Merola Opera Program Announces 2026 Season

Once again, the 2025–26 season of the San Francisco Opera will conclude next month. Two operas remain in the season, the first of which will be Gioachino Rossini’s The Barber of Seville staged by Emilio Sagi, followed by Keith Warner’s staging of the “tense, one-act thriller,” Richard Strauss’ “Elektra.” The baton will then be passed to this year’s Merola Summer Festival. As is usually the case, the season will begin with a recital, followed by two fully-staged operas, and concluding with the annual Merola Grand Finale. English subtitles will be provided for all performances. Dates, times, and content are as follows:

Thursday, June 25, 7 p.m., Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall: As in the past, the season will begin with a vocal chamber recital that explores the narrative arc of song. The focus will be on Neapolitan songs that celebrate the lyric beauty, emotional depth, and regional character of Southern Italy. The selections will be performed in both Italian and Neapolitan dialect. The program will be curated by Mario Antonio Marra; and ticket prices will be $75, $55, and $25.

Thursday, July 9, 7 p.m., and Saturday, July 11, 2 p.m., Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall: La Tragédie de Carmen was created by Peter Brook, Jean-Claude Carrière, and Marius Constant. They took Georges Bizet’s Carmen and condensed it into a starker adaptation. The text will be in French, and ticket prices will be $75 and $25.

John Vanderlyn’s painting of the abandoned Ariadne asleep on the island of Naxos (from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

Saturday, August 1, 2 p.m., Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall: (The Thursday performance is already sold out.) Richard Strauss’ opera Ariadne auf Naxos is in two parts. The second part is a one-act opera about the myth of Ariadne abandoned by Theseus on the desert island of Naxos. This is preceded by a Prologue, which is a plethora of arguments having to do with how the opera will be performed. The text will be in German, and ticket prices will be $75 and $25.

Saturday, August 15, 7:30 p.m., War Memorial Opera House: As the BBC likes to say about The Last Night of the Proms, this is when “the circus prepares to leave town.” The program is a showcase of operatic selections featuring arias, ensembles, and scenes. Most important is that many, if not most, of the Merola performers will have their first opportunity to deliver their talents on a major opera stage. Due to the size of the venue, there will be a broader range of ticket prices: $95, $75, $65, $35, $25, and $15.

Cool?

Elim Chan speaking at Thursday’s event in City Hall (photograph by Jana Ašenbrennerová, from the Web page for the San Francisco Chronicle article)

I was not able to make it over to City Hall this past Thursday for the formal introduction of Hong Kong conductor Elim Chan as the new Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS). Having now read the San Francisco Chronicle account of the event, it was probably just as well. Aggravation tends to lead to apoplexy, which I try to avoid as much as possible!

Ironically, the trigger for that apoplexy resides in the Chronicle’s headline. Chan was quoted as saying: “I want to make us cool.” A chill went down my spine as I read those words, reminding me of how the very spirit of “cool” had been massacred in Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics for the musical West Side Story. This was a far cry from the twelve tracks found on the 1957 Miles Davis album Birth of the Cool (whose tracks had been recorded in 1949 and 1950). This is not the sort of music I would expect to hear in an SFS performance, although it would not surprise me if there are members of that ensemble that are perfectly comfortable with bebop and hard bop when they are in different settings!

My hope is that Chan has begun to establish a foundation for her own way of doing things (if she has not already established it). What matters most is how she will share that foundation with the SFS musicians. Fortunately, as I observed this past Thursday, I shall have my first opportunity to observe how she engages with those musicians on Friday, June 5. That program will be devoted entirely to music from the nineteenth and very early twentieth centuries. It goes without saying that all of those selections predate the “cool.” Nevertheless, I am looking forward to the “back-to-back” accounts of Richard Wagner and Claude Debussy!

Măcelaru Leads an Uneven Evening at Davies

Cristian Măcelaru, this week’s SFS conductor (from the Web page for this concert)

Last night Cristian Măcelaru returned to the podium in Davies Symphony Hall to lead the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) in the first of this week’s three concert performances. The program was given a straightforward overture-concerto-symphony structure, with the “overture” being a world premiere performance. “Embers” was only recently completed, composed by Tyler Taylor on an SFS commission. This was followed by Sergei Rachmaninoff’s first piano concerto, which was also his Opus 1, composed in the key of F-sharp minor with Simon Trpčeski as the piano soloist. The program concluded with Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 95, his ninth and final symphony, best known for its title, “From the New World.”

The symphony was the most familiar work on the program, but it was also given the most convincing performance. Each of the four movements provides a different perspective of the composer’s impressions of his visit to the United States. His “guide” for the symphony was the black Pennsylvanian composer and singer Harry T. Burleigh, who studied under Dvořák at the National Conservatory. It was probably through Burleigh that he came to know the music for “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” which finds its way into the symphony’s first movement. Turnaround is, of course, fair play; and the principal theme from the Largo movement of Opus 95 became the popular song “Goin’ Home.” That theme returns in the symphony’s final movement. It would be fair to say that Măcelaru had a solid command of this symphony’s “American spirit,” and that command brought a freshness to music that was probably familiar to many (if not most) in the audience.

Taken as a whole, the symphony provided well-needed relief from the sledge-hammer rhetoric of Rachmaninoff’s concerto. I also found that the concerto’s concluding Allegro vivace reminded me of the old joke about the cowboy who gets on his horse hand rides off wildly in all directions. Trpčeski did not announce his encore, which I could only describe as “violent vivace,” possibly a product of Sergei Prokofiev. Assistant Concertmaster Wyatt Underhill then joined Trpčeski for a duo performance of music that was not identified.

The commission for “Embers” was part of the Emerging Black Composers Project. Taylor “pulled out all the stops” in his composition efforts, writing for a full complement of winds (including alto flute, contrabassoon, and tenor saxophone) and just about every percussion instrument one could imagine. In many respects, the music was a journey through along a path of a rich diversity of sonorities; and the quarter-hour duration of the composition provided just that right amount of time to make that journey an engaging one. Taylor himself introduced the performance. Like the music, his introduction was neither too long nor too short.

Old First Concerts: June, 2026

It has been a while since I have devoted a monthly article entirely to Old First Concerts. The last one was written this past January 18, accounting for the February performances. To be fair, however, the Bleeding Edge article for this past April 20 concluded with an Old First performance on April 26 presented by the Wooden Fish Ensemble. The good news is that Old First will host three concerts next month, but they will all take place during the second half of that month. As usual, all of the events will remain “hybrid,” allowing both live streaming and seating in the Old First Presbyterian Church at 1751 Sacramento Street on the southwest corner of Van Ness Avenue. Hyperlinks to the event pages (which include hyperlinks for live streaming and ticket purchasing) will be attached to the date and time of the performances as follows:

Saturday, June 20, 8 p.m.: Following up on the traditional Wintersongs event presented every December, Kitka will present a program entitled Songs for the Summer Solstice. The program will be based on the release of the thirteenth album on their own independent Diaphonica label, entitle Kolo. The album was released almost exactly two months ago and is available for both streaming and download through a Bandcamp Web page. The title refers to spiraling communal line dances found across Eastern Europe.

