British conductor Michael Francis is known to San Diego concert goers as the music director of the city's Mainly Mozart Festival. Since taking the job four years ago he has embarked on an ambitious chronological survey of the music of the composer who inspired the festival's name. On this evening he... (more...)
Rafael Payare's initial concert as Music Director Designate of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra featured four familiar and easily appreciated pieces, including Mozart's Overture to Don Giovanni and the topically related Don Juan by Richard Strauss. In a different program two nights later Payare repe... (more...)
When San Diego Opera General Director David Bennett realized earlier this year that the scheduled Vancouver-derived production of Hansel and Gretel wouldn't fit comfortably on the Balboa Theater stage, All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914 was an obvious holiday-season alternative. He'd already b... (more...)
After surviving a tumultuous election season and, let's face it, a pretty scathing couple of years of anger, hatred and division, sometimes you just need to grab a couple hours of joy wherever you can find it. Last night I found my joy at The McCallum Theatre as The Ten Tenors opened a six show stre... (more...)
Guest Ccnductor David Danzmayr led the San Diego Symphony with unusual intensity in a program of one new work and two familiar favorites. Forceful skyward thrusts demanded full power when needed, and an active left hand called for expressive playing. The orchestra responded with performances that br... (more...)
It was a rare event, two symphony orchestras on stage at the same time, and Russian conductor Valery Gergiev was spectacular. He first set a carefree festive mood with the drinking song from Puccini's La Traviata, performed with Viennese flair by the Mariinsky Orchestra and six singers from the Mari... (more...)
The San Diego Opera's production of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro featured expressive singing, clever attractive sets, beautiful costumes, and strong comedic and dramatic acting. The work is generally called a comic opera, but as director Stephen Lawless pointed out during my interview with him, '... (more...)
The first program in the San Diego Symphony's 2018-19 Jacobs Masterworks series featured conductor Edo de Waart and pianist Joyce Yang. So did the second, and that's far from a complaint. Three or four more from them this season would be fine with me.
The concert format was also unchanged from we... (more...)
Pianist Lang Lang all but disappeared from the concert stage late last year while recovering from an arm injury caused by intensely rushed practice of Ravel's concerto for left hand only. Now back touring, he was the main draw for the opening of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra's 2018-19 season. His... (more...)
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...)
BWW Review: MICHAEL FRANCIS CONDUCTS THE SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY IN A PROGAM OF THE YOUNG ROMANTICS at The Jacobs Music Center
BWW Review: RAFAEL PAYARE CONDUCTS THE SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA at the Jacobs Music Center
BWW Review: SAN DIEGO OPERA'S ALL IS CALM: THE CHRISTMAS TRUCE OF 1914 at the Balboa Theatre
BWW Review: The Power Of Ten! The Ten Tenors Raise The Roof At The McCallum Theatre
BWW Review: SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY CONCERT at Jacobs Music Center
BWW Review: MARIINSKY AND SAN DIEGO ORCHESTRAS TOGETHER at The Jacobs Music Center
BWW Review: SAN DIEGO OPERA: THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO at the Civic Center Theater
BWW Review: THE SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA at The Jacobs Music Center
BWW Review: THE SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OPENS THE 2018-19 SEASON at the Jacobs Music Center
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
