Tuesday, November 13, 2018

Choices for November 18, 2018 (and beyond)

At the very beginning of this month, I wrote a “Choices for November 17, 2018 (and beyond)” article. At that time it seemed as if Saturday was going to be far busier than Sunday, enough so to be examined on its own; but, as they say, things change. Two events for this coming Sunday have already gone “on the record:”
  1. The final San Francisco Symphony (SFS) performance at 2 p.m. of Michael Tilson Thomas’ “From the Diary of Anne Frank,” with the composer conducting in Davies Symphony Hall
  2. The final Hotplate Festival concert at the SFJAZZ Center based on Jackie McLean’s 1965 Blue Note album It’s Time with two performances at 6 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., respectively
That leaves three further events interleaved among these two as follows:

[added 11/16, 4:25 p.m.:

San Francisco Mint, 2 p.m.: Noontime Concerts seems to have expanded its schedule to include once-a-month concerts at the SF Mint. The one for this Sunday will be a duo recital by cellists Angela Lee and Robert Howard. The will play duo sonatas by Alessandro Scarlatti, Luigi Boccherini, and Jean-Baptise Barriere. Their program will conclude with David Popper's Opus 16 suite for two cellos. The Mint building is located at 88 5th Street. Like the Tuesday concerts at Old St. Mary’s Cathedral, there will be no charge for admission, but this concert series relies heavily on donations to continue offering its weekly programs.

Taube Atrium Theater, 3 p.m.: Symphony Parnassus will present the opening concert of its 2018–19 season. Since Music Director Stephen Paulson will be “otherwise engaged” with SFS (where he is Principal Bassoon), the conductor will be Emil de Cou, acting Music Director of the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra, where he is responsible for conducting all Nutcracker performances. The concerto soloist for the program will be the winner of the 2018 Symphony Parnassus/San Francisco Conservatory of Music Competition, eleven-year-old violinist Dustin Breshears. He will play Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 64 violin concerto in E minor. The program will begin with Paul Hindemith’s “Symphonia Serena” and conclude with the waltz that Aram Khachaturian composed for incidental music for a production of the play Masquerade by Mikhail Lermontov.

The Taube Atrium Theater is located on the fourth floor of the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue, on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. Tickets will be sold for $25 for adults, $20 for seniors, and $10 for students and those under the age of 26 upon proof of identification. Tickets may be purchased in advance online through a Brown Paper Tickets order form on the event page for this concert.

The full season will consist of three additional concerts held either in the Taube Atrium Theater or the Concert Hall of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM). All performances will take place on Sunday afternoons at 3 p.m. Single ticket prices will be the same for both venues. SFCM is located at 50 Oak Street, between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street and a short walk from the Muni Van Ness station. Program specifics are as follows:
  1. January 27, Taube Atrium Theater: Violinist Sean Mori will be soloist in a performance of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 35 concerto in D major. The “overture” for the program will be the prelude music for Modest Mussorgsky’s opera Khovanshchina. The concluding “symphony” will be Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “Symphony Dances.”
  2. April 7, Taube Atrium Theater: Once again the program will feature a violin concerto, this time by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, his Opus 35 in D major. As was recently observed, Korngold wrote this concerto for Bronisław Huberman in 1945, by which time he had provided scores for a wide variety of Hollywood films. Many of the themes for the concerto can be traced back to soundtrack material, and the Wikipedia page for this concerto seems to account for all of those sources. As might be guessed, there is no shortage of high spirits in this concerto; and the audience will be prepared for those high spirits with the opening selection, Emmanuel Chabrier’s “Joyeuse marche,” originally written as a four-hand piano composition. The concluding “symphony” will be Edward Elgar’s Opus 68, “Falstaff – Symphonic Study,” in C minor.
  3. June 9, SFCM: The soloist for the Season Finale concert will be Mark Inouye, SFS Principal Trumpet. He will play the trumpet concerto by Grace Mary Williams, which was first performed in 1964. The “overture” selection will be the world premiere (not yet given a title) of an orchestral composition by composer-in-residence Preben Antonsen. The program will conclude with Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 54 (sixth) symphony in B minor, one of that composer’s symphonies that reflects inspirations provided by the symphonies of Gustav Mahler.
Because the season has not yet begun, subscription tickets are still on sale. General admission for all four concerts will be $75, rather than $100. A separate Web page has been created for processing subscription orders. Single tickets are also being sold for the three remaining concerts through their respective event pages, which may be accessed through the hyperlinks attached to the above dates.

[added 11/16, 4:35 p.m.: This event has been cancelled due to unhealthy air conditions.

Church of the Advent of Christ the King, 4 p.m.: The November installment of the Third Sundays at 4 O’Clock series organized by the Church's Music Director Paul Ellison will honor the centenary of the death of the English composer Sir Hubert Parry. This will be a Solemn Evensong service with music for the Anthem, Magnificat, and Nunc Dimittis drawing upon Parry's compositions. Other music for the service will be provided by Richard Ayleward and Edward Elgar.

No admission will be charged, but donations will be requested. Those planning of attending should be advised that each of these events will cost approximately $500. The Church of the Advent of Christ the King is located at 261 Fell Street, between Franklin Street and Gough Street. The entry is diagonally across the street from the SFJAZZ Center.]

house concert, 7 p.m.: The other evening offering for this Sunday will be the latest house concert to be arranged by pianist Ian Scarfe. The title of the program will be, appropriately enough, A Little Sunday Night Music. It will feature songs by Jake Heggie to complement the San Francisco premiere of his latest opera, It’s a Wonderful Life, the preceding Saturday evening (one of the options for November 17). The vocalist will be soprano Amy Foote. Scarfe will also be joined by cellist Charles Akert.

This concert will take place at a private home in the Marina neighborhood. Those attending will be advised to arrive around 6:30 p.m., so the concert can begin on time. Those wishing to attend should RSVP to Scarfe through electronic mail, and he will reply with the necessary details concerning the venue.

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