Ah-Choo!

Recently, I have discovered that it is more difficult to extract a single tissue from its packaging. This is particularly frustrating for those of us with sneezing fits due to allergies or other sources. The problem seems to be particularly evident it what might be called “bargain brands,” which tend to have unfamiliar names. Given what our economy is like, I suspect that there are many customers out there that depend on such bargains just to make ends meet. Like it or not, they become the primary victims of packaging problems. Of course it goes without saying that anyone getting support from national, state, or even local politics would be willing to address such an issue; but this is just a reminder that governance of and for the people has become little more than a pipe dream!

The Fourth of the Eight New Goldberg Albums

Cover of the album being discussed (from its Bandcamp Web page)

Once again, I began my morning by listening to the fourth album in clarinetist Ben Goldberg’s 8 Albums on August 8 releases. The title of the album is Trouble Trouble, and it consists of twelve tracks. The last of these is “Troubles,” composed by Steve Lacy; and it basically serves as a postscript for the entire album. All of the preceding tracks were composed by Goldberg, four of which have the title “Trouble” followed by a number. The first of these begins the cycle, and the fourth concludes it. Each of these pieces is structured around the iteration of a theme. For the performances themselves, Goldberg leads a trio with trombonist Danny Lubin-Laden and Myra Melford on piano.

It would be fair to say that there is no shortage of free improvisation; and Goldberg is already off to the races in his richly embellished account of the second track, “Drops Off.” Nevertheless, I came away with the impression that embellished repetition was the skewer through this particular shish kebab. One might almost say that the persistence of repetition over the course of the album might have been a reflection on another reflection on persistence: Salvador Dali’s painting The Persistence of Memory.

That said, I have to confess that I would be eager to encounter Trouble Trouble as a suite given a “live” performance. So much is happening among the three instrumental lines that watching the musicians “do their thing” would be more informative than just listening to them. Nevertheless, I am willing to admit that arranging a recording session is probably both easier and fulfilling than arranging a performance before an audience!

SFS to Give First Concert Before Gala (again)

Garrick Ohlsson at the keyboard (from the SFS Web page for his performance)

As was the case in 2024, the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) will give its first Orchestral Series performance about a week prior to the so-called “Season-Opening Festivities,” which begin with the Opening Gala. The title of this first program will be Garrick Ohlsson Plays Brahms; but, to be fair, that will account only for the second half of the program. This will be devoted entirely to Johannes Brahms’ Opus 15, his first piano concerto, composed in the key of D minor. For those that do not already know, Brahms was born on May 7, 1833; and he completed his Opus 15 in 1858, which would be towards the end of his first quarter-century. Ohlsson’s last visit to Davies was in March of 2025.

Conductor David Afkham chose to structure this program around the familiar “Schumann-Brahms axis.” The other side of that axis, so to speak, will be the conclusion of the first half of the program, which will present Robert Schumann’s Opus 120 (fourth) symphony, which was also composed in the key of D minor. The “overture” for this program will be much closer to the “immediate present,” Unsuk Chin’s “subito con forza” (lack of capitals being a factor in the title).

The program will be given two performances, both beginning at 7:30 p.m., on Friday, September 18, and Saturday, September 19. The two hyperlinks may be used to take advantage of purchasing tickets online. As always, 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.

Al Jazeera: An Antidote for “Trump Logic”?

Reporter Hoda Sherif (from her Al Jazeera Web page)

For several decades Al Jazeera has been one of my most informative and trusted news sources. It has a very well-managed Web site; and, while it has not (yet?) found a home on my xfinity television channel, I can still view the programs through a YouTube app which can easily be directed to the Al Jazeera English | Live Web page. That said, the Web site today served up one doozy of an article written by Hoda Sherif, whose Web page (on the Al Jazeera site) identifies her as “an Egyptian-Iranian investigative conflict reporter and writer based in Cairo, Egypt.”

Sherif does not limit herself to Cairo or the Middle East in general. Yesterday she contributed to Al Jazeera’s reporting on the Columbia earthquake. That said, this morning she hit a “mother lode” with her latest contribution. Title and subtitle of the article are as follows: “Trump warns of ‘jihadists’ ruling in Washington as Democrats show momentum; Trump labels US Democratic nominees ‘jihadists’ in inflammatory remarks made in the Oval Office.” If that is not enough, the first three paragraphs should provide you with what you need to know (even if you are a Republican):

United States President Donald Trump has described Democratic candidates in the midterm US elections as “jihadists” in an apparent reference to Muslim Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed securing his party’s nomination for the Michigan primary elections last week.

The pronouncements fuel a proliferating wave of Islamophobic discourse among Republican lawmakers and elected officials in the sprint to lock down ballots ahead of November’s midterm elections.

“We have jihadists being elected all over the place, whether it’s communism [or] jihadism,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday. “A friend of mine called up, he said, ‘You know […] you should use the word jihadist’, that’s what’s happening. If you take a look at what’s happening in other countries, I’m not really sure that’s the way we want to live.”

Back in my student days, we used to call this “rabble rousing.” However, given my recent account of what it is like to go for a walk in the park and encounter the National Guard, I would say that it is hard to tell which gatherings are “rabble” and which are not! Put another way, every day seems to make it harder to extract the signal from the barrage of noise.

Nevertheless, I have yet to find a reason to dismiss Al Jazeera for not being a trusted source. To the contrary, reporters like Sherif to go great lengths to make their points as clear as possible. If even the most faithful Republican can justify the aforementioned Trump quotes as trustworthy, then I would be happy to let him/her explain the reasoning to me! If Sherif were not living in Cairo (which I once visited decades ago), I would be only too happy to shake her hand!

Is Artificial Intelligence an “Industry?”

This morning I found myself reading an article in the DealBook Newsletter of The New York Times. This was one of those times when the “sub-headline” was more important to me than the headline. There were only two sentences; but it was the first that drew my attention: “Investors including BlackRock have committed an eye-popping amount to lend to the artificial intelligence industry.” This reminded me that artificial intelligence has come a very long way since the undergraduate and graduate yeas I spent at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

A “laboratory” is, of course, a venue for research. My own research efforts yielded theses for both my senior year and my doctoral studies. It never occurred to me that artificial intelligence would be an industry. The “founding fathers” focused attention on trying to figure out what mental processes are and how they work. Their approach was to try to build software models to simulate those processes and then explore how those models behaved. This was all inspired by the “Turing test,” Alan Turing’s proposal that software could be called “intelligent” if one could not distinguish its behaviors from those of a human being.

