The rapidly approaching new year will bring to the San Francisco Bay Area 50 of the 86 so-called "Violins of Hope," recovered and restored Holocaust-era string instruments that survived the ghettoes and the death camps.

The San Francisco Symphony closed November with concerts featuring works by big-name Austrian and German composers. Impressive guest artists and conductors joined the Orchestra at Davies Symphony Hall.

The final production in the San Francisco Opera's fall season is also the first big entertainment of the holidays. Engelbert Humperdinck's "Hansel and Gretel" opened last week.

The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus showed tremendous courage in the aftermath of Donald Trump's ascension to the presidency and the passage of "religious freedom" laws that legalized LGBT discrimination in conservative states.

First impressions are important, but they shouldn't lead to snap judgment. It is usually wiser to stop and think, but in the world of opera — especially Puccini — lovers tend to fall in love at first sight.

"If I could only do one kind of performance," Mandy Patinkin explained in a recent phone interview with the B.A.R., "it would be doing concerts."

Young Michael Tilson Thomas inherited a passion to popularize Gustav Mahler and Charles Ives from his legendary mentor Leonard Bernstein.

You've got to give Michael Longoria, Broadway performer in "Jersey Boys" and "Hairspray," credit for being ballsy.

The highlight of Out There's recent jaunt to New York City was an artistic encounter with the MacArthur "genius grant"-winning jazz pianist and bandleader Jason Moran.

SFS Principal Percussion Jacob Nissly is one of the orchestra's standout players, usually showing his skills from the rear of the stage.

As it turns out, Pete & Chasten Buttigieg aren't the only fascinating twosome to come from Indiana. Singing-songwriting sisters Lily & Madeline Jurkiewicz have been at it since high school in Indianapolis.

The 16-track "Wide Prairie" (MPL/Capitol), bowing on 180-gram audiophile black vinyl for the first time (remastered at Abbey Road Studios), is a cornucopia of sounds and styles.

Surviving war and political tyranny, the Polish composer and violin and piano virtuoso Grazyna Bacewicz wrote hundreds of scores, building a distinctive style influenced by everything from folk music to the avant-garde.

After more than 200 years, the perpetually hip writing team of Mozart and Da Ponte still has a hit on their hands. "The Marriage of Figaro" opened at the War Memorial Opera House last week, and it's funnier and timelier than ever.