Choices for May 16, 2026

A little over a week ago, I wrote an article about how the concert season would begin to wrap up as of the very beginning of next month. Thus, concert-goers would be faced by having to choose among three performances, all beginning at 7:30 p.m. and taking place in the Civic Center. It turns out that the next round of choices will be taking place in the middle of the month with at least one of them in the Civic Center. I say “at least” because the first event has been announced by Groupmuse, refraining from identifying the venue until tickets have been secured. Having established the context, the events will be as follows:

7 p.m., to be announced by Groupmuse: This will be the next performance by the Sixth Station Trio, last discussed on this site this past February when they gave their third performance in the Old First Concerts series at Old First Presbyterian Church. That entire program was devoted to the music that Joe Hisaishi composed for Hayao Miyazaki’s anime Howl’s Moving Castle. Next month’s program will include only one Hisaishi composition, “Madness,” composed for the anime Porco Russo. This will be followed by three pieces composed for the video game Genshin Impact!. The first of these will be Koji Kondo’s “Great Fairy Fountain,” followed by “Gallant Challenge” and “Rapid as Wildfires,” composed by Yu Peng Chen. The program will begin with Astor Piazzola’s Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteños, a suite of four tango movements often referred to in English as “the four seasons of Buenos Aires.” The members of the trio are still pianist Katelyn Tan, violinist Anju Goto, and cellist Federico Strand Ramirez.

Album cover of the new E4TT release (from the E4TT Web page for next month’s program)

7:30 p.m., Center for New Music: Ensemble for These Times will conclude its season with a program entitled El Tiempo Latine. This is also the title of the sixth CD to be released by E4TT. The performance will introduce a selection of the works that were recorded. All three core members will be joined by coloratura soprano Chelsea Hollow with Lylia Guion on violin. For those that do not yet know, those core members are soprano Nanette McGuinness, Megan Chartier on cello, and pianist Margaret Halbig. The venue will be at 55 Taylor  Street.

7:30 p.m., Knuth Music Hall, San Francisco State University: The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players (SFCMP) will conclude its 55th season with a program entitled American Reflections: Full Circle. The circle will be closed, so to speak, with a performance of John Adams’ “Son of Chamber Symphony.” The program will also see the world premiere by “Symphony: Color & Line,” composed by Edward Smaldone on an SFCMP commission. The other relatively recent work on the program will be Haruka Fujii’s “Divisions I,

completed in 2024. The program will begin with Nico Muhly’s “Flexible Music” (2003). The second half of the program will include John Zorn’s “Baudelaires,” completed in 2013. The venue will be the Knuth Music Hall on the campus of San Francisco State University at 1600 Holloway Street.