Ian Scarfe will Give Two groupmuse Concerts This Week (starting tonight)

This week pianist Ian Scarfe will be giving two more house concerts under the auspices of groupmuse. The first of these will take place this evening and will be entitled, appropriately, A Valentine Romance. Scarfe will be joined by his frequent colleague, violinist Edwin Huizinga. The major work on the program will be Maurice Ravel’s second violin sonata, a three-movement piece whose second movement was labeled “Blues.” The program will also include music by Béla Bartók and Philip Glass, along with, as Scarfe put it, “some romantic little gems (for Valentine’s Day).”

This house concert will begin at 6:30 p.m. this evening, Tuesday, February 14. The venue will be a home in the Marina overlooking both Fort Mason and the Golden Gate Bridge. Admission will require a $10 minimum donation for the performers. Specifics are maintained on the groupmuse Web page through which reservations must be made. Those who attend will be invited to bring a bottle of wine or snacks to share with other guests.

The second concert will be a late addition to previously enumerated events taking place this Friday. This will be a solo piano recital given by Scarfe at which he will reprise his performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 109 sonata in E major. There will also be more Ravel with a performance of the original piano version of his Le Tombeau de Couperin suite. This version has two more movements than Ravel included in his orchestral version; but, as of this writing, it appears that Scarfe will only play the four movements that Ravel orchestrated.

This house concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, February 17. The venue will be a flat in the Civic Center across from the Twitter headquarters building. Admission will require a $10 minimum donation for the performers. Specifics are maintained on the groupmuse Web page through which reservations must be made. Those who attend will be invited to bring a bottle of wine (French Bordeaux for Ravel or Austrian Riesling for Beethoven) or snacks to share with other guests.