Michael Zwiebach

Senior Editor and Content Manger at San Francisco Classical Voice

Featured in: Favicon

sfcv.org

sfchronicle.com (+1) Favicon

newsbreak.com

Articles

Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Final SF Symphony Concerts Off to a Dramatic Start

2 weeks ago | sfcv.org | Michael Zwiebach

Esa-Pekka Salonen and the musicians of the San Francisco Symphony are making the most of their remaining concerts together. That much was clear on Friday, May 23, at Davies Symphony Hall, as the outgoing music director led the first in a monthlong series of performances marking the end of his tenure with the orchestra.
The SFCV Summer Music Festival Guide, 2025

2 weeks ago | sfcv.org | Janos Gereben |Michael Zwiebach |Peter Feher |Simon Cohen

Yerba Buena Gardens Festival | May 10 – Oct. 4San Francisco Opera Summer Season | June 3–27Ojai Music Festival | June 5–8Britt Music & Arts Festival | June 6 – Sept. 18Hollywood Bowl | June 7 – Sept. 28San Francisco Jazz Festival | June 13–15Healdsburg Jazz Festival | June 13–22Music Academy of the West | June 15 – Aug. 9Stern Grove Festival | June 15 – Aug. 17Mainly Mozart | June 18–28San Francisco Symphony Summer Season | June 26 – Aug. 3Merola Opera Program | June 26 – Aug.
Conductor Marin Alsop Makes High-Octane Debut With SF Symphony

1 month ago | sfcv.org | Michael Zwiebach

Conductor Marin Alsop has finally brought her love of big-boned, emotionally demonstrative music to the San Francisco Symphony. Making her subscription series debut at Davies Symphony Hall on Thursday, April 10, the renowned 68-year-old music director led a pulse-quickening program that matched her highly physical conducting style with two Latin American works, two fanfares, and Samuel Barber’s Symphony No. 1.
Review: Conductor Marin Alsop makes high-octane debut with S.F. Symphony

1 month ago | datebook.sfchronicle.com | Michael Zwiebach

Conductor Marin Alsop has finally brought her love of big-boned, emotionally demonstrative music to the San Francisco Symphony. Making her subscription series debut at Davies Symphony Hall on Thursday, April 10, the renowned 68-year-old music director led a pulse-quickening program that matched her highly physical conducting style with two Latin American works, two fanfares, and Samuel Barber’s Symphony No. 1.
New Century Chamber Orchestra Sends Out “A Prayer for Peace”

2 months ago | sfcv.org | Michael Zwiebach

It doesn’t matter whether New Century Chamber Orchestra and its music director, Daniel Hope, anticipated the cascading disruptions and anxieties of 2025 when they planned “A Prayer for Peace,” last weekend’s concert set. A well-balanced, beautifully played program like this one, which saw its first performance on Friday, April 4, at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, would be a welcome respite at any time.
Les Arts Florissants on a Quest to Discover the Real Vivaldi

2 months ago | sfcv.org | Michael Zwiebach

Few masterworks are less in need of an anniversary celebration than Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. Marking the 300th year since the work’s first publication in Amsterdam seems redundant given how present it is in our lives.
Tchaikovsky Takes Over at SF Symphony

2 months ago | sfcv.org | Michael Zwiebach

It’s clear by now that conductor Elim Chan can bring out the best in a top-rank orchestra. Making her third appearance in just two years with the San Francisco Symphony, Chan led an all-Tchaikovsky concert on Thursday, March 13, at Davies Symphony Hall that was further confirmation of her prowess — and good news for anyone who was hearing her for the first time.
West Bay Opera’s La sonnambula Showcases the Company’s Many Virtues

Feb 25, 2025 | sfcv.org | Michael Zwiebach

Making virtues of limitations is a West Bay Opera specialty, a skill set that much larger organizations have also had to embrace in recent years. In such circumstances, Vincenzo Bellini’s La sonnambula (The sleepwalker) is a perfect opera, one that showed the company off to best advantage in a performance at the Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto on Saturday, Feb. 21.
SF Symphony and SF Conservatory of Music Come Together for Los Angeles Benefit Concert

Feb 19, 2025 | sfcv.org | Michael Zwiebach

In a gesture of goodwill and solidarity, the San Francisco Symphony, its musicians, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music announced last week that they will play a benefit concert on March 8 at Davies Symphony Hall on behalf of victims of the January wildfires in Los Angeles.
Music@Menlo Gives an Early Look at 2025 Festival

Jan 28, 2025 | sfcv.org | Michael Zwiebach

Chamber music in the U.S. has no more determined champions than Wu Han and David Finckel. The musical power couple were at their West Coast base, the Menlo School in Atherton, on Saturday, Jan. 25, to announce the coming season of Music@Menlo, three weeks of concerts, teaching, lectures, and events running July 18 – Aug. 9.