András Schiff’s devotion to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach is complete and unconditional. “Why Bach? It’s like asking why is the sky blue and why do we need to breathe,” says the acclaimed Hungarian pianist, who plays the first program of a two-year cycle of Bach’s keyboard works in The City next week. “Every day I start with an hour or more of Bach, food for the heart, the mind, the spirit and the body. All great music after Bach derives from him.” Read More

Four months before its grand opening, the SF JAZZ Center is already a significant presence in Hayes Valley. At a construction site tour last week, leaders responsible for the $53 million, 700-seat, 35,000-square-foot facility were bursting with pride and excitement. On hand were architect Mark Cavagnero, acoustician Sam Berkow, theater designer Len Auerbach and SF JAZZ founder and Executive Director Randall Kline, who has dreamed about (and prepared for) the country’s first major dedicated jazz facility for three decades. Read More

The San Francisco Opera’s 90th season opens Friday with a romantic crowd-pleaser so popular that General Director David Gockley has scheduled 12 performances. The production of Verdi’s 1851 “Rigoletto,” a sweeping melodrama of love and betrayal, is a revival of a Michael Yeargan-designed work. San Francisco Opera Music Director Nicola Luisotti (“who makes every Verdi opera he conducts into an event,” Gockley says) leads the orchestra. Read More

With a memorable centennial season behind it, the San Francisco Symphony is opening its 101st year in an unprecedented fashion.Postponing its annual gala until Sept. 19 — due to music director Michael Tilson Thomas being on tour with the London Symphony Orchestra — the symphony begins the fall season Wednesday with the first of two subscription series concerts under the baton of guest conductor Semyon Bychkov.   Wednesday through Saturday, the program includes Wagner’s Overture to “Tannhäuser,” Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 and Bruch’s  Violin Concerto No. Read More

Renowned pianist Jon Jang’s premiere of his commissioned work “Central Pacific, Central Subway” — celebrating contributions by Chinese workers who built the first Transcontinental Railroad — is among the highlights of this weekend’s third annual Chinatown Music Festival. Read More

As the chamber music festival Music@Menlo opens its 10th season today, its dazzling programming and accomplishments are out of proportion with its mere-decade history. Operating on a $1.8 million annual budget that supports 65 public events, the “musical start-up in Silicon Valley” originated by cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han attracts a loyal audience of more than 15,000. Music@Menlo concerts have featured 170 world-renown musicians, and its Chamber Music Institute has helped launch some 250 young artists’ careers. Read More

“Sweeney Todd,” one of Stephen Sondheim’s biggest, most operatic Broadway musicals, takes on a lighter tone, sounding almost like chamber music, in Ray of Light Theatre’s unusual and rewarding production onstage at the Eureka Theatre.  Instead of the typical shrill factory whistle, amplified orchestra and overamplified singers, five musicians seated onstage present the complex, ravishing score in a way rarely heard today, as the trend has gone toward blasting the audience. Read More