The Reverberate Hills; or The Apotheosis of the Narwhal

For some time now I have been saying to anyone who wants to listen, as well as to many who do not, that Idomeneo is the one Mozart opera I h...

Here's my odd confession about Stephen Sondheim: when I first discovered Sweeney Todd , I was so dazzled by it, so overwhelmed by how cl...

– There's the man, says Joe, that made the Gaelic sports revival. There he is sitting there The man that got away James Stephens. The ch...

  The Athlete by Auguste Rodin, a plaster model now at the Legion of Honor

Last night I was back at Davies Hall for the first in departing Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen's final run of performances, a three-co...

  a tree in the Japanese Tea Garden, Golden Gate Park

  detail of Three Women by Margaret Peterson, at the Oakland Museum of California

Thursday night I was at Symphony Hall for Esa-Pekka Salonen's penultimate stand as Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony . (I was...

  at the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park

  detail of Birds and flowers by Oki Ichiga, now at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco