2010 2009 2008 Reviews

4/9/2010 - RARE GERMAN ORGAN PRELUDES PLAYED AT INCARNATION BY JULANDER - James Harrod
American Guild of Organists / Harold Julander,organ
Church of the Incarnation organist Harold Julander played an outstanding recital of German chorale preludes April 9 on the Church’s Caassavant instrument. The program consisted of preludes by Bach, Mendelssohn, Max Drischner, Max Bornefeld, Ernst Pepping, and Jan Bender. Mr. Julander interpreted an...

3/28/2010 - CHOPIN SCHERZOS FEATURED IN UCBASARAN RECITAL - Terry McNeill
Concerts Grand / Zeynep Ucbasaran, Pianist
Chopin’s bicentennial received another boost March 28 as pianist Zeynep Ucbasaran played a Newman Auditorium concert devoted mostly to the works of the great Polish master. In the penultimate series recital in the seventh Concerts Grand season, Ms. Ucbasaran presented a program built around three o...

3/21/2010 - POISE AND VIRTUOSITY IN ALL-BACH ORGAN RECITAL - James Harrod
Creative Arts Series / Shin-Ae Chun, organ
Organ music enthusiasts had the opportunity March 21 to hear a flawless recital of Bach’s music, played by Shin-Ae Chun at Resurrection Parish on Stony Point Road. Ms. Chun is choir director and organist at Toledo’s First Congregational Church and her Santa Rosa concert was produced by the Creativ...

3/21/2010 - GRANITIC PIANISM AT GARTNER'S SAN RAFAEL RECITAL - Terry McNeill
Concerts Grand / Kenn Gartner, Pianist
Marin pianist Kenn Gartner takes his musical life in big chunks. He has a large load of private students, conducts choral groups, is part of a South Bay opera company and composes when time permits. On Bach’s birthday, March 21, he found time to tackle a large recital program at San Rafael’s JB Pi...

3/12/2010 - VILLIERS STANFORD SONATA HIGHLIGHTS AGO RECITAL - Harold Julander
American Guild of Organists / James Harrod, organ
The Pipe Organ Mini Recital Series at Santa Rosa’s Church of the Incarnation continued March 12th with a program by Jim Harrod honoring St. Patrick’s Day. Mr. Harrod is assistant organist at Star of the Valley Catholic Church, Oakmont, in Santa Rosa. The one-half hour recital consisted mostly by ...

3/11/2010 - CELLO PIANO DUO HIGHLIGHT OAKMONT'S 20 YEARS - Joel Cohen
Oakmont Concert Series / Angela Lee, cello Lydia Artymiw, piano
Celebrating a distinguished history in a 20th anniversary recital, the Oakmont Concert Series March 11 featured an intriguing and largely successful recital by cellist Angela Lee and pianist Lydia Artymiw. The afternoon’s first composition was Prokofiev’s Cello Sonata, Op. 119. This is a grand work...

3/7/2010 - SHORT PIECES WITH A LONG REACH - Terry McNeill
It’s seldom that the high points of a piano recital are contained in repertoire that is short, dissonant, unfamiliar and mostly loud. At Lydia Artymiw’s March 7 recital for Concerts Grand in SRJC’s Newman Auditorium, the music of Kurtag and Messiaen had for this reviewer emotional impact far beyon...

3/7/2010 - BRASS GROUP EXCITING AT WELLS - Sid Gordon
Dallas Brass / Michael Levine,trombone; Brian Neal, trumpet; D.J. Barraclough, trumpet; Dan Peck, artistic collaborator and tuba; and Jeff Handel, percussionist.
In a March 7 concert titled “An American Musical Journey,” The Dallas Brass featured American music from the Revolution to the present day. The program, produced by the Santa Rosa Concert Association in the Wells Fargo Center, was woven together by clever narration and music history provided by Mich...

2/28/2010 - RICH ORCHESTRAL PORTRAITS IN MARIN SYMPHONY CONCERT - Donna Kline
Marin Symphony / Alasdair Neale, conductor Hoyt Smith, narrator
The fourth “chapter” of the Marin Symphony’s “Season of the Scribe” continued Feb. 28 when Alasdair Neale conducted an inspiring program of Debussy, Copland, and Tchaikovsky in the Marin Civic Center Auditorium. Debussy’s “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun” began the concert with the Orchestra p...