Jason Sia at the piano keyboard (from the Web page for his coming recital)

Sunday, June 21, 4 p.m.: Jason Sia will perform a solo piano recital with an impressively diverse program. The most familiar selections will be by Claude Debussy (“L’isle joyeuse”) and Maurice Ravel’s finger-busting suite, Gaspard de la nuit. These will “sandwich” a transcription by Carl Reinecke of the Larghetto movement from Frédéric Chopin’s Opus 21, his second piano concerto composed in the key of F minor. The program will begin with “Poème: A Song Without Words” by Carmencita Guanzon Arambulo and conclude with Earl Wild’s “Grand Fantasy,” based on the music from George Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess.

Sunday, June 28, 4 p.m.: The month will conclude with a program of four new arrangements and four original world premieres presented by Duo Soriga. The performers will be soprano Josephine Lee, accompanied on gayageum by Hwayoung Shon. The duo’s title is a “creative fusion” of “Sori,” the Korean word for both voice and sound, and the name of the instrument performed by Shon.

SF Symphony Announces New Music Director

Conductor Elim Chan in San Francisco Bay with the San Francisco skyline behind her

This morning the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) announced that Elim Chan will become its next Music Director. She will be the thirteenth conductor to hold that position over the course of the orchestra’s 115-year history. Her tenure will begin in September of 2027 for an initial six-year term.

Fortunately, those interested in her capabilities will not have to wait long. She will assume the SFS podium for the program that will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, June 5, and Saturday, June 6. The soloist for that occasion will be mezzo Sasha Cooke, who will sing both the song cycle Les Nuits d’été by Hector Berlioz and the “Liebestod” from the conclusion of Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde. The program will conclude with Claude Debussy’s “La Mer,” providing Chan with the opportunity to display her command of a diversity of sonorities.

Following the Friday performance, all ticket-holders are invited to a post-concert welcome celebration. Both light food and beverages will be served. There will also be more music, but the performers and their repertoire have not yet been announced.

Tickets may be purchased for both of the concerts through the above hyperlink. Most readers probably also know that tickets may also be acquired at the Box Office for Davies Symphony Hall, which is on the south side of Grove Street, between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street. Those interested in learning more about Chan’s achievements as a conductor will find useful background material on her Wikipedia Web page.

Technology is as Serious as War

Georges Clemenceau (provided to Wikimedia Commons by the German Federal Archive as part of a cooperation project, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license)

My guess is that just about everyone has encountered the aphorism “War is too important to be left to the generals,” which is usually attributed  to Georges Clemenceau, who was prime minister of France during the first quarter of the last century. This morning I was reminded that digital technology is just as important. As might be guessed, the trigger for that association can be traced back our president, Donald Trump.

The source of that trigger was the following New York Times headline: “Trump Plans to Sign Executive Order Granting Oversight of A.I. Models.” The subtitle of the headline is just as chilling: “The executive order, which would signal a shift from the hands-off approach the White House previously took, follows debates over how to gain control over A.I. models without disrupting innovation.” To be fair, a considerable amount of my time went into the theory and practice of artificial intelligence (A.I.) during about half of my undergraduate years and all my research efforts as a graduate student. I suspect that neither of the authors of the Times article, Tripp Mickle and Sheera Frenkel, are as informed about A.I. as well as any students (undergraduate and graduate) and professionals.

To be fair, on the other hand, I suspect that both of those authors are better equipped to make decisions about A.I. than anyone working in the White House (at any level), not to mention those working in either the Senate or the House of Representatives. One way of putting this is that there is a very wide gap between expertise in the digital world and decision-making at just about any level of the structure of our government. Sadly, I doubt that such a gap can be closed, simply because it takes too much time; and those working for the government have their hands fuller than ever.

Pop! Goes the One Found Sound Gala

Last night my wife and I returned to Heron Arts for the final concert presented by One Found Sound. The title of the program was Divas Live! As might be expected, it involved a generous share of performances of music composed and/or sung by women primarily in the pop repertoire, such as Gloria Estefan, Dolly Parton, and Cher (the first three accounted for on the program). Those that share my own preferences could enjoy the efforts of three instrumental “divas,” two violinists and a violist in the One Found Sound ensemble.

Violinist Darren Sagawa (photograph from the Web site for the Carmel Bach Festival, where he is Music Librarian)

The first of these was Darren Sagawa (hence the scare quotes above), who performed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 373 rondo for violin and orchestra in C major. This was followed shortly thereafter by Annamarie Arai-López performing a movement from the “Summer” concerto in Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, RV 315. Finally, violist Alexandra Simpson delivered a dynamite account of a set of variations composed by Niccolò Paganini.

That said, pop ruled over the evening in both spirit and practice. This made for a long evening; but, for those that like diversity in their music, there was never a dull moment. The full ensemble was as attentive as ever with a festive spirit that was never lagging.

BARS Announces Program for Pride 2026

Poster design for this year’s Pride Celebration

This year the 56th annual Pride Celebration will be presented in music by the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony (BARS). The ensemble, led by conductor Robert Mollicone, has prepared a program entitled Dearly, Queerly, Over the Rainbow. The title refers to the first work on the program, a concert suite in which Herbert Stothart has transformed the songs Harold Arlen composed for The Wizard of Oz into an orchestral tone poem with instrumentation reflecting the lush Hollywood style. This will be followed by the San Francisco premiere of Good Morning, Beauty, a song cycle by Jake Heggie setting four romantic and humorous poems by Taylor Mac. The vocalist will be Nikola Printz. The second half of the program will be devoted entirely to Johannes Brahms’ Opus 90, the third of his four symphonies, composed in the key of F major.

As was the case this past March, the performance will take place on Saturday, June 20, at 7:30 p.m. The venue will be the SFCM Concert Hall at 50 Oak Street, a short walk from the Van Ness Muni station. BARS has created its own Web page for processing ticket sales.Ticket prices range between $43.50 and $6.50. The Web page includes a chart showing which seats are available at what prices.

Pamela Z to Return to Roar Shack Next Month

Pamela Z preparing for her next encounter with TLES (from the Eventbrite Web page for their performance)

Many (most?) readers probably know by now that the Roar Shack, which is located in SoMa, is the “home base” for The Living Earth Show (TLES), the duo of guitarist Travis Andrews and drummer Andy Meyerson. Last year the venue’s inaugural season concluded with a concert in which the duo performed with Qube Chix, the trio of Pamela Z, Julie Queen, and Leigh Evans. One month from today, Z will return to the Roar Shack, this time for a trio bringing her together with the TLES duo. According to the Eventbrite Web page for this show, the performance will explore “song, improvisation, chamber composition, and experimental performance as they build a SF-centric artistic vocabulary and practice.”

