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Recent Reviews
- Pianist Chetan Tierra — Return of a Native Son
- Opera San Jose — Die Fledermaus
- Santa Cruz Symphony — Souvenir de Florence
- Danko Druško — Newly Appointed Director of Youth Music Monterey County
- 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
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Recent Previews
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List by Category
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Pianist Chetan Tierra — Return of a Native Son
If you weren’t at Peace United Church in Santa Cruz on Sunday afternoon, September 8th, you missed a great piano recital, presented by the Distinguished Artists Concert Series’ director John Orlando as a special event, not part of the regular series, by native son Chetan Tierra from Ben Lomond, now in his mid 30’s and living/teaching in San Diego with his lovely wife, also a pianist.
This writer first reviewed him around 20 years ago when he was a student of Hans Boepple and a “Wunderkind” — I often listen in my car to Tierra’s super CD from 2007. For several years, he has focused on a rock band; but, fortunately for musicians everywhere, he has put that behind him and returned to the classical “fold” with added maturity and intensity.
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Archived in these categories: 20th Century, Classical Era, Piano, Romantic Era
Elastic Brio: Menlo’s Overture Concert
An inspiring, rare moment of collaboration marked the Friday, August 2nd Overture Concert at [email protected]’s Center for Performing Arts at Menlo-Atherton, the occasion’s inviting young, International Program artists to share the stage with seasoned veterans, in the spirit of musical pedagogy and performance-practice. In music by Beethoven, Franck, and Brahms, the participants emanated a thoroughly integrated and often feverishly intense series of performances that point to the active musicians’ futures as much as to their appreciation of past masters, a thoroughly happy meeting of youthful hopes and experienced professionals.
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Archived in these categories: Chamber music, Classical Era, Piano, Romantic Era
Pianist Ko-Eun Yi at the Aptos Keyboard Series at St. John’s
Korean pianist Ko-Eun Yi thrilled an audience of piano lovers yesterday afternoon as she performed a recital for the Aptos Keyboard Series at the Episcopal Church of St. John the Baptist. Artistic Director of the series Josef Sekon continues to surprise us by discovering new young talented artists and bringing them to central California.
Juilliard trained pianist Yi may have looked very young, fragile and vulnerable as she sat down at the piano. However, from the first notes of her opening work, Scarlatti’s Sonata in c-sharp minor, K. 247, L. 256, she revealed not the demeanor of a playful kitten, but that of a ferocious tiger, as she devoured each work on the program and left us thirsting for more by the end of the program.
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Archived in these categories: Baroque, Classical Era, Piano, Romantic Era
Masterful: [email protected]’s Concert Program V
A quartet of diverse, post-Romantic composers comprised the July 26 Concert Program V of [email protected]’s ongoing survey of Incredible Decades, 1890-1900: Moscow to Montmartre, held at The Center for Performing Arts at Menlo-Atherton. Music by Joseph Suk, Claude Debussy, Johannes Brahms, and Sergei Rachmaninov provided masterful vehicles for a literal pageant of accomplished participants while expanding our own horizons on the repertory of this fertile period of imaginative creation.
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Archived in these categories: Chamber music, Classical Era, Piano, Romantic Era
Sonorous Sweep: The Romantic Revolution at Menlo
While only three chamber music works comprised the [email protected] concert of the July 26 Concert Program No. IV at The Center for Performing Arts, Menlo-Atherton, the brilliant artistry by which these works – Schumann’s Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 63; Chopin’s Cello Sonata in G Minor, Op. 65; and Mendelssohn’s String Quintet No. 2 in B-flat Major, Op. 87 – found realization so illuminating that they seemed to exemplify their motivic rubric, “1840-1850: The Romantic Revolution.”
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Archived in these categories: Chamber music, Romantic Era
