At the Opera with Tyson and Sam by Chloe Veltman

Arts journalists should make a point of attending arts events with people under the age of 20. I'm saying this having attended a production of The Magic Flute this week at San Francisco Oper…

OSF Day Four: Romeo and Juiet and As You Like It by Chloe Veltman

OK, so I'm taking back the comment I made yesterday about the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Shakespeare productions as being sub par.After witnessing director Laird Williamson's gob smacking…

OSF Day Three: Troilus and Cressida and Animal Crackers by Chloe Veltman

Someone might be forgiven for coming to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and coming to the conclusion that they don’t like Shakespeare very much.  Part of the problem is the deference …

OSF Day Two: Seagull and Henry V by Chloe Veltman

My Oregon Shakespeare Festival experience this year is so far proving to be unusual: OK, I'm only three plays in, but never have I been to a theatre festival that produces such polarized res…

OSF Day One: The White Snake by Chloe Veltman

My second annual trip to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival kicked off last night after a seven-hour drive from San Francisco with The White Snake, a world premiere re-telling of an ancient Chi…

Social Dances by Chloe Veltman

All around me I'm seeing signs of a society that's becoming more artistically participatory.Yes, we're still by and large a culture that pays to enjoy the experience of passively watching "r…

Doing the FOO by Chloe Veltman

I think it's going to take me quite a while to unpack the events of the past few days. I'll make a start now, at any rate.It all began on Friday evening with the "graduation" ceremony and di…

On Making A Hasty Exit by Chloe Veltman

The one downside to being an arts critic / reporter is that you're not supposed to leave performances before the curtain comes down.I completely understand this rationale: A review or featur…

Hold The Front Page. Or Not. As You Wish. by Chloe Veltman

Jenny Bilfied talks through the Bing plans.Yesterday, Stanford University held a media reception and briefing to unveil its 2012-2013 season plans. The news was worthy of attention. But the …

Magic & Theatre in The Tempest by Chloe Veltman

The words theatre and magic are often seen in the same sentence, even though the two genres place very different demands upon audiences' understanding of reality that are often difficult to …

Drinking/Songs: A Night of Beer & The Music That Goes With It. by Chloe Veltman

The New Way to Lose Weight: Franco-American Drama by Chloe Veltman

There are times when it's good to go into a cultural happening with a strong sense of what one's letting oneself in for and there are times when a lack of knowledge provides the best possibl…

Fin De Party by Chloe Veltman

Carey Perloff's surprisingly astute production of Samuel Beckett's Endgame (or Fin De Partie in the original French) at the American Conservatory Theater ended with a game-like coda last nig…

What Puts People Off When They Should Be On On On by Chloe Veltman

A visit to the Brick and Mortar Music Hall in San Francisco a couple of nights ago provided some hints at the sorts of things that concertgoers will and will not tolerate. I  asked a bu…

A Few Things, Mostly Musical by Chloe Veltman

A weekend of musical adventures in the Bay Area. Some quick thoughts about a few things I came across...1) Berkeley Symphony Gala: The best one I've attended yet. The reason? The Symphony co…

Hair of the Dog by Chloe Veltman

Wednesday night saw the inauguration of VoiceBox's live event series.I am choosing to call it the inauguration of a series because it came off stupendously well and I am gagging to this agai…

(Un)Harmony Sweepstakes...and a word about the NY Phil's appearance at Davies by Chloe Veltman

One of the things that the a cappella world prides itself on is how stylistically all-encompassing its remit is. In a cappella concerts and competitions, anything (supposedly) goes, from bar…

String Quartet Synesthesia by Chloe Veltman

The Kronos Quartet rounded out its year-long residency at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts this weekend with a concert featuring the music of a bunch of incredible women compo…

Hidden Gem by Chloe Veltman

It was few months ago that I first heard about The Frost Amphitheatre. If I hadn't been told about this outdoor concert venue smack bang in the middle of the Stanford campus, I would have ne…

Simultaneous Opera Translation by Chloe Veltman

Douglas von Blumenthal, a radiologist who listens to VoiceBox, my weekly public radio and podcast series about the human voice, was inspired to share his interesting ideas about simultaneous…

A Sense of Place by Chloe Veltman

A work of art that evokes a sense of place can be a powerful thing. It brings up all kinds of memories and yearnings. Dickens was good at it and JMW Turner, but its' not an easy goal to achi…

Sign of the Times by Chloe Veltman

No arts organization can or should live forever, no matter how revered and well-funded it might be.Stil, the possible demise of an amateur wind ensemble (which used to give public performanc…

Boo to Encores by Chloe Veltman

I often hear people in this country complaining about how pointless the standing ovation has become in a performance setting. Here in the States, an artist need only walk on stage, belch, an…

Opposite Ends of the Interactivity Spectrum by Chloe Veltman

Interactivity is so much the rage these days both in journalism and in the arts that it's starting to make things like the business of going to see a traditional play or ballet look really o…

The Kitchen Sisters’ Storytelling Confidential by Chloe Veltman

The Kitchen Sisters – a.k.a. National Public Radio producers Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva -- tell extraordinary stories about ordinary people.Thousands of listeners have tuned in over the …

Lickety Split by Chloe Veltman

Perhaps one of the greatest mysteries of cultural life in San Francisco at the present time is how Pop-Up Magazine manages to sell out Davies Symphony Hall, one of the city's biggest venues …

The Aliens by Chloe Veltman

Caught Annie Baker's subtle play about modern manhood, The Aliens, in a beautifully crafted production at SF Playhouse over the weekend.Forgive the concision of this blog post, but I'm dog-t…

Journalism vs Art by Chloe Veltman

One of the best things about being a John S Knight Fellow at Stanford is that when a line of thinking tugs at you and you're struggling to reel it in, all you have to do is put the word out …

Why Contemporary Music Is Like My Hairdryer by Chloe Veltman

If the music I heard at the Fifth Annual Switchboard Music Festival can be used as a gauge of the state of contemporary composition today, I would have to say that contemporary music is a lo…

Revolutionary Acts by Chloe Veltman

Tom Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia 2002 trilogy of plays and Abel Gance's 1927 biopic Napoleon have a great deal in common: They both portray famous revolutionary European figures and explor…

Hoping for Double Homicide at The Curran Theatre by Chloe Veltman

"We're toughing it out," the young woman in the gold lamé dress said to my friend and I during intermission yesterday evening at the opening night of Harold Pinter's The Caretaker at The Cu…