Review: S.F. Symphony and Giancarlo Guerrero deliver orchestral showstoppers
Conductor Giancarlo Guerrero's two previous appearances with the San Francisco Symphony amply showcased his flair for colorful, dramatic music. After a two-year gap, he's back at Davies Symphony Hall with a program of glittering orchestral showpieces.
The late Kaija Saariaho composed 'Asteroid 4179: Toutatis' in 2005 as a complement to a Berlin Philharmonic concert featuring Gustav Holst's 'The Planets.' The asteroid in question is tiny and irregularly shaped, and at about four minutes in length, the music matches the object's scale.
In addition to the astronomical theme, there are the typical Saariaho trademarks: beautiful, ingeniously layered orchestration and power that wells up over the course of the work. The piece opens with crystalline transparency, a piccolo, percussion and celesta floating above the larger orchestra. Massed brass instruments interrupt, and after a brief climax, the orchestra dies away into silence.
It was a thoughtful start to this flashy program heard on Friday, May 2, the first of two concerts at Davies, concluding on Saturday, May 3.
Igor Stravinsky's great ballet score 'Petrushka' unfolds on a completely different scale, taking some 40 minutes to tell the story of three puppets brought to life by a magician. Guerrero led a taut, exciting account of the work, performed in Stravinsky's revised 1947 version.
One of the Costa Rican conductor's superpowers is his ability to throw a spotlight on a piece's structure through knife-edge timing and control of dynamics. Another is knowing when to step back and let the musicians do their thing. Tight ensemble playing was a hallmark of this 'Petrushka.' At the same time, Guerrero gave associate principal flute Blair Francis Paponiu complete freedom in her beautifully played cadenza.
The conductor's emphasis on sharply articulated rhythms paid off throughout the work, especially in 'The Grand Carnival' section, when competing bands seemingly play in different meters. Every crescendo and decrescendo was perfectly timed. Occasionally, a section or player was drowned out in the welter of sound. John Wilson's casual virtuosity on piano, positioned right in front of the conductor, was a highlight of the 'Russian Dance,' but Guerrero covered Wilson's playing too often in the opening tableau. The strings were sometimes obliterated by the brass. Nonetheless, this was a thrilling account of a great work.
What do Stravinsky and Ottorino Respighi have in common? Both composers studied with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, one of the great orchestrators of the 19th century, and both came away with enormous skill in handling huge forces.
The second half of Friday's program was devoted to Respighi's 'Fountains of Rome' and 'Pines of Rome,' flamboyant blockbusters that have to walk a fine line to avoid turning into kitsch. (This is never an issue with Stravinsky.) Guerrero performed them with a straight face, and his enormous technical skill and ear for color and dynamics made this music sound better than perhaps it fundamentally is.
The first work makes its way around Rome, picturing fountains in different locations throughout the day. The 'Valle Giulia' movement, with chiming winds and a prominent celesta part, seemingly pays homage to Richard Strauss' opera 'Der Rosenkavalier.' Special kudos to Marc Shapiro, whose celesta playing contributed beautifully to all four works on the program, and to principal oboe Eugene Izotov and principal flute Yubeen Kim for their work in both Respighi pieces. The brass, too, played brilliantly throughout.
It's an oddity of 'Pines of Rome' that the splashy first movement, 'The Pines of the Villa Borghese,' sounds more like an actual fountain than anything in 'Fountains of Rome.' In 'Pines Near a Catacomb,' Guerrero finely judged every climax; principal trumpet Mark Inouye was magnificent in his moody offstage solo (and also in 'Petrushka'). Principal clarinet Carey Bell's long-breathed, introspective solo in 'The Pines of the Janiculum' was another highlight, as were the silken strings and oceanic sound Guerrero conjured.
As for the last movement, 'The Pines of the Appian Way,' here Respighi generates excitement through some of the more obvious tricks in a composer's arsenal: antiphonal brass playing from the terrace, full-orchestra chromatic slides and an admittedly electrifying five-minute-long crescendo.
The movement is intended to evoke marching Roman legions, but it might just as well be invoking Italian Fascists or Imperial Stormtroopers. We describe, you decide.