Larry Fink, Chairman and CEO of Black Rock (photograph by Karsten Moran for The New York Times)

To be fair, there are many situations in which those behaviors would be able to benefit industry. However, industry depends on a more important benefit: Investment. This is why the Times showed the above photograph of Larry Fink, Chairman and CEO of Black Rock. The caption for the photograph explains that his business is “lining up money to finance the artificial intelligence boom;” and the Times seems to associate that with industry. Unfortunately, calling artificial intelligence itself an “industry” is not just a matter of putting the cart (research) before the horse (product). It seems to suggest than there is no difference between cart and horse!

Mind you, I still appreciate the Times as a news source; but the very name “DealBook” strikes me as a red flag that “hype” is likely to prevail over substance!

Make America Sick Again?

https://www.aljazeera.com/video/newsfeed/2026/8/11/aje-onl-nf_trump-orders-fewer-child-vaccines-and-splitting-mmr-100826 

Safety in the District: a “Modest Proposal”

Would you go for a walk in the park patrolled by the National Guard? (photograph by Holden Lombardo, from an Al Jazeera Web page)

Apparently, United States President Donald Trump thinks that it is not safe to live in Washington, DC. This morning the Al Jazeera Web site included an article by Holden Lombardo, stating that Trump had deployed the National Guard “to address crime concerns.” Now, to be fair, I am not entirely familiar with governance within the District of Columbia, but I would have thought that there was a police department that would take care of “crime concerns.” If Trump is so worried about crime, perhaps he would feel safer if he resigned from his position and moved somewhere he felt more secure!

The Third of the Eight New Goldberg Albums

This morning began with my listening to the third album in clarinetist Ben Goldberg’s 8 Albums on August 8 releases. The title of the album is Dog Hypnotic, and Goldberg plays a diversity of different instruments in the clarinet family. Kenny Wollesen accompanies on percussion, including pitched instruments such as bass marimba and vibraphone. My last encounter with him goes all the way back to March of 2015, when I wrote about his participation in Goldberg’s Orphic Machine album. The recording was engineered by Michael Coleman, who also interjected some “sound effects” of his own invention.

“Dog Hypnotic” is the fourth track on the album; but I was more interested in two tracks that acknowledge another (and more menacing) animal: “Python” and “Python Groove.” That said, I would not call the first of those two tracks “menacing.” Rather, it acknowledges a wild animal with improvisatory tropes that definitely go wild! More important, however, is how each of the tracks establishes its own unique dispositions, making the entire album an engaging journey unto itself. Unless I am mistaken, that journey includes a venture into gamelan sonorities on the “Say Goodbye” track.

Cover of the album being discussed (from its Bandcamp Web page)

As is the case with all of the albums in this series, the cover designs are informative but neutral. In other words, no dogs appear on the album cover! To be fair, however, “Dog Hypnotic” is the only one of the thirteen tracks that is even remotely related to dogs. Far more important, however, is the rich diversity of sonorities that emerge from the diversity of instruments performed by both Goldberg and Wollensen responsible for that sonic journey.

Anti-Semitic?

Hunter Biden explaining his defense of Tucker Carlson (from an Al Jazeera NewsFeed Web page)

This morning I encountered the following single-sentence “NewsFeed” on an Al Jazeera Web page:

Hunter Biden has defended US journalist Tucker Carlson against anti-Semitism allegations, arguing that if calling Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “evil incarnate” is considered anti-Semitic, then he “doesn’t know what to say to people anymore.”

Spending two years in Israel teaching computer science at the Technion in Haifa left me with very mixed impressions of Israel, both as a country itself and in its relations to the rest of the world. In that context, I feel obliged to come to Carlson’s defense. Indeed, I might even go so far as to suggest that Carlson check out the Ten Commandments to see how many of them Netanyahu has been obeying!

There is much to be gained from visiting Israel as a tourist. It is one of the few places where one can view artifacts of history that go back millennia, rather than just a century or two. Nevertheless, more than one time was I encountered with the single-breath utterance: how-do-you-like-it-here-we-won’t-be-angry-if-you-say-you-don’t! Ultimately, I learned how to take refuge in my favorite phrase from John Keats’ Endymion: “first a little patience!” I did not see much of that in Israel; but I have not seen much of it recently here in the United States, particularly in our Executive Branch!

To reflect back on my student days, I feel obliged to thank Carlson for “telling it like it is!”

The Bleeding Edge: 8/10/2026

This week will be decidedly busier than last week. For the most part, this will be due to events with multiple performances. However, there will also be a fair share of “one time only” presentations. Specifics are as follows:

Amy X Neuberg with her electronic gear (photograph by Joker Nies, from the BayImproviser Web page for tomorrow’s performance)

Tuesday, August 11, 5:30 p.m., San Francisco Public Library, Main Library: This will be the first of three events to celebrate the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival. The title of the program will be Dialog and Sound. Following a panel discussion, there will be two solo performances, presented, respectively, by Amy X Neuberg and Sam Genovese. Further information about both sets has not yet been provided. The performance will take place in the Koret Auditorium, which is on the library’s lower level. For those that do not already know, the building is part of the Civic Center, located at 100 Larkin Street.

Wednesday, August 12, 5:30 p.m., and Thursday, August 13, 3:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., Gray Area Art And Technology: This event has a relatively long title and subtitle: Deliria 2, Cyberpunks Mutants & Mondoids: A Mondo 2000 Techno-Counterculture Gathering. The names of the performers are even more enigmatic: Leader, Phriendz, Digital Dead, Virtual Pretenderers, Cyrnai, and John Law, as well as a joint performance by Guillermo Gómez-Peña and La Pocha Nostra. This is also a familiar venue, located at 2665 Mission Street in the Mission.

Thursday, August 13, 7 p.m., Mr Tipple’s: Pianist Motoko Honda will lead a quartet, providing original compositions. Winds will be performed by Cory Wright, joined by Matt Small on bass and drummer Jordan Glenn.There will be two sets lasting about an hour and a quarter. The second set will begin at 8:45 p.m. This is another venue in the Civic Center, located at 39 Fell Street.

Thursday, August 13, Friday, August 14, and Saturday, August 15, 7:30 p.m., Audium: This will be the next installment of performances by Hidden Currents which will take place cover the course of the entire month on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. As some readers may recall from last week’s announcement, the audience will sit in the center of the space in total darkness surrounded by 176 loudspeakers. For those that do not yet know, the venue is located at 1616 Bush Street. Pay-what-you-can tickets are available at the door for each show, on a first come, first served basis; but the preferred cost is between $20 and $30.

Friday, August 14,  7 p.m., Medicine for Nightmares: The next Other Dimensions in Sound performance to be curated by “Boohaabian multi reed player extraordinaire David Boyce” will see him playing saxophones and special effects as part of a quartet. He will be joined by flutist Evelyn Ficarra, who will also create sound designs. Rhythm for the quartet will be provided by guitarist Scott Foster and Cairo McCockran on drums. 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, August 14, 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, August 16, 7 p.m., Bayview Opera House: This will be a Summer Strings Concert with a repertoire to celebrate the 100th birthday of composer Hans Werner Henze. Oboist Kyle Bruckmann will join forces with Jennifer Ellis on harp as soloists for Henze’s Double Concerto. Tickets are priced between $10 and $35, and an Eventbrite Web page has been created to provide availability for both of those dates.

