Concert Review: Dancing Against the Current

The Mark Morris Dance Group returns to Mostly Mozart.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Members of the Mark Morris Dance Group.
Photo © Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts/Mostly Mozart Festival.

Dance is not my beat.

I have never written about ballet. I know little of jazz dance and less of modern choreography other than the occasional gyration the punctuate the grand operas of the 19th century. However last Thursday night at mostly Mozart I was lucky enough to attend a performance by the Mark Morris Dance Group, that was accompanied by three excellent chamber and vocal music performances.

Concert Review: Occasional Demons

Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony return to Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Michael Tilson Thomas.
Photo © 2016 San Francisco Symphony.

It didn't look like much on paper. On Wednesday night, the San Francisco Symphony opened a two night stand under the leadership of Michael Tilson Thomas, currently in his 21st season as music director of the California orchestra. The program featured three lesser known works by Aaron Copland, paired with the Symphony No. 2 by Robert Schumann, a respected, if not universally loved example of early Romanticism.