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Michael S. Gant Managing Editor |
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| Michael S. Gant's Articles: 1 to 10 of 39 | Previous Page 1 2 3 4 Next Page |
 | From the San Jose Chamber Music Society to South Bay Guitar Society, the best classical concerts for the weekend FOR its November presentation, the [b]San Jose Chamber Music Society[/b] welcomes the [b]Amernet String Quartet[/b] all the way from Florida International University to town. Violinists Misha Vitenson and Marcia Littley de Arias, violist Michael Klotz and cellist Javiet Arias will perform Haydn’s Sunrise Quartet, Mendelssohn’s Quartet in E Minor and Tchaikovsky’s Quartet no. 1 (Accordion). [i]Sunday (Nov. 22) at 7pm; Le Petit Trianon, 72 N. Fifth St., San Jose; $25–$40; 408.286.5111[/i].More |  | A round-up of the best classical concerts in the valley. THE CELEBRATED Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953) endured a complex and fraught relationship with his homeland. Abroad during the Bolshevik triumph, Prokofiev came back during the 1930s, at the height of the Stalin regime. The government involved itself excessively in the creative output of its prominent artists. Realism was mandated; formalist tendencies condemned. Prokofiev struggled within these confines, tackling nationalist projects, such as his score for Eisenstein’s [i]Alexander Nevsky[/i] and his opera version of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. In one of history’s ironies, Prokofiev died on the same day as Stalin.More |  | The SF affair brings four days of films to San Jose, Nov. 9-12 THE ANNUAL SAN FRANCISCO Latino Film Festival includes four days of films in San Jose, Nov. 9–12. On Monday, Gary Marks’ 2007 documentary [i]Dream Havana, a Story of Friendship, Choice and Separation[/i] shows at San Jose State University at 4pm. The film looks at the dilemma faced by two Cuban writers in 1994—one chose to take a perilous boat journey to the United States, the other stayed in Cuba. On Nov. 10, MACLA hosts screenings of [i]Forgotten Injustice[/i] (6pm) and Yveete (8pm).More |  | A new show at the Cantor Arts Center displays the disparate visions of 13 Stanford art profs JESUS, barefoot and with a lamp protectively cradled in his arm, strides in close formation with Abe Lincoln in a stove-pipe hat and Julie Andrews in her [i]Sound of Music[/i] dirndl, looking ready to break into song at any moment. Is this a trio of saviors—religious, political and pop cultural—or an just an accidental meeting in neutral painterly space?More |  | A local documentary about wrongfully convicted East Palo Alto man airs on KTEH Nov. 5. TALK ABOUT double jeopardy. In 1991, Rick Walker, an independent auto mechanic living in East Palo Alto, was wrongfully convicted of murder, mostly on the basis of questionable testimony. Years later, the witness confessed, and Walker was exonerated. Having spent 12 years in San Quentin, Pelican Bay and other hard-core prisons, Walker was punished again by a quirk in the law. While the average prisoner is given some money and assistance upon release, an exonerated prisoner must wait for special legislative appropriation bills to receive the paltry $100 a day for each day of wrongful imprisonment mandated by California statute.More |  | For their MACLA show, the Mexican-American glass artists mashup the symbols and kitsch of two cultures THE MEXICAN-American artist/brother team of Einar and Jamex de la Torre use blown glass in ways that would appall the guild members at the Murano or Steuben factories. With bravura technique and a wicked sense of humor, they fuse sensuous fat rolls and globs of colored glass and assemble them into comic grotesqueries.More |  | The season begins Sept. 26 with a Brazilian twist THE MISSION CHAMBER ORCHESTRA performs Saturday (Sept. 26) at 7:30pm at Le Petit Trianon, 72 N. Fifth St., San Jose. Tickets are $7–$22. (408.326.3350)More |  | A politician tries her hand at novel writing BLIND TRUST by Barbara Boxer; Chronicle Books; 234 pages; $24.95. Boxer appears for a booksigning event on Saturday (Aug. 15) at 1pm at Barnes & Noble, 3600 Stevens Creek Blvd., San Jose.More |  | San Jose galleries and museums host receptions and music all evening on Friday (Aug. 7) A VERY BUSY weekend is shaping up for downtowners as San Jose hosts the annual Jazz Festival and the monthly art happening known as First Friday. All along South First Street, just a marimba’s toss away from the jazz stage in Plaza de Cesar Chavez, galleries and museum will open their doors for receptions, music and mingling. As a bonus, the Jazz Festival will place its Jazz Beyond stage in the middle of the DIY Street Market outside Anno Domini Gallery, with performances by Midival Punditz (8pm) and Panthelion (10pm). Serious collectors will also want to check out the vinyl record swap and sale—proof that there’s more to life than MP3 files.More |  | The San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art shows visions of environmental distress in 'NextNew: Green' RECENTLY, I read a sci-fi novel about the usual hardy band of survivors picking up the pieces after a world-winnowing disaster—something along the lines of swine flu. The story included a number of au courant asides about man’s ecological mistakes, so I figured it must have been written in the last decade or so. Then I came upon a reference to Charlie McCarthy and Edgar Bergen. Turns out that the novel, [i]Earth Abides[/i], was written by UC-Berkeley English professor George R. Stewart—in 1949.More |
| Michael S. Gant's Articles: 1 to 10 of 39 | Previous Page 1 2 3 4 Next Page |
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