This program has been made possible by 836M, recently discussed on this site for the inauguration of its Young Artists Program. However, the performance itself will take place at the Roar Schack, which is located at 34 Seventh Street. The entry is through a secret side door on Odd Fellows Way, which is called Stevenson Street on the other side of Seventh. The “price of admission” is established by TLES through a hyperlink on the Eventbrite Web page for the event. The performance will begin at 7:30 p.m. one month from today on Friday, June 19.

The Bleeding Edge: 5/18/2026

This will be another busy week on the Bleeding Edge. The only event that has already been announced is the one that will take place one week from today. This will be Is That Your Final Answer?, which will conclude Earplay’s 41st season. Hopefully, by now, most readers will recall that the title of the season was Answering The Unanswered Question, inspired by Charles Ives’ enigmatic orchestral composition, “The Unanswered Question.” Prior to that performance, there will be a generous number of other events as follows:

Tuesday, May 19, 7 p.m., Make-Out Room: This month’s Jazz at the Make-Our Room program will be divided equally between two sets. The opening set will be The Holly Martins with instrumentalists Kasey Knudsen on saxophone and Eric Vogler on guitar providing backup for vocalist Lorin Benedict. The second set will be led by percussionist Graham Viegut, and the other members of his ensemble have not yet been announced. As usual, there will be no cover charge, meaning that donations will be accepted (not to mention welcome). For those unfamiliar with the venue, it is located in the Mission at 3225 22nd Street.

Wednesday, May 20, 6 p.m., Yerba Buena Center for the Arts: This will be the latest installment in Free Wednesdays programming at the venue. The performance will take place in the current exhibition: Diedrick Brackens: gather tender night. Composer, singer, and songwriter Willie Alexander III will perform in this space. He works with music that is layered, intimate, and resonant, conceived with the goal of enhancing the visual impact of the exhibit. This will probably be another familiar venue for most readers, located at 701 Mission Street.

Thursday, May 21, 7:30 p.m., Center for New Music (C4NM): Composer Neil Rolnick will perform selections that he recorded for his upcoming album, Messages. His music is based on phone messages from his late wife. It also reflects on his loss of hearing in his left ear. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members and students. This will be yet another familiar venue, located at 55 Taylor Street, just north of Market Street.

Friday, May 22, 7 p.m., Medicine for Nightmares: For this week’s Other Dimensions in Sound program, reed player David Boyce will lead a trio, enhancing his performance with electronic effects. Rhythm will be provided by Bryan Dean on electric bass and drummer Brian Rodvien. As always, the venue is located in the Mission at 3036 24th Street, between Treat Avenue and Harrison Street. There is no charge for admission, presumably to encourage visitors to consider buying a book.

Saturday, May 23, noon, Center for New Music: This will be the monthly G|O|D|W|A|F|F|L|E|N|O|I|S|E|P|A|N|C|A|K|E|S event with the usual opportunity to enjoy vegan pancakes while listening to “bleeding edge” music. It appears that this month there will be five sets with “bleeding edge” eccentricities in the names as follows:

1. Mephitick Ooze (visiting from Massachusetts)
2. Fowl Figures
3. Madame Varga
4. Mission Hypnotic
5. Shuttered

Admission will be $10 with a $6 rate for members and students. For those that do not yet know, the venue is located at 55 Taylor Street, just north of Market Street.

Saturday, May 23, 6 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., Mr Tipple’s: It appears that this site has not accounted for saxophonist Steven Lugerner since November of 2023, when he presented his Boundary Pushers series of four programs. He now leads the SLUGish (note the capital letter from his name) Ensemble, which explores the synthesis of jazz, chamber music, and experimental sounds. Lugerner leads on both bass clarinet and baritone saxophone, performing with a diverse rhythm section consisting of Justin Rock on guitar, pianist Rumi Abe, Michael Potter on synthesizer, bassist Isaac Coyle, and Michael Mitchell on drums. This is another familiar venue, located in the Civic Center at 39 Fell Street.

Saturday, May 23, 8 p.m., Gray Area Art and Technology: Errorgrid will present the second installment of its DATA/LOSS showcase series, which will bring Portland and Bay Area artists together for “a night filled with curated raw audiovisual oblations.” The series is a “dark electronica showcase exploring the erosion of data and the loss of form.” The performance will take place in the Grand theatre, located in the Mission at 2665 Mission Street.

Sunday, May 24, 2 p.m., San Francisco Public Library, Main Library: Composer Terry Riley was born on June 24, 1935, meaning that last year he celebrated his 90th birthday. Before his next birthday comes along, pianist Sarah Cahill will present a recital organized around his compositions. The program will include the first set of Keyboard Studies, composed in 1964, “Fandango on the Heaven Ladder,” and “Be Kind to One Another.” Cahill’s program will also include the Shade Studies composed by Samuel Adams and Danny Clay’s Circle Songs. The performance will take place in the Latino Room on the lower level; and (of course) there will be no charge for admission.

Donald Robinson preparing his drums for this Sunday’s performance in North Beach (from the BayImproviser Web page for this event)

Sunday, May 24, 2 p.m., Jack Kerouac Alley: At exactly the same time, there will be a “Music and Poetry Celebration” on the other side of town (so to speak). Those unfamiliar with the venue will have no trouble finding it after visiting the City Lights Bookstore in North Beach at 261–271 Columbus Avenue. The music will be provided by the trio of Bruce Ackley on soprano saxophone, drummer Donald Robinson, and Eric Hunt on bass.

SFSYO Concludes with Two Iconic Offerings

Radu Paponiu conducting the SFSYO (from the Web page for last night’s performance)

Last night Davies Symphony Hall saw the performance of the final concert prepared for this season’s San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra (SFSYO) program, led by Wattis Foundation Music Director, Radu Paponiu. Departing from the conventional overture-concerto-symphony structure, the program was structured around two significant symphonic achievements from two successive centuries. The very beginning of the nineteenth century saw Ludwig van Beethoven’s first symphony, his Opus 21 in C major. The second half of the program was devoted to one of the more iconic compositions of the twentieth century, Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 47, his fifth symphony in the key of D minor. The “overture” for the program was composed by the SFSYO keyboardist, Dylan Hall, who composed “Scherzo for Orchestra” in 2024.

The program notes by Alicia Mastromonaco make it a point to view Beethoven’s Opus 21 in the context of the “legacy” (my word, not hers) of the symphonies composed by Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. For the most part, Beethoven followed “the rules of the game” in working on his first symphony. Nevertheless, I think it would be fair to say that, while he identified the third movement as “Menuetto,” most listeners would agree that the music itself was a scherzo “in spirit;” and, in his later symphonies, Beethoven would mine that genre particularly inventively. Indeed, spirits are high throughout the entire symphony; and, under the leadership of Wattis Foundation Music Director Radu Paponiu, the SFSYO ensemble soared through those spirits.