Saturday, August 15, 8 p.m., Gray Area Art And Technology: The weekend will provide a second offering at this venue. The electronic duo Matmos will share the evening with the Dick Slessing Combo. The duo performers are Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt, who left San Francisco to relocated in Baltimore in 2007. Not much information has been provided about the Combo, except that their performances draw upon “influences ranging from Chet Atkins to Terry Riley, Isaac Hayes, Javanese Gamelan, skipping records, and 70s disco.”

Balanced News

Some readers may recall that yesterday I wrote about an SFGATE article entitled “'Epidemic levels': California's e-bike war explodes in Orange County.” Today saw a “response” to this “call” in an article by Luke Spray, identified as a freelance contributor. This time the headline was “The e-bike is quietly reshaping life in SF.” Spray never makes any mention of yesterday’s article, but it is clear that he is on “the other side of the fence.” Instead of yesterday’s “darker vision of the e-bike world, where suburban idyll is shattered by hordes of law-breaking riders, often children, on souped-up electric weapons of discomfort, mayhem and, occasionally, death,” Spray’s three-paragraph article optimistically concludes that the “e-bike is transforming how people experience the city and redefining what freedom of mobility looks like.”

Cyclists on e-bikes on Market Street in San Francisco (photograph by Justin Sullivan, taken on July 29, 2004, from the SFGATE Web page for this article, courtesy of Getty Images)

Personally, I am not sure that Spray knows was “freedom of mobility” is! Does he know that the Department of Motor Vehicles has a well-defined code of the “rules of the road,” which makes it clear that “mobility” has its constraints? Sadly (at least to the best of my knowledge), there is no such “code” governing sidewalks, suggesting that, in that setting, “freedom of mobility” knows no bounds. As a result, I think it is fair to ask Spray whether he interviewed any pedestrians (who are, after all, “people”) before writing his article!

The Second of the Eight New Goldberg Albums

Cover of the album being discussed (from its Bandcamp Web page)

As promised yesterday, I am continuing my account of clarinetist Ben Goldberg’s 8 Albums on August 8 releases by examining the second of those eight albums. The title of album is Spillway Four, but it has nothing to do with the use of dams to control the flow of water! Rather, it refers to the fact that all eleven tracks were recorded on a single afternoon in March of last year, taking place at the Spillway Sound studio run by Eli Crews in upstate New York.

Readers can probably guess that the second word of the title indicates that this is a quartet album! Goldberg shares the front line with John Ellis on tenor saxophone. The other two players provide the rhythm: John Hébert on bass and drummer Hamir Atwal. According to my archives, this was my first account of Ellis since my days with Examiner.com, when I wrote about his performance with keyboardist Ben Sidran on Sidran’s album Don’t Cry For No Hipster. My encounters with Atwal were more recent, since he performed on the two Ben Goldberg School volumes. Hébert last appeared in October of 2023, when he was the bassist on Nighttime Creatures, the debut album of the Angelica Sanchez Nonet.

Spillway Four begins by revisiting the fourth of the six movements in the For Bobby suite, discussed yesterday. This is followed by “Actual False Alarm” and “New Etude” and concludes with “From Everywhere” and “Trouble 2.” Between these are six tracks, all identified only with numbers. Goldberg describes the quartet as “some swinging cats;” and the swinging could not be more vigorous. As is often the case, I find myself drawn to Atwal’s energetic drum work. Just as engaging are the coy ways in which Goldberg and Ellis casually drift in an out of unison!

Like For Bobby, the album discussed yesterday, Spillway Four is another “excellent source for engaging attentive listening!”

Why Not San Francisco?

As many readers probably know, SFGATE is basically the “digital spinoff” of the San Francisco Chronicle. Thus, while I provide myself with a satisfying number of news feeds, which I manage through The Old Reader, I still enjoy the “affordances of paper,” particularly when it comes to the comics pages. When I turn to local news, I have a feed for ABC7 but not for SFGATE. However, because SFGATE knows my electronic mail address, I receive a few items every day; and these direct me to news items that I usually have not seen in the Chronicle.

More often than not, I skim SFGATE sources; but today was an exception. The title of the article was “'Epidemic levels': California's e-bike war explodes in Orange County” with “Injuries are up 430%, and the hard-nosed district attorney has had enough” as a subtitle. The opening paragraph describes the e-bike as a potential “reason to rejoice, as the state continues to stretch toward giant climate goals like carbon neutrality by 2045.” However, the next sentence calls attention to “a darker vision of the e-bike world, where suburban idyll is shattered by hordes of law-breaking riders, often children, on souped-up electric weapons of discomfort, mayhem and, occasionally, death.”

To be fair, there is more to the situation than “cool technology.” Ever since my wife and I left Palo Alto and made our Opera Plaza condominium our primary residence, I have enjoyed the pleasures of being a pedestrian. Nevertheless, I sometimes think that the sidewalks are more dangerous than the streets for motor vehicles. Furthermore, this is not just a case of the new generation of electronic vehicles. For some reason or another, sidewalks seem to be “fair game” for bicycles, roller skates, and skateboards. You would think that pedestrian safety would be monitored by the police; but, over the course of the last two decades, I have yet to see a “beat cop” negotiating either pedestrians or motorists. This is a far cry from the setting I encountered back in the day when I would get off a train at New York’s Grand Central Station and walk from there to Lincoln Center. The streets were crowded; but, thanks to the police force, they were more orderly than Van Ness Avenue!

Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer, who is not afraid to “tell it like it is!” (photograph by Allen J. Schaben, courtesy of the Los Angeles Times and Getty Images)

This now takes me back to the SFGATE article about Orange County. Here are two more paragraphs:

From his Santa Ana office, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer has led a sweeping effort to solve the region’s e-bike and e-motorcycle headaches, including increased threats of prison time for family members who have enabled misuse of these vehicles. In May, Spitzer debuted a new law enforcement unit called RIDE SAFELY (a muddy partial acronym meaning “Smart Accountability for E-Bikes and E-Motos and Law Enforcement for Youth”). The group’s stated focus is to review existing e-bike and e-moto cases with increased scrutiny for possible prosecution, and to “assist law enforcement agencies through the investigatory process” as needed, as noted in a news release.

“The death and devastation caused by e-Bikes and E-Motorcycles has reached epidemic levels,” Spitzer says in the release.

Of course, actions speak louder than acronyms; but Spitzer deserves credit for raising his voice. Now, will anyone else earn credit by paying attention and doing something?

