music

May 15, 2015

Oakland Symphony delivers a grand “Candide”

The best of all possible worlds? The Paramount Theater, Oakland’s restored Art Deco palace, was filled last Friday with fantastical music and absurdist theater in Leonard Bernstein’s satirical masterpiece, Candide. Based on Voltaire’s heady romp and critique of society, it poses a philosophical nut and then blasts away at it. But that philosophical debate is accomplished with such infectious melodies and pin-turn plot twists that it...

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March 10, 2015

Cypress Quartet at Berkeley Chamber Performances

When charm and wit ruled the world Sitting in the ornate glory of the Julia Morgan-designed Berkeley City Club, what could possibly add to the charm of an earlier era? Most likely the sumptuous sounds of the Cypress Quartet performing Antonín Dvořák’s String Quartet in E-flat, Op. 51. Joanne de Phillips, President of Berkeley Chamber Performances, welcomed them to the stage of the lovely second-floor theater, where...

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March 1, 2015

John Luther Adams, Ye-Eun Choi with the SF Symphony

When it’s hip to be square. My cousin was going to join me for a concert at the San Francisco Symphony, but being a young techie, he was still waiting to land at the airport at curtain time. I thought about that as I looked in line for someone to use my other ticket. As this was a Sunday matinee, with rush tickets available for the young and elderly, most patrons were young or had blue-rinsed hair or a hearing aid. Where were all the young techies? Working hard...

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Categories: music