Friday, September 23, 2016

Concerts with Conversation will Begin at the Community Music Center with Marc-André Hamelin

Concerts with Conversation is an annual series of free community events hosted by the Community Music Center  (CMC) in partnership with San Francisco Performances (SFP). As the title implies, each event involves not only the performance of music but also a general Q&A session through which the audience can learn more about both the music and the performer. Usually, the artist is in San Francisco in conjunction with performing for an SFP event.

That will be the case for the first Concert with Conversation of the 2016–2017 season. The performer will be French-Canadian pianist Marc-André Hamelin. Hamelin has been giving regular recital performances for SFP since his debut in 2003. He will be in San Francisco next month for A Concert of Gratitude, a concert organized by SFP Founder Ruth A. Felt as a means of expressing her thanks to Bay Area audiences for their support of the organization she has served as President for 37 years. The program will include Hamelin performing the three intermezzi that Johannes Brahms published as his Opus 117. In addition, he will join the Alexander String Quartet for a performance of Robert Schumann’s Opus 44 quintet in E-flat major. However, Hamelin’s repertoire is hardly limited to the nineteenth century, and one of his recent recordings involved his performing Dmitri Shostakovich’s G minor piano quintet (Opus 57) with the Takács Quartet.

Hamelin’s visit to CMC will take place at 6 p.m. on Friday, October 21. To repeat, like all the events in this series, his appearance will be free and open to the general public. It will take place in the CMC Concert Hall, which is located at 544 Capp Street, between Mission Street and South Van Ness Avenue and between 20th Street and 21st Street. These tend to be popular events, so early arrival is encouraged.

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