MUSIC REVIEWS
Opera NEO’s Sumptuous Buffet of Arias and Ensembles
Caught midway between the final performance of San Diego Opera’s “Rigoletto” two weeks ago and the opening of the company’s “Three Decembers” by Jake Heggie in March, serious San Diego opera aficionados eagerly gathered for Opera NEO’s February 16 concert of opera selections titled “Love Is in the Air.”
Read MoreAugustin Hadelich Illuminates Dvořák’s Violin Concerto with the San Diego Symphony
Between the spring 2016 revelation that San Diego Symphony Music Director Jahja Ling would retire at the end of the 2016-17 season and the announcement in February 2018 that the young Venezuelan conductor Rafael Payare had been selected as Music Director Designate, San Diego musical circles were rife with speculation. Among the names most frequently…
Read MoreThe Danish String Quartet Combines Exciting Repertory and Sublime Playing
Following their established pattern of visiting San Diego, the Danish String Quartet was overdue. But the sizzling concert by this accomplished young ensemble on Friday, February 8, in the Auditorium at TSRI, certainly made up for lost time.
Read MoreSan Diego Opera’s Thrilling ‘Rigoletto’
San Diego Opera opened a smart, vocally rich production Verdi’s “Rigoletto,” a classic gem of Grand Guignol theatrics Saturday, February 2, at San Diego Civic Theatre. Combining a large cast of stylish Verdian voices with Michael Cavanaugh’s sleek, tight direction, General Director David Bennett has clearly pleased everyone in the Civic Theatre audience . . .
Read MoreRenga Ensemble Presents a Bouquet of Seminal 20th-Century Works to Climax the ‘Hearing the Future’ Festival
Renga, a heady fusion of virtuoso instrumentalists from UC San Diego and the San Diego Symphony, offered a probing coda to the Symphony’s January festival “Hearing the Future” on Saturday, January 26, at the university’s Conrad Prebys Concert Hall.
Read MoreMatthew Aucoin and the San Diego Symphony Lift Up Music’s Future in Both Past and Present Modes
As the San Diego Symphony’s ambitious, engaging festival “Hearing the Future” takes its victory lap, Festival Curator Matthew Aucoin led the orchestra in an exuberant concert in Copley Symphony Hall Friday, January 25. His refreshing approach to program design completely ignored the traditional overture-concerto-symphony formula: each half of the concert offered seven shorter works or…
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