Perlman Dazzles as Symphony Soloist

Pro basketball hall of famer Bill Walton may have been the tallest man at San Diego’s Jacobs Music Center – Copley Symphony Hall on Saturday night, but he was not the biggest. Instead, it was legendary violinist Itzhak Perlman who was the evening’s star attraction, dazzling concertgoers young and old, short and (very) tall with the first of two masterful weekend performances of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61.

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French Baroque Gems at St. James, La Jolla

Friday’s performance (Jan. 10) by tenor Aaron Sheehan and Musica Pacifica for the San Diego Early Music Society made a winning case for Jean-Phillipe Rameau’s distinctly French Baroque style, complementing this repertory with more familiar pieces by J.S. Bach, G.P. Telemann, and G.F. Handel.

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BachCollegium’s Impressive Christmas Concert–It Was Not A Sing-Along

Anyone who has sung Christmas carols has come across the German Christmas song “Lo, How a Rose E’re Blooming” by Michael Praetorius. Ruben Valenzuela’s BachCollegium San Diego gave a smart concert devoted to the sacred music of Praetorius and his circle of 17th-century German composers at La Jolla’s St. James’ Episcopal Church on Friday (Dec. 20).

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Ling Conducts Bold Schumann Second Symphony

This past weekend (Dec. 13 – 15) San Diego Symphony music director Jahja Ling made a compelling case for Schumann’s mighty Second Symphony in C Major, complementing it with Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto, featuring Russian pianist Yefim Bronfman.

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