A Generous Round of New Goldberg Albums

Those familiar with this site probably know that I have given a generous amount of attention to clarinetist Ben Goldberg. To some extent this has been inspired by my having played clarinet in a community orchestra back in my student days; but Goldberg drew my attention to his imaginative approaches to jazz, which have been far more engaging than any of my orchestral endeavors. Yesterday he released eight new albums through the Bandcamp Web site under the title 8 Albums on August 8, and it was impossible for me to ignore them!

Cover of the album being discussed (from its Bandcamp Web page)

My current plan is to deal with these albums one at a time. Since they are ordered by catalog number, I knew that it would be best to begin with the BAG029 album, whose title is For Bobby. The title is also the title of a six-movement suite, which is followed by two additional tracks, “May 8” and “Snow Note.”

Goldberg leads a trio with rhythm provided by Greg Cohen on bass and drummer Billy Mintz. The album is currently available for digital download from a Bandcamp Web page. Goldberg chose the title of the album as “a heartfelt tribute conceived in honor of trumpeter and composer Bobby Bradford.” To be fair, I am unfamiliar with Bradford’s name; and, to the best of my knowledge, I have not encountered him anywhere in my collection of recordings.

In the absence of background, all that I can say is that there is an engaging amount of diversity across the six movements of the suite. The same goes for the remaining tracks, for which I also lack any background knowledge! Nevertheless, there is much to enjoy, particularly in the different approaches that Goldberg takes for give-and-take exchanges with both Cohen and Mintz. Those approaches involve not only thematic lines but also generous diversity in tempo as the music unfolds. I suppose that what matters most is that For Bobby provides an excellent source for engaging attentive listening, justifying the very nature of performance itself!

BARS Plans for 2026–2027 Season

BARS performing at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music for the poster for the coming season

In reviewing my archives, I was embarrassed to discover that I had not written a season preview for the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony (BARS) since July of 2019! Fortunately, an announcement of the full season found its way to my Inbox this past Wednesday, meaning that readers will have ample time to purchase the full season package. Indeed, the Tix Web page provides not only full programs for all four of the performances but also a “map” of the Concert Hall of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music at 50 Oak Street for seat selection. All performances will take place on Saturday evenings at 7:30 p.m. Program specifics are as follows:

September 12, Dance, Drama, and Desire: The first noun applies to the second of three suites by Ottorino Respighi given the title Ancient Airs and Dances. The second is the title of a five-act comedy of manners written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal. Samuel Barber composed an overture for this play, which was his first full orchestral work. The last refers to the Bette Davis film Deception, and Erich Wolfgang Korngold composed his cello concerto specifically for this movie. The program will conclude Ernest Chausson’s Opus 20 in B-flat major, the only symphony he composed.

November 21, “In Sweet Music is Such Art…ʼʼ: I am not sure how much “sweetness” there is in this program; but there is no shortage of it in the first selection, the overture Felix Mendelssohn composed for a performance of William Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Those high spirits will probably also be raised in a suite based on the music that Cole Porter composed for the musical Kiss Me, Kate. The third suite that Sergei Prokofiev extracted from his music for the Romeo and Juliet ballet is more questionable, as is the music that Ambroise Thomas composed for Ophelia’s mad scene in his Hamlet opera. The remaining work on the program will be by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, “La bisbetica domata,” which translates as “the taming of the shrew.”

March 20, Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde: The title says it all. However, as of this writing, the two vocal soloists have not yet been named. The program will have an “overture” in the form of “Teton Range,” composed by Jennifer Higdon.

June 19, Pride Concert: The annual Pride celebration will feature both a violinist and a composer. Michael Long will be the soloist in a performance of Carl Nielsen’s violin concerto. The composer will be Viet Cuong with the performance of his “John & Jim.” The program will begin with Gabriela Ortiz’ “Kauyumari.” This final program will also be the only one with a familiar classical selection: Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 21, his first symphony composed in the key of C major.

The prices for full subscriptions will range from $58 to $148. Seating will be reserved. Single tickets for September 12 are also available at prices from $6.50 to $43.50. Tix will create further Web pages closer to the remaining three dates. The San Francisco Conservatory of Music is located at 50 Oak Street, between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street, a short walk from the Muni Van Ness station.

“New American Symphonies” … Really?

Cover of the New American Symphonies album (which some may find more engaging than the listening experience!)

This past Thursday I was informed by Crossover Media, one of my preferred and more reliable sources, of the release of a new album entitled New American Symphonies. According to the Web page created by Amazon.com, the album will be available for purchase next Friday, August 14; and, as is often the case, pre-orders are now being processed. The content is a chronological account of symphonies by Roy Harris (“American Symphony,” two movements) and Scott Ninmer (“Night Suite,” three movements), both conducted by Marin Alsop. The Crossover release described the first of these as “Harris’s Long-Lost Trombone Symphony.”

To be fair, I have to confess a personal attachment to this album. From 1985 to 1990, I was working at the Information Sciences Institute of the University of Southern California (USC). This was not located on the USC campus but, rather, on the shores of the Pacific Ocean in Marina del Rey. When I informed one of my colleagues that I was looking for a piano teacher, I was referred to Johana Harris, Roy’s widow. Johana, in turn, referred me to her prize pupil at the time, pianist and composer Jake Heggie. This all resulted in one of the more interesting episodes in my autobiography; but, ironically, I came away learning little about Roy. (Like everyone studying and research twentieth-century music, I was relatively familiar with his third symphony but knew about “When Johnny Comes Marching Home – An American Overture” only by its title.)

This brings me to the use of “new” in the New American Symphonies album. As observed above, “American Symphony” spends much of its time dwelling on solo trombone passages. As a result, the accompanying notes by Bill McLaughlin refer to it as the “Trombone Symphony” as follows:

The Trombone Symphony was the inspiration of Harris’ wife, who was not only a highly respected pianist but also a jazz fan. “Roy,” said madam, “You should really write a symphony for Tommy Dorsey,” the smooth-sounding trombonist band leader, then at the peak of his fame.

And so, he did.

The work opens with a wildly fast bit of jazz inflected figures being tossed around until Harris felt he needed [a] break. Where to turn next? Well, let’s throw in a fiddle tune: “Bonaparte’s Retreat” Sound familiar? Copland had used it in “Rodeo”, and it serves Harris as well as it had Copland. The opening movement is so wildly virtuosic that the Dorsey band couldn’t play it on the one time they tried. So, Harris moved on to a more peaceful tempo for the second movement.

So, that’s the Symphony for Tommy Dorsey, which was never played until this recording. A short history — abandoned after one unsuccessful reading by the Tommy Dorsey Band at the Rainbow Room in New York City in 1938.