San Francisco Classical Voice.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘Half the tree of life': ecologists' horror as nature reserves are emptied of insects
Daniel Janzen only began watching the insects – truly watching them – when his ribcage was shattered. Nearly half a century ago, the young ecologist had been out documenting fruit crops in a dense stretch of Costa Rican forest when he fell in a ravine, landing on his back. The long lens of his camera punched up through three ribs, snapping the bones into his thorax. Slowly, he dragged himself out, crawling nearly two miles back to the research hut. There were no immediate neighbours, no good roads, no simple solutions for getting to a hospital. Selecting a rocking chair on the porch, Janzen used a bedsheet to strap his torso tightly to the frame. For a month, he sat, barely moving, waiting for his bones to knit back together. And he watched. In front of him was a world seething with life. Every branch of every tree seemed to host its own small metropolis of creatures hunting, flying, crawling, eating. The research facility lay in a patchwork of protected rainforest, dry forest, cloud forest, mangroves and coastline covering an area the size of New York, and astonishingly rich in biodiverse life. Here, the bugs gorged, coating the leaf litter with a thick carpet of droppings. But the real show was at night: for two hours each evening, the site got power and a 25-watt bulb flickered on above the porch. Out of the forest darkness, a tornado of insects would flock to its glow, spinning and dancing before the light. Lit up, the side of the house would be 'absolutely plastered with moths – tens of thousands of them', Janzen says. [The walls would be] absolutely plastered with moths – tens of thousands of them Daniel Janzen Inspired, he decided to erect a sheet for a light trap with a camera – a common way to document flying insect numbers and diversity. In that first photograph, taken in 1978, the lit-up sheet is so thickly studded with moths that in places the fabric is barely visible, transformed into what looks like densely patterned, crawling wallpaper. Scientists identified an astonishing 3,000 species from that light trap, and the trajectory of Janzen's career was transformed, from the study of seeds to a lifetime specialising in the forest's barely documented populations of caterpillars and moths. Now 86, Janzen still works in the same research hut in the Guanacaste conservation area, alongside his longtime collaborator, spouse and fellow ecologist, Winnie Hallwachs. But in the forest that surrounds them, something has changed. Trees that once crawled with insects lie uncannily still. The hum of wild bees has faded, and leaves that should be chewed to the stem hang whole and un-nibbled. It is these glossy, untouched leaves that most spook Janzen and Hallwachs. They are more like a pristine greenhouse than a living ecosystem: a wilderness that has been fumigated and left sterile. Not a forest, but a museum. Over the decades, Janzen has repeated his light traps, hanging the sheet, watching for what comes. Today, some moths flutter to the glow, but their numbers are far fewer. 'It's the same sheet, with the same lights, in the same place, looking over the same vegetation. Same time of year, same time of the moon cycle, everything about it is identical,' he says. 'There's just no moths on that sheet.' The declines witnessed by Janzen – and described by others around the world – are part of what some ecologists call a 'new era' of ecological collapse, where rapid extinctions occur in regions that have little direct contact with people. Reports of falling insect numbers around the world are not new. International reviews have estimated annual losses globally of between 1% and 2.5% of total biomass every year. Widespread use of pesticides and fertilisers, light and chemical pollution, loss of habitat and the growth of industrial agriculture have all carved into their numbers. Often, these were deaths of proximity: insects are sensitive creatures, and any nearby source of pollution can send their populations crumbling. But what Janzen and Hallwachs are witnessing is a part of a newer phenomenon: the catastrophic collapse of insect populations in supposedly protected regions of forest. 'In the parts of Costa Rica that are heavily hit by pesticides, the insects are completely wiped out,' Hallwachs says. Run that forward four decades, that's nearly half the tree of life disappearing in a lifetime … catastrophic David Wagner 'But what we see here in the preserved areas – that as far as we can tell, are free of even these destructive insecticides and pesticides – even here, the insect numbers are going down horrifyingly dramatically,' she says. Long-term data for insect populations – particularly less charismatic species – is still patchy, but Janzen and Hallwachs join a number of scientists that have recorded huge die-offs of insects in nature reserves around the world. They include in Germany, where flying insects across 63 insect reserves dropped 75% in less than 30 years; the US, where beetle numbers dropped 83% in 45 years; and Puerto Rico, where insect biomass dropped up to 60-fold since the 1970s. These declines are occurring in ecosystems that are otherwise protected from direct human influence. When David Wagner stepped out into the US's southern wilderness this spring, he found landscapes emptied of life. The entomologist has devoted much of his career to documenting the vast diversity of US insect life, particularly rare caterpillars. He traverses the country to find specimens, often on long road trips searching for caterpillars by day and moths by night. Now, he finds himself coming home empty-handed. 