Noe Music Launches 32nd Season

Most readers probably know by now that the Noe Valley Ministry, located in Noe Valley at 1021 Sanchez Street, just south of 23rd Street, has become a preferred venue for concerts and recitals. Next month will see Friction Quartet launch its 2024–2025 season there, and the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble will do the same the following month. Hopefully, however, readers know that the venue has its own concert series, entitled, simply enough, “Noe Music.” Programs are curated by its Co-Artistic and Executive Directors, Meena Bhasin and Owen Dalby. Both of them also perform during the season, Bhasin on viola and Dalby on violin.

This past Thursday, Noe Music presented an event that served as a “prelude” to the new season. This was a special benefit concert to celebrate the arrival of a new Steinway Model D Concert Grand Piano. Pianists Stephen Prutsman, Elizabeth Joy Roe, and Jeffrey LaDeur put the new instrument through its paces to celebrate its arrival.

Jon Kimura Parker at the piano (photograph by Tara McMullen, from the Noe Valley Music Web page for purchasing tickets.

The concert season itself will begin one week from tomorrow. It will begin with a recital by pianist Jon Kimura Parker. He has chosen to “launch” the season with three familiar composers from three different historical eras. He will begin with one of the most familiar piano sonatas by Ludwig van Beethoven, the second Opus 27 sonata in C-sharp minor, best known as the “Moonlight.” He will then advance the time-line with Maurice Ravel’s “Jeux d’eau,” composed early in the twentieth century. This will be followed by preludes selected from Frédéric Chopin’s Opus 28 collection.

Parker will then move into more adventurous territory. He will perform a fantasy composed by William Hirtz, arranging familiar themes from the score that Harold Arlen composed for the movie The Wizard of Oz. He will then be joined by Dalby and Bhasin, along with their cellist colleague Amos Yang; and the four of them will conclude the program with a performance of Johannes Brahms’ Opus 60, his C minor piano quartet.

This event will begin at 4 p.m. on Sunday, September 29. It is expected to last about two hours. General admission will be $45 with a special $60 rate for reserved seating in the first few rows. Students will be admitted for $15. A Web page has been created for ordering tickets online.