René Barbera gave his North American professional debut recital at the Balboa Theater on Saturday, September 19. The concert opened San Diego Opera’s 2015-16 season. Mr. Barbera started the concert with a piece by Rossini …

If there is a piece of music for late summer, it is The Ripening by Josef Suk. Suk worked on the music over the course of five years or so from 1912 to 1917. Yet …

I just heard that an American orchestra is offering “tweet seats” at its concerts. See there? It even rhymes. This is a good thing — I think. After googling “orchestra twitter seats” and scrolling through …

“In music, the present is a perpetual genesis. The ‘now’ is always bound up with the start and the end,” said Sergiu Celibidache. We could spend hours exploring the ramifications of such a statement. We …

This is the first of a series of curated YouTube videos. As videos are featured they will be added to a playlist here. The first piece to be featured is Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. Don’t …

Alexander Scriabin was the composer who wanted to compose us all into nirvana. Sergiu Celibidache was the conductor who wanted to conduct us into enlightenment. Celibidache brought Zen Buddhism to the conductor’s podium along with …

The Divine Poem is the Esoteric Pick of the Week. Written by Alexander Scriabin, The Divine Poem is his third symphony. Scriabin was best known for his piano compositions and was one of the most …

Suddenly Labor Day Weekend is upon us. The ship is turning. Summer is slipping toward the western horizon and frivolous activities are being replaced with serious endeavors. The pastoral Major League Baseball begins to yield …

The BBC Proms is taking up the cause of Franz Schmidt in a concert on September 10 at London’s Royal Albert Hall. A performance of Schmidt’s Symphony No. 2 will be given by the Vienna …

Politics in classical music is not new. Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Shostakovich, and countless other composers were politically active and, at times, censored. Almost every mid-20th-century conductor, singer, and instrumental soloist was politicized by World War …

The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. This is the title of a piece of art from 1991 by Damien Hirst. The work of art is a tiger shark in a …

I recently heard a kid at the park complaining about being sweaty. He went over to his parent and got some water and was told to “take it easy, buddy.” I realize this is a …

Songs of the Sea is the Esoteric Pick of the Week. If you haven’t been spending much time at the beach, you’re missing out. El Niño is here and the water feels so good, you …

Point Loma Opera Theater continues to crank out quality concerts. The most recent success was Mozart’s Don Giovanni on Tuesday August, 18 at Pacific Beach Presbyterian and Thursday August 20th at St. Paul’s Cathedral. I …

Classical music has been one of the main culprits of “trolling” for centuries. The 19th century was full of factions which went to war in publications regarding the merits of different composers and schools of …

Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture is not an esoteric piece of music. The overture is quite popular, in and of itself. The overture is not a freestanding piece, though. It was written as incidental music for a …

What if this problem of declining audiences in classical music wasn’t really about the appeal of classical music? What if there were larger forces at work here? It struck me that declining audiences are more …

“Besides the Faure, that concert was tough. I’m glad you couldn’t make it. It would have put stress on our friendship.” “Hahaha. Best critique ever. Put that in your review. After the Mainly Mozart introduction …

If you’re thinking about doing a half marathon event this month, you better get on it. The Stairway to Heaven trail half-marathon is already sold out but it looks as though the America’s Finest City …

I smelled perfume as I walked down Draper Street toward Sherwood Auditorium. It worried me at first. When you're going to a concert, one of the last things you want is to be next to …

The BBC recently released an article about music and “skin orgasms.” The article claims great music carries with it a sensual element that can become addictive. Science tends to do this with classical music — …

The number one thing you need in order to maintain or improve your fitness is movement. You’ve got to move to get healthy. That’s obvious. Right? What if you’re having trouble moving? It might sound …

Who would like to listen to an hour of of Mozart? How about 127 hours of Mozart? There is a now a playlist which will give you that. Open Culture mentioned this little gem which …

I’m feeling a tad sheepish here about my classical music knowledge. I did not realized that Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 2 was written for orchestra, chorus and soloists. I was listening along on Spotify to Mendelssohn …

Here's an interesting theory about exercise: if you exercise regularly then you have less anger. It might not make you a better person, but it releases the mental and emotional energy that can accumulate in …

