MUSIC REVIEWS
East-West Fusion in Carlsbad
The Carlsbad Music Festival’s combination of Mexican popular music and traditional Chinese pipa performance furnishes an unequivocal sign that the elitist, “who cares if you don’t listen,” approach to new music is fading. Tuesday (May 13) at Carlsbad’s St. Michael’s-by-the-Sea Church, pipa virtuosa Wu Man and the four musicians of Son de San Diego offered a unique fusion of oriental and occidental music . . .
Read MoreDouglas Bombs in La Jolla Recital
This season’s roster of performers on the La Jolla Music Society’s Frieman Family Piano Series has been stellar, featuring exciting young pianists such as Yuja Wang and Haochen Zhang, as well as the iconic master Mitsuko Uchida. After hearing Barry Douglas perform a tedious, perfunctory recital Friday (May 9) at Sherwood Auditorium, I must report that the Irish performer has sullied this series’ glowing record.
Read MoreTchaikovsky’s Third or Thayer’s Second?
The San Diego Symphony titled last Friday evening’s Jacobs Masterworks program “Tchaikovsky’s Third Symphony”, but when the audience rose to its feet in wonderfully noisy acclamation just before intermission, it was pretty clear that they had spontaneously re-named the evening “Jeff Thayer’s Second”, to honor the San Diego Symphony’s concertmaster for his impressive performance of one of the monuments of the violin repertoire, Béla Bartók’s Violin Concerto No. 2…
Read MoreDohnányi, Historical Seating, Produce a Riveting Beethoven Fifth
If the four-note thunderclap – da-da-da-DUM – that opens Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony does indeed evoke Fate knocking on our door, that fearsome presence arrived at Copley Symphony Hall in a hurry last Friday evening. Conductor Christoph von Dohnányi, leading the piece without a score before him, launched the first movement with a brisk tempo that riveted both players and audience. I have rarely seen – or heard – the San Diego Symphony playing with so much concentrated clarity as it displayed in the opening pages of what may well be the most famous piece of music in the Western world…
Read MoreImpressive New Choral Ensemble: San Diego Pro Arte Voices
Mid-spring is always a high season for choral performance, so I was programmed to venture out to St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Pacific Beach Saturday (April 12) to hear San Diego Pro Arte Voices, the new kid on the block in San Diego’s bustling choral scene . . .
Read MoreA Transcendent Bach “B Minor Mass”
Why J. S. Bach composed the B Minor Mass, BWV 232, one of the greatest sacred compositions in western music, may never be known, but Director Ruben Valenzuela and his Bach Collegium San Diego offered two period performances of this exalted work that show how it should be performed . . . .
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