Center for New Music: April 2017

Having addressed the first week of activities at the Center for New Music (C4NM) in this week’s Bleeding Edge column, it is now time to account for the rest of the month. With one exception all events will take place at C4NM, the exception being a second performance at the Asian Art Museum in conjunction with the current Tomb Treasures exhibition. For those who need reminding, C4NM is located at 55 Taylor Street, half a block north of where Golden Gate Avenue meets Market Street. Tickets for all events at C4NM are now available for advance purchase online through the indicated hyperlinks:

Tuesday, April 11, 8 p.m.: The sfSoundSalonSeries, curated by Kyle Bruckmann, will present its second concert of the month. This will be a visit from New York City by loadbang, a quartet that consists of trumpet, trombone, bass clarinet, and baritone voice. The group will perform compositions by Tim McCormick, Aaron Cassidy, Aaron Helgeson, Joji Yuasa, and Gerard Grisey. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members, students, and the underemployed. Tickets may be purchased in advance through a Vendini Web page.

Wednesday, April 12, 8 p.m.: This will be a Founders’ Series event. It will be an evening with the Irish composer Jennifer Walshe, who is currently Composer-in-Residence at Stanford University. She will share her work on “ALL THE MANY PEOPLS,” scored for solo voice, film, and electronics, using text sourced from Amazon.com message boards. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members. Tickets may be purchased in advance through a Vendini Web page.

Friday, April 14, 8 p.m.: This will be the first of two concerts given by the Mivos Quartet, whose members are violinists Olivia De Prato and Lauren Cauley, violist Victor Lowrie, and cellist Mariel Roberts. The group will give premiere performances of new works for string quartet by graduate composers at the University of California at Berkeley: Lily Chen, Scott Rubin, James Stone, Jeremy Wexler, and Jon Yu. For the performance of Rubin’s “DEFINE // DEFILE,” the quartet will be joined by movement artist SanSan Kwan. General admission will be $10 with a $5 rate for C4NM members, students, and the underemployed. Tickets may be purchased in advance through a Vendini Web page.

Saturday, April 15, 8 p.m.: This will be the latest installment of the permutations series. The Mivos Quartet will return to give a second recital, this time performing the third string quartets by Patrick Higgins and Helmut Lachenmann. (Lachenmann’s quartet carries the title “Grido.”) The program will also include “Atmende Steine” by Martin Stauning. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members. Tickets may be purchased in advance through a Vendini Web page.

Sunday, April 16, noon and 2 p.m.: This will be the second Music for the Afterlife program, conceived to supplement the Tomb Treasures exhibition at the Asian Art Museum. Once again the concert involves a partnership of Bart Hopkin’s ensemble of custom-built instruments called Gamelan Encinal with local instrument inventor group Pet the Tiger. The program will present new works for pipa and Han bronze bells composed by Sophia Shen and Stephen Parris. Shen will also be the pipa soloist. Edward Schocker will join the ensemble and contribute a composition that includes Butoh dance by Shinichi Iova-Koga. The program will also revisit “Yantra Meditation,” the performance of a graphic score by David Samas, which was previously performed on March 19. The Asian Art Museum is located in the Civic Center at 200 Larkin Street. The two performances will be free for those admitted to the museum.

Tuesday, April 18, 8 p.m.: The third and final sfSoundSalonSeries concert of the month, curated again by Kyle Bruckmann, will present the electric bass duo Bass2Bass, whose members are Scott Worthington and Michelle Lou. The group is based in Southern California, and their visit to C4NM is part of their inaugural West Coast tour. The program will consist of new works by Sabrina Schroeder, Weston Olencki and Worthington himself. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members, students, and the underemployed. Tickets may be purchased in advance through a Vendini Web page.

Wednesday, April 19, 8 p.m.: This will be the first Bay Area concert to be given by the Rova Saxophone Quartet in 2017. The group will begin a European tour on the following weekend, so the plan will be to preview the music that will be played on the tour. This will include both familiar repertoire and their special Sound-in-Space project. They will also present their Steve Lacy project, which was scored for the quartet along with electric guitar and electronics. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members. Tickets may be purchased in advance through a Vendini Web page.

Saturday, April 22, 8 p.m.: The second Founders’ Series concert of the month will be a recital by Italian musician Marco Fusi. He will be playing the viola d’amore, a variant of the viola with seven bowed strings, each with a sympathetic string tuned to the pitch of its respective open string. He will play recent compositions for this old instrument by four Scandinavian composers, Ylva Lund Bergner, Johan Svensson, Axel Rudebeck and Øyvind Mæland. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members. Tickets may be purchased in advance through a Vendini Web page.

Wednesday, April 26, 8 p.m.: This will be the latest concert of deconstructions of the Great American Songbook by Indexical. There will be two sets. The Happy Valley Band will take the first. They will be followed by Jon Leidecker performing as Wobbly. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members. Tickets may be purchased in advance through a Vendini Web page.

Saturday, April 29, 7 p.m.: The April schedule will wrap up with a solo recital by pianist Lee Alan Nolan. The program will feature two compositions by San Francisco composer Bruce Bennet, his recent “Schematic Nocturne” and “Small Art.” Nolan will also play two highly challenging composers with the “Gaspard de la nuit” of Maurice Ravel and the “Three Etudes” by Robert Helps. On a lighter side he will also play a few rags by Scott Joplin. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members. Tickets may be purchased in advance through a Vendini Web page.