2009 cultural events

This page lists 44 cultural events I attended in 2009. Movies are listed on my films page, not here. The program index page displays thumbnails of all the printed program images. Cities are in California, except as noted.

I started keeping event data in the format used by this page in 2010, so I reconstructed the event data below from old calendar data and filed hard copies of printed programs. I have not yet scanned the printed programs for these events.

Looking back on this year three years later (in February 2012), three extraordinary performances jump out at me:

• Martha Argerich's fabulous performance of the Ravel concerto with SFS. I had tickets to see her on three or four previous occasions, but she always cancelled; this time she played, and it was well worth the wait. Pure musicality from start to finish!
• Shivkumar Sharma and Zakir Hussain in Marin. I first saw Shivkumar in Boston in the summer of 1967, playing both santoor and tabla with Ravi Shankar's Festival from India, an event that kindled my love for Hindustani classical music. I first saw a very young Zakir at Stanford, trying to keep up with Ali Akbar Khan, with Khansahib doing whatever he could to make it hard on Zakir. [Shivkumar and Zakir aren't young any more, so I guess I'm not either.] My wife Bari, not a big fan of North Indian music, really loved this concert too, especially the delightful interplay between the two masters.
• Debashish Bhattacharya's amazing slide guitar performance at Basant Bahar in Milpitas, every note perfectly formed.

And one lowlight:

• Alexander Barantschick's leaden, clueless Bach with SFS, and especially Robin Sutherland stumbling through the harpsichord part of Brandenburg 5.

I started keeping event data in the format used by this page in 2010, so data from 2010 to date is accurate. I started keeping appointment calendar data in .txt format in August 2005. I later extracted 2005-2009 event data ex post facto, so data for 2005 to 2009 is less complete and a bit less accurate. I have older pocket calendars and hard copies of event programs going back to 1963, but I have not yet scanned programs for years before 2010 or entered event data for most years before 2005.

See also: 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1971 1981 1982 1983 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1993 1994 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 All

Click on a heading below to sort the list accordingly. Click on a Program link to see the printed program for an event. Enter a search string (e.g., "Mahler", "Berkeley", "piano") below to filter the output.

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