SFP: Plans for November

With the first San Francisco Performances (SFP) events of the new season accounted for through an article at the end of this past August, it is time to address the significantly fuller calendar of events for next month. There will be four such events, accounting for a generous degree of diversity. As is almost always the case, all performances will begin at 7:30 p.m. The first of these has involved a change of date, as well as a change in venue. The remaining three events will review “business as usual” as follows:

Thursday, November 7, Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall: The month will begin with the return of the Jerusalem Quartet, which made its debut in May of 2022. The members of that quartet are still violinists Alexander Pavlovsky and Sergei Bresler, violist Ori Kam, and cellist Kyril Zlotnikov. The program will begin with Joseph Haydn’s Hoboken III/44 in B-flat major, the first of the six Opus 50 compositions, known as the “Prussian” quartets. This will be followed by Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 133 (twelfth) quartet in D-flat major. The second half of the program will be devoted entirely to Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 106 quartet in G major.

Pianist Natasha Paremski (from the event page for her recital)

Wednesday, November 13, Herbst Theatre: The first soloist in the Robert and Ruth Dell Piano Series will be Natasha Paremski, last seen in this same venue in July of 2021. She will begin with the most recent work on her program, “Falling Slowly” by Quinn Mason. The remainder of the first half of the program will then be devoted (as might be expected) to Frédéric Chopin. She will play the Opus 35 (second) of the piano sonatas, composed in the key of B-flat major. This will be preceded by the Opus 57 Berceuse in D-flat major. The second half of the program will showcase two familiar Russian composers. She will play piano arrangements of excerpts from Sergei Prokofiev’s orchestral score for the full-length ballet Romeo and Juliet. This will be followed by Igor Stravinsky’s own solo piano arrangement of three movements from his score for the one-act ballet “Petrushka.”

Thursday, November 14, Herbst Theatre: Both Caroline Shaw and Gabriel Kahane are vocalists likely to be familiar to SFP audiences. Unless I am mistaken, however, this will be the first time that San Francisco has an opportunity to see them share a stage. They have collaborated to create “Hexagons,” a new vocal work inspired by “The Library of Babel,” one of the stories that Jorge Luis Borges collected in his 1941 publication, El jardin de senderos que se bifurcan (the garden of forking paths). During my student days, Borges tended to appeal to many of my mathematics professors, probably because of his talent for taking perfectly sound axioms and turning them into absurdities. As a result, I am particularly curious as to how Shaw and Kahane will “respond” to Borge’s “call!”

Tuesday, November 19, Herbst Theatre: Unless I am mistaken, the SFP debut of countertenor Anthony Ross Costanzo had to be postponed due to the COVID pandemic. This will finally give him the opportunity to make his Bay Area recital debut, following up on past appearances with San Francisco Opera, last seen in George Frideric Handel’s HWV 27 Partenope in the fall of 2014. He will “make up for lost time,” so to speak, with a program of impressive diversity. He will begin by continuing to draw upon his Handel repertoire; and, at the other end of the time-line, he is equally familiar with Philip Glass. However, between those “bookends,” he has assembled an impressively diverse program with more details than can be accounted for on this site!

For those that do not already know, the Hume Concert Hall is located in the San Francisco Conservatory of Music building at 50 Oak Street, a short walk from the Van Ness Muni station. The entrance to Herbst is (as most readers probably know by now) the main entrance to the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue, located on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. The venue is excellent for public transportation, since that corner has Muni bus stops for both north-south and east-west travel. All ticketing information is available through the above hyperlinks for each of the events. Since this is still near the beginning of the season, there are also hyperlinks available for the individual series.