Duo Gazzana’s Eastern European Album

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

The latest ECM New Series album of performances by Duo Gazzana will be released this coming Friday. Most of the music consists of two multi-movement compositions by Sergei Prokofiev: his first sonata for violin and piano (Opus 80 in F minor) and the Opus 35a collection, Five Melodies. Each of these is followed by a more recent work. Arvo Pärt’s “Spiegel im Spiegel” provides the “punctuation mark” for the sonata, and the album concludes with Alfred Schnittke’s “Gratulationsrondo.” Unless I am mistaken, my last encounter with the former took place almost exactly two years ago, at the beginning of April of 2024, when Yo-Yo Ma included “Spiegel im Spiegel” in his recital in Davies Symphony Hall. The Schnittke selection, on the other hand, was probably a “first contact” experience.

Having now had enough opportunities to listen to Duo Gazzana ECM albums, I always tend to be interested in what they will do next. While my enthusiasm Prokofiev is usually muted, I tend to look forward to opportunities to listen to previously unknown music. In this case I was particularly drawn to the rhetorical diversity across the four movements of the Opus 80 sonata. I am hoping that I shall have an opportunity to listen to this music in recital in the not-too-distant future.

Where Schnittke is concerned, I am always looking forward to his tongue-in-cheek rhetoric. The title of his selection suggests music that was composed for the interest of teachers more than students! He wrote this piece in the year after he had composed the tongue-in-cheek Suite in the Old Style. That rhetoric can also be found in “Gratulationsrondo;” but the edges are not quite as sharp! It is a bit long to make for an engaging encore selection, but it definitely has the makings of a definitive punctuation mark.

SFCM to Host Workshop of New Opera

Portrait of Lavinia Williams, the title character of Madame Theremin

One week from this coming Thursday, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) will host the first complete workshop performance of a new opera. The opera is Madame Theremin, composed by Kennedy Verrett setting a libretto by George M. Kopp. The title refers to Lavinia Williams, who was the wife of Leon Theremin, the inventor of the electronic instrument that bears his name.

Williams was a Principal Dancer with the American Negro Ballet Company, which was based in New York in the Thirties. The libretto is a tale of the Harlem Renaissance, involving music, dance, technology, politics, and Haitian Vodou. For this workshop the title role will be sung by soprano Ariel Emma, and tenor Eric Levintow will portray Theremin. Other vocalists for the workshop will be mezzo Melissa Bonettio Luna (a Vodou priestess), bass-baritone Patrick Blackwell as Noble Washington (based loosely on Paul Robeson), and Sara Couden as a Soviet official. A variety of other roles will be taken by tenor Joe Meyers and baritone Daniel Cilli. Mary Chun will conduct, and accompaniment will be by pianist Kymry Esainko.

The performance will take place in the SFCM Ann Getty Center, which is in the building at 50 Oak Street. It will begin at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, July 11, and last for about 90 minutes. The event will be followed by an audience feedback session and an informal reception. There will be no charge for admission, but a suggested donation of $20 will be appreciated. Tickets will be available by sending electronic mail to cblalock@gmail.com.

SFS: A Promising Program that Did Not Deliver

Conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya (from the Web page for this week’s SFS concert)

Conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya made his San Francisco Symphony (SFS) debut in November of 2023 when he led the annual Día de los Muertos concert. Last night he returned to Davies Symphony Hall to give his first Orchestra Series performance. The program had a Hispanic theme with composers born on either side of the Atlantic Ocean. Three of the four selections were composed in the last century, but the other enjoyed a United States premiere performance.

The composer of that new work was Jimmy López, born in Lima (Peru) in 1978 and currently composer-in-residence for both the San Diego Symphony and the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal. His contribution to the program was “Shift,” a four-movement concerto for trombone and orchestra with Principal Trombone Timothy Higgins as soloist. The titles of the four movements suggest that the composer may have had an interest in synesthesia:

1. Sound
2. Water
3. Light
4. Sonoluminescence

Each of these movements had its own approach to sonorities. The first required a plethora of double-tonguing episodes. The second exploited the instrument’s most powerful capability: glissando passages! The “Light” movement was performed with mute, leading into a richly extended cadenza to introduce the final movement. Higgins brought a confident command to each of these movement, making it a pity that he is on leave this season.

