San Diego Arts Reviews

Before Saturday’s San Diego Symphony concert began I had doubts that Esa-Pekka Salonen’s 2010 “Nyx” was the right match for Music Director Rafael Payare’s Impressionist program devoted to Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. After hearing the San Diego Symphony play “Nyx,” I decided I was right on one count. Salonen’s... Read more »

Krishan Oberoi, founder and Principal Guest Conductor of the San Diego choral ensemble Sacra/Profana, returned to San Diego Friday to conduct Sacra/Profana in a striking concert of recent choral works at Christ Lutheran Church in Pacific Beach. Several years ago Oberoi left San Diego for the east coast to finish... Read more »

According to my records, San Diego new music aficionados have Matt McBane and his Carlsbad Music Festival to thank for putting the music of American composer Caroline Shaw on the local radar. In September of 2013, McBane’s Carlsbad festival featured Shaw and her ensemble Roomful of Teeth performing her “Partita... Read more »

Looking back over the array of pianists who have appeared on the La Jolla Music Society’s esteemed Piano Series, I cannot think of a musician unworthy of the accolade virtuoso. After hearing the young Uzbek pianist Behzod Abduraimov perform Sunday at The Conrad, the final offering of the company’s 2021—22... Read more »

Jahja Ling, Conductor Laureate of the San Diego Symphony, returned to the podium Saturday at The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park to conduct the orchestra in a program devoted to Brahms and Grieg. Guest pianist Yefim Bronfman was on hand as soloist in the Johannes Brahms First Piano Concerto, and... Read more »

In recent seasons, San Diego Opera’s dētour Series has boldly expanded the parameters of both the subject matter and the shape of opera. In the fall of 2017, for example, dētour offered Laura Kaminsky’s As One, a chamber opera that charted the growing self-awareness of a transgender woman, and in... Read more »

Jennifer Eve Thorn. (Photos courtesy of Desireé Clarke.)Some shows and films benefit by dramatically depicting true stories from a fresh perspective. While Moxie Theatre’s fantastic production of Mother of the Maid features Joan of Arc (Mikaela Rae Macias), the drama focuses on her mother, Isabelle (Executive Artistic Director, Jennifer Eve... Read more »

I have been covering the Hausmann Quartet’s Haydn Voyages Series since 2017, and I feel it is time to make a confession. I attend these concerts regularly not because I am a fan of Franz Joseph Haydn’s string quartets—in truth, I can take them or leave them. But I eagerly... Read more »

It is safe to say that Camarada’s Flamenco Fantástico concert Saturday at Bread & Salt in Barrio Logan lived up to its billing. Four instrumentalists and a dancer proved more than sufficient to evoke the exotic and slightly erotic Andalusian spirit. Although no two musicologists will define flamenco the exactly... Read more »

Although the familiarity of Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A Minor is unlikely to breed contempt, as the saying goes, a run-of-the-mill performance will prompt a few yawns at the very least. Fortunately, guest pianist Gabriela Martinez had a master plan for her account of the Grieg concerto that included... Read more »