'I just got back from Texas, and it was the most unsuccessful trip I've ever taken,' he says. 'There just wasn't any insect life to speak of.' It was not only the insects missing, he says, it was everything. 'Everything was crispy, fried; the lizard numbers were down to the lowest numbers I can ever remember. And then the things that eat lizards were not present – I didn't see a single snake the entire time.' Wagner recalls when a series of international reviews began hitting headlines in 2019, saying global insect biomass was declining at a rate of 1% a year (although some estimates put it as high as 2.5%). 'We [entomologists] were thinking conservatively,' he says, looking at the data that has emerged in the five years since then. 'I now think that that's too low. Now I would say that 2% is happening in some areas, and we're seeing some places threatened by climate change or urbanisation or agriculture get as high as 5% decline per year.' A few percentage points a year may not have the ring of disaster. 'But if you run that forward just four decades,' Wagner says, 'we're talking about nearly half the tree of life disappearing in one human lifetime. That is absolutely catastrophic.' Developing a clear picture of how many insects we have lost is complicated by a lack of baseline data for many species: while some eye-catching insects, such as butterflies, have been collected and monitored for decades, others have been mostly ignored. And within the overall declines, the picture is not homogeneous: populations and losses vary by species, by location, by habitat. The same heat that destroys the living conditions of one butterfly, for example, could expand the range of a mosquito or help a cricket species thrive. 'No matter what we do in nature, there will be winners and losers,' Wagner says. 'But we are seeing a lot of losers.' And those who doubt there is sufficient species data to prove the 'insectageddon' can now track it by proxy, Wagner says: via the sharp declines in birds, lizards and other creatures that depend on them for food. Scientists in the US, Brazil, Ecuador and Panama have now reported the catastrophic declines of birds in 'untouched' regions – including reserves inside millions of hectares of pristine forest. In each case, the worst losses were among insectivorous birds. At one research centre – falling within a 22,000-hectare (85 sq mile) stretch of intact forest in Panama – scientists comparing current bird numbers with the 1970s found 70% of species had declined, and 88% of these had lost more than half of their population. When I arrived here in 1963 the dry season was four months. Today, it is six months Daniel Janzen In 2019, researchers found that almost a third of US birds – about 3 billion – had disappeared from the skies since the 1970s. The losses, however, were not evenly distributed: those birds that ate insects as their main food had declined by 2.9 billion. Those that didn't depend on insects had actually gained, increasing by 26 million. More recent research from the US found a decline in three-quarters of nearly 500 bird species studied – with the steepest downward trend in stronghold areas, where they once thrived. In Puerto Rico's Luquillo rainforest, scientists in 2018 mapped how the loss of insects set other dominoes falling: as bugs declined, so too did the populations of lizards, frogs and birds. Their disappearance, they wrote, had triggered 'a bottom-up trophic cascade and consequent collapse of the forest food web'. In Costa Rica, Janzen described the fall in numbers of insectivorous birds in the reserve as 'cratering'. A colony of about 20 nectar-eating bats have long nested in the dark nooks of Janzen and Hallwachs' house, but Janzen has noticed the flowers they used to feed from are now failing to bloom. Hallwachs began to find their small, emaciated bodies lying on the floor. 'Over a period of five days, I found three of these bats dead,' she says. Researchers at another site 20 miles away told her they were witnessing the same thing. Behind the steepening declines, a clear culprit is beginning to emerge: global heating. A tropical forest ecosystem is 'a finely tuned Swiss watch', Hallwachs says – perfectly engineered to sustain a vastly biodiverse system of creatures. Each element is delicately tuned and interlocks with the rest: the heat, the humidity, the rainfall, the unfolding of leaves, the length of the seasons, the start and stop of the life cycles of insects and animals. With each incremental turn of one cog, the rest of the system responds. Insects and animals have evolved to time their hibernations and breeding times precisely to small signals from the system: a change in humidity, a lengthening of the light hours of the day, a small rise or fall in temperature. But now, the system has one gear spinning wildly out of time: the climate. 