The program began with the most recent of the twentieth-century selections. Alberto Ginastera composed music for his Opus 8 ballet “Estancia” and then extracted four of the movements for the Opus 8a suite. The suite has little relation to the narrative for the ballet. Nevertheless, the movements were engaging; and the third of them, “Los peones de hacienda” (the cattlemen) seem to offer more than a few nods to Igor Stravinsky’s ballet score, “Le sacre du printemps” (the rite of spring)!

The second half of the program was rooted in the early decades of the century. The better-known selection was the final one, Maurice Ravel’s four-movement “Rapsodie espagnole.” I am familiar enough with this music that I know the subtlety it demands, but Harth-Bedoya never seemed to invoke that spirit.

He seemed more “at home” with the preceding composition, Joaquín Turina’s three-movement “Danzas Fantásticas.” My encounters with this composer have been almost entirely through the guitar recitals I have attended and covered, so I was looking forward to listening to his command of the orchestral repertoire. Once again, however, it felt as if Harth-Bedoya was undermining the spirit that Turina had injected into his dances.

Fortunately, the impact of López’ capacity for invention made the evening worthwhile!

naïve Releases First Simone Dinnerstein Album

Cover of the album being discussed, showing members of the Baroklyn ensemble 

Unless my search engine is deceiving me, I have not written about the naïve album label since 2016, when its Douce France release of vocalist Anne Sofie Von Otter was a candidate for the Best Classical Solo Vocal Album in that year’s GRAMMY nominations. That said, I can now report that, early next month, the label will release its first album of performances by American pianist Simone Dinnerstein. She leads her own Baroklyn ensemble on an album entitled Hourglass.

The recording is divided roughly evenly by two compositions for piano and orchestra by Philip Glass. The first of these is based on music that Glass extracted from the film score he composed for Stephen Daldry’s film The Hours. Michael Riesman took that music and arranged it into a three-movement piano concerto with Dinnerstein as the soloist. She then takes the solo part in the second (and last) Glass composition on the album, the “Tirol Concerto,” scored for piano and orchestra.

Unless I am mistaken, I first became aware of Glass in 1970 when the Philip Glass Ensemble performed a full-length (three compositions … I think) recital at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. At that time the reactions tended to be on the negative side, some almost violently so; but I found relief in a listening experience that did not require some of the fundamentals of higher mathematics found in the so-called twelve-tone genre. Since that time, there have been any number of jokes about Glass’ approach to repetitive structures spanning significant durations; but, for the most part, I tended to come away from any Glass listening experience feeling refreshed.

That is the way I felt when I listened to Hourglass for the first time. Over the course of further listening, I have been particularly interested in the subtle approaches that Glass takes to instrumentation. The structures are as repetitive as ever, but the sonorities lead the attentive listener along a path of discoveries. The most interesting of those discoveries is the second composition on the album, “Tirol Concerto.” Glass composed it in 2000, by which time most listeners had cultivated an appreciation for his rhetoric. Nevertheless, it was not performed until November of 2023 with Dinnerstein as the concerto soloist; and I must confess that I have no idea why attentive listeners had to wait so long!

Perhaps I “adjusted” as quickly as I did because I began to accumulate a generous number of Glass piano albums; but the real reason may be that I quickly warmed up to listening to performances by Frank Zappa after I heard him say, “It’s all music!”

