Arts & Events

AROUND & ABOUT: JAZZ: Kalil Wilson Sings at the Mystic Hotel Saturday Night & the Calfornia Jazz Conservatory Sunday Afternoon

Ken Bullock
Friday July 15, 2016 - 02:29:00 PM

I've been talking about the street in the clubs," said jazz singer Kalil Wilson, "and if a conversation interrupts me on the street, I talk about the clubs! They complement each other--the street uses other colors on the palette you don't find in the clubs."

While mentioning his upcoming appearances in Berkeley and San Francisco, the brilliant El Cerrito vocalist told about something new in his diverse career that's crossed genres from composing and songwriting to studying ethnomusicology, singing opera and jazz to rhythm & blues and funk--and now busking, playing on "the street."

He's set himself up with a keyboard at downtown Berkeley BART, at Rockridge and on Fourth Street, sometimes alone, sometimes with members of his band Love or other musical friends and collaborators. And, pleasantly surpised by what he's found, enjoys it.

"Jazz musicians, like classical musicians, haven't always enjoyed listenership from modern sensibilities," Kalil noted. "And in the clubs, where I'll be concentrating on making amazing music with my friends, people talk about other things than the music." -more-


Edwin Outwater Conducts Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony

Reviewed by James Roy MacBean
Friday July 15, 2016 - 01:45:00 PM

San Francisco Symphony offered two performances of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Friday-Saturday, July 8-9, at Davies Hall, conducted by Edwin Outwater, now in his third season as Director of Summer Concerts at SF Symphony. Beethoven’s Ninth, of course, is a major milestone in any conductor’s career, and Outwater met the challenge with an excellent performance, leading his orchestra, soloists and chorus in a fiery yet tightly controlled reading of this great symphony. -more-


Monteverdi’s L’INCORONAZIONE DI POPPEA Staged by Opera Theater Unlimited

Reviewed by James Roy MacBean
Wednesday July 20, 2016 - 01:07:00 PM

Opera Theater Unlimited is a young company, having produced till now only Benjamin Britten’s Turn of the Screw, which ran last September at San Francisco’s Exit Theatre on Eddy Street. Now they have produced a lively, well sung, exquisitely acted L’Incoronazione di Poppea by Claudio Monteverdi, which was offered Friday-Saturday, July 15-16, at Exit Theatre. -more-