The first Friday of next month will be the next date on which the serious listener will have to make a hard choice. The rest of the weekend appears to be a bit more accommodating … at least for now. The good news it that the alternatives will cover a diversity of approaches to making music, meaning that most readers will probably have the opportunity to “play favorites” (unless they are omnivorous)! As of this writing, all of the options will begin at 8 p.m. on the same date, October 6. Specifics are as follows:
Center for New Music (C4NM): Emma Logan will be curating a program entitled A Woman’s Point of View – An Evening of Art Song with Winnie Nieh and Paul Dab. Nieh is a soprano, whose interest in working with music from the “immediate present” is deftly complemented by a repertoire that reaches back to the pre-Classical repertoire. Dab has similarly broad interests and has been establishing himself as an impresario as well as a pianist.
In the program for this recital, that “immediate present” will include Logan herself, with a performance of Songs from The Book of Light, a setting of three poems by Lucille Clifton. The program will also include two other Bay Area composers. “When You Are Old” is Rita Zhang’s setting of a poem by William Butler Yeats inspired by his unrequited love for Maude Gonne. In contrast Julie Barwick uses Nature Songs to set the sharp imagery of descriptions of nature by the poet Janet Lewis. The program will conclude with Libby Larsen’s Songs from Letters, whose texts are taken from the letters that Calamity Jane wrote to her daughter Janey. In addition, in order to set a historical context, the program will begin with the six songs in Clara Schumann’s Opus 13, which sets poems by Emanuel Geibel, Heinrich Heine, and Friedrich Rückert.
C4NM is located at 55 Taylor Street, about half a block north of the Golden Gate Theater, where Golden Gate Avenue meets Market Street. General admission for this concert will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members. Tickets may be purchased in advance through a Vendini event page.
Herbst Theatre: This will be the San Francisco performance by the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (PBO) & Chorale of the United States premiering the first-ever composition co-commissioned by PBO and the London-based Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. The work is a full-length oratorio by Scottish composer Sally Beamish entitled The Judas Passion. The libretto was prepared by David Harsent, drawing upon Gnostic texts for source material. The Philharmonia Chorale (Bruce Lamott, Director) will perform with PBO led by Waverley Fund Music Director Nicholas McGegan. Vocal soloists will be soprano Mary Bevan, tenor Brenden Gunnell, and bass-baritone Roderick Williams. Beamish’s oratorio will be given an “overture” in the form of the first (E minor) suite from Georg Philipp Telemann’s Tafelmusik collection.
Herbst Theatre is located at 401 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. Ticket prices will range from $28 to $120 dollars for premium seating. Tickets are currently available for advance purchase through a City Box Office event page.
Because this is the first concert in PBO’s 37th season, subscriptions are still available. As in the past, for those who do not wish to subscribe to all six concerts, the full season will be split into two equal halves, each of which will be covered by a separate “Trio” subscription package. This season there will also be an "Opera Lovers Trio" of the three vocal programs in the six-concert season. Full details and hyperlinks for placing orders can be found on the Subscription Packages Web page on the Philharmonia Baroque Web site.
Davies Symphony Hall: This will also mark the beginning of a month-long series of concerts by the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) led by guest conductors. The first of these will be Polish conductor Krzysztof Urbański, who will take the podium for two different concert programs. His first program will follow the usual overture-concerto-symphony format. The overture will feature the one Polish composer to be included with the “Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima” by Krzysztof Penderecki. Violinist Augustin Hadelich will be the concerto soloist, performing Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 64 in E minor. The symphony will also be in E minor, Dmitri Shostakovich’s tenth (Opus 93).
This concert will be given three performances, at 8 p.m. on Friday, October 6, and Saturday, October 7, and at 2 p.m. on Sunday, October 8. There will be an Inside Music talk given by Alexandra Amati-Camperi that will begin one hour prior to each concert. Doors to the lobbies open fifteen minutes before the talk begins.Ticket prices range from $15 to $95. They may be purchased online through the event page for this program on the SFS Web site, by calling 415-864-6000, or by visiting the Box Office in Davies Symphony Hall, whose entrance is on the south side of Grove Street between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street. In addition the event page has three hyperlinks for free podcasts, one for the concerto and two for the symphony. These are hosted by KDFC’s Rik Malone, and they require Flash to be activated for listening. The event page also has hyperlinks of sound clips from both of these selections, which also require Flash to be activated. The Box Office is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, and from noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday.
