concert, a mix of high and low points
The Mainly Mozart All-Star Orchestra returned to the unlikely concert venue of the Del Mar Surf Cup Sports Park Saturday evening, a happy occasion.Saturday evening was also the 20th anniversary...
Steph Richards powers through rain at Carlsbad Music Festival
The Carlsbad Music Festival has dealt with many challenges over its 18-year history, but on Sunday afternoon, it faced a new obstacle: rain.The festival handled the pandemic this year by...
SummerFest concert finds synergy in art, music and technology
Percussionist Steven Schick has used many unorthodox things to make compelling music: pebbles, tuned flowerpots, water — even his bare chest and face.But on Thursday evening’s SummerFest concert in the...