I went to the Friday night performance of Grieg and Shostakovich, very excited from two weeks of listening to both the...show more

I went to the Friday night performance of Grieg and Shostakovich, very excited from two weeks of listening to both the Grieg and Shosty on my ipod non-stop. Unfortunately, I was thoroughly disappointed by the Grieg, and in particular the conducting by Petrenko. Many of my friends also noticed this, but the conductor seemed to have no sense of timing whatsoever. At numerous points throughout the piece, I counted along to the piece only to find that the conductor's tempo was behind and lagging. While the performance itself was decent (despite some tempo disagreements between soloist and orchestra, and an exposed failed trumpet note), this threw me off a bit.

The Shostakovich was rather redeeming and quite satisfying, but the Grieg really could have used some work.  show less

Great event--all three artists (George, Salar, and Homayoun) are extremely talented and they made beautiful...show more

Great event--all three artists (George, Salar, and Homayoun) are extremely talented and they made beautiful music together. The De Young cultural encounters seem to be a pretty sweet deal, as they're free and the venue space is quite pretty. My only complaints are that the performance area is perhaps not acoustically suited to such a group, and the bar could have been better managed (extremely long lines).  show less