The Welk Resort Theatre's production of Mamma Mia is a cheerful high energy entertainment, a worthy example of why the musical has been a favorite of many dozens of production companies around the world since its 1999 London premiere. The story is set on the Greek island of Kalokairi where we learn ... (more...)
Nostalgic fans mobbed the San Diego Symphony's Four Tops and Temptations concert. Tables, stands and lawn were packed. Ticketless fans settled in spots outside the entrance, joining boats in the bay in listening to music that had created lasting memories. Tunes you hear growing up never leave you. Y... (more...)
In 1962 West Side Story won 10 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Musical. Is it still worth seeing more than half a century later? Sure is! Jerome Robbins' energetic choreography remains riveting, and Leonard Bernstein's marvelous score is a perfect frame for Sondheim's affecting lyrics... (more...)
'Carnival,' the opening concert in Cho-Liang Lin's last season as music director of the La Jolla Music Society's Summerfest, was an unusual jumble of works. Bartok's Contrasts for clarinet, piano and violin was written for jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman. It is based on Hungarian and Romanian folk da... (more...)
The San Diego Symphony's 2018 Bayside Jazz Series continued with 'Godfathers of Latin Jazz,' a concert inspired by trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie's merger of bebop and Afro-Cuban rhythms. Dizzy had wanted something new for a 1947 Carnegie Hall concert, 'One of those tom toms' he said, thinking of the dif... (more...)
Arturo Sandoval is best known as a Latin trumpeter. But at their San Diego Bayside Jazz performance, his sextet displayed exceptional versatility. At tempos from ballad-slow to escape velocity, they rocked the waterfront with Latin, bop, funk and even a little metal rock. Sandoval, in addition to tr... (more...)
Thamos, King of Egypt, a play by Tobias Philipp, baron von Gebler, premiered in 1774. Mozart completed incidental music for it, the 18th Century equivalent of a movie soundtrack, in 1780. Before Mainly Mozart's performance of a concert version of the play, conductor Michael Francis, with a typicall... (more...)
Every year since 1989 Mainly Mozart has been bringing many of the best orchestra musicians in the country to San Diego to perform a month-long series of concerts ranging from solo recitals to orchestral. When Michael Francis succeeded founding music director and conductor David Atherton in 2015 he r... (more...)
Conductor Edo de Waart opened the last concert in the San Diego Symphony Orchestra's 2017-18 Jacobs Masterworks series with Overture to Candide. The overture has been perhaps Leonard Bernstein's most frequently programmed work during this, his centennial year. The cheeky, riotous piece is always tak... (more...)
The San Diego Opera's last concert this season was billed as 'One Amazing Night.' The program was originally scheduled to feature soprano Lise Lindstrom and tenor Rene Barbera, but Barbera was released from his commitment when he was offered a Teatro alla Scala debut as Ernesto in a new production o... (more...)
It was good to see Maestro Jahja Ling return to San Diego as Conductor Laureate while we await the arrival next year of his replacement as Music Director Rafael Payare. Nor did Ling disappoint. He seemed totally absorbed in the music produced by the orchestra he was largely responsible for rebuildin... (more...)
The San Diego Symphony's season continued this past weekend with guest pianist and conductor Jeffrey Kahane. He opened at the piano in front of an orchestra reduced to half its usual size for Mozart's 27th piano concerto. After intermission there were roughly twice as many musicians for Samuel Barbe... (more...)
Cristian Macelaru made a favorable impression as guest conductor here last year and was scheduled to return again, a sign that he may have been on the short list of possible choices for Jahja Ling's replacement. But the San Diego Symphony has selected Venezuelan conductor Rafael Payare as its new mu... (more...)
The Etienne Charles sextet's concert at La Jolla's TSRI Auditorium proved yet again that the Athenaeum's jazz program coordinator Dan Atkinson hasn't lost his touch. The series, which he founded in 1989, consistently features some of the best jazz musicians in the country in as many as 18 concerts a... (more...)
The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with pianist Chick Corea performed this past weekend as part of the San Diego Symphony's jazz series. When I last heard the band two years ago without Corea, I thought it was in a bit of a rut, and I can see why Wynton Marsalis, its usual leader, chose the pianis... (more...)
The San Diego Opera's production of Daniel Catan's Florencia en el Amazonas was premiered Saturday at San Diego's Civic Center. Much has been made of the influence the magical realism of Nobel-Prize winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez had on Marcela Fuentes-Berain's libretto, but most of the magic... (more...)
The Academy of St Martin in the Fields chamber orchestra, with first violinist and music director Joshua Bell, performed Friday night at San Diego's Jacobs Music Center as part of the La Jolla Music Society's ongoing Orchestra Series. Over the years the series has featured only the best of the world... (more...)
