David Bruce’s Mystical Violin Concerto

No matter how celebrated the composer, a commission is always a gamble. David Bruce’s “Night Parade”— the slightly jazzy, atmospheric tone poem he wrote for the San Diego Symphony’s Carnegie Hall debut and China tour last year—proved amiable, but it was no show-stopper. His new Violin Concerto “Fragile Light,” which Gil Shaham premiered under Music Director Jahja Ling and the San Diego Symphony Friday (Dec. 12), however, struck pay dirt . . .

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St. Petersburg Philharmonic Fetes Russian Music at Balboa

Listening to the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra play Rachmaninoff is to step into a time machine, to enter a sonic world untouched by the anxieties and aggressive urgency of the 20th century. Friday (Feb. 28) at the Balboa Theatre in downtown San Diego, maestro Yuri Temirkanov led this orchestra, currently touring North America, in a rewarding program of Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev. . .

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