In the second half of the program, the spirits were much darker in the movement’s of the Shostakovich symphony. In his earlier years, Shostakovich was also a high-spirited composer with an abundance of wit. Unfortunately, Joseph Stalin put an end to all of that, viewing it as an offense to the Soviet spirit. One may say that, in composing his Opus 47, Shostakovich went to great lengths to honor that spirit. Even the slightest attempt to stray from that path could lead to serious (if not fatal) consequences. Thus, what comes across as high spirits in the final movement is shadowed by the need to glorify Stalin’s influence on the performing arts.

That shadow has now passed, but we do not have to look very far to see the ways in which the relationship between musical inventiveness and governmental perspectives can still be a tenuous one.

Satoko Fujii and Myra Melford Release New CD

Pianist Satoko Fujii has not released a duo recording with Myra Melford (also a pianist) since their 2007 debut album, Under the Water. This was back when I was a researcher for a Fuji Xerox outpost created in the outskirts of Palo Alto. I had already accumulated a rather massive collection of CD recordings, and one of the first things I did to establish my return from Singapore to the United States was to purchase subscriptions for both the San Francisco Opera and the San Francisco Symphony.

Not long after my arrival, I first became aware of the Center for New Music. Unless I am mistaken, one of the first concerts I attended was a solo piano performance by Satoko Fujii when she was visiting from Japan. As a result of that encounter, I began to take an interest in her recordings; and, while I am not sure that I have acquired all of them, I know that my current collection is definitely a generous one.

A duo piano performance by Myra Melford (left) and Satoko Fujii (right) (from the press release for their new Katarahi album)

This coming Friday will see the release of Fujii’s second duo album with Melford. This time the title is Japanese, Katarahi, which. according to the advance material I received, is “a heart-to-heart conversation between intimate friends.” To be fair, I have rarely (if ever) found intimacy to be conveyed through a recording. For that matter, as can be seen in the above photograph, I am not sure that such a conveyance can be sustained across the length of a grand piano, particularly when it involves two pianos conjoined!

That said, there is an engaging diversity of sonorities, involving both the keyboards and the interiors of the respective pianos. In that context, however, I must confess that I would have preferred a video account of this performance to the audio version. The metaphor of conversation is more likely to engage the listener through a visual experience, rather than an auditory one. Nevertheless, since most of my listening is limited to perception through my ears, I sometimes enjoy the liberty of dreaming up my own visual experience. Each of the seven tracks on this new album has its own way of helping me conjure up such dreams!

Fewer Choices for Second Weekend in June

Guitarist Lyle Sheffler (from a previous article on this site)

Choices for the second weekend of next month are much more modest than those for the first. Indeed, it may be possible for those that are well-skilled at “getting from here to there” may be able to attend both events. On the other hand, the contrast in content may limit the number of readers attempting to do so! As of this writing, there are only two events, both taking place on Saturday, June 13; and the first will give both afternoon and evening performances. Specifics are as follows:

1 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., Curran Theatre: In the words of the press release from the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus (SFGMC), Dolly! A Pride Show will be “a joyful, unapologetic celebration of queer love, resilience, and chosen family—set to the music and spirit of the one and only Dolly Parton.” (Mind you, this is the first time that Parton’s name has appeared on this site; but SFGMC never seems to shy away from diversity!) The program will be two hours in duration with one twenty-minute intermission. Tickets are being managed by ATG Tickets, and their Web page will process tickets for either (or both) of the two performances.

4:30 p.m., Noe Valley: Guitarist Lyle Sheffler will present a solo recital for a house concert. This promises to be a diverse program of (as can be seen on the Groupmuse Web page) “timeless classical pieces by composers from different countries and centuries.” Most listeners will probably have their first encounter with music by the nineteenth-century guitarist Dionisio Aguado y García for the first time with the performance of “Andante y Rondo,” the second piece in the composer’s Opus 2, Trois Rondo Brillants. (Some of them may have already encountered this composer from one of Sheffler’s YouTube Web pages.) Tickets may be purchased through the above Groupmuse Web page, which currently lists 20 of 31 spots available. Reservations may be made for $5, while payment at the door will be $20.

Dame Jane Glover Brings Fireworks to Detroit

Dame Jane Glover on the podium at the beginning of last night’s DSO live-stream

The title of the latest live-streamed performance by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) yesterday evening was Baroque Fireworks. The Baroque period provided the “core” of the program, followed by the Classical period represented by Joseph Haydn and preceded by the contemporary repertoire of Stacy Garrop. Dame Jane Glover visited to Detroit to take the DSO podium. The title of the program was a direct reference to George Frideric Handel’s HWV 351, a suite in D major entitled Music for the Royal Fireworks.

This could be taken as an “overture,” with Johann Sebastian Bach intervening between Handel and Haydn. The harpsichord continuo for HWV 351 could be seen on the screen; but it was entirely inaudible, overwhelmed by the instrumental ensemble. Nevertheless, Glover gave the suite a spirited account, made all the more engaging by the camera shots of the contributing instrumentalists.

Those high spirits continued in the transition from Handel to Johann Sebastian Bach. He was represented by BWV 1048 in G major, the third of the six “Brandenburg” concertos. As far as I could see from the screen, this was given a one-to-a-part performance of nine musicians: three violins, three violas, and three cellos. The transparency of this account was delightful, providing the most intimate performance of the evening.

This was followed by Joseph Haydn’s final symphony, Hoboken I:104. This is known as the “London” symphony, which is where Haydn was living when he composed it. According to Haydn’s own diary, the premiere performance was a great success, not only in the response by the audience but also through a generous sum of money that he earned from the performance!

These three works were preceded, at the very beginning of the program, by Stacy Garrop’s “Spectacle of Light.” The program notes described this piece as “Handel-inspired;” but that inspiration did not seem to go very far. Garrop was bold enough to work with generously rich instrumentation; but, sadly, neither the instruments or their groupings in different combinations were ever put to convincing use. Fortunately, Garrop’s tedium did not last very long and was followed by a far more convincing collection of music from earlier centuries.

May Concluding with Organ Jazz at Chez Hanny

Hammond organist Kevin Gerzevitz (from the home page of his Web site)

This month’s second gig at Jazz Chez Hanny will take place at the very end of this month (Sunday, May 31). The performance will be by the B3B4 Organ Jazz Quartet, which is led by organist Kevin Gerzevitz. His last visit was with the Patrick Greene Trio. However, what may be of more interest to readers is that he was one of the performers to showcase the Hammond B3 Organ when Mr. Tipple’s Jazz Club devoted all the performances this past August to organ combos. The other members of Gerzevitz’ quartet for this month will be Patrick Wolff, alternating between saxophone and clarinet, guitarist Scott Foster, and Daniel Foltz on drums.

Regular readers probably know by now that these events begin at 4 p.m. The “house” for this house concert is located at 1300 Silver Avenue. This is best reached by public transportation by taking the Muni 44 bus going east from Glen Park Station. For those thinking of driving, parking tends to be available on Silver Avenue, Silliman Street, one block south of Silver, and Holyoke Street, which connects Silver and Silliman.