Leonard Bernstein would have been 100 years old this year, on August 25th to be precise, and there are literally thousands of commemorative events around the globe including performances of symphonies, operas and ballets, lectures, exhibits, and film and music festivals. Last Friday I attended the M... (more...)
Edo de Waart has become a welcome repeat guest-conductor for the San Diego Symphony Orchestra. His no nonsense, experience-based authority at the podium appears to have won the respect of players, Symphony management-and certainly, San Diego audiences. Friday's finale brought an immediate standing o... (more...)
The San Diego Opera's new production of Puccini's Turandot held rapt attention throughout its three acts in spite of a dark plot that's implausible even for opera, and a lead character less loveable than Lady Macbeth. Powerful men from other kingdoms flock to win Princess Turandot's hand by answerin... (more...)
Sameer Patel, Associate Conductor of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, made his subscription series debut with Liszt's Les Preludes, the fifth symphony of Sibelius, and the world premiere of Adam Schoenberg's violin concerto Orchard in Fog.
Les Preludes is one of 13 tone poems written by Liszt. He ... (more...)
Maria de Buenos Aires, a 90-minute opera by Astor Piazzolla and librettist Horacio Ferrar, is the latest in the San Diego Opera's innovative Detour Series. According to the company's website, the series name indicates its productions are stops on 'a route that is different from the ordinary.' Piazzo... (more...)
The Mingus Dynasty Septet plays often at the Jazz Standard in New York City, one of the top jazz clubs in the country. La Jolla's Athenaeum Library brought them to San Diego for two performances that included a tribute to Charles Mingus's Tijuana Moods album, originally recorded in 1957 and finally ... (more...)
Conducting with a combination of precise hand signals and smooth sweeping arm gestures, Jader Bignamini went all-out to please and entertain in his guest appearance with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, and he succeeded. The familiar works he selected seemed to form a spectacular five-movement conc... (more...)
Venezuelan conductor Rafael Payare opened his San Diego Symphony Orchestra guest appearance with Berlioz's Roman Carnival Overture. Payare conducted with vigorous dramatic motions, and the orchestra responded by bringing the work's romantic themes and stirring gestures to life. Principle English hor... (more...)
BWW Review: MAMMA MIA at At The Welk Resort Theatre
BWW Review: THE FOUR TOPS AND THE TEMPTATIONS at the San Diego Symphony's Bayside Summer Nights
BWW Review: WEST SIDE STORY WITH THE SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY at Bayside Amphitheater
BWW Review: LA JOLLA MUSIC SOCIETY SUMMERFEST CARNIVAL! at the Conrad Prebys Concert Hall
BWW Review: GODFATHERS OF LATIN JAZZ at San Diego Symphony Bayside Amphitheater
BWW Review: THE SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY PRESENTS THE ARTURO SANDOVAL SEXTET at the Bayside Amphitheater
BWW Review: MAINLY MOZART'S THAMOS, KING OF EGYPT at San Diego's Balboa Theater
BWW Review: MAINLY MOZART at The Balboa Theater
BWW Review: EDO DE WAART CONDUCTS THE SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY at the Jacobs Music Center
BWW Review: SAN DIEGO OPERA'S ONE AMAZING NIGHT at The Balboa Theater
BWW Review: THE SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY CONDUCTED BY JAHJA LING at The Jacobs Music Center
BWW Review: JEFFREY KAHANE PLAYS AND CONDUCTS AT SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY Jacobs Music Center
BWW Review: CASE SCAGLIONE CONDUCTS THE SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA at the Jacobs Music Center
BWW Review: LA JOLLA ATHENAEUM PRESENTS ETIENNE CHARLES AND CREOLE JAZZ at TSRI Auditorium In La Jolla
BWW Review: SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY PRESENTS JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA WITH CHICK COREA at San Diego Jacobs Music Center
BWW Review: SAN DIEGO OPERA'S FLORENCIA EN LA AMAZONAS at San Diego Civic Center
BWW Review: LA JOLLA MUSIC SOCIETY PRESENTS THE ACADEMY OF ST MARTIN IN THE FIELDS at San Diego's Jacobs Music Center
BWW Review: Catch The Moon - One Handed Catch! West Side Story In Concert Reached For The Stars And Soared At The McCallum
BWW Review: THE SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY CONDUCTED BY EDO DE WAART at the Jacobs Music Center
BWW Review: SAN DIEGO OPERA'S TURANDOT at the Civic Center
BWW Review: THE SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA at The Jacobs Music Center
BWW Review: MARIA DE BUENOS AIRES at The Lyceum Theater
BWW Review: MINGUS DYNASTY at TSRI Auditorium
BWW Review: THE SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA at The Jacobs Music Center
BWW Review: SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY at Jacobs Music Center
