St. Mark’s third annual Bravo Bach! Festival continues with three concerts this weekend. The first and the third feature local pianists with burgeoning careers. The middle show, on Saturday, features a jazz cabaret with the Joe Gilman Trio riffing on Baroque themes. That popular concert sold out last year. The festival, which presented three concerts last weekend, continues at 7:30 p.m. today with pianist Anyssa Neumann playing keyboard music of Bach, Handel and Couperin. Neumann grew up in Sacramento, studied at Sac State, and performed at the first Bravo Bach! Festival. She performs nationally and internationally and is noted for her “deep connection to the Bach repertoire.” In addition

The third annual St. Mark’s Bravo Bach! Festival opened Friday with an evening of music by . . . Handel. The six-concert series, which continues today and Sunday and April 27, 28 and 29, is -- like the more-famous Carmel Bach Festival -- a celebration of Baroque music in general, with an emphasis on “the music of the immortals, J.S. Bach and G. F. Handel.” A 19-piece orchestra and 28-voice chorus under the direction of festival artistic director Jack D. Miller performed Handel’s “Messiah parts II and III” and, as was the custom in his day, an organ concerto, this one the concerto in F Major, opus V, no. 5. The “Messiah” is Handel’s most popular work, but it’s usually Part I that’s perform

The Bravo Bach Festival is almost a month away, but already one of the event's concerts is on its way to selling out. The Baroque Jazz Cabaret, scheduled at 7:30 p.m. April 28, is a perennial festival favorite. "Last year, we had to turn away people at the door," said Jack D. Miller, artistic and musical director of St. Mark's United Methodist Church, which presents the festival.  The cabaret features the Joe Gilman Jazz Ensemble performing improvizations on Baroque themes and melodies. "Bach himself was an improviser. I think he'd be quite comfortable with what Joe Gilman's doing," said Miller, who has two music degrees from the University of Southern California. Gilman's concert is pre

The Camellia Symphony Orchestra gave a spirited performance at Memorial Auditorium Saturday night. Conducted by maestro Dr. Allan Pollack, the 86-piece ensemble performed a collection of three works by Bach, Beethoven and Mahler. The collection was dubbed “The Titans” for the power, grandeur and breadth of emotion the compositions typify. Though beautifully performed by the musicians, Pollack’s promise of “sounds so powerful that they will lift you off your seat” was not fulfilled. “It’s a very beautiful building, and it’s old and it’s beautiful from the outside, and it’s historically interesting from the inside,” Pollack said. “But the stage definitely needs some kind of shell. If enoug

Lovers of classical music might normally expect a soothing musical experience from the Camellia Symphony Orchestra, but when the ensemble performs “The Titans” at Memorial Auditorium Saturday, concertgoers will witness some of orchestral music’s most dramatic and hard-hitting pieces. “It’s going to be big, and it’s going to be loud,” Executive Director of Camellia Orchestra Roberta McClellan said. “Most people are used to seeing smaller ensembles, but this has a lot of people all playing this music together.” More than 85 Sacramento-based musicians will take the stage to perform two of the three pieces, which include Bach’s “Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor;” Beethoven’s “Piano Concerto

Concert pianist Sachiko Kato will perform Bach’s Goldberg Variations on Sunday, December 20, at 3 p.m. The hour-long performance will take place in Capistrano Hall at Sacramento State. Concerts are free to members of the Crocker Art Museum, $12 for nonmembers and $5 for students and seniors. Free parking is available in Parking Structure I, which is adjacent to the Hall. The Goldberg Variations, composed in 1742, is one of Bach’s masterpieces, but it is not often performed in concert due to the complexity and length of the work. Kato will open the concert with a work by contemporary Japanese composer Somei Satoh titled Hashi (Bridges) II. A native of Osaka, Japan, Kato grew up in Los Ang

A cold and rainy Sunday afternoon seemed to brighten with the warm and transcendent music of Bach’s Goldberg Variations performed by Canadian virtuoso, Angela Hewitt. As I found my seat, an hour before the performance, at the beautiful concert hall at the Mondavi Center in Davis, I saw Hewitt standing on the stage discussing the monumental work she was about to perform. Her lecture demonstrated a deep respect for the composition and skill in translating the complex structure of the piece to a lay audience. Hewitt has played the Goldberg Variations thousands of times since age 16 and she is known worldwide for her performance and interpretation of Bach on the piano. Yet, she stressed she