All Stories
SummerFest concert brings Boonville composers to La Jolla
For the average fan of contemporary classical music, the Bay Area is as far north as California’s new music scene goes.However, drive two hours northwest of Berkeley and you’ll come...
A joyful return for La Jolla Music Society’s SummerFest
At last year’s opening concert of the La Jolla Music Society’s SummerFest, musicians played to an empty Baker-Baum Concert Hall. Seats were vacant because the concert was streamed over the...
For La Jolla Music Society’s SummerFest, a joyful return
At last year’s opening concert for the La Jolla Music Society’s SummerFest, musicians played their hearts out to an empty Baker-Baum Concert Hall. Seats were vacant because the entire concert...
Mainly Mozart returns with triumphant performances of Mozart and Beethoven symphonies
Some of the finest orchestral musicians in the United States convened Friday evening on a humid athletic field in Del Mar to play symphonies by Mozart and Beethoven.The majority of...
On opening night, SummerFest delivers ionate performances in an empty hall
“The show must go online.”That updated show business adage appears to be the way of the classical music world these days.On Friday night, the La Jolla Music Society — under...
La musica clasica en vivo regresa a San Diego, cortesia de Mainly Mozart
Los cierres por el coronavirus han tenido un gran impacto en las artes escénicas. El público no puede reunirse con seguridad en el interior, ni los músicos, bailarines o actores...
Live classical music makes a happy comeback in San Diego, courtesy of Mainly Mozart
The coronavirus lockdown has taken a heavy toll on the performing arts. Audiences cannot safely congregate indoors, nor can musicians, dancers or actors gather onstage in any large group.The San...
Bach Collegium San Diego visits in delightful program
Think of Baroque music, and what composers come to mind? The average American concertgoer will probably summon J.S. Bach, Handel and Vivaldi. Dig a little deeper, and there’s Purcell, Telemann,...
Rafael Payare leads San Diego Symphony in a triumphant Shostakovich Eleventh Symphony
When Rafael Payare dropped his arms Friday evening to end the San Diego Symphony’s concert, the audience at Copley Symphony Hall burst into cheers and rose to their feet.The cause...
Steven Schick and red fish blue fish Chou Wen-chung
One of the most noteworthy developments in late-20th century concert music was the hybridization of traditional Asian and modern classical music. Composers such as Chinary Ung, Tan Dun, Chen Yi,...
La Jolla Symphony & Chorus, under Steven Schick’s baton, brings two new compositions to life
The great 20th century composer John Cage spent much of his career “letting sounds be themselves.” Percussion instruments, electronic sounds, radio broadcasts, recordings from nature, and even the ambient sounds...
UCSD’s Rand Steiger makes magic with computers and soloists – plus two young composers to watch
A decade before La Jolla Music Society opened The Conrad in La Jolla, Conrad Prebys donated a large sum to the UC San Diego Music Department, allowing it to finish...
In La Jolla Music Society concert, cellist Kian Soltani makes an exciting San Diego debut
La Jolla Music Society's Discovery Series got off to a great start on Sunday afternoon, with cellist Kian Soltani and pianist Julio Elizalde playing Beethoven, Franck, Stravinsky and Pärt to...
Leila Josefowicz and Edo de Waart bring a modern masterpiece to San Diego
In the 1980s, a 30-something American composer shook up the American classical music scene by taking the steady pulse and repetitive motifs of Minimalist music and forging them into structures...
De Waart, Ax and the San Diego Symphony play Beethoven, Beethoven and more Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was born in 1770, and 250 years later, it seems as if every classical music organization will not let you forget that.The world is awash in a...
An evening of unusual repertory lovingly played by Camera Lucida
Camera Lucida, the ongoing collaboration between San Diego Symphony musicians and UC San Diego Music Faculty, offers much to ire.The musicianship is always excellent, and Conrad Prebys Concert Hall on...
Violinist Keir GoGwilt and the La Jolla Symphony & Chorus premiere wonderful new work by Celeste Oram
Most composers sit in the hall to experience their premieres, but not Celeste Oram.On Saturday, Oram sang from a wing of UC San Diego’s Mandeville Auditorium, part of an offstage...
