Ron Bierman has performed on saxophone and flute in several college and other orchestras. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where his studies included music theory as taught by Swiss pianist and composer Ernst Levy. His published work includes reviews of recordings, books, plays, films and live music performances for web sites and newspapers. He has an extensive library of books about music and over three thousand CDs. Now living in San Diego with his wife, he was the President of Advocates for Classical Music for more than 15 years, an organization which worked with local symphony orchestras to introduce more than 200,000 young students to the pleasures of classical music. He and his wife enjoy visiting classrooms with CDs and instruments in hand.
What did our critic think of TARMO PELTOKOSKI As He MAKES HIS U.S. DEBUT WITH THE SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA at Southwestern Colleges Performing Arts Center? We seem to be going through an unprecedented flood of young conducting talent. Finnland's Tarmo Peltokoski is an example. At 22 his recent-college-grad looks make it difficult to believe that he is the conductor or principal guest conductor of four European symphony orchestras. I attended the second of back-to-back performances in his U.S. debut with the San Diego Symphony and am now convinced that much of the hype is warranted.
Stephanie Blythe is probably the only opera singer who represents an ukulele company. That she embodies the unexpected is further confirmed by her upcoming roles in the San Diego Opera's next production, two one-act operas by Puccini. The mezzo soprano will first sing a deeper contralto as the Principessa in Suor Angelica. Then, in title role of Gianni Schicchi, she'll be in the baritone range traditionally assigned to a male singer.
Recently retired Nicolas Reveles was the face of San Diego Opera for 40 years, known to most opera-goers primarily because of his informative and entertaining pre-performance talks. I suspect few in the audience knew he was also an opera composer, a choir director and a piano prodigy. In an hour discussion via Zoom, we spoke about his background and how he came to write GHOSTS, a three-act opera that the San Diego Opera will premiere in March. GHOSTS echoes a scene from SEXTET, an earlier work he’d written on commission for San Diego’s Diversionary Theatre. The scene reflected his love for the horror genre.
What did our critic think of ANNE AKIKO MEYERS AND THE SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY at The California Center For The Arts, Escondido? Review: A New Violin Concerto Delights the Audience!
“We love you, Poncho!” came a shout from the audience before the musicians had played their first note. And a few tunes later, even some silver-haired members of the La Jolla community were dancing in the aisles. The Poncho Sanchez Latin Jazz Band has that effect on people. It’s hard to keep your feet still and a smile off your face once Sanchez and his talented rhythm section start a salsa beat.
Mezzo Isabel Leonard and classical-guitarist Pablo Sáinz-Villegas are stars in their fields. Leonard has sung on two Grammy-winning opera recordings and won a Beverly Sills Artist Award at the Metropolitan Opera--and even guested on Sesame Street. He's garnered 30 international awards, including the Segovia, which he won at age 15, and critics have compared him to that legendary guitarist. Understandably, their recital at the La Jolla Music Society's Conrad sold out more than a month before the performance. Chairs were added on stage for late ticket buyers.
What did our critic think of SAN DIEGO OPERA'S WORLD PREMIERE OF THE LAST DREAM OF FRIDA AND DIEGO at San Diego Civic Theater? The San Diego Opera, reveling in modern phantasies, has followed its successful production of Aging Magician with El último sueño de Frida y Diego (The Last Dream of Frida and Diego). The former featured a mysterious chorus commenting cryptically on the Guadalupe Paz everyday actions of its maybe dying main character who, maybe while dying, ascends to join the chorus in a brilliantly staged finale. The more recent production is less ambiguous, but even more phantasmagoric. Semi-reality shares the stage with an underworld of the dead as Frida (mezzo-soprano Guadalupe Paz) decides whether to accept a one-day pass back to life, and Diego (baritone Alfredo Daza) laments his lost love.
On this storm-threatened evening, Symphony CEO Martha Gilmer was clad in a yellow rain-slicker worthy of a bout with a North Atlantic gale as she told a surprisingly full outdoor-amphitheater audience, 'Now I know how much you love your San Diego Symphony!' She went on to explain a late change in conductors. Principal Guest Conductor Edo de Waart, at the age of 81, was beginning to feel the effects of travel, and they'd agreed he would conduct the concert's second half, John Lidfors the first. After that announcement, she introduced a video of the always entertaining and informative Nuvi Mehta who gave a brief description of the flood of marvelous melodies to follow.
The opera El último sueño de Frida y Diego (The Last Dream of Frida and Diego) premieres in October at the San Diego Civic Center. I spoke with the work's composer Gabriela Lena Frank for more than an hour via Zoom while she was in Booneville, the rural area North of San Francisco where she lives. Although the opera is her first, her orchestral music has been performed by an impressive number of major orchestras including those of Cleveland, Philadelphia and Boston. And despite the challenge of a serious hearing deficiency from birth, she's produced music the New York Times described as 'brilliantly effective,' while the Los Angeles Times chimed in with 'glorious.'
Few composers reach the depth of emotions found in Tchaikovsky, and few conductors seem to react more passionately to musically expressed emotion than the San Diego Symphony's Rafael Payare. What better combination could there be for an outdoor waterfront concert at the Rady Shell.
What did our critic think of THE NEW ROMANTICS at The Conrad 's Baker-Baum Concert Hall?
What did our critic think of SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY CONCERT at The Rady Shell?
Musical impressionism ruled the San Diego Symphony’s early-evening Rady Shell concert this past weekend. First came conductor-composer Esa-Pekka Salonen’s reaction to Nyx, a daughter of Chaos, the earliest Greek god. Nyx, rarely mentioned in extant ancient Greek-literature, is goddess of the night, mysterious but powerful. At one point in Homer’s Iliad, even Zeus changes his plans for fear of making her angry, and I get that. She was the mother of Death and Sleep.
'What the hell was that?' an opera fan asked her friend as we shuffled into a parking-garage elevator. Not an easily answered question after a viewing of AGING MAGICIAN. Ambiguity abounds and reality is mixed with fantasy. The reality side is clear, mostly. Harold is a middle-aged watch repairman who lives alone. Although repairs pay the rent, they've been neglected because he can't stop thinking about the plot of a book he's been writing in which an aging magician worries his marvelous tricks won't outlive him. As he seeks a capable heir for his book of secrets, he collapses and is rushed to a hospital.
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