'When I arrived here in 1963 the dry season was four months. Today, it is six months,' Janzen says. Insects that typically spend four months underground, waiting for the rains, are now forced to try to survive another two months of hot, dry weather. Many are not succeeding. The major drivers of biodiversity losses were land degradation and habitat loss … Now climate change is by far exceeding that David Wagner Alongside the changing seasons are other shifts, such as in rainfall or humidity. 'It's just a general disruption of all the little cues and synchronies that would be out there,' Janzen says. Across the entire clock of the forest, plants and creatures are falling out of sync. In the background, the temperature is rising. 'The killer – the cause that's pulling the trigger – is actually water,' says Wagner. For insects, staying hydrated is a unique physiological challenge: rather than lungs, their bodies are riddled with holes, called spiracles, that carry oxygen directly into the tissue. 'They're all surface area,' says Wagner. 'Insects can't hold water.' Even a brief drought lasting just a few days can wipe out millions of humidity-dependent insects. Some ecologists now believe these declines could mark a new era in which the changing climate overtakes other forms of human damage as the biggest driver of extinction. 'We're at a new point in human history,' Wagner says. Up until the last decade, 'the major drivers of biodiversity losses around the planet were really land degradation and land loss, habitat loss. But I think now that climate change is by far exceeding that.' Last month, the journal BioScience published new research examining how the five biggest drivers of biodiversity loss were affecting the US's endangered creatures. For the first time – albeit by a very slim margin – the climate crisis emerged in front, driving the decline of 91% of imperilled species. Heat-driven declines could have repercussions far beyond their immediate surroundings. In the past, even if pesticides wiped out insects over an agricultural region, as long as healthy populations remained elsewhere, species could return if the spraying stopped. Related: 'It's a warning': UK nature chief sounds alarm over ecosystem collapse as butterfly numbers halve 'Climate change is impacting all those different little spots at the same time. It doesn't just affect one particular spot that gets a pesticide dose or gets a tree cut down,' Janzen says. 'If the insect population collapses and it happens everywhere, you don't have a residual population.' Today, as well as being an ecologist Wagner feels he has taken on a second role – as an elegist for disappearing forms of life. 'I'm an optimist, in the sense that I think we will build a sustainable future,' Wagner says. 'But it's going to take 30 or 40 years, and by then, it's going to be too late for a lot of the creatures that I love. I want to do what I can with my last decade to chronicle the last days for many of these creatures.' Decades on from his months spent bound to the rocking chair, Janzen still watches. He records the yearly data, the shifts in dominant species. But today, there is so much less to see. Once, when he and Hallwachs would type up their notes in the night, they would pitch a tent in the living room to protect their computers from thousands of moths that flocked to the blue glow. Now, they work with the house open to the forest air. 'I find myself saying, 'Winnie! A moth has arrived at the light on my laptop,'' Janzen says. 'One moth.' Elsewhere in their profession, some scientists are starting to look away. 'We know quite a number of entomologists who have experience dating back to the 70s, 80s or 90s,' Hallwachs says. 'One of our very good friends – he now does not have the emotional courage to hang up a sheet to collect moths at night. It is too devastating to see how few there are.' Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow the biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield in the Guardian app for more nature coverage
Fox Sports
2 days ago
- Fox Sports
How to Watch Blue Jays vs. Phillies: TV Channel & Live Stream
Data Skrive The Toronto Blue Jays and Ernie Clement ready for the first of a three-game series against Bryce Harper and the Philadelphia Phillies on Wednesday at Rogers Centre. Here's everything you need to watch the Blue Jays vs. Phillies matchup. Keep up with MLB on FOX Sports. Trea Turner, Bryce Harper went yard as the Philadelphia Phillies struck first vs. the Blue Jays. Blue Jays vs. Phillies Game Information & How to Watch When: Wednesday, June 4, 2025 at 7:07 p.m. ET Where: Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario TV: Watch on SNET, NBCS-PH Box Score: Fox Sports Blue Jays vs. Phillies Prediction Score Prediction: Blue Jays 5, Phillies 4 Total Prediction: Over 9 runs Win Probabilities: Blue Jays 52%, Phillies 48% Blue Jays vs. Phillies Head to Head Date Favorite Spread Total Favorite Moneyline Underdog Moneyline Result 9/4/2024 Phillies -1.5 7.5 -131 +111 4-2 PHI 9/3/2024 Blue Jays -1.5 8.5 -120 +100 10-9 PHI 5/8/2024 Phillies -1.5 8.5 -170 +143 5-3 TOR 5/7/2024 Phillies -1.5 8 -117 -103 10-1 PHI 8/16/2023 Blue Jays -1.5 7.5 -141 +120 9-4 PHI 8/15/2023 Phillies -1.5 7.5 -115 -104 2-1 TOR 5/10/2023 Phillies -1.5 8 -115 -105 2-1 PHI 5/9/2023 Phillies -1.5 9 -137 +116 8-4 PHI 9/21/2022 Phillies -1.5 8.5 -113 -107 4-3 PHI 9/20/2022 Blue Jays -1.5 8.5 -120 +101 18-11 TOR Blue Jays Last 10 Game Stats Stat Avg/Total Record 6-4 Runs Per Game 4.5 HR 14 ERA 3.66 K/9 8.8 Blue Jays Player Insights Vladimir Guerrero Jr. leads the Blue Jays with eight home runs on the year. He's also hitting .283 with 28 RBI. Among all hitters in the majors, Guerrero's home run total places him 69th, and his RBI tally ranks him 77th. Guerrero carries a five-game hitting streak into this matchup. During his last five outings he is hitting .389 with two doubles, a home run, four walks and five RBIs. Bo Bichette has capitalized on opportunities as he paces his team with 32 RBI. Bichette ranks 89th in home runs in baseball, and 43rd in RBI. Bichette carries a six-game streak with at least one hit into this contest. In his last 10 games he is hitting .211 with two doubles, three home runs, three walks and seven RBIs. George Springer has launched a team-high eight home runs. Springer is on a four-game hitting streak entering this contest. During his last five outings he is hitting .316 with three home runs, three walks and six RBIs. Clement is hitting .283 with 11 doubles, three home runs and 10 walks. Clement has recorded at least one hit in six straight games. In his last 10 games he is batting .395 with four doubles, two home runs, three walks and six RBIs. Blue Jays Recent & Upcoming Games Phillies Last 10 Game Stats Stat Avg/Total Record 5-5 Runs Per Game 4 HR 10 ERA 4.95 K/9 9.3 Phillies Player Insights Kyle Schwarber has put up a team-leading 19 home runs and has driven in 44 runs. In all of MLB, Schwarber is fourth in home runs and eighth in RBI. Schwarber has collected a hit in five games in a row. During his last five outings he is batting .400 with four doubles, a home run, a walk and four RBIs. Harper has 13 doubles, eight home runs and 33 walks while batting .267. Harper is 69th in home runs and 37th in RBI among all batters in the majors. Trea Turner leads the Phillies' lineup with a .299 batting average. Nick Castellanos is hitting .281 with 14 doubles, five home runs and 14 walks. Phillies Recent & Upcoming Games FOX Sports created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar. Want great stories delivered right to your inbox? Create or log in to your FOX Sports account, follow leagues, teams and players to receive a personalized newsletter daily. FOLLOW Follow your favorites to personalize your FOX Sports experience Toronto Blue Jays Philadelphia Phillies recommended
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Jesus Guerrero's Cause of Death Revealed by LA Officials
Wondering what the official cause of death was for celebrity hairstylist Jesus Guerrero? Known for styling stars like Kylie Jenner and Jennifer Lopez, Guerrero's unexpected passing at 34 shocked fans and clients alike. Months later, medical officials have released the findings behind his sudden death. Here's what caused Guerrero's death and what the official reports now confirm. Celebrity hairstylist Jesus Guerrero, known for working with Kylie Jenner, Jennifer Lopez, and Katy Perry, died on February 22, 2025, at age 34. The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner has confirmed that his cause of death was pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia and disseminated cryptococcus neoformans, with Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) listed as a contributing condition. His manner of death was determined to be natural. Guerrero's family initially announced his death on February 23, describing it as 'sudden and unexpected.' A GoFundMe page organized by his sister Gris echoed this description. According to the DME report, Guerrero sought medical attention on the afternoon of February 21 after reporting that he felt unwell. Medical staff pronounced him dead the following morning at a local hospital. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines cryptococcosis as a fungal disease caused by inhaling environmental spores. It usually affects the lungs or brain. Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia is another serious fungal infection linked to weakened immune systems. If untreated, it can be life-threatening. According to the Mayo Clinic, AIDS severely weakens the immune system and increases the risk of such infections. Guerrero had recently returned from Dubai, where he had been working with Jennifer Lopez, and had spent time in Los Angeles with Kylie Jenner prior to his death. Guerrero's family held his funeral in Houston on March 30. Jenner, Lopez, and several figures from the beauty industry attended the service. Although Katy Perry could not attend, she stayed in contact with the family. Jenner reportedly offered financial support and covered funeral expenses. As of June 3, the family's GoFundMe campaign raised $96,000, which will now go toward settling Guerrero's personal assets and related costs. Originally reported by Vritti Johar on The post Jesus Guerrero's Cause of Death Revealed by LA Officials appeared first on Mandatory.