Pianist Wei Luo delivers stunning performance with San Diego Symphony
The San Diego Symphony’s new music director, Rafael Payare, has stirred up audience enthusiasm, and that’s a wonderful feeling for a group that has often felt like an underdog on...
Danish String Quartet delivers excellence, from Bach and Beethoven to Shostakovich and Schnittke
It’s not even 249 years after Ludwig van Beethoven’s birth — Dec. 16, 1770 — yet programmatic celebrations of his 250th anniversary have already begun.Beethoven’s symphonies, sonatas and concertos are...
Alisa Weilerstein shines in solo and San Diego Symphony appearances
This was a great week for fans of Alisa Weilerstein or Johann Sebastian Bach. On Tuesday, at Baker-Baum Concert Hall at the Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center, the acclaimed cellist...
Rousing season opener for La Jolla Symphony & Chorus
MUSIC REVIEW:The Lone Ranger rode once again Saturday evening, Nov. 2, 2019, courtesy of conductor Steven Schick and the La Jolla Symphony & Chorus.Its season-opening concert at Mandeville Auditorium, on...
Rousing season opener for La Jolla Symphony & Chorus
MUSIC REVIEW:The Lone Ranger rode once again Saturday evening, Nov. 2, 2019, courtesy of conductor Steven Schick and the La Jolla Symphony & Chorus.Its season-opening concert at Mandeville Auditorium, on...
Rousing season opener for La Jolla Symphony & Chorus
MUSIC REVIEW:The Lone Ranger rode once again Saturday evening, Nov. 2, 2019, courtesy of conductor Steven Schick and the La Jolla Symphony & Chorus.Its season-opening concert at Mandeville Auditorium, on...
La Jolla Symphony & Chorus opens season with rousing Rossini, blissful Bartok and a local Price premiere
The Lone Ranger rode once again Saturday evening, courtesy of conductor Steven Schick and the La Jolla Symphony & Chorus. Their season-opening concert at Mandeville Auditorium, on the University of...
American choral works about love and death wonderfully sung by Sacra/Profana
On Friday at Christ Lutheran Church in Pacific Beach, the plucky of Sacra/Profana sang a program of American composers.Composing concert music in the United States is unprofitable. Most composers...
San Diego Symphony and Rafael Payare make magic with Mozart, Mendelssohn and Shakespeare
The San Diego Symphony’s Saturday concert began with the warm midday sun bearing down on a Venezuelan plain and ended with a cool midnight moon over Greece. In between, an...
Rafael Payare, el nuevo director musical se arriesga en un emocionante estreno
Un momento muy esperado en el Copley Symphony Hall del Jacobs Music Center finalmente llegó el sábado por la noche: el venezolano Rafael Payare dirigió la Sinfónica de San Diego...
San Diego Symphony and Rafael Payare take risks in thrilling season opener
A long-awaited moment at the Jacobs Music Center’s Copley Symphony Hall finally arrived on Saturday evening: Rafael Payare conducted the San Diego Symphony in a bold program of Mason Bates...
Symphony’s wind players shine in East County ECHO chamber recital
Think of the East County, and classical music will probably not appear in your free associations.Cuyamaca College and musical benefactor Sam Ersan may well change that perception. For a couple...
World premiere and Beethoven on a boat disappoint in Hausmann Quartet concert
On Sunday afternoon, Carter’s String Quartet No. 6 received its world premiere — on a boat.This might startle fans of Elliott Carter, the American modernist composer whose five string quartets...
Old and new successfully commingle as SummerFest comes to a happy end
At Friday night’s final La Jolla Music Society SummerFest concert, works by Andrew Norman and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich engagingly commingled with Bach, Vivaldi, Handel and Mozart in Baker-Baum Hall.This year’s...
SummerFest revels in sextets and violins, and Timo Andres impresses with a masterful new piano trio
One of the most extraordinary things about this year’s SummerFest is the presence of 15 living composers on the programs. In recent times, SummerFest has had composers in residence, but...
A concert of 21st-century American music signals new direction for SummerFest
There are plenty of young musicians new to SummerFest this year. Thank new festival music director Inon Barnatan for that.Born in 1979, Barnatan is nearly two decades younger than SummerFest’s...