2/28/2010 - TRIO NAVARRO WITHOUT THE O - Terry McNeill
Trio Navarro / Roy Malan, violin; Jill Rachuy Brindel, cello; Kumarin Arul, piano
In a sharp change from past concerts, the Trio Navarro gave an abbreviated program Feb. 28 in Sonoma State University’s Ives Hall, reflecting a temporary substitution in personnel. Marilyn Thompson, the Trio’s founding pianist, was absent due to pending shoulder surgery, and the anticipated trios of...

2/27/2010 - ITURRIOZ CHARMS SEBASTOPOL RECITAL AUDIENCE - Katie Ketchum-Carroll
Sebastopol Center For The Arts / Antonio Iturrioz, pianist
Cuban-American pianist Antonio Iturrioz alternately thrilled and charmed a capacity Sebastopol Center for the Arts audience Feb. 28 with an eclectic progam of popular and rarely-heard music As a tribute to Schumann and Chopin’s 200th birthdays in 2010, Mr. Iturrioz mixed seldom heard works as ...

2/27/2010 - VIRTUOSITY GALORE IN OCCIDENTAL RECORDER CONCERT - Joanna Bramel Young
Redwood Arts Council / Flanders Recorder Quartet
The little white Community Church in Occidental was bursting at the seams with recorder enthusiasts and their friends February 27 when the Flanders Recorder Quartet came on stage in the fifth concert in the Redwood Arts Council’s series. The quartet, from Belgium, includes Bart Spanhove, Tom Beets,...

2/21/2010 - LISITSA TRIUMPHS WITH BIG PROGRAM IN NEWMAN HALL RECITAL - Terry McNeill
Concerts Grand / Valentina Lisitsa, Pianist
Ukrainian-American virtuoso Valentina Lisitsa came to her Feb. 21 Santa Rosa recital carrying the fame of a massive YouTube video presence and as among the handful of the most popular woman pianists on the international scene. Whether she is among the best remained to be seen and heard. Performing...

2/19/2010 - ROMERO CELEBRATES CHOPIN IN SANTA ROSA CONCERTS - Terry McNeill
Recitals entirely devoted to the works of Chopin are not rare, and the 200th anniversary of the great Pole’s birth has already spawned world-wide concerts of his music and for memorializing his artistry. What was basically new in pianist Gustavo Romero’s Oakmont (Feb. 18) and SRJC (Feb. 19) recital...

2/14/2010 - QUARTETS AND A CHRYSANTHEMUM VALENTINE IN UKIAH - James Houle
Deep Valley Chamber Music Series / Yuri Cho and Valerie Li, violins David Samuel, viola Adrian Fung, cello
David Rounds, founder of the Deep Valley Chamber Music Series in Ukiah, has done it once again by engaging the exciting Afiara String Quartet for a Valentine’s Day performance in the Grace Hudson Museum. For an overflow audience, the young players from Canada provided a demonstration of the evolvi...

2/13/2010 - THREE HITS AND A MISS AT SRSO CONCERT - Terry McNeill
Santa Rosa Symphony / Bruno Ferrandis, conductor Berenika, piano
In the fifth set of Santa Rosa Symphony concerts in the current season, conductor Bruno Ferrandis programmed a world premiere and ended with a familiar Schumann symphony. In between were Chopin’s F Minor Piano Concerto, Op. 21, with soloist Berenika Zakrzewski, and Schumann's "Manfred" overture. Be...

2/12/2010 - ANYONE FOR SECONDS? - Jim Harrod
Organ music enthusiasts received a treat Feb. 12 in Santa Rosa with David Parsons playing the monthly “Mini Recital” American Guild of Organists twilight concert at Santa Rosa’s Church of the Incarnation on the sonorous Casavant pipe organ. Forty pipe organ enthusiasts attended. On the program wer...

2/6/2010 - TWENTY-YEAR VETERANS HIGHLIGHT USO CONCERT - James Houle
The versatile Ukiah Symphony did it again Feb.6 with a fine performance of Gustav Holst’s “The Planets” in Mendocino College’s Center Theater. The driving force was Conductor Les Pfutzenreuter, who persistently demands better performances each season from the orchestra. After 20 years on the Ukiah ...

