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Recent Reviews
- The Joy of Modern & Traditional Music
- Hidden Valley Ends its Master Artist Series with cellist Mark Kosower in recital
- Celebration Choir: Walkin’ Together — Changing Our World
- Elastic Brio: Menlo’s Overture Concert
- Pianist Ko-Eun Yi at the Aptos Keyboard Series at St. John’s
- Masterful: [email protected]’s Concert Program V
- Sonorous Sweep: The Romantic Revolution at Menlo
- CBF 2019: Virginia Best Adams Masterclass Showcase
- CBF 2019: Signs and Seasons
- CBF 2019: Sacred Treasures of Spain and England
- CBF 2019: Chamber Concert — Viennese Matinee
- CBF 2019: Christmas at the Mission
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Recent Previews
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List by Category
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Carmel Bach Festival 2019: Young Artists’ Showcase
On Saturday Afternoon in Sunset Center the Carmel Bach Festival presented its annual Young Artists’ Showcase Concert, which, as the name would imply, is designed to showcase talented young musicians from four counties on the Central Coast. Participating in this concert were nine string players, five pianists, three vocalists, and a woodwind octet selected from a larger group of applicants, who had auditioned in May. These auditions were judged by CMMB Artistic Director Erica Horn and YMM Music Director Farkhad Khudyev. The Young Artists’ Showcase is managed and administered by Barbara Priest, the instrumental Music Director at Pacific Grove Middle School.
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Archived in these categories: Baroque, Carmel Bach Festival, Cello, Chamber music, Piano
Cellist Janneke Hoogland & Pianist James Neiman at Del Mesa
In a late afternoon recital, we had an opportunity yesterday to hear a performance by two relatively new arrivals on the Monterey Peninsula, cellist Janneke Hoogland and pianist James Neiman. They performed works for cello and piano by J.S. Bach, Mendelssohn, Beethoven and Rachmaninoff for a capacity audience of family, friends and residents of Del Mesa Carmel.
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Archived in these categories: Cello, Chamber Music Monterey Bay, Piano
Brahms in Rome
A spectacular all-Brahms concert in Rome with pianist Yefim Bronfman and the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia conducted by Daniele Gatti offered the Piano Concerto No. 2 and Symphony No. 2 at the Sala Santa Cecilia on May 5. Arriving by bus in a torrential rainstorm, it nevertheless was exciting to see the Auditorium at the famed Parco della Musica, a huge modern building that contains several concert venues north of the city center.
Of interest to this retired orchestra player was the concert etiquette of the orchestra. Unlike symphony orchestras in the United States, here the players do not enter the stage early to tune and warm up. There is no pre-concert noodling in front of the entering public as in the USA. At four minutes after the announced concert time the players file on stage to continuous applause. They take their seats and the concertmaster begins the formal tuning process.
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Archived in these categories: Cello, Concerto, Orchestral, Piano, Romantic Era
Carmel Trio in Aptos
Sometimes you find a wonderful experience when you least expect it. I had the pleasure of listening to a fine collection of Sonatas for piano and strings in the afternoon of Feb. 10, 2019. The Carmel Trio (Nicola Samra, Violin; Christopher Healy, Cello; and James Neiman, Piano) presented 3 works: Two Sonatas for piano and violin (Mozart and Beethoven) and a Sonata for piano and cello (Rachmaninoff). Our thanks to the community of the Episcopal Church of St. John the Baptist in Aptos for sharing their space. I thoroughly enjoyed the fine performance.
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Archived in these categories: Cello, Chamber music, Piano, Violin
Santa Cruz Symphony: Enlightenment
Contemporary works are much like contemporary art. The major difference is one can spend time viewing an art work, looking at it from several angles in an attempt to better understand what in many cases the artist intended to depict. However, and unfortunately, music is performed in real time and as it passes, so too does the time it demands for a better understanding.
“Enlightenment” is a most appropriate title for the opening concert of the orchestra’s 2019 season, and it was filled with wonderful surprises. Like the tortoise found in Hindu mythology, appearing capable of carrying the heavens on its back, one hears and witnesses towering achievements from our young conductor. In order to reach such heights, Maestro Stewart has created an impressive musical atmosphere based on mutual respect and partnership. When this occurs, impressive musical results are the artistic consequence, a fact the supportive audience has experienced during his tenure. He has built the technical quality of the orchestra much in the manner of the late Pierre Boulez, and his contemporary Esa-Pekka Salonen now of the San Francisco Symphony, who forever look for perfection in details and refinement in the intimacy of the works they perform. Especially evident was the orchestra’s sound in the Mozart Symphony No. 40. The orchestra’s development sounded like an impressive “major big city orchestra”!
San Francisco take note!
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Archived in these categories: 20th Century, Cello, Concerto, Orchestral, Santa Cruz Symphony