SFS: Blomstedt Conducts Mahler’s Ninth

Herbert Blomstedt conducting SFS (from the Web page for this week’s concert)

Last night saw the return of Herbert Blomstedt to the podium at Davies Symphony Hall. He had been the Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) from 1985 to 1995 and has made many return visits since then. Last night he presented a program consisting entirely of Gustav Mahler’s ninth symphony in D major. Completed in 1909, this was the last symphony to be fully composed.

Departing from the usual convention, the first and last (fourth) of the movements are given slow tempo markings. Many associate this framework as Mahler’s recognition of the onset of death. That shadow is cast over the two inner movements, the first given a sardonic interpretation of the otherwise “upbeat” Länder genre and the second an almost violent Rondo burleske.

All was not well last night. The performance of the first movement was halted roughly halfway through its duration. No explanation was given. However, the fact the Blomstedt conducted from a chair suggested that he may have been contending with some form of weakness. Nevertheless, it was clear that all the members of the orchestra were on his side, and the relationship between conductor and ensemble could not have been more symbiotic.

Still, the overall experience was more than a little disquieting. If Mahler had come to accept that his journey was nearing an end, Blomstedt may have been coming to grips with that same sense of mortality. It was as if all of the dark clouds hovering over every page of Mahler’s score were also hovering over the Davies stage. It is likely that the composer saw this as a “farewell” symphony (even though he subsequently began a tenth symphony); and it may be just as likely that Blomstedt planned this as his “farewell to San Francisco” performance.

836M to Launch Young Artists Program

Hopefully, some readers will recall that this month will conclude with three performances of The Glance, a two-hour “laptopera” composed by Anne Hege during her four-month residency at the 836M Gallery, which is located at 836 Montgomery Street. The latest news from 836M was announced a little over a week ago involving the inauguration of its Young Artists Program. “Young” refers to those between the ages of eighteen and 25 that are interested in performance and/or visual arts, possibly with the intention of establishing a career. The program will begin by providing three platforms to introduce those artists to the general public.

One of them, fashion designer Ashlyn So, will use the space for an Open Studio between June 17 and July 1. The others will produce world premiere events. Each of these will be given two performances, all beginning at 7 p.m., the first in mid-June and the second at the end of July. Specifics for these productions are as follows:

Sophia West (from the 836M Web page for Young Artists Program: Summer 2026)

June 12 and 13: Choreographer Sophia West will partner with four dancers for a performance of two works. The second of these will be a world premiere entitled “Life Goes On.” She created the work in collaboration with Polina Bortok, Catherine Daguman, Julia Lafuente, and Erin Ritchie. This will be preceded by an adaptation of a recent work given its debut at City College of San Francisco.

July 24 and 25: PARTY is a full-length opera currently being developed by Artis, a collective of four of the students at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Ezekiel Sokoloff is a violinist, and both Peyton Dexter and Brayden Meng are composers. The remaining member of the group, Thomas Stenzel, was enrolled in the Technology and Applied Composition program. The narrative of the libretto explores what happens when dysfunctional psychology, such as mental illness, substance abuse, and identity crises, begins to “invade” intelligent technology.

There will be no charge for admission to both of these events. However, an advance RSVP will secure admission. These may be secured from separate hyperlinks for the performances in June and July.

June to Begin with a Busy Weekend

Readers may recall that the first weekend of this month was a busy one, accounted for by last week’s Bleeding Edge article. Next month’s first weekend will not be quite as busy, but it will still involve choices over the course of both Saturday (June 6) and Sunday (June 7). As far as I can tell, I have already accounted for only two items, both of which will take place on Saturday at 7:30 p.m.:

1. The San Francisco Symphony concert in Davies Symphony Hall, featuring mezzo Sasha Cooke singing both the song cycle Les Nuits d’été by Hector Berlioz and the “Liebestod” from the conclusion of Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde.
2. The return to the San Francisco Opera of Gioachino Rossini’s The Barber of Seville staged by Emilio Sagi.

The remaining “competing” events will be as follows:

Saturday, June 6, 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, June 7, 3 p.m., Ruth Williams Opera House: Omari Tau, who is a composer as well as a stage director, will present theatrical interpretations of music from the current and preceding centuries. The program will begin with the world premiere performance of “Steam,” composed by David Dominique, who also prepared the libretto in partnership with Joseph Tepperman. This will be performed with cinematography by Kevin Everson. In the second half of the program, Tau will serve as narrator for a performance of Igor Stravinsky’s “L'Histoire du soldat” (tale of the soldier). Music will be provided by Left Coast Chamber Ensemble (LCCE) instrumentalists Anna Presler on violin, bassist Michel Taddei, and Loren Mach on percussion, joined by guest musicians Jamael Smith on bassoon, trumpeter John Freeman, and Chase Waterbury on trombone. LCCE has created a Web page with hyperlinks for purchasing tickets to both of the performances. The venue is located in South San Francisco at 4705 3rd Street.

Violinist Patrick Galvin and pianist Keisuke Nakagoshi (from the Eventbrite Web page for purchasing tickets to their duo performance)

Saturday, June 6, 7:30 p.m., Incarnation Episcopal Church: Violinist Patrick Galvin will perform duets with pianist Keisuke Nakagoshi. The major works on the program will be two sonatas, the first in G minor by Claude Debussy, and the second in F minor by Sergei Prokofiev, his Opus 80 and the first of the two violin sonatas he composed. The program will begin with the three-movement “Metamorphosis,” composed in 2021 by Emma Greenhill; and it will conclude with Amy Beach’s Opus 23, given the title “Romance.” The church is located in the Sunset at 1750. 29th Avenue. Tickets are being sold online through an Eventbrite Web page.

Saturday, June 6, 8:30 p.m., and Wednesday, June 17, 8 p.m., The Lab: As of this writing only two performances have been scheduled at this venue. The first of these will be two solo performances by Weston Olencki playing “prepared autoharp and electromechanical banjo.” Amy Koohbor will perform “Korkari,” which she composed for an electroacoustic backgammon board. The second will also be offer solo performances, but this time there will be three of them! Wendy Eisenberg is a virtuoso guitarist, who also composes and sings her own songs. Sound artist Mari Maurice will present the results of her latest project in Brooklyn, More Ease. The final performer will be another guitarist, Jas Stade, who is as comfortable with art rock as she is with the classical repertoire. For those that do not already know, the venue is located in the Mission at 1948 16th Street, a short walk east of Mission Street.

Sunday, June 7, and Sunday, June 14, 2 p.m., and Thursday, June 11, Friday, June 19, Tuesday, June 13, and Saturday, June 27, 7:30 p.m., War Memorial Opera House: This will be the first of the two operas to be presented by San Francisco Opera next month. The advance material I received describes Richard Strauss’ “Elektra” as a “tense, one-act thriller.” Keith Warner decided to stage the production in a museum with an exhibit about ancient Greece and the House of Atreus. A young woman is inadvertently trapped in the museum overnight and bears witness to the cycle of violence that Agamemnon and his family confronted after the Trojan War. The title role will be sung by Russian soprano Elena Pankratova, and Eun Sun Kim will conduct. A single Web page has been created for purchasing tickets to each of the performance. For those that do not already know, the venue is located at 301 Van Ness Avenue, on the other side of Grove Street from Davies Symphony Hall.