2/2/2010 - MARIN FORCES TACKLE MOZART REQUIEM AND BRAHMS VIOLIN CONCERTO - Kenn Gartner
Marin Symphony / Alasdair Neale, conductor Vadim Gluzman, violin Helene Zindarsian, soprano Anna Jablonski, mezzo soprano Corey Head, tenor Jeffrey Fields, baritone Marin Symphony Chorus
Upon entering the Marin Civic Center Auditorium Feb. 2 the reviewer was greeted by the spectacle of the chorus warming up on stage. Did Frank Lloyd Wright not provide a choral room? The distinguishing characteristic of this warm up was that not one singer managed to hit the high notes despite the ...

1/31/2010 - VIRTUOSIC EXCITEMENT AT NAPA VALLEY SYMPHONY CONCERT - Terry McNeill
Napa Valley Symphony / Asher Raboy, conductor Valentina Lisitsa, pianist
Conductor Asher Raboy, in his final season with the Napa Valley Symphony, has established in a 20-year tenure a responsive orchestral sound and an interest in large and crowd-pleasing works. During a Jan. 31 concert in Yountville’s Lincoln Theater, Mr. Raboy had the opportunity to shine in two mass...

1/29/2010 - BACH SOLOSITS PERFORM A 400-YEAR OLD MASTERPIECE IN BELVEDERE - Joanna Bramel Young
The American Bach Soloists celebrated Jan. 29 the four-hundredth anniversary of Monteverdi’s towering Vespero della Beata Vergine (1610) at St. Stephen’s Church in Belvedere. It was a stunning performance. Conductor Jeffrey Thomas presided over a stellar collection of singers and instrumental...

1/23/2010 - THE RED AND THE WHITE - Steve Osborn
Santa Rosa Symphony / JoAnn Falletta, guest conductor Michael Ludwig, violin
In the old days, barbers were also surgeons, as adept with a scalpel as a razor, their red-and-white barber pole an emblem of both surgery (red) and hair-cutting (white). At its Jan. 23 concert, the well-coiffed Santa Rosa Symphony enacted this dual role, offering both some serious blood (from a rea...

1/23/2010 - A ROYAL SCHOOLING IN THE CLASSICAL ERA - Joanna Bramel Young
Redwood Arts Council / École Royale: Kathleen Kraft, flute; Kati Kyme, violin; David Wilson, viola; David Morris, cello
On Jan. 23, the Redwood Arts Council showcased École Royale, a period instrument ensemble, in a chamber concert in Occidental’s charming and acoustically fine Community Church. This year is the Council’s 30th anniversary, and an enthusiastic and animated audience filled the room. École Royale inclu...

1/14/2010 - INSTRUMENTAL EQUALITY IN JAN. 14 OAKMONT CONCERT - Terry McNeill
Innovative but not necessarily exciting programming characterized the Kirkwood Piano Quartet’s Jan. 14 performance in Oakmont’s Berger Auditorium. Unfamiliar works were perhaps the reason for an audience count far less than the usual Oakmont Concerts Series event, and the Kirkwood played a first ...

1/8/2010 - STIRRED, NOT SHAKEN - Steve Osborn
SRJC Chamber Concerts / Steven Isserlis, cello, and Kirill Gerstein, piano
In a 1778 letter to his father, Mozart observed, “It is far easier to play a thing quickly than slowly.” The truth of Mozart’s observation has been borne out repeatedly in the intervening centuries, as virtuosos of all stripes have sought to dazzle their audiences with high-speed prestidigitation, ...

1/3/2010 - SCHUBERT AND EXALTED MOZART IN NOVATO RECITAL - Terry McNeill
Marin pianist John Boyajy can’t be neutral about any important musical matter. He has passion and the ability to speak extensive words about that passion, and his excitement about Schubert, Bach and Mozart was everywhere in evidence in a duo recital with soprano Bryn Jimenez Jan. 3 in Novato’s All ...

1/2/2010 - EARLY MUSIC VIRTUOSITY FROM THE VERMILLIAN EMSEMBLE - Joanna Bramel Young
Ensemble Vermillian /
Summerfield Waldorf School in Santa Rosa hosted a concert January 2 in their handsome West Santa Rosa Sophia Hall, featuring the Vermillian Ensemble. Frances Blaker, well-known to Bay Area recorder players as both a teacher and performer, brought a handful of fine baroque recorders to perform works...