MUSIC REVIEWS

After the San Diego Symphony’s opening weekend piano concerto marathon with Lang Lang—he played Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto last Friday and Sunday and Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto on Satruday—it seemed like too much of a good thing to invite Garrick Ohlsson to solo in Tchaikovsky’s Second Piano Concerto in G Major the following weekend. But, as…

Kate Hatmaker and Demarre McGill, the lively spirits who design the chamber music series Art of Élan, have the corner on high concept program design. Their new season “in your dreams” opened Tuesday (October 9) at the San Diego Museum of Art with a program titled “transfiguration.” (And, yes, they favor the T. S. Eliot…

Recently the “made in China” label has been tarnished by controversies, including outsourcing and sweatshop labor practices. But neither politics nor controversy has clouded the superstar status of Lang Lang, the ubiquitous Chinese concert pianist who opened the San Diego Symphony fall season Friday (Oct. 5) under Music Director Jahja Ling. Lang’s presence on the…

While a rallying cry of  “the cutting edge artistic innovation” is generally received as a warning to traditionally-minded music audiences, the Carlsbad Music Festival has managed to make this premise surprisingly audience friendly. A pair of festival concerts on Saturday (Sept. 22) afternoon—Andy Akiho and Friends and the choral ensemble Sacra/Profana—demonstrated how this festival makes…

Rarely does a formidable program of new music leave the listener eager for more. But Timothy Andres’ Saturday (Sept. 22) afternoon recital at the Carlsbad Music Festival made me want to hear a lot more of this astute 27-year-old pianist and composer. In a cunning juxtaposition of  four substantial, recent piano compositions with four concise…

Ending a summer concert with a blinding display of fireworks is a widespread tradition, but Friday’s (August 24) grand finale of the La Jolla Music Society’s SummerFest 2012 kept all of the dramatic fireworks on the Sherwood Auditorium stage. Under the demanding baton of guest conductor Kent Nagano, the festival chamber orchestra tore into what…