I try to make it down to the Spreckels Organ Pavilion at least once during summer. There is a concert at the Organ Pavilion every Monday night at 7:30 p.m. through August 31. On Monday …

Let’s get a little crazy and combine a summer piece of music with the esoteric pick of the week. The power of this concept is overwhelming me. It’s the perfect summer storm. Faure composed his …

The importance of human voices coming together has become less and less valued. There was a time when voices coming together was much more important to society. There is a coming together in a choir …

Concerning the court composer or orchestral organization composer and compensation. Almost every orchestra has a donor or 20 with guest houses somewhere in the city. The composer would receive housing. The donor gets to possibly …

Why not bring back the court composer? Way back when, aristocrats used to have their own orchestras and composers who wrote music for those orchestras. Why not bring that model back? What if the San …

Jon Vickers died on July 10, 2015. He had been retired since 1988 and had a prolonged struggle with Alzheimer’s. It’s a strange phenomenon when an artist of his stature dies. The first reaction, if …

There is a series of "summer sings" at Mission Valley Methodist Church over the next several weeks. I went to the first one on Wednesday, July 8. The piece for the concert was Gabriel Faure's …

Let us talk "Star-Spangled Banner." First, the tune is a British drinking song — people would sing this while they got drunk and nobody had a problem with making this the national anthem of the …

When considering classical music with a summer theme, sometimes the title gives a clue — as in Frank Bridge's Summer. There is also Summer by Glazunov and Vivaldi. See there? Now, what do all three …

Our recent little thunderstorm reminded me of what is probably the best piece of summer music: Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6. There are fives sections of the symphony, one of which is a thunderstorm which passes …

Knoxville: Summer of 1915. Is there a more nostalgic title? It evokes a yearning for simpler times, a time when fathers watered their lawns by hose in the evening, after supper, while children played and …

Let’s talk about soloists and concert music. I’ve yet to be impressed with any soloists at any of the orchestras in town. I’ve found them all to be serviceable at best and miscast at worst. …

Why don’t orchestras pay choruses for the concerts that require a chorus? Why would an institution with a $20 million budget not pay choristers? Here’s the deal. They do pay choruses, but they pay the …

As of June 20, the Mainly Mozart Festival is done for 2015. The final concert was a study in contrasting styles of music. Or perhaps I should say contrasting moods instead of style. The entire …

“As he [Jesus] was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus...As the …

Warning: This article is critical of some current choral practices. If you’re a singer in a choir, you’ve been warned. Let’s talk about this explosive “k” at the top of every mass. The opening text …

Saturday night’s Mainly Mozart concert was a wonderful experience of musicology. Conductor Michael Francis spoke before each piece instead of having a printed “Maestro’s Notes” in the program. This is the type of approach which …

Richard Strauss had a birthday this week so let’s make him our esoteric pick of the week as a birthday present. It’s the thought that counts. Strauss wrote six “great tone poems.” In all, there …

There is a unique event coming up on Sunday, June 14th, at 3 p.m. — a free concert at Balboa Park's Plaza de Panama. What is the event? I’ll let Maestro Michael Francis tell us …

Mozart’s Haffner Symphony is a fairly famous piece of music, but who the hell was Haffner? Haffer got not just the symphony but also a 55-minute-long serenade. That’s about 90 minutes of music by Mozart …

“No more words — he dashed toward the city, heart racing for some great exploit, rushing on like a champion stallion drawing a chariot full tilt, sweeping across the plain in easy, tearing strides — …

The new music director of Mainly Mozart, Michael Francis, hits us with a firehose-stream of knowledge and understanding prior to the opening of the Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra concerts. The interview is so extensive that …

Songs of Travel by Vaughan Williams is the esoteric pick of the week. Now, if at any time in your life you’ve been a baritone undergraduate student, this is not an "esoteric" selection — this …

I’ve been waiting for this moment for 49 weeks. I’m not even joking. The first of five Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra concerts is this Saturday, June 6, at 7:30 p.m. The venue is the Balboa …

It’s not a matter of people not liking classical music. I’ve been driving for Uber here and there for some extra income and I always have classical music playing via Spotify. What usually ensues is …