Sunday, June 7, 5 p.m., St. Mark’s Lutheran Church: Chanticleer will conclude its tour of the Bay Area for the final program of the season. The title of the program is American Early Music. Music was part of our country’s experiences at least since the eighteenth century, when hymns originating in England crossed the Atlantic Ocean. Related genres include spirituals and folk music, all with particular attention to the polyphony of part-singing. The church is located at 1111 O’Farrell Street, just west of Franklin Street. City Box Office has created a Web page for purchasing tickets, including a “map” showing where seats are available.

1976 Dexter Gordon Album Remastered

Cover of the album being discussed (from its Amazon.com Web page)

Stable Mable, a SteepleChase album of the Dexter Gordon Quartet, was originally released as an LP in 1976. The recording was made in Copenhagen with pianist Horace Parlan, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pederson on bass, and drummer Tony Inzalaco. All of the tracks were recorded in a single set on March 10, 1975. As of this writing, one album is left in stock for import from an Amazon.com Web page; but it will be released as an “audiophile vinyl” this coming Friday, which, hopefully, will also find its way to Amazon.

Some readers may recall that, back at the beginning of 2019, I wrote about Gordon’s biography, Sophisticated Giant: The Life and Legacy of Dexter Gordon, authored by his widow Maxine Gordon. Unfortunately, his legacy has been a rocky one. This has less to do with his talent for engaging invention and more do to with recordings that did not always capture that inventiveness. The primary case in point is in releases by Storyville, which seemed to prioritize the audiophiles over the jazz lovers.

Nevertheless, I have come to grips with the cold fact that, where the legacy of jazz masters of the past is concerned, one just has to take what one gets. Fortunately, “taking” Stable Mable turned out to be a more than satisfying listening experience. I particularly enjoyed the contrasts among the different contributing composers, including Charlie Parker (“Red Cross”), Duke Ellington (“In a Sentimental Mood”), Miles Davis (“So What”), and Errol Garner (“Misty”).

The good news is that SteepleChase seems to deliver more solid accounts of the performances it has recorded than the variability one encounters with Storyville, and that makes all the difference where attentive listening is involved.

Diverse Options for May 17

This past Saturday I wrote about how there would be overlapping events on that last Saturday of this month. It turns out that, at least at the time of this writing, there will be three notable events taking place this coming Sunday. The good news is that none of them will overlap, although I suspect that few, if any, readers will be prepared to scramble from one venue to another. Nevertheless, the offerings are as impressive as they are diverse; so planning for the day is likely to require at least some cogitation. In “order of appearance,” the events are as follows:

1:30 p.m., Gunn Theater, Legion of Honor: The third of the four operas to be presented in this year’s Pocket Opera season will be Gaetano Donizetti’s Don Pasquale. Unlike the other operas in the season, this will be given only one performance. The title character is a misanthrope, trying to prevent his nephew Ernesto from marrying the love of his life, Norina. As might be expected, the happy couple will prevail by the end of the opera’s single 90-minute act. Tickets may be purchased through a Web page at prices from $45 to $89 including fees. They may also be arranged by calling 415-972-8934 on weekdays between noon and 4 p.m.

5 p.m., First Baptist Church: The title of the next program to be presented by the San Francisco Civic Music Association is entitled Adoration. This is taken from the title of a composition by Florence Price, which will be the final work on the program. The program will also begin with two Price compositions: “Deserted Garden” and “A Gay Moment,” one of the movements in Thumbnail Sketches of a Day in the Life of a Washerwoman. The earlier works on the program will be Georg Philipp Telemann’s TWV 51:G9 viola concerto in G major with Lisa Ponton as soloist and Joseph Haydn’s Hoboken III:34 string quartet in D major (the fourth of the six Opus 20 “Sun” quartets). There will be no charge for admission, and tickets may be obtained through the RSVP hyperlink on the Web page for this performance. The venue is located at 22 Waller Street.

Conductor Radu Paponiu (from the Web page for the performance being described)

7:30 p.m., Davies Symphony Hall: The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra will present its final concert of the season, led, as usual, by Wattis Foundation Music Director Radu Paponiu. The program will begin with “Scherzo for Orchestra,” composed by Dylan Hall, who is one of the members of the ensemble. The remainder of the program will present two contrasting symphonies: Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 21, his first in the key of C major, and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 47, his fifth in D minor. A Web page has  been created to facilitate seats, showing the prices for each of the seating options, as well as the number of seats available. As most readers probably already know, the venue is in the Civic Center at 201 Van Ness Avenue.

SFS Programs for June, 2026

We are not yet even halfway through the month of May, and the first concert to be presented by the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) next month is already sold out! This will probably not come as a surprise to many, since cellist Yo-Yo Ma will be the concerto soloist in a performance of Edward Elgar’s cello concerto under the baton of James Gaffigan for a one-time only program taking place at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, June 1. The first half will be devoted entirely to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 551 symphony in C major, his final (41st) symphony given the title “Jupiter.”

Fortunately, this will mark the beginning of an impressively busy and diverse series of performances, most of which will be taking place in Davies Symphony Hall. Those determined not to miss out on any of the other events next month, will, as usual, be able to take advantage of the hyperlinks in this article for purchasing tickets; and (of course) tickets may also be acquired at the Box Office, which is at the entrance to Davies on the south side of Grove Street, between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street. The remaining events of the month are as follows:

Wednesday, June 3, 7:30 p.m.: The fifth season of the Shenson Spotlight Series will conclude with a violin recital by Njioma Grevious, accompanied at the piano by Andrew Goodridge. The program will be framed by two “second sonatas” from two different centuries. It will begin with Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 1003, the second of his sonatas for violin with keyboard accompaniment, composed in the key of A minor, and conclude with Sergei Prokofiev’s Opus 94a, also a second sonata, this time in the key of D major. The middle of the program will see Johannes Brahms’ contribution to the “F-A-E Sonata” (the other contributors being Robert Schumann and his pupil Albert Dietrich), the Scherzo movement in the key of C minor. The twentieth century will be represented by Olivier Messiaen’s “Theme and Variations.” The most recent works on the program will be Electra Perivolaris’ “Within the drifting contours of the land…” and Clarence Cameron White’s “Levee Dance.”

Friday, June 5, and Saturday, June 6, 7:30 p.m.: Mezzo Sasha Cooke will return to Davies for a program conducted by Elim Chan. She will sing both the song cycle Les Nuits d’été by Hector Berlioz and the “Liebestod” from the conclusion of Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde. The latter will be preceded by Wagner’s prelude for the opera. The program will begin with Felix Mendelssohn’s overture for the incidental music he prepared for a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and it will conclude with Claude Debussy’s “La Mer.”