SFO Season Nears the End with Rossini Revival

Baritone Joshua Hopkins in the title role of The Barber of Seville (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO)

Last night saw the return to the War Memorial Opera House of one of the best known works in the repertoire performed by the San Francisco Opera (SFO). The production was the revival of Emilio Sagi’s staging of Gioachino Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville. This was the first of nine performances, three of which are matinees, concluding on Sunday, June 21. Four of the roles have been double-cast, those of the Count Almaviva (tenors Levy Sekgapane and Jack Swanson), Figaro (baritones Joshua Hopkins and Justin Austin), Rosina (Maria Kataeva and Hongni Wu) and Doctor Bartolo (Renato Girolami and Patrick Carfizzi). The production, staged by Emilio Sagi, was first performed in the Fall 2013 with a rich and engaging sense of humor. Last night’s cast provided as spirited an account as I had encountered when the production made its debut.

The overall narrative involves the wooing of Rosina by Almaviva with Figaro assisting the Count as his “fixer.” Rosina is Bartolo’s ward. Bartolo is suspicious of the Count, since he would prefer to marry Rosina himself. Fortunately, Figaro has no trouble out-smarting Bartolo, and the opera concludes with the prospect of a happy wedding in sight. The narrative is based on the first of a trilogy of plays by Pierre-Augustin de Beaumarchais. Figaro appears in all three of them; and he is probably best known for his role in the second, The Marriage of Figaro, which Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart used for one of his own operas (K. 492).

This season saw Sagi’s staging of The Barber of Seville for the third time. Nevertheless, the underlying sense of humor never seems to go stale. This is probably due to the fact that Cesare Sterbini’s libretto for Rossini was delivered at an almost breakneck clip. There is never a dull moment in the narrative, giving the audience only the intermission between the two acts as a time to catch their breaths. Sagi’s staging consistently keeps up with all of Sterbini’s twists and turns, and Rossini’s music just as consistently maintains the energy of that narrative. This is particularly the case when the composer has an impeccable knack for gradual crescendos!

The Barber of Seville may be an “old favorite” for SFO, but I suspect that opera lovers will look forward to attending one of the remaining eight performances.

Lamplighters to Take on British Politics

One of the fairies in the poster design for the coming performance of Iolanthe

Last year Lamplighters Music Theatre concluded its 2024–25 season in August. Presumably, this means that this coming July will mark the end of the 2025–26 season. Last year H.M.S. Pinafore was set aboard a British naval vessel (hence the title). This year the scene will shift to a forest populated by a plethora of fairies, enough to take full command of the opening chorus! Those readers familiar with canon will probably assume (correctly) that the operetta to be performed is Iolanthe.

As usual, Arthur Sullivan provided music for a topsy-turvy narrative by W. S. Gilbert. This culminates in a confrontation between all those fairies and the members of the House of Lords of the British Parliament. I have to confess that this is my favorite operetta in the canon, because so many jokes are fired off fast and furious. Indeed, the text for the song known as “The Lord Chancellor’s Nightmare” (to be performed by Chris Uzelac) is so abundant with those jokes that laughing at one may mask hearing the one immediately following!

This production will be given only two evening performances, at 7 p.m. on Fridays July 10 and July 17. The remaining performances will begin at 2 p.m. on Saturday, July 11, Sunday, July 12, Saturday, July 18, and Sunday, July 19. Staging will be by Ted Zoldan, and Jennifer Ashworth will conduct. The venue will be located at the ODC Theatre in the Mission at 3153 17th Street on the southwest corner of Shotwell Street. Ticket prices are $95, $85, $75, and $35. All tickets may be purchased through a single ODC Web page with hyperlinks for each of the performances. The Box Office can also be reached through electronic mail at boxoffice@odc.dance, and the telephone number is 415-549-8534.

A Less Familiar Side of Darius Milhaud

Cover of the album being discussed

Every month I receive, through electronic mail, a newsletter from Naxos entitled Musical Discoveries. The title of this month’s release was Les Six: Celebrate the Iconic French Composer Group. This past Sunday, when I wrote about the Naxos release of solo piano compositions by Darius Milhaud, I provided little information about the composer’s background, other than his membership in Les Six. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this biography is that, as can be found on his Wikipedia Web page, he was born into “a long-established Jewish family of the Comtat Venaissin—a secluded region of Provence—with roots traceable there at least to the 15th century. On his father's side, Milhaud's Jewish lineage was thus neither Ashkenazi nor Sephardi, but specifically Provençal—dating to Jewish settlement in that part of France as early as the first centuries of the Common Era. Milhaud's mother was partly Sephardi on her father's side, via a Sephardi family from Italy.”

