Live Music
The sun was setting in Beethoven’s Symphony No.6 out beyond the reaches of the Vienna Woods, which extend to the north and southwest of the “city of music”. The final glow of the music disappeared …
There are stellar performances and then there are revelations. The San Diego Mainly Mozart Festival can be counted on to provide at least one revelation per festival. So far in 2019, there have been at …
On Saturday, June 8, The Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra exploded into the Balboa Theatre with a performance of Handel’s Royal Fireworks Music, thereby opening their five-concert series with music director Michael Francis. Full disclosure: I …
There was a new piece of music at the closing concert of the Jacobs Masterworks Series at the San Diego Symphony. I didn’t review it because, in my opinion, it wasn’t worth reviewing. I spent …
The San Diego Symphony concluded its Jacobs Masterworks Series with a weekend of Rachmaninoff and Beethoven. I attended the Saturday, May 25 concert. This was the third time I’d heard the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. …
As an employee of the San Diego Mainly Mozart Festival, I’m not allowed to be as exuberant about the festival in these pages as I once was. It might appear as if I’m a propagandist …
On April 27 and 28 the San Diego Mainly Mozart Festival presented a concert of, Two Pianos, Eight Hands. The format harkened back to the golden of age of the piano. Before the invention of …
I’ve been waiting for Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony at The San Diego Symphony ever since it was announced last spring. The day came, Friday, May 3, and Saint-Saëns was darn near upstaged by a plucky …
The fire which consumed the roof of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris has been out for a few weeks now. What many of us may not have realized at the time is the Notre Dame …
The San Diego Symphony concert on Friday, April 12 felt slow and unsettled. I was surprised. In years gone by, the combination of conductor Jahja Ling, the San Diego Symphony, and Johannes Brahms, has been …
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” – George Carlin. I came across this quote recently and came to an uncomfortable realization. I only say …
What’s your classical music “guilty pleasure”? This is a question all classical music devotees must answer at some point. Let’s define what a “guilty pleasure” is. A guilty pleasure has little artistic merit but has …
The San Diego Symphony has announced its 2019-2020 season and it is a rambunctious list of symphonic music. For the past few seasons, I’ve felt as though the San Diego Symphony has been getting away …
We are having a proper winter in San Diego and on Saturday, March 9, we had a proper symphony performed by the San Diego Symphony at the Jacobs Music Center. Before we received the proper …
Soprano Joélle Harvey was my favorite part of the San Diego Symphony concert on Friday, March 1, at Symphony Hall. Over the years I’ve been critical and disappointed with the vocal experience at the symphony …