Jordi Savall and Philharmonia Baroque

Jordi Savall is in town, appearing in not only the Cal Performances Music Before 1850 series but also with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, an organization with which he has a long-standing relationship. A celebrated soloist and the director of his three renowned ensembles—Hespèrion XXI, La Capella Reial de Catalunya, and Le Concert des Nations—Savall is widely admired not only for his virtuosic playing but as a researcher of early music who has brought many forgotten works to music...

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Oakland Symphony at Paramount

The search for American treasure Michael Morgan took the Oakland East Bay Symphony for a fishing expedition Friday night, Feb. 26, searching out American idioms in a program titled “Diverse views of America.” Morgan put the...

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Kronos Quartet at Z Space @ Artaud

Theory is often a feature of experimental or avant-garde art; artists need to wrestle with what they feel is predictable in their art, and to undermine and recreate that art to better fit their vision of the world. But it often seems as if theory undermines the pure...

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Russian National Orchestra at Zellerbach

Cal Performances brings out heavy ammunition The Russian National Orchestra hit the Bay Area last Friday while touring the West Coast, and gave us a taste of how Russians do Russian masterpieces. Muscle and musicianship their watchwords, they played a chilling and incisive version of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 9 and accompanied Stefan Jackiw for a dynamic rendition of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. Mikhail Pletnev founded the Russian...

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Berkeley Symphony at Zellerbach

Carneiro delivers the goods with Berkeley Symphony The Berkeley Symphony came out of the box at full gallop Thursday night at Zellerbach Hall, in the second of three concerts for this season. Joana Carneiro conducted with infectious energy, inspiring the musicians to a sustained high that carried them through two difficult contemporary pieces and Beethoven’s 3rd Symphony, the Eroica. Carneiro spoke beforehand of the program’s unifying themes. “Clarity of colors,...

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