In my past encounters with Milhaud’s music, I never gave much thought to his religion. However, one of the compositions cited in the newsletter was his Sacred Service, composed for baritone soloist, narrator (speaking), choir, and orchestra. The liturgical texts are all sung in Hebrew, and there are three “interventions” from the narrator. The Mourner’s Kaddish is first spoken and then sung by the choir.

Since I was born Jewish, my pre-teen years included preparation for the bar mitzvah celebration of my thirteenth birthday. As a result, I was familiar with almost all of the texts that Milhaud had set. I am pretty certain that, at that time, no one I knew was aware of Milhaud’s undertaking.

The album was originally released in October of 2004, and it would not surprise me to learn that it has attracted little attention. The only performer familiar to me is the conductor, Gerard Schwarz. Rabbi Rodney Mariner delivers the spoken texts, and the solo vocal work is sung by baritone Yaron Windmueller. The Prague Philharmonic Choir joins forces with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.

It goes without saying that I was drawn to this album by pure curiosity. Madeline Milhaud is quoted as calling it “a work of love,” suggesting that both she and her husband took their Jewish ancestry (if not religion in day-to-day life) seriously. From my own atheist perspective, I am more interested in how the composition came to be. It was commissioned by Congregation Emanu-El, one of the three oldest synagogues in San Francisco. It is located on the northwest corner of Arguello Boulevard and Lake Street, about halfway between California Street and the Presidio grounds.

However, the music was not given its first performance at that site (since it would go against constraints imposed by the service itself). Instead, it was given its first performance on May 18, 1949 by the San Francisco Symphony with Milhaud himself on the podium. The narrator in baritone solo is not identified on the Wikipedia page, but the choral performance was by the Berkeley Chorus of the University of California. Since I was not yet three years old at that time, I was unable to attend!

Ninth Planet to Present Monodrama

Poster design for the performance being discussed

According to my archives, I have not written about the new music ensemble Ninth Planet since they began their season this past November. That said, next month the ensemble will perform the monodrama Mother Eve, with music by Emma Logan and original words by her husband, Patrick Smith. As might be guessed, the title character is the Eve in the book of Genesis. According to the advance material, the narrative “uses her as a kind of eternal icon, from the first false promise of paradise to all of humanity’s promises that follow.” The vocalist for this monodrama will be mezzo Kindra Scharich, accompanied by Ninth Planet musicians.

The event will be given only one performance, beginning at 7:30 p.m. and lasting for about two hours. The venue will be the Little Mission Studio at 455 Hampshire Street. General admission will be $33.85 with a Senior Discount of $28.52. There will also be a $17.85 “as-needed” rate, available for both students and educators. Tickets may be purchased online through an Eventbrite Web page.

Catalyst to Conclude “Uncovered” Series

courtesy of Primo Artists

This Friday will see the release of the final volume in the UNCOVERED series of albums on the Azica Records label. All of the performances on these albums are by the Catalyst Quartet, whose members are violinists Karla Donehew Perez and Abi Fayette, violist Paul Laraia, and cellist Karlos Rodriguez. This series was conceived to bring more attention to historically important Black composers; and it will conclude with an album devoted entirely to the eighteenth-century French violinist, conductor and composer, the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Joseph Bologne.

This will be the first-ever commercial recording of all of the eighteen string quartets that Bologne composed. As was the case for most of the quartets composed by Joseph Haydn, these were organized into three sets of six quartets. These were published as Opus 1, Opus 14, and a set given the title Six Concertante Quartets. The advance material from Primo Artists describes them as “representative of early Parisian renditions of the 18th-century string quartet style most associated with Haydn.” It may be worth noting that Joseph Haydn composed his six “Paris” symphonies, written on a commission by the Count D'Ogny, Grandmaster of the Masonic Loge Olympique; but they were composed about six years after Saint-Georges’ earliest quartets.