Friday, June 12, and Saturday, June 13, 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, June 14, 2 p.m.: Tianyi Lu, born in China and now living in New Zealand, will make her SFS conducting debut. The second half of the program will be devoted entirely to Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade.” Violinist María Dueñas will be the soloist in a performance of Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s violin concerto. The program will begin with “Zhiân,” composed by Iman Habibi and dedicated to “the brave people of Iran, in the hope of better days ahead.”

Saturday, June 13, 4 p.m.: The next Free Community Performance hosted by a branch of the San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) will take place at the Chinatown branch. Violinist Kingston Ho and Katarzyna Bryla on viola will contribute to the celebration of the 105th anniversary of that branch. This will be an open house (no charge for admission), which will run from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. A Web page has been created for details about all the individual events. The concert will be the final event in the program. The venue is located at 1135 Powell Street.

Tuesday, June 16, 7:30 p.m.: Trumpeter and vocalist Herb Alpert will bring the latest incarnation of his Tijuana Brass ensemble to Davies. Last year marked the 60th anniversary of Alpert’s iconic album Whipped Cream & Other Delights, which will probably serve as the “primary source” of the selections. They will include “The Lonely Bull,” “Spanish Flea,” “Taste of Honey,” “Mexican Shuffle,” and “Tijuana Taxi.”

Thursday, June 18, and Saturday, June 20, 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, June 21, 2 p.m.: James Gaffigan will conduct a program devoted entirely to Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 125, his final (ninth) complete symphony composed in the key of D minor. This is often known (but not by the composer) as the “Choral” symphony, since it involves a full chorus (the SFS Chorus directed by Jenny Wong) and four vocal soloists. Two of those vocalists will be making debut performances, soprano Jessica Faselt and bass Peixin Chen. The other two will be mezzo Kelley O’Connor and tenor Thomas Cooley.

Saturday, June 20, 2 p.m.: This will be the second of the three Free Community Performances this month. This one will take place at the SFPL North Beach Branch. Once again, two musicians will perform: violinist Yvette Kraft and Davis You on cello. This branch is located at 850 Columbus Avenue.

Wednesday, June 24, 5:30 p.m.: The final library performance will take place at the Sunset Branch. This will be another duo of violin (Jessie Fellows) and viola (Katie Kadarauch). The branch is located at 1350 18th Avenue.

Conductor Stéphane Denève (from the event page for the concert he will be conducting)

Thursday, June 25, 2 p.m., and Friday, June 26, and Saturday, June 27, 7:30 p.m.: The final Orchestra Series of the season will be conducted by Stéphane Denève. The soloist will be organist Olivier Latry making his debut in the Orchestral Series. He will make the most of his visit, performing in two of the three works on the program. The intermission will be preceded by Francis Poulenc’s organ concerto and followed by Camille Saint-Saëns’ third symphony, his Opus 78 in C minor, which is (as the Wikipedia page puts it) “popularly’” known as the “Organ Symphony.” The overture for the program will be the first SFS performances of “Flammenschrift,” composed by Guillaume Connesson.

Sunday, June 28, 2 p.m.: The season will conclude with the final Chamber Music recital in Davies. Twelve musicians will participate accounting for four significantly diverse compositions. The most “traditional” of the offerings will be the final selection: Gabriel Fauré’s Opus 12, his piano trio in D minor. Violinist Sarn Oliver will lead a performance of his own string quartet entitled “CAT” (contemporary artful tonalities). Joan Tower will contribute the most intriguing title: “Petroushskates.” The program will begin with “Taheke” by Gareth Farr.

The Bleeding Edge: 5/11/2026

Instead of a busy weekend, this week’s activities will be confined to performances on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. As was the case last week, the only previously reported event will be the two solo sets by Alex Abalos and Roco Córdova at Audium, which will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, May 15, and Saturday, May 16. All of the remaining events take place at “usual suspects” venues as follows:

Thursday, May 14, 8 p.m., Peacock Lounge: As is usually the case, this will be a four-set evening. Fletcher Pratt calls his genre “darkitecture,” bringing video together with both digital and analog synthesis. Hen House will perform music from their album Her Thrown, which was released a little less than a year ago. Almost no information is available about Heco Davis other than the fact that, for at least eighteen years, he has run a performance space called Heco’s Palace used by the Composer’s Decomposed Series. The final set will be taken by the duo of Isabelle Waldner Kalb and Conner Tomaka, who performed the penultimate set for this year’s Day of Noise marathon. The Lounge is located in Haight-Ashbury at 552 Haight Street. Admission is between $5 and $15, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Friday, May 15, 7 p.m., Medicine for Nightmares: Saxophonist Larry Ochs will lead a combo, whose other members have not yet been announced. As many (most?) readers probably know by now, the venue is located in the Mission at 3036 24th Street, between Treat Avenue and Harrison Street. As always, there is no charge for admission, presumably to encourage visitors to consider buying a book.

Friday, May 15, 7:30 p.m., Center for New Music: Percussionist Scott Amendola will lead a trio of three “creative forces.” The other two will be saxophonist Kasey Knudsen and Mat Muntz on drums. General admission will be $25 with a $20 rate for members and students. As most readers probably know by now, the venue is located at 55 Taylor Street, half a block north of the Golden Gate Theater, which is where Golden Gate Avenue meets Market Street.

Friday, May 15, 8:30 p.m., The Lab: Seeing is Forgetting will be a duo performance. Henry Solomon will alternate between baritone saxophone and bass clarinet, accompanied by Elori Saxl performing on a diversity of analog synthesizers. The title of the performance is also the title of their latest album, which they describe as “an exploration in presence, physicality, intuition, and vulnerability.” This is yet another familiar venue for most readers, located in the Mission at 2948 16th Street.

Saturday, May 16, 7 p.m., Center for New Music (C4NM): As was announced late last month, C4NM will host the next performance by the San Francisco chamber group Ensemble for These Times (E4TT). The program will celebrate the release of E4TT’s sixth album, entitled El Tiempo Latine. The tracks present diverse works by nine different composers from Argentina, Cuba, Mexico, and the United States. Performance of the tracks will include soloist Lylia Guion on violin and coloratura soprano Chelsea Hollow. There will be no charge for admission, but reservations are recommended through the Web site for this performance.

Portrait photograph of all the members of SFCMP (from the BayImproviser Web page for this Saturday’s performance)

Saturday, May 16, 7:30 p.m., Knuth Music Hall, San Francisco State University: Also as was announced in that same article, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players (SFCMP) will conclude its 55th season with their American Reflections: Full Circle program; the campus of San Francisco State University is located at 1600 Holloway Street.