Obviously, I could not read this passage without a strong streak of nostalgia. Nevertheless, I have to confess that listening to “American Symphony” was a fun experience, even if it involves content that may not be as familiar to contemporary listeners!

Ninmer’s “Night Suite” is much more recent. It was composed in 2014 for Jim Pugh, the lead trombonist in the ensemble. McLaughlin’s notes describe it as music “of much more recent vintage.” I am not sure I agree. More specifically, I find that both the solo tropes and the accompanying passages remind me as much of my past experiences with Tommy Dorsey’s gigs as my impressions were in listening to “American Symphony.” Indeed, the entire album reminds me of a joke I once encountered in a review of an album described as “music of the future whose time has passed!”

Claire Chase Partners with Terry Riley

In 2014 flutist Claire Chase launched a 22-year project to commission a significant body of new music for the flute. She called the project “Density 2036,” because that year would mark the 100th anniversary of “Density 21.5,” a short piece for solo flute composed by Edgard Varèse in 1936. One week from today, Sono Luminus will release a complete recording of the eleventh effort in Chase’s project. The result, entitled The Holy Liftoff, is a suite of 22 movements having a wide diversity of durations, all composed for Chase by Terry Riley.

Riley began his work in 2022, working with “an open score sketchbook brimming with colorful drawings.” Interpretation of the pages of that sketchbook was then managed by Samuel Clay Birmaher, resulting in a hour’s worth of conventional music notation, scored for multiple flutes and string quartet. Chase then worked with the members of the JACK Quartet (violinists Christopher Otto and Austin Wulliman, John Pickford Richards in viola, and cellist Jay Campbell) and recorded a 60-minute realization of Birmaher’s score.

Album cover of The Holy Liftoff (courtesy of Sono Luminus)

One week from today, that realization will be available for “public listening.” It will be released on a Sono Luminus album also entitled The Holy Liftoff. Curious readers will be happy to know that Amazon.com has already created a Web page for taking pre-orders!

It is also worth noting that, prior to this release, the entire composition has had “history” here in San Francisco. When Chase gave her San Francisco Performances recital in Herbst Theatre this past April 18, she coupled The Holy Liftoff with Riley’s “Pulsing Lifters,” which she performed with pianist Sarah Cahill. That said, the one-hour album serves up diversity in many ways, not only in the music but also in the playful titles of the individual movements. Hopefully, this new album will engage the attention of those that listened to Chase this past April, those familiar with past Riley recordings, and those with an adventurous spirit!

Opera Parallèle Goes “Expansive” Again!

Some readers may recall that, one year ago today, Opera Parallèle (OP) contributed to the fourth annual Expansive showcase. In collaboration with the San Francisco Transgender District, this performance was conceived to showcase transgender and non-binary classical artists. Apparently, this was a successful partnership, because it will continue at the end of this month!

This year’s Expansive poster (courtesy of OP)

The title of this year’s program is Revolution is Just the Beginning!, and the performance will honor the 60th Anniversary of the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, which, as some will observe while reading this sentence, was an event significant enough to have a hyperlink for its own Wikipedia page! There will be three vocalists: bass-baritone Sapphira Cristál, tenor Katherine Goforth, and mezzo Nina Jones. This year, due to the partnership with OP, its resident pianist, Keisuke Nakagoshi, will provide the accompaniment. Once again the entire program will be hosted by Afrika America.

Also once again, the program will be given only one performance beginning at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, August 27. The venue will be the A.C.T. (American Conservatory Theater) Strand Theater, which is located at 1127 Market Street. The performance will be jointly presented by Opera Parallèle (OP) and The Transgender District, and tickets are being sold by A.C.T., which has created a Web page for online purchases. Ticket prices for Premium seating are $56. There are also “pay what you can” tickets for either $25 or $15, and $15 will also provide admission for those under the age of 21.

Music for a Solemn Anniversary

This morning Music of Remembrance circulated viewers with the URL for a performance of composer Shinji Eshima’s “August 6th.” That date is when the first atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima, and “August 6th” was composed for the 50th anniversary of one of the darkest memories in history. (Those who saw the film Oppenheimer know that even the most objective of the scientists contributing to the Manhattan Project could not ignore the full extent of devastation wrought when the first atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima.)

Violinist Natasha Bazhanov and Jonathan Green on double bass performing Shinji Eshima’s “August 6th” (screenshot from the YouTube video)

Eshima’s composition covers the extremes of the string section. The instrumentation is a duo scored for violin and double bass. A YouTube video has been created for a performance of this work by violinist Natasha Bazhanov and Jonathan Green on double bass. The video was created in Seattle, Washington, at the llsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall in Benaroya Hall. The entire video is slightly less than five minutes in duration, using a single camera source with Bazhanov on the left and Green on the right.

Eshima’s mother was born in Hiroshima, so it goes without saying that he approached the composition of “August 6th” from a very personal perspective. He even visited the room in which the atomic bomb project was launched when J. Robert Oppenheimer showed his plans to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In the notes that he prepared for the YouTube Web page, Eshima wrote that his composition “hints at Haiku in meter, trying, if just briefly, to express the unspeakable.” However, I must confess that the mournfully smooth flow of the two instruments kept me from trying to establish a metric foundation.

I suspect that many of my generation are as familiar with August 6 as they are with December 25; but I have always felt that the former is a date that deserves serious contemplation, rather than any vestige of celebration.

Satoko Fujii Orchestra in Kobe City

Cover design for After the Storm (courtesy of Braithwaite & Katz)

It is almost exactly a month since the last release of a Libra Records album of music created and performed by Satoko Fujii. On that album she served as only a conductor leading the Bunker Ulmenwall Orchestra. Her latest album is now available through a SquidCo Web page. The title of the album is After the Storm, and Fujii conducts her own fourteen-piece Orchestra Kobe in a composition that may be described as a post-pandemic reflection.

The advance material I received included the following quotation from Fujii, describing her life after the pandemic:

I was dreaming that the world would finally find complete peace. After the pandemic, there were so many wars and so much conflict that I was so disappointed.

Given the intensity of her many compositions, I was more than a little surprised that she would be so optimistic! On the other hand, in After the Storm she seems to have realized her disappointment through a “no holds barred” approach to creation. I was particularly impressed that her percussion required two drummers, Yoshikazu Isaki and Hiromasa Sadaoka.

The Web page describes the music as “a sweeping progression from stately melody and intimate subgroups to dissonant mass, fiery improvisation and a jubilant final theme.” From a personal point of view, I must confess that I found little by way of either stateliness or intimacy. On the other hand, there was no doubt that all fourteen of the musicians were playing their hearts out; and, as an attentive listener, I had no trouble “going with the flow!”

