MUSIC REVIEWS
Pianist Haochen Zhang Dazzles La Jolla Audience
In his Saturday (Dec. 7) program for the La Jolla Music Society, Haochen Zhang, gold medalist of the 2009 Van Cliburn Competition, not only dazzled his audience with the bravura technical arsenal expected from a medalist, but invited his listeners into the interior emotional landscapes of works that others rush through solely to indulge their spectacle.
Read MoreKen-David Masur Leads Masterful “Ode to Joy”
The San Diego Symphony and the San Diego Master Chorale brought a joyful and tasteful Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony ( the “Choral Symphony”) to the Jacobs Music Center Friday, Dec. 6 under the baton of the orchestra’s Associate Conductor Ken-David Masur. Son of a famous German conductor, the highly skilled Ken-David Masur needs no coattails upon which to ride.
Read MoreCamarada Brings Baroque to the Mingei International Museum
The classical music ensemble Camarada presented another concert in its new venue at the Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park Sunday, Dec. 1. Calling the program “Java Bach,” this Baroque chamber music program featured soprano arias from J. S. Bach’s humorous “Coffee Cantata” (Cantata No. 211) and a longish coffee bar intermission.
Read MoreNew Music Easy on the Ear and Kind to the Soul
The choral ensemble SACRA/PROFANA was featured on Art of Élan’s November 26 concert at the San Diego Museum of Art. The choir’s contribution was a striking performance of American composer Michael Gandolfi’s 2011 work “Winter Light,” two movements for string quartet and mixed choir based on poems by Amy Lowell.
Read MoreLing Conducts Enigmatic Shostakovich Symphony No. 15
San Diego Symphony Music Director Jahja Ling guided his orchestra and the Jacobs Music Center audience through Shostakovich’s puzzling, kaleidoscopic Symphony No. 15 Saturday (Nov. 23) in a tightly focused account that made a compelling case for the composer’s valedictory symphony. Pianist Jon Kimura Parker was on hand to slay the technical dragons in the Mendelssohn First Piano Concerto in G Minor.
Read MoreA 100th Birthday Tribute to Benjamin Britten at the Cathedral
The prodigious trove of Benjamin Britten’s music needs no special occasion to warrant its performance, but San Diego State University’s Patrick Walders put together a worthy and occasionally inspired tribute to Britten at St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral on Friday, Nov. 22, 2013, the 100th anniversary of the composer’s birth. Notable were tenor John Russell’s solo in “Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings” and the vibrant “A Ceremony of Carols” sung by Russell’s Chamber Choir from Cal State San Bernadino.
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