While this is an engaging account of a significant Black composer, it is probably worth noting that the Chevalier is not a stranger to many San Francisco music lovers. A little over a year ago, violinist Randall Goosby performed the last in a set of Saint-Georges’ three violin sonatas for his debut recital with San Francisco Performances. The “uncovering” of the Chevalier is likely to be a discovery for many collectors of recorded music; but, here in San Francisco, many of us have enjoyed the luxury of listening to that music in performance!

Giulia Ballaré’s Performance of Early John Cage

This morning the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts released its latest Omni on-Location video. This is a solo guitar performance by Giulia Ballaré playing her own transcription of “In a Landscape,” one of the early solo piano compositions by John Cage. In Steffen Schleiermacher’s eighteen-CD account of performances of all of Cage’s compositions for solo piano, this piece was included in a collection entitled Hommage á Satie. Cage was very much taken by the engaging simplicity of Satie’s music; and the simplicity of “In a Landscape” acknowledges his debt to that composer.

Giulia Ballaré playing “In a Landscape” in a landscape setting

By the same count, that simplicity also lends itself to a “bare bones” melodic line which can be expressed by a solo guitar in the same spirit of the original piano version. Ballaré clearly appreciated that simplicity, and its clarity shimmers in the video work captured by Pauline Gauthey. The same can be said for the video being captured in an outdoor setting (as can be seen above), reminding those familiar with Cage that he was as interested in the natural world as in the musical one.

The Bleeding Edge: 5/25/2026

This may turn out to be the busiest Bleeding Edge week of the year. It may also have the highest “density,” since all of the events will take place between Thursday and Sunday. The only event that has already been announced will be the three premiere performances of The Glance, a two-hour “laptopera” based on the myth of Orpheus. As was announced at the beginning of this month, these will take place at the ODC Theater at 8 p.m. on May 29 and 30 and at 4 p.m. on May 31. The remaining events in this busy week will be as follows:

Thursday, May 28, 7 p.m. and 8:45 p.m., Mr Tipple’s: The Astrid Kuljanic Trio will be led by Kuljanic, who is a Croatian vocalist. According to the background information on the BayImproviser Web page (hyperlinked above), her “journey from the Balkans to New York has allowed her to absorb Jazz, Brazilian, and acquire an advanced knowledge of performing with electronics using Ableton Live.” Rhythm will be provided by local musicians Mat Muntz on bass and drummer Scott Amendola. By this time most readers probably already know that the venue is located in the Civic Center at 39 Fell Street.

Friday, May 29, 6 p.m., COVEN: Koto player Shinobu Eto is currently visiting the Bay Area from Tokyo. He will give a trio performance with Jorge Bachmann managing electronic gear and percussionist Kevin Corcoran. The two of them have collaborated for some time, and this will be Eto’s first-time trio improvisation. The venue is located in the basement of the building at 543 Howard Street.

Friday, May 29, 7 p.m., Medicine for Nightmares: David Michalak will present a program entitled Other Dimensions In Sound & Eye-Full Films. These will be original 16mm prints; and some of the titles will be “The Spoken Word,” “Once a Face,” “Start Talking,” and “Not Quite Right.” The opening set will be a duo performance by Nancy Beckman on shakuhachi, performing with Cindy Webster, alternating between hurdy-gurdy and singing saw. 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.

Friday, May 29, 7 p.m., Gray Area Art And Technology: This will be a night of electronic and multimedia compositions by ten Stanford University composers. Those composers will be Anna Golubkova, Brian Brown, Calvin Van Zytveld, Lemon Guo, Nicholas Shaheed, Mercedes Montemayor, Walker Smith, Mohammad H. Javaheri, Héloïse Garry,  and Kimia Koochakzadeh-Yazdi. The performance will take place in the Grand theatre, located in the Mission at 2665 Mission Street.

