Author: Admin

San Francisco audiences will surely be delighted to welcome to Davies Symphony Hall this week the highly regarded Berlin Philharmoniker and its esteemed Chief Conductor, Sir Simon Rattle, making his final visit to the USA and Canada in this capacity. As guests of the San Francisco Symphony – currently away on an Asian tour –…

SFJAZZ has something to celebrate this week. In a first-time collaboration, two luminaries from the world of jazz – Cuban pianist Chucho Valdés and tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano – are giving four performances at the JAZZ Center, as part of their 2016-17 international tour.  Both have long-standing ties to SFJAZZ, so it’ll be like welcoming…

Audrey Tatou and Gaspard Ulliel in  A Very Long Engagement – © Warner Independent Pictures The year is 1917. The setting, the Battle of the Somme, one of the darkest periods of World War I. The sheer atrocity of trench warfare has driven many French soldiers to take their own lives or at least to…

Scene from Act I of Puccini’s ‘Madama Butterfly’ © Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera Puccini’s heartbreaking yet utterly beautiful Madama Butterfly is the final production of San Francisco Opera’s Fall Season, which opened its run at the War Memorial Opera House on Sunday. Starring Armenian soprano Lianna Haroutounian as Cio-Cio San and Italian tenor Vincenzo Costanzo…

San Francisco Opera steps into the world of street art and hieroglyphics in its new production of Verdi’s Aida which returns to the War Memorial Opera House this week.  Directed by Francesca Zambello, this is Aida as you’ve never seen it before, featuring the artistic design of contemporary visual artist RETNA (Marquis Duriel Lewis). A…

  Official video for the song ‘Lágrimas Negras’ the self-titled album by Bebo Valdés and Diego El Cigala (Calle54 Records, 2003) produced by Fernando Trueba, Javier Limón and Nat Chediak   SFJAZZ is the place to be for a fascinating convergence of cultures this week, as the Center hosts one of the top Spanish artistes…

Photo courtesy San Francisco Symphony “Debussy’s work cannot be judged on the musical level alone”, writes Edward Lockspeiser – Author of Debussy: His Life and Mind – in an online article for Encyclopaedia Britannica.  “There is not only poetry in his music;” he observes, “there is often an inspiration from painting”.  Debussy  did indeed possess…

Each year, the SFJAZZ Collective – the ensemble of star performers and composers regarded as some of the finest in the world of jazz today – pays tribute to the works of a modern jazz master.  Previously – in a series of performances which also includes a selection of the Collective’s own compositions – they…

Always a welcome visitor to San Francisco, Spanish conductor Pablo Heras-Casado returns to Davies Symphony Hall this week to lead the San Francisco Symphony in Mozart’s Symphony No 29, Dvořák’s Seventh Symphony, and the Schumann Cello Concerto, with guest artist Alisa Weilerstein. Principal Conductor of Orchestra of Saint Luke’s, New York, and Principal Guest Conductor…

The intriguing case of a woman who has lived for over 300 years, and her search for a missing formula to extend her lifespan even further, provide the backdrop to Leoš Janáček’s dramatic opera Věc Makropulos (The Makropulos Case) – the latest production by San Francisco Opera in a season which has already demonstrated the…