At Fresh Sound concert, Flux Quartet challenges listeners with daring works
The Fresh Sound concert series is not for timid listeners.People attend Fresh Sound to be challenged. On Monday at White Box Live Arts, the Flux Quartet presented an ear-stretching program...
At SummerFest, a new place and new faces add up to great news
Ever since losing access to Sherwood Auditorium in 2017, the La Jolla Music Society and its patrons have waited for the opening of the Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center. The...
Carlsbad Music Festival brings diverse mix of unusual music
They say not to mess with success, and Matt McBane, the artistic director of the Carlsbad Music Festival, has found a formula that brings patrons back year after year. Take...
Tao wows and Francis dances in Mainly Mozart final concert
It’s the job of publicists to sell tickets. They seize on a client’s attribute and magnify it, with or without distortion, at the same time hiding any of their client’s...
Mainly Mozart thrills with a rare Mozart cantata and a well-known violinist
What comes first, the music or the lyrics? It’s a valid enough question to ask popular songwriters, but for classical music, the answer is almost always a text. Composers react...
Mainly Mozart thrills with a rare Mozart cantata and a well-known violinist
What comes first, the music or the lyrics? It’s a valid enough question to ask popular songwriters, but for classical music, the answer is almost always a text. Composers react...
Rare works shine in La Jolla Symphony & Chorus’ season-closing concert
Once, the phrase “20th-century music” struck fear into the hearts of less adventurous concertgoers. They associated it with barbaric eardrum-rupturing sounds or inexpressive, cerebral music incomprehensible to all but a...
Rare works shine in La Jolla Symphony & Chorus’ season-closing concert
Once, the phrase “20th-century music” struck fear into the hearts of less adventurous concertgoers. They associated it with barbaric eardrum-rupturing sounds or inexpressive, cerebral music incomprehensible to all but a...
Jeremy Denk adds joyful spontaneity in wonderful collaboration with Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra
For the past 30 years, concertmasters, assistant concertmasters, principal and assistant principal orchestra musicians have been invited to San Diego to play in a musical all-star team for the Mainly...
Jeremy Denk adds joyful spontaneity in wonderful collaboration with Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra
For the past 30 years, concertmasters, assistant concertmasters, principal and assistant principal orchestra musicians have been invited to San Diego to play in a musical all-star team for the Mainly...
In a dazzling recital, two musicians unlock the acoustics at Baker-Baum Concert Hall
Conventional wisdom has it that winning a performance competition will boost visibility — especially for a previously unknown musician — but it’s no guarantee of a long-term career. The Quadrennial...
Conductor Gemma New thrills, composer Alyssa Weinberg impresses, and violinist Michael Barenboim bubbles with San Diego Symphony
Jeff Thayer, concertmaster for the San Diego Symphony, made his entrance Saturday night to customary applause and oversaw the orchestra’s tuning. When the tuning ended, something extraordinary happened. Two people...
David Finckel and Wu Han magical in Debussy and Britten sonatas – and wow the crowd with Mendelssohn
Cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han gave the Baker-Baum Concert Hall a satisfying workout Friday evening for the La Jolla Music Society. Their well-curated program was a chronological survey...
San Diego Symphony, under Jahja Ling’s precise baton, shines in Berlioz and Saint-Saens, but falters in Poulenc
Friday evening’s San Diego Symphony concert was a festival of French music led by Jahja Ling, the conductor laureate. “Conductor laureate” — savor that title. Our poor orchestra, resuscitated from...
San Diego Symphony, under the graceful baton of Jahja Ling, brings it home in powerful concert
At a full house Sunday afternoon at the Jacobs Music Center’s Copley Symphony Hall, and before a single note sounded, the audience greeted conductor laureate Jahja Ling with cheers and...
La Jolla Music Society’s Baker-Baum may not be perfect, but Midori and Thibaudet show that it might become the best concert hall in town
LA JOLLA — Classical music in San Diego has had a remarkable growth spurt the past few years. San Diego Opera almost died five years ago, but under David Bennett reshaped itself...