An especially memorable performance in 2025: Mahler’s Second with the San Francisco Symphony and Esa-Pekka Salonen, which concluded his tenure as the orchestra’s music director:
Filed under: Esa-Pekka Salonen, Mahler, review, San Francisco Symphony
November 26, 2025 • 3:32 pm Comments Off on Richard O’Neill and Jeremy Denk in Recital
Richard O’Neill and Jeremy Denk in Recital
Seattle Chamber Music Society presented Richard O’Neill and Jeremy Denk in a sold-out recital Sunday. Here’s my review for The Strad:
Seattle Chamber Music Society brought the inaugural season of its new Signature Series to a compelling close with this sold-out recital by violist Richard O’Neill – best known as a member of the Takács Quartet – and pianist Jeremy Denk.
Filed under: Beethoven, review, Seattle Chamber Music Society, The Strad, viola
November 25, 2025 • 9:57 am Comments Off on Music For Saxophone Evokes Emotional Swirl Summoned By The Wind
Music For Saxophone Evokes Emotional Swirl Summoned By The Wind
A wonderful new saxophone concerto by Steven Mackey featuring Timothy McAllister and some classic John Adams from Seattle Symphony – my review for Classical Voice North America:
SEATTLE – Rather than propose a grand narrative of American music, the Seattle Symphony’s all-American program on Nov. 20 with guest conductor Lawrence Renes set three sharply contrasting voices side by side: Copland’s atmospheric Quiet City, Steven Mackey’s brand-new saxophone concerto Anemology, and John Adams’ ever-astonishing Harmonielehre — a lineup that underscored how differently American composers have approached the orchestra over the past century….
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Filed under: American music, commissions, John Adams, review, Seattle Symphony
November 18, 2025 • 2:51 pm Comments Off on ‘The Monkey King’: Opera Now Review
‘The Monkey King’: Opera Now Review
Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang’s The Monkey King is a very palpable hit at San Francisco Opera. The rest of the run appears to be already sold out, but a livestream of tonight’s performance at 7.30 PT will be available here starting at 7.30 pm PT ($25); the stream will also be available on demand from 23 Nov at 10am PT to 25 Nov at 10am PT.
My review for Opera Now:
Just after singing what may be the most beautiful music in The Monkey King, the opera’s irrepressible hero promptly marks his territory with a triumphant stream of urine. It’s an indelible assertion of Monkey’s contradictions – and a characteristic example of Huang Ruo’s assured pacing. His underlying musical control gives this sweeping, adventure-driven tale cohesion, navigating its comic and sublime registers with unforced confidence. The transitions are so natural they scarcely call attention to themselves. …
Filed under: new opera, review, San Francisco Opera
November 12, 2025 • 10:35 am Comments Off on Breath and Soul: Bach’s Eloquent Oboe at the Seattle Bach Festival
Breath and Soul: Bach’s Eloquent Oboe at the Seattle Bach Festival
The second of this past weekend’s wonderful Baroque programs, courtesy of Seattle Bach Festival – my review of Tekla Cunningham and friends’ ‘The Eloquent Oboe’ for the aptly named Bachtrack:
Launched as recently as January, the Seattle Bach Festival is already becoming a force in the Pacific Northwest’s Early Music landscape…
November 11, 2025 • 12:56 pm Comments Off on Concert review: Tafelmusik with Rachel Podger
Concert review: Tafelmusik with Rachel Podger
Early Music Seattle presented a stimulating evening with Tafelmusik and the inimitable Rachel Podger. My review for The Strad:
Early Music Seattle, the region’s principal presenter of period performance, welcomed Tafelmusik for the Seattle stop on its twelve-city tour of the North American West Coast – aptly titled ‘Brilliant Baroque’. With principal guest director Rachel Podger leading from her baroque violin, the sixteen-member ensemble offered a sequence of works shaped, in part, by an aesthetic of translation and rearrangement – whether from solo to chamber forces or from the opera stage to more intimate instrumental settings.
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Filed under: early music, review, The Strad
November 1, 2025 • 9:45 am 2
‘Parsifal’ at San Francisco Opera
My review of San Francisco Opera’s new production of Parsifal has been posted on the Opera Now website:
Time moves differently in San Francisco Opera’s Parsifal. Under Eun Sun Kim’s baton, Wagner’s score breathes with a kind of suspended inevitability, while movement and light unfold in ritual slow motion, evoking a theatre of Baudelairean correspondences, where sound, image and gesture seem to mirror one another in continual exchange.
Filed under: review, San Francisco Opera, Wagner
October 20, 2025 • 10:09 am Comments Off on Baroque Vitality in Motion: Ivars Taurins Leads the Seattle Symphony
Baroque Vitality in Motion: Ivars Taurins Leads the Seattle Symphony
The Seattle Symphony turned agile chamber band for its all-Baroque evening under guest conductor Ivars Taurins, joined by resident organist Joseph Adam. With the Seattle Opera season opening across town – the company orchestra comprises Seattle Symphony musicians – the program made a virtue of proportion and dramatic resourcefulness….
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Filed under: Handel, review, Seattle Symphony
August 8, 2025 • 11:29 am 1
Perfect Timing: ‘Figaro’ in Santa Fe
My Musical America review of Laurent Pelly’s Nozze at Santa Fe Opera:
SANTA FE—The plot of The Marriage of Figaro can feel like a dizzying maze of deceptions and deferred revelations—its intricate turns threatening to overwhelm the human stakes. But in Santa Fe Opera’s ingeniously paced production, directed by Laurent Pelly, every complication slips neatly into place with the precision of a fine timepiece, allowing the machinery of the plot to bring the messy human entanglements that drive the drama into…
Filed under: Mozart, Musical America, review, Santa Fe Opera
July 31, 2025 • 12:32 pm Comments Off on Showbiz and Shadows: ‘Rigoletto’ at Santa Fe Opera
Showbiz and Shadows: ‘Rigoletto’ at Santa Fe Opera
It’s great to be back in Santa Fe. Here’s my take on the first of this week’s five productions @Santa Fe Opera:
Santa Fe Opera’s new Rigoletto delivers flashes of vitality that help compensate for a staging that is often muddled. From the outset, Carlo Montanaro’s conducting signalled an intense level of involvement from the orchestra. The opening curse motif, stated a touch more aggressively than usual, is as emphatic as an oracle. …
Filed under: review, Santa Fe Opera, Verdi
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 