Many readers probably know that I have been following Fujii’s work for a considerable period of time. Unless I am mistaken, she was one of the first musicians to perform at the Center for New Music after it moved to Taylor Street, just above Market Street in downtown San Francisco. (This made for a relatively easy walk from my condo in the Civic Center.) To be fair, we have never conversed; and I am not even sure how comfortable she is with speaking English! (In spite of my tenure with Fuji Xerox in Silicon Valley, I could never get the hang of Japanese!) I now have a generous collection of Fujii’s albums; and I am looking forward to encountering the next one, which is scheduled for release in about a month’s time!

“You can’t handle the truth!”

A frustrated Anthony Fauci trying to explain logic to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (from an ABC7 Eyewitness News Web page)

The full text of an article from ABC7 Eyewitness News posted about an hour ago is short and bitter:

Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Thursday voted to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress.

It comes after Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment and declined to answer questions at a hearing last week about his role in handling the COVID-19 pandemic.

Reading it immediately reminded me of the 1992 movie A Few Good Men. This involved the court-marshal of a Navy colonel performed by Jack Nicholson. A Marine had died as a result of the colonel’s action, but the colonel was convinced that he would be found innocent on the basis of rank. Fortunately, the prosecuting attorney, a mere lieutenant performed by Tom Cruise, persisted in presenting the court with the hard facts. He was successful enough to back the colonel into a corner on the basis of the colonel’s own evidence, which led to Nicholson’s most famous explosive delivery: “You can’t handle the truth!”

Now that Cruise is older and somewhat more “seasoned,” perhaps he will be cast as Fauci struggling to invoke science and logic in order to make a point to Republican senators!

Ensemble for These Times: The “Latin” Album

Soprano Chelsea Hollow, the “new addition” to Ensemble for These Times (photograph by Veronique Kherian, courtesy of Aerocade Music)

Some readers may recall that, this past May, Ensemble for These Times concluded its concert season with a program called El Tiempo Latine. This is also the title of the group’s sixth album, which presents works by nine composers over the course of twelve compositions. Those familiar with the performers know that they consist of a piano trio and a soprano. Nanette McGuinness is the founding soprano, but she seems to have recognized that her voice is not what it used to be. As a result, she only appears on this new release in the performance of José Bragato’s Dos canciones argentinas; and the other vocal selections are sung by Chelsea Hollow.

Margaret Halbig is still the group’s pianist, performing with Lylia Guion on violin and cellist Megan Chartier. The album is available both as a CD and through digital download, and the above hyperlink leads to the currently available alternatives for either purchase or streaming. I have to confess that my own personal preference is for the solo piano performance by Margaret Halbig. Her selection is Tania León’s “Tumbao;” and my bias may be due to the fact that I have been trying to keep up with León’s compositions for several decades. (I think I had one verbal exchange with her, but that was at the very beginning of my exposure to music.)

That said, this is an album that will probably throw the “Latin” genre into an entirely new light for most listeners; and, as P. T. Barnum would have put it, that definitely makes it worth “the price of admission!”

ARTZenter Announces Next World Premieres

Composer Matthew Lam (from his Web page from the University of Rochester, where he is a Teaching Assistant at the Eastman School of Music)

Readers may recall that, this past June, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players (SFCMP), led by Artistic Director & Conductor Eric Dudley, presented a concert of world premiere performances made possible by the Emerging Composer Grant Program presented by the ARTZenter Institute. Yesterday I learned that the next of these concerts will be taking place at the beginning of this coming September. Once again, there will four works on the program with composers and titles as follows:

1. Ella Kaale: flotsam
2. Matthew Lam: Witchcraft II: Sacrificial Ritual
3. James Larkins: One Thousand Self Portraits
4. Xingyue Song: Crosshair Offset

Also once again, there will probably be an intermission between the second and third selections. At the time of the application, all four of these composers were enrolled in degree-granting programs at United States colleges, universities, or conservatories. The grant included a stipend of $3000, along with funds to support travel and accommodations to participate in the ARTZenter residency in San Francisco.

This performance will begin at 7:30 p.m., on Tuesday, September 8. It will take place at the Brava Theatre, which is located in the Mission at 2781 24th Street. The performance will be presented free of admission, and no reservations will be required.

Numbers are Just Numbers!

An abundance of numbers on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (from an Al Jazeera Web page, photograph by Jeenah Moon, courtesy of Reuters)

My wife and I have a broker who has helped us manage a portfolio consisting heavily of mutual funds, making for a relatively stable foundation for our assets. Nevertheless, I usually follow the stock market indices for the United States, Europe, and Asia on a daily basis. I set up the graphs for my Stocks app to account for a week’s worth of data, which I have found to be the right window for observing how those indices rise and fall.

I turned to those graphs this morning after reading the Al Jazeera article with the headline:

US stocks near record high, oil falls as Trump claims Iran talks under way

followed by the sub-headline:

Benchmark S&P 500 approaches all-time peak as Washington, Tehran offer conflicting accounts of status of talks.

Because the site is Al Jazeera, the article was filed eleven hours ago, meaning that it was written after yesterday’s markets closed and before today’s opened. Standard & Poor was definitely off to a good start this morning, which one might almost call a surge. However, it appears that Al Jazeera did not take the trouble to compare those numbers with the Nasdaq index, which took a similar surge, but in the opposite direction! Europe is currently mixed with the most positive advance coming from the German DAX index. Indices for the United Kingdom (Financial Times) and France were both volatile, both closing lower than when they opened. Asia seems to be less volatile, although I wonder how Singapore feels about the current decline in the Straits Times Index!

The only lesson I can take away from this morning’s experience is that, whatever my sources for news may be, I can rely on my yahoo/finance app to “compare and contrast” the indices over a one-week window; and, for now at least, I feel as if things are about as stable as I can expect in the current context of world news reports!

Bellini Opera: All Ridiculous … No Sublime

Soprano Lisette Oropesa doing her best to take I puritani seriously (from the Metropolitan Opera Web page for this performance)

This afternoon I caught up on my recordings of Great Performances at the Met broadcasts to watch Vincenzo Bellini’s I puritani. If the production I saw was faithful to the libretto, then I think I have now encountered the most ridiculous opera narrative ever! I found myself thinking about all the jokes Anna Russell could pack into her account of the four operas by Richard Wagner that constitute The Ring of the Nibelungs. However, that was a matter of clever wit that was amazingly faithful to the narrative.

I puritani, however, was conceived to be dead serious. The narrative revolves around the English Civil War from the middle of the seventeenth century. The title of the opera, of course, refers to the Puritans, who had declared war against the Royalists. However, the effort to weave romance into this story resulted in a libretto that could never rise to any of the assets of Bellini’s capacity as a composer. As a result, there is not much of a through-line in the narrative, meaning that the opera-goer can do little more than enjoy the vocal dexterity (which is definitely very demanding) and forget about all the muddled comings and goings by the cast on stage.

