Results tagged “daviessymphonyhall”

Anne-Sophie Mutter is classical music's attempt to attract the 18-34 male demographics. She's the symphony hall's answer to Monday Night Football. She can play the violin like anyone else, but she also happens to be seriously attractive. She'll play at Davies Symphony Hall on Monday 4/7 (a recital of Brahms sonatas with pianist Lambert Orkis), and we'll make the same recommendation as for the ballet: guys, take your girlfriend there, she'll think you're sensitive, cultivated, oh so sophisticated, and you'll have some eye candy to look at, you'll have a good time. You might even end up enjoying the music.

We had a little San Francisco Polyphony of our own on our way to the SF Symphony concert yesterday night to see Gyorgy Ligeti's shimmerily-dissonant orchestral piece of the same name -- the driver of our MUNI bus finally got fed up with people sneaking in through the back door, stopped the bus smack dab on Mission Street, and announced that the cops were coming to bust all the fare jumpers when we got to Van Ness. Alas, we got to Davies Symphony Hall before we could see if he'd made good on the threat.

-- Colors of Christmas: Oh yeah. You know you want to hear this KOIT-ish night of soulful holiday tunes live at Davies, right? Well, we sure do. Peabo Bryson, Oleta Adams, Ben Vereen, and Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis Jr. croon R&B-tinged holiday classics and modern hits starting at 8 p.m. at Davies Symphony Hall; $20-$80.

Well, this sounds like the perfect (and perfectly frightening) holiday entertainment for both kiddies and adults.

San Francisco and the Bay Area are getting ready to throw a big (albeit somewhat belated) celebration for Philip Glass’ 70th birthday with concerts all over the place and, of course, the premier of Glass’ new opera Appomattox. And the kick-off is this Friday night with a very special and rare intimate recital courtesy of San Francisco Performances. Mr. Glass will be playing several of his pieces with cellist Wendy Sutter and percussionist Mick Rossi at Herbst Theater.

The SF Symphony returned from its trip to Europe and kicks off its 2007-08 season tonight, with a sold out opening night gala featuring MTT and Renée Fleming. We find it ironic that they will play Aaron Copland’s "Fanfare for the Common Man" -- a piece riddled with leftist political overtones -- to SF’s high society. Well then, it looks like the SF symphony is more subversive than we give them credit for this time. Good for them.

What does SF Opera music director Donald Runnicles do when he's not conducting Wagner at the War Memorial Opera House? He's conducting Wagner in London. What does SF Symphony music director Michael Tilson Thomas do when he's not conducting Mahler at Davies Symphony Hall? You guessed it: he's conducting Mahler in London. We knew that addicts to Mahler or Wagner existed. But to think that they live in our own backyard? Well, that's just spooky.

-- hey willpower at Glitterbox: At this "funk punk thrash electro discotheque" (what, no show tunes? Bah), local pop/R&B/dance band performs. DJs Javier Natureboy and Junkyard spin funk, punk, and electro well into the morning hours. At least until 3 a.m., anyway. Starts at 9 p.m. at Cat Club, 1190 Folsom (at Eighth Street).

-- Treat or Trick!: Ack, it's Halloween in July! SFShenanigans invite you to hand out candy at the Civic Center BART station tonight (at the platform closest to the Embarcadero.) Why? Just...because. So, dress up in your Halloween-ian finest! Bring fun-sized treats to pass out to weary BART riders! Spooktacular, drunk fun for all! 6 p.m.-8 p.m. at Civic Center BART, Market and Leavenworth; free.

Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 is a showpiece for a virtuoso of the keyboard, one with enough guts to tackle its challenges, and enough confidence to laugh at its difficult twists. Yefim Bronfman displayed more than guts and confidence, he showed some serious chutzpah. He impressed us last year in Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1, and renewed our awe Thursday night at Davies Symphony Hall with as solid a performance. He even got an extra brownie point for tongue-in-cheek creativity.

The SF Bomb Squad's given the all-clear for a bomb scare outside Davies Symphony Hall this morning, on the Hayes Street side. Hey, we don't want to hear about a bomb scare at Symphony Hall -- we're supposed to be meeting the Philistine SFist Ced there later tonight!

