YMMC March Concert – Migration

by Lyn Bronson
March 1, 2020

Soloist Lance Yang Bauer & Conductor Danko Druško

YMMC’s Winter Concert yesterday for a capacity audience at Sunset Center was a delight that just kept getting better as the afternoon progressed. Danko Druško, making his second appearance as Music Director and Conductor, was very much in command as he led the young musicians through ambitious repertoire performed by the YMMC Youth and Honors Orchestras. The Youth Orchestra bravely tackled challenging works by Verdi, Wagner and Sibelius, and managed to blow us away with a fun piece, Chamambo, by Manuel Artés. This piece, with YOSAL students joining the Youth Orchestra, charmed us with its Latino rhythms and infectious percussion effects.

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Archived in these categories: 20th Century, Competition, Concerto, Orchestral

Monterey Symphony – Pianist Kun Woo Paik returns for a Double Header

by Lyn Bronson
November 17, 2019

Pianist Kun Woo Paik & Conductor Max Bragado-Darman

Last night at Sunset Center conductor Max Bragado-Darman and the Monterey Symphony presented its second concert of the 2019-2020 season, and it was quite an unusual program. It featured Korean pianist Kun Woo Paik performing two concertos — Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat major, K. 595 and Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 15 in D Minor. Very rarely does a symphonic program contain no other works but a pair of piano concertos, and thereby hangs a tale.

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Archived in these categories: Classical Era, Concerto, Monterey Symphony, Orchestral, Piano, Romantic Era

Santa Cruz Symphony Ascendance

by Josef Sekon, D.M.A.
October 14, 2019

Soloist Jon Nakamatsu

On Sunday, October 13, the Santa Cruz Symphony under the direction of Maestro Danny Stewart opened its 62nd season at the Mello Center for the Performing Arts with three works that covered a time span of some 250 years. In perfect tune with Maestro Stewart’s imaginative programming, the concert offered works the audience knows and loves, a concerto from Beethoven’s growth and development period, one of Stravinsky’s finest ballet scores and a new work by Mason Bates. The 2019-2020 season was off to a most exciting start. 

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Archived in these categories: 20th Century, Classical Era, Concerto, Santa Cruz Symphony

CBF 2019: Chamber Concert — Viennese Matinee

by Melanie Cervi
July 28, 2019

Fortepiano

By the last day of some festivals, many are a bit tired, a bit overwhelmed, and hoping to coast to the finish. Not so at Carmel Bach Festival 2019! The next to last entry in the Chamber Concerts section of the Program Guide has quite an interesting list of compositions. Taking the stage at Sunset Center at 11:00 am on Saturday July 27, 2019, members of the Festival Orchestra gathered around a fortepiano. I have heard recordings and seen a fortepiano in a museum, but to hear it played on stage with other instruments was going to be intriguing.

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Archived in these categories: Baroque, Carmel Bach Festival, Concerto

Something New: The San Francisco Symphony — Under the Stars

by Dr. Gary Lemco
July 11, 2019

Frost Amphitheatre
photo by Brandon Patoc

New Zealand conductor Gemma New appeared in an all-Tchaikovsky program with the San Francisco Symphony Wednesday, July 10, at the refurbished Frost Amphitheater in Palo Alto. The well attended outdoor concert drew an appreciative, if unsophisticated, crowd of admirers, some of whom decided to ignore protocol and crunch cellophane in the quieter moments of the evening’s scores. As for Ms. New, she sports an athletic demeanor on the podium, graceful and demonstrative, even conducting the solo passages that make the Tchaikovsky Fifth Symphony its colorful, fateful self. 

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Archived in these categories: Concerto, Romantic Era