As the narrative slogged its way to conclusion, I found myself wondering if handing out purple hearts to the performers would be more productive than a round of applause.

The Bleeding Edge: 8/3/2026

August will get off to a relatively quiet start on the Bleeding Edge. Most important, however, is that Audium will be hosting a series of performances by Hidden Currents, which will take place cover the course of the entire month on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Only two other venues will be involved this week, both of which are “usual suspects.” Specifics are as follows:

The poster for Hidden Currents, which is the primary source of information about the event (from its BayImproviser Web page)

Thursday, August 6, Friday, August 7, and Saturday, August 8, 8 p.m., Audium: Golden Lionheart Collier seems to be determined to keep its audience as uninformed as possible prior to the performance! The title of the program is Hidden Currents with “Sounding the invisible kinship circuits of the diaspora” as a subtitle. The audience will sit in the center of the space in total darkness surrounded by 176 loudspeakers. The group promises this to be “one unforgettable experience;” but I shall let adventurous readers decide for themselves! For those that do not yet know, the venue is located at 1616 Bush Street. Pay-what-you-can tickets are available at the door for each show, on a first come, first served basis; but the preferred cost is between $20 and $30. The door will open at 7:30 p.m.

Thursday, August 6, 8 p.m., Peacock Lounge: This is another familiar venue, but the usual four-set evening will be somewhat less cryptic! Leaking is a trio with Brian Pedersen on baritone saxophone and cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm. The third member is Jay Korber, who claims he will be playing “the rusty gates of hell!” Sharkiface and Ava Koohbor will join forces as (ff): (the colon is part of the title). Their performance will involve electronics, noise, and spoken word to “enact resistance, reject fascism and level aim to demolish patriarchy.” Kersti Abrams will lead the Evidence Trio performing on alto saxophone and flute, as well as the more exotic mbira. As in the past, she will be joined by Andrew Joron on theremin along with bass guitarist Eli Pontecorvo. Finally, 5k candle will be a solo performance by Chris Farstad combining video with acoustic synthesis. This is another familiar venue, located at 552 Haight Street.

Friday, August 7, 7 p.m., Medicine for Nightmares: The next Other Dimensions in Sound performance to be curated by “Boohaabian multi reed player extraordinaire David Boyce” will be a trio that calls itself Funkonya in the Portal. The members are Kirk Peterson on bass, drummer Sean Alford, and a guitarist known only as Vern. 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.

Merola Takes on “Autobiographical” Strauss

Readers may recall that, by the time I announced the Merola Summer Festival production of Richard Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos, tickets for the first performance were already sold out. Yesterday afternoon, my wife and I ventured down to the Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music to see the second (and last) performance. The bad news is that this venue was not designed for performances of fully-staged operas, particularly one in which the staging of the first part is radically different from that of the second. Nevertheless, the generous cast of vocalists delivered their roles with enviable clarity. Things were a bit more difficult for the orchestra; but what mattered was the balance between vocalists and instrumentalists, which, for the most part, could not have been clearer.

Those familiar with this work know that it is basically an opera about opera. The first part is all about what is taking place before the curtain rises. After the intermission, the “opera itself” begins. Taken as a whole,  Strauss and his librettist, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, developed a narrative about how the background leads to the foreground. Much of that “background” involves the conflicting diversity of the egos of the individual characters (with Strauss casting himself as the young ambitious composer). In a way, it reminds me of the Betsy Ross character in the Stan Freberg album about the American Revolution, who sings “Everybody wants to be an art director!”

Emilie Kealani as Zerbinetta (lower left) with her fellow clowns Truffaldino (John Mburu), Scaramuccio (Logan Wagner), and Brighella (Cole McIlquham) (photograph by Kristen Loken)

The good news is that all of the participating Merolini found their own personalities for their respective egos. Presumably, this was due to the perceptive direction by Omer Ben Seadia, herself a Merola alumnus for 2014. She managed the overall flow of the narrative in such a way that there was never a dull moment. Just as important, however, was Strauss’ tendency to challenge every level of vocalist with no end of hoops that need to be traversed. Soprano Emilie Kealani, in the role of Zerbinetta, needed to deal with the lion’s share of those hoops, diving smoothly through all of them, often to the disturbance of the title character (soprano Aida Evans), a regal character with no interest in commoners!

Personally, I find this to be an opera about the rich diversity in the human condition. To invoke an old cliché, the personalities in this opera run the entire gamut from the ridiculous to the sublime. Ultimately, Strauss and Hofmannsthal came to an agreement on how the sublime would ultimately triumph over the ridiculous. Nevertheless, the fact that the last word comes from the commedia dell’arte Zerbinetta, the ridiculous still provides the punctuation!

Ron Vincent to Return to Chez Hanny as Leader

Ron Vincent with some of his percussion gear

This month will see the return of drummer Ron Vincent to Chez Hanny. His last appearance was this past January, when he provided rhythm for a quartet led by saxophonist Tim Armacost. This time Vincent will be leading his own quartet with tenor saxophonist Bob Kenmotsu on the front line. The other rhythm performers will be guitarist Brad Buethe and Essiet Okon Essiet on bass.

As always, Chez Hanny is located at 1300 Silver Avenue; and the performance takes place in the downstairs rumpus room. It will begin at 4 p.m. on Sunday, August 16. Admission will be $25, payable by check or cash. Because Jazz Chez Hanny is now a 501(c)(3) public charity, tax-deductible donations will also be accepted.

Also as always, there will be two sets separated by a potluck break. As a result, all who plan to attend should bring food and/or drink to share. Seating is first come, first served, meaning that reservations are strongly recommended. They may be placed through an electronic mail address: jazz@chezhanny.com. Mail messages received after noon on the day of a performance are unlikely to be seen until after the show is over, and cancellations should be given at least 24 hours advance notice. Finally, volunteer efforts for cleaning up after the show and moving furniture to accommodate both players and listeners are always appreciated.

Seriously?

I suspect that, by now, there are at least some readers that know that my first “real” job after I received my doctoral degree involved teaching computer science in Haifa at the Technion, also known as the “Israel Institute of Technology.” (Since I received my doctoral credentials from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the transition seemed like an easy one.) In those days, Israel’s relations with the United States were much better than those of any of the countries on its borders. The only “viable” border was the Mediterranean Sea to the west, which involved a significant amount of shipping at several ports (not to mention a few recreational beaches).

More recently, however, Israel finds itself to be a “focal point” in the Middle East as a whole. This is probably due in no small part to the “special relationship” between Israel and the United States. That said, over the last decades our country has established good relations with other Middle East countries. Unfortunately, those relations have been put under a strain, which can be attributed primarily to our government’s Executive Branch.