Today's the opening day of the new SF Symphony season, with a Gala at Davies Symphony Hall and a performance of Stravinsky's violin concerto with Christian Tetzlaff soloing, and Dvorak's Symphony No. 8, with of course MTT at the helm. Then, the orchestra abandons us to woo the European crowds in the neutral countries of Luxembourg and Switzerland. They come back in time for a free noon-time concert in the Yerba Buena Gardens on Sept. 22nd, with a re-run of the gala program: Glinka's Overture to Ruslan and Ludmila and some excerpts of Dvorak's 8th. If you work downtown, you must pack your lunch and eat it on the lawn while enjoying the sun and MTT and the orchestra and a Beard Papa puff for dessert.

Visiting conductor James Conlon twice asked for a perfect silence from the SF Symphony audience in Davies Symphony Hall, during Saturday's performance of Verdi's Requiem. The first time was to shush the house before opening the concert with the softest pianissimo from the cellos, a whisper of a murmur leading to the hushed prayer from the Chorus: Grant them eternal rest, O Lord, and let everlasting light shine upon them.

Our friends at the San Francisco Symphony want to give a couple of lucky SFist readers tickets for HK Gruber’s cabaret at Davies Symphony Hall. Listen to how crazy this show sounds:

When going to the concert at Davies Symphony Hall last Thursday, we expected a feast for the ears. But visiting conductor Alan Gilbert made it quite a visual show as well: an unassuming man with the bulging pouch of a computer programmer, he looked a bit younger than his almost 40 years, and became quite possessed with the music, his hands fluttering like little birds in Dutilleux's Mystères de l'Instant. In Schumann's Manfred overture, his demeanor was by itself worth the admission price. Manfred, based on Byron's semi-autobiographical poem, is a tormented young man, and Gilbert was not only channeling that torment, he looked like he was rehearsing for the next sequel in the Karate Kid series. We are not here to solve chicken and egg problems: did Gilbert look this way because the orchestra sounded that way, or the other way around? In any case, the sound threads conductor and orchestra wove together were by all means appropriate. Dutilleux's 1989 opus, ten short pieces fused with no interruption as a single one, was played delicately by a small string orchestra plus percussions and cimbalom. The piece-shifting textures and tonal centers seemed to depict the difficulty of catching the instant, never settling long in the same mood: dramatic glissandos resolving in light pizzicatos, soloists passing the baton seamlessly to one another, here Alexander Barantschik at the violins, now Michael Grebanier at the cello. We thought of the sound of birds which Dutilleux claimed inspired him for the piece (they also inspired the other modern French composer Olivier Messiaen in a few works). We also thought of rain drops: ten short pieces, ten musical haikus, briefly evoking nature and going away. The cimbalom (we believe manned by Jay Stebley) stepped in and out, bringing a curious metallic, almost synthetic and oddly appealing sound to the piece. Picture from Alan Gilbert's press portfolio. He did not wear glasses Thursday though.

Lang Lang opened a series of sold-out performances with the SF Symphony on Wednesday night. The pianist headlined a concert at Davies Symphony Hall, which also included the US premiere of The Flight of Icarus by John Pickard and a Haydn symphony.

Both the San Francisco Symphony and the San Francisco Opera open their new seasons this week.

If you aren't checking out Frameline, seeing some music (Stern Grove on Sunday!) or peeing your pants at the Purple Onion, how about...

SFist admits to once having operatic aspirations, and can still be caught belting an aria out in the shower when we're sure no one else is home. But other than that, outlets for classical song expression are few and far between for those of us too lazy to many great chorales in the area.

While we've been known to swill Pabst like there’s no tomorrow, SFist does indeed have a cultured and classy side. That’s why tonight we’re rolling over to the Davies Symphony Hall to check out an exclusive joint performance between Phillip Glass and the Bang On a Can All-Stars.

to be lost here in the Bay Area, at least we can all take solace in the fact that the Golden State Warriors are opening their season tonight at the Coliseum, or whatever you want to call it, against the Portland Jail Blazers. The W's just signed two of their best players, Jason Richardson and Troy Murphy, to six-year deals totaling about $130 million and it's looking like the team playing tonight is going to be the team playing for the next million years, so let's hope they don't suck as badly as they have for the last 10 years.