Olga Kern Returns to CMSF, Joined by Quartet

Olga Kern seated at a Steinway piano (photograph by Natalia Roslova, Web page from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license)

Yesterday afternoon saw the penultimate recital in this year’s season in San Francisco presented by Chamber Music San Francisco (CMSF). The recitalist was Russian-born pianist Olga Kern, who has made frequent appearances in past CMSF seasons. The first half of her program presented solo performances of compositions by Sergei Rachmaninoff, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Alexander Scriabin, and Mily Balakirev. For the second half she was joined by the Dalí Quartet, whose members are violinists Ari Isaacman-Beck and Carlos Rubio with Adriana Linares on viola and cellist Jesús Morales. They concluded the program with Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 81, the second of his piano quintets, composed in the key of A major. This was preceded by a string quartet performance of Astor Piazzolla’s Tango Ballet.

Each half of the program had its own approach to encores. Kern preceded the intermission with three solo offerings. She began with “Feux d’artifice” (fireworks), the last of the 24 pieces in Claude Debussy’s Préludes collection. This was followed by “Spinning Wheel,” a composition by Charles Lisberg that has been in Kern’s repertoire for many years. Her final selection was “Étincelles” (sparks), the sixth piece in Moritz Moszkowski’s Opus 36 collection, 8 Characteristic Pieces. The encore following the Dvořák performance was the Scherzo movement from Robert Schumann’s Opus 47 piano quartet in E-flat major. Sadly, there was a lack of clarity in Kern’s account of the piano part for that energetic movement.

The performances were more than somewhat mixed. There were significant problems with a blurring of thematic lines in just about all of Kern’s solo selections, not just in her approach to the Schumann quartet. On the other hand, Linares’ viola work practically soared with expressiveness in both the Dvořák quintet and the “Encuentro–Olvido” movement of Tango-Ballet. In other words, there were any number of moments of engaging performances; but, unfortunately, none of them involved the pianist.

SFCA to Premiere “New Voice” Composer

Poster design for the final SFCA concert (from the Web page for purchasing tickets)

The end of this month will see the last of the three concerts to be presented by San Francisco Choral Artists (SFCA), led by Artistic Director Magen Solomon. The title of the program will be Love, Lost and Found, and it will feature three new works. Program specifics have not yet been finalized; but two of those premiere performances will involve the “usual suspects,” the Composer-in-Residence (Max Marcus) and the Composer-Not-in-Residence (Perter Hilliard). The third composer is Yuri Lee, winner of the New Voices Project competition. Other contributing composers from the current and last centuries will be Roger Nixon, Kirke Mechem, Daniel Afonso, Russell Burnham, and Allen Shearer. The earlier composers on the program will be Orlando di Lasso, Carlo Gesualdo, Claudio Monteverdi, Fanny Hensel, and Clara Schumann.

The performance will take place at 4 p.m. at the end of this month, on Sunday, May 31. The venue will be St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, located at 1111 O’Farrell Street, just west of the corner of Franklin Street. General admission at the door will be $35 with a $30 rate for seniors and $15 for those under the age of 30. Tickets may be purchased online through a Ticketstripe Web page. Program specifics have not yet been released.

May 30: Two Overlapping (contrasting) Events

As of this writing, the last Saturday of this month, May 30, will see (at least) two overlapping performances, both beginning at 7:30 p.m. My guess is that making a choice will not be too difficult for many readers, since the performing organizations are decidedly different. One of these will be the final program in the current season of the San Francisco Philharmonic, while the other will be the penultimate performance by the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus (SFGMC). Specifics are as follows:

Anne Richardson and Jessica Bejarano on the poster design for the next San Francisco Philharmonic concert

The guest soloist for the San Francisco Philharmonic will be cellist Anne Richardson, Associate Principal Cello of the San Francisco Symphony. Music Director Jessica Bejarano will lead the performance of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 33, “Variations on a Rococo Theme.” This will be followed by an equally imaginative approach to variations by Edward Elgar. Each of the movements in his “Enigma Variations” is a character sketch of one of the composer’s acquaintances. Taken as a whole, the duration of the program will be approximately 90 minutes. The performance will take place in Herbst Theatre, which is located in the Veterans Building on the southwest corner of Van Ness Avenue and McAllister Street. All tickets are being sold for $30 and may be purchased through a City Box Office Web page.

The full title of the SFGMC program is Shine On: An Ensemble Showcase. As many readers probably know, there are smaller ensembles embedded in the full chorus. Two of them will be featured on the program: HomoPhonics and The Lollipop Guild. There will also be guest performers visiting from both the north and the south. Cascade is one of the smaller groups in the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus, while the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles will send its own embedded Aftershock group. The venue will be the Chan National Queer Arts Center, which is located in the Mission at 170 Valencia Street. Premium seating is now sold out, but general admission tickets are still available for $35. SFGMC has created its own Web page for purchasing these tickets.

SFS: After Half a Decade Slobodeniouk Returns

Conductor Dima Slobodeniouk (2016 photograph by Elisardojm, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license)

Last night Finnish conductor Dima Slobodeniouk returned to the podium of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) in Davies Symphony, having made his debut here in January of 2020. He studied both violin and conducting at the Sibelius Academy in Finland, where his teachers included Leif Segerstam, Jorma Panula and Atso Almila. As might be expected, his debut program included Jean Sibelius’ Opus 47 violin concerto in D minor with Armenian virtuoso Sergey Khachatryan as soloist. His symphony selection was a familiar warhorse, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 92 (seventh) in A major. However, his overture was more adventurous, the SF premiere of Jörg Widmann’s “Con brio,” whose title reflected the final movement of Beethoven’s Opus 92.

This week’s program devoted the first half to French composers and the second to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky with a performance of his Opus 36 (fourth) symphony in F minor. The concerto (which, as usual, preceded the intermission) was the flute concerto that Jacques Ibert composed in 1934 with SFS Principal Flute Yubeen Kim as soloist. The overture was composed 30 years later by another Frenchman, Henri Dutilleux. “Métaboles.” This amounted to a musical study of metamorphosis, which is deployed for melodic content, harmonies, and rhythms, the latter involving a generous and diverse collection of instruments in the percussion section.

I have to confess that, while that first half was impressively diverse, I find that my “morning after” recollections were not particularly vivid. There were more than enough challenges in Ibert’s concerto to keep Kim on his toes, but he delivered a solid and convincing account of the three-movement concerto. Taken as a whole, it was a dazzling display of virtuosity, given free rein in Ibert’s thematic material. After jumping through the composer’s many hoops, Kim then settled back to provide the audience with an encore solo performance of Claude Debussy’s “Syrinx.” While both of the French compositions in the first half of the program were engaging, Kim’s performance of “Syrinx,” for all its brevity, was the selection that seized and sustained attention from beginning to end.

In the second half of the program, Slobodeniouk’s virtue was his ability not to overplay his hand. Opus 36 is the “Fate” symphony with a dark theme that overshadows the entire composition. However, as is often the case, what is most important is the diversity of instrumental combinations that Tchaikovsky deployed. The overall rhetoric may be a bit too much on the heart-on-sleeve side; but the journey through all of those sonorities always seems to make the listening experience an engaging one. However familiar the music was to many (most?) in the audience, Slobodeniouk’s interpretation elicited no end of perspectives more than worthy of attention.