In addition, the Friday performance will be preceded by a Katherine Hanrahan Open Rehearsal. This special behind-the-scenes experience begins at 8:30 a.m. with coffee and complimentary doughnuts, followed by a half-hour introductory talk by Amati-Camperi at 9 a.m. The rehearsal itself begins at 10 a.m.; and, of course, the pieces rehearsed are at the conductor’s discretion. General admission is $30 with $40 for reserved seats in the Premiere Orchestra section, the Side and Rear Boxes, and the Loge. Tickets may be purchased online through a separate event page.
Finally, because this is likely to be a busy month, it will probably be worth while to summarize the specifics about the remaining SFS programs for October.
The second concert will see the SFS debut of Czech conductor Jakub Hrůša. He has prepared a program that will focus on his own nationalistic roots. The composers will be presented in chronological order, beginning with Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 92 “Carnival” overture, proceeding through Bedřich Smetana’s symphonic poem “Vltava” (the Moldau), and concluding with Leoš Janáček's symphonic rhapsody based on Nikolai Gogol’s tale of Taras Bulba. The concerto soloist for this program will be Polish pianist Piotr Anderszewski in a performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 453 concerto in G major.
This concert will be given three performances, at 8 p.m. on Friday, October 13, and Saturday, October 14, and at 2 p.m. on Sunday, October 15. There will be an Inside Music talk given by Laura Stansfield Prichard that will begin one hour prior to each concert. Doors to the lobbies open fifteen minutes before the talk begins.Ticket prices range from $15 to $95. They may be purchased online through the event page for this program on the SFS Web site, by calling 415-864-6000, or by visiting the Box Office in Davies Symphony Hall, whose entrance is on the south side of Grove Street between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street. In addition the event page has a hyperlink for a free podcast about the Taras Bulba rhapsody. This is hosted by KDFC’s Rik Malone, and it requires Flash to be activated for listening. The event page also has a hyperlink of a sound clip from the Dvořák overture, which also requires Flash to be activated. The Box Office is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, and from noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday.
The following week Urbański will return to the SFS podium, this time with concerto soloist Sol Gabetta, who will be making her SFS debut. Argentinian cellist Gabetta made her San Francisco debut last November, giving a recital for San Francisco Performances. For her concerto debut with SFS, she will play Dvořák’s Opus 104 cello concerto in B minor. [updated 10/12, 8:05 a.m.: Gabetta has withdrawn because her newborn baby is unexpectedly not able to travel with her at the time. The soloist for the Dvořák concerto will be cellist Joshua Roman.] The remainder of the program will consist of the overture to Mozart’s K. 620 opera The Magic Flute and Witold Lutosławski’s “Concerto for Orchestra.”
This concert will be given three performances, all at 8 p.m. on Thursday, October 19, Friday, October 20, and Saturday, October 21. There will be an Inside Music talk given by Scott Foglesong that will begin one hour prior to each concert. Doors to the lobbies open fifteen minutes before the talk begins. Ticket prices range from $15 to $159. They may be purchased online through the event page for this program on the SFS Web site, by calling 415-864-6000, or by visiting the Box Office in Davies Symphony Hall, whose entrance is on the south side of Grove Street between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street. In addition the event page has a hyperlink for a free podcast about the Lutosławski composition. This is hosted by KDFC’s Rik Malone, and it requires Flash to be activated for listening. The event page also has hyperlinks for sound clips from the the other two selections on the program, which also require Flash to be activated. The Box Office is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, and from noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday.
The final program of the month will see the return of Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä. Once again he will demonstrate his expertise with the music of Jean Sibelius, this time in a performance of that composer’s Opus 47 violin concerto in D minor. The violin soloist will be Baiba Skride, making her SFS debut. The “overture” that will precede this concerto selection will be Sibelius’ best known tone poem “Finlandia.” The second half of the program will be taken by Shostakovich’s Opus 10 (first) symphony in F minor.
This concert will be given three performances, at 2 p.m. on Thursday, October 26, and at 8 p.m. on Friday, October 27, and Saturday, October 28. There will be an Inside Music talk given by Elizabeth Seitz that will begin one hour prior to each concert. Doors to the lobbies open fifteen minutes before the talk begins.Ticket prices range from $15 to $155. They may be purchased online through the event page for this program on the SFS Web site, by calling 415-864-6000, or by visiting the Box Office in Davies Symphony Hall, whose entrance is on the south side of Grove Street between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street. In addition, prior to the performances themselves, the Program Note Podcasts Web page will have a free podcast about the Shostakovich symphony hosted by KDFC’s Rik Malone. The event page also has a hyperlink for a sound clip from that symphony, which also requires Flash to be activated. The Box Office is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, and from noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday.
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