The current focus of that strain is the strait of Hormuz, which has recently been the source of a major impact on the price of crude oil. The good news is that President Donald Trump has decided to convene with his entire cabinet. To keep the meeting well-focused, the plan was to meet at Camp David, which is outside the District of Columbia but nearby in Maryland. Sadly, my interpretation of “well-focused” was put under more than a little strain when White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt chose to describe the occasion as “a lot of fun and something different for the cabinet to experience together.”

Donald Trump on his way to Camp David (photograph by Manuel Balce, courtesy of Centa and the Associated Press, from an article on the Web site for The Guardian)

Judging from the look on our President’s face as he prepares to leave for Camp David, I would guess that “fun” is the last thing on his mind!

An Odd Way to Celebrate a Significant Birthday

Cover design for Music for 18 Musicians (from the Amazon.com Web page for the reissued release of the CD)

This morning’s electronic mail included an item that I found to be as much eccentric as nostalgic. The “headline” was as follows:

In Honor of Steve Reich's 90th Birthday, ECM Releases Recordings on ECM, a 3-LP Box Set Including Reich's Albums That Were Released on the Label Between 1978-1982:

1. Music for 18 Musicians
2. Octet / Music for a Large Ensemble / Violin Phase
3. Tehillim

I find this to be eccentric because I am old enough to remember when the earliest CDs were released, providing listeners with uninterrupted longer durations. For those that do not know, the story goes that the CD was designed to provide an account of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 125 ninth (choral) symphony without the physical interruption of chasing one side of an LP album to another. “Music for 18 Musicians” was even better suited for CD than was the Beethoven symphony, since the entire duration, about 56 and a half minutes, is performed without any interruption.

It goes without saying that this album was one of my earliest CD purchases. I still have it; and, while I do not visit it frequently, every listening experience is as refreshing as ever. It is also worth noting that, in addition to duration, the CD has the benefit of no physical contact. Thus, while vinyl records are subjected to some level of wear-and-tear from the phonograph needle, a CD only has to contend with a laser beam that avoids such contact. In other words, every time I listen to my CD of “Music for 18 Musicians,” it sounds as fresh as it did when I made my purchase.

Presumably, ECM announced this new release because there is a trend of going back to LPs. I suppose that trend was motivated by the fact that it is limited in the number of listeners, as if that limitation makes the release more “special” than an “ordinary CD.” To be fair, the only “special” aspect is that the LP is analog, while the CD is digital. This reminds me that the affordances of analog computing are far more limited than those in the digital domain!

Perhaps the appeal of the LP involves the nostalgia for earlier times. In that context, it might be useful to remember what things were like when a trip from New York to Los Angeles would involve rail travel (possibly with several changes of trains), rather than a non-stop flight! Personally, I am no great fan of “good old days;” and it is hard for me to remember if I was ever inclined to resist a new technology!

SFEMF Announces Plans for 25th Season

Poster design for the coming SFEMF

Once again, the 25th Annual San Francisco Electronic Music Festival will involve a change in venue, as well as performances taking place a little over a month earlier. As was the case last year, there will be three concerts; and this year they will all take place at The Lab, a venue that will probably be familiar to most readers. All performances will begin at 8 p.m. on three consecutive dates with doors opening at 7:30 p.m. The performers on each of those dates will be as follows:

1. Thursday, September 24: Rrose, IDHAZ & Emily Bouton, Blevin Blectum
2. Friday, September 25: Paul DeMarinis, The Gleaners (Laetitia Sonami and Matt Robidoux), Albert Yeh, Stefano Pilia
3. Saturday, September 26: Moor Mother, Seth Cluett, Thomas Carnacki (Gregory Scharpen, Cheryl Leonard, and Gregory Hagan)

The price of the pass for the entire festival will be $60. Single tickets will be sold for $23. A processing fee will be added. Single tickets may be purchased online through the hyperlinks on the above dates. The venue is located in the Mission at 2948 16th Street.

SFCO: 2026–2027 MainStage Season

It has been almost exactly one year since the programs for the MainStage Concerts of the 2025–26 season of the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra (SFCO) were announced. Plans for the coming season showed up in my Inbox yesterday evening at 7 PM. Once again, there will be four programs; and it appears that content has already been finalized. All performances will begin at 7:30 p.m., taking place at three different venues. Tickets may be reserved through the individual Web pages for the concerts using the attached hyperlinks below. Specifics are as follows:

Friday, October 16, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Beethoven’s Eroica, A Hero’s Journey: As the title suggests, the second half of the program will be devoted entirely to Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 62 (third) symphony in E-flat major. Beethoven was originally inspired by Napoleon until he realized the threat of tyranny, providing a title that would reflect the composer’s own defiant and life-affirming spirit. This will be complemented at the beginning of the program with the performance of Beethoven’s Opus 62 (“Coriolan”) overture, inspired by a five-act play of the same title by Heinrich Joseph von Collin about a Roman general known for defeating the invading Volscians. The first half of the program will conclude with Grace Williams’ “Sea Sketches,” inspired by the Welsh coastline. The performance will take place in the Conservatory building at 50 Oak Street.

Wednesday, December 30, Herbst Theatre, Rising Stars: This program will see the debut of fourteen-year-old pianist Isabel Feng, who will be the soloist in a performance of Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 25, his first piano concerto, composed in the key of G minor. The “overture” for the program will be “D’un matin de printemps,” a musical portrait of a spring morning composed by Lili Boulanger. The second half of the program will be devoted entirely to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s last symphony, K. 551 (“Jupiter”) in C major. For those that do not yet know, the venue is located on the southwest corner of Van Ness Avenue and McAllister Street.

Friday, February 26, Taube Atrium Theatre, Emerging Voices: The “voices” are the current members of the San Francisco Opera Adler Fellows.The second half of the program will be devoted entirely to opera arias, whose selections have not yet been finalized. The program will begin with the seventh (D minor) of the thirteen string symphonies composed by Felix Mendelssohn between the ages of twelve and fourteen. This will be followed by one of the more familiar compositions by Caroline Shaw, “Entr’acte.” The venue is located in the same building as Herbst but on the top floor.

Starla Breshears, concerto soloist for the final MainStage Concert of the season (from the Web page for this performance)

Friday, May 7, Taube Atrium Theatre, Sounds of the City: The title refers to a new multi-media commissioned work by Xavier Muzik entitled “i like my coffee, black,” which was inspired by a series of recent photographs of San Francisco. (I am not sure about the significance of the comma!) This will be preceded by two excerpts from Richard Strauss’ opera Ariadne auf Naxos, the overture and the dance scene. The second half of the program will see the winner of the Irving Klein International Competition, cellist Starla Breshears, who is now the youngest member in the San Francisco Symphony. She will be the soloist in a performance of Joseph Haydn’s Hoboken VIIb/1 cello concerto (his first).