San Francisco Classical Voice

6 days ago | sfcv.org | Michael Zwiebach

Like a baseball game rescheduled after a rainout, there was one more concert on the San Francisco Symphony’s season calendar after last week’s grand finale with outgoing Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen. The orchestra staged its makeup performance of Verdi’s Requiem on Friday, June 20, a concert that was canceled during the Symphony Chorus’s strike in September last year. James Gaffigan generously stepped in to conduct the work, which Salonen would have led in the fall.

1 week ago | sfcv.org | Jeff Kaliss

In his 92nd year, Gordon Getty remains a working composer. On June 20 and 22, the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus are set to premiere three of Getty’s works, flanked on the program by Mozart’s Ave verum corpus and Verdi’s Requiem. A longtime funder of the Symphony and San Francisco Opera — and a co-founder and funder of this publication — Getty was raised with his siblings in San Francisco by his mother Ann Rork.

1 week ago | sfcv.org | Jim Farber

There’s something almost monastic about the dedication of the PARTCH Ensemble. While modern music seems to have forgotten Harry Partch, an explorer of microtonality who was born in Oakland in 1901 and died in Encinitas in 1974, these musicians are dedicated to preserving the maverick composer’s idiosyncratic pieces and unique handcrafted instruments.

1 week ago | sfcv.org | Jeff Kaliss

“We would have liked for him to stay,” said Berkeley Symphony Executive Director Marion Atherton about Joseph Young, who conducted his final concert as the orchestra’s music director earlier this month. “But I think this created an opportunity, and we’re taking advantage of it.” Over coffee, Atherton was discussing the orchestra’s 2025–2026 season, announced on May 20.

1 week ago | sfcv.org | Michael Zwiebach

Mozart’s Idomeneo will never be the composer’s most popular work, but it is a great opera, full of fire and vivid characterizations. Merely 24 years old when he wrote the score, Mozart poured everything he had into Idomeneo and San Francisco Opera’s excellent new production, which opened on Saturday, June 14, at the War Memorial Opera House and runs through June 25, showed the work’s dramatic power and musical beauty thanks to a fully committed cast.