Friday, May 29, 7:30 p.m., Bird & Beckett Books and Records: Bass guitarist Dave Parker will lead a septet. Unfortunately, he did not give the full names of five of his performers. However, the two familiar members will be Aaron Bennett on baritone saxophone and guitarist Karl Evangelista. Once again, this is a venue that is probably known to many (most?) readers, located at 653 Chenery Street.

Saturday, May 30, 3 p.m., Slash: MOVEMENTS FOR MOVEMENT IN THE EVENT OF BEING MOVED is an event (what else?) structured in four symphonic movements. It was conceptualized by Yiming Clara working in partnership with Gianna Caudillo, Denise Heredia, Cammie Lee, and Jiang Nanyi. The performance is described on the Web page as “a concurrence of discrete performances, from dance, music, and ekphrasis to cutting a wall and serving tea.” Those in my generation would probably call it “Anything can happen day!” The venue is located at 1150 25th Street.

Saturday, May 30, 7:30 p.m., Bird & Beckett Books and Records: This will be a release party for the release of a CD by the Klaxon Mutant Jazz All-Stars. This is a quintet with trumpeter Henry Hung and Kasey Knudsen on saxophone on the front line. Rhythm will be provided by Colin Hogan on keyboards, bassist Jonathan Herrera, and Eric Garland on drums. For those that did not already see it above, the venue is located at 653 Chenery Street.

Sunday, May 31, noon, Center for New Music: Clarinetist Ben Goldberg will lead a trio with rhythm provided by Tim Bulkley on drums and vibraphonist Dillon Vado. He describes his music as “pre-experientialism that aims for the heart & arrives through the ears.” This is another familiar venue; but, for those encountering it for the first time, it is located at 55 Taylor Street, about half a block north of Market Street. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for students and members of the Center.

Two of the tigers inspiring the Three Trapped Tigers Recorder Duo

Sunday, May 31, 4 p.m., Forte House: The members of the Three Trapped Tigers Recorder Duo are Tom Bickley and David Barnett. They will be making a return visit to the venue. Composers on the program will include Alvin Curran, Tom Bickley, John Baldwyne, and Bohuslav Martinů, as well as selections from the Faenza Codex. The suggested donation is $35, which will include a gourmet buffet of finger food and a wine bar. The venue is located at 1498 24th Street.

Sunday, May 31, 7:30 p.m., Artists’ Television Access: As usual, this will be a program of three-projector celluloid meditation. The improvisational trio Rewards Program will provide the soundtrack. The venue is located in the Mission at 992 Valencia Street.

A New Release from William Susman

Composer William Susman (courtesy of Crossover Media)

It has been a while since I have encountered a new album of compositions by William Susman: almost five and a half years to be specific. Over that time I wrote about three of his previous albums on Belarca Records, as well as Nicolas Horvath’s recording of Quiet Rhythms, Book I. The title of his latest Belarca release is Scattered Threads, which accounts for six works composed between 1974 and 2013 scored for violin and piano.

The title of one of the selections is “Seven Scenes for Four Violins,” which was composed in 2011. The violinist is Dylan Hamme, accounting for all four instruments through overdubbing. The other five tracks are duo performances, with Susman accompanying Hamme at the keyboard on the final track. The pianist for the remaining four tracks is Nicole Brancato.

“Quiet” continues to be the operative adjective in Susman’s compositions. When I wrote about the release of his album A Quiet Madness in January of 2021, I cited the advance material I had received, which described him as “working in a post-modern, post-minimalist language.” These days reflections on that language run the gamut all the way from aggravating to sincerely nostalgic. I have done my best to keep my own impressions midway between those two extremes.

Nevertheless, in the context of technology now at our disposal, I suspect that many listeners are likely to appreciate Susman’s work by listening to individual tracks, each with its own merits, rather than an entire album.

Discovering Honegger’s “Symphonic Psalm”

This past Friday, the theme of the latest newsletter I received from Naxos was entitled Les Six: Celebrate the Iconic French Composer Group. These were six composers that “set the bar,” so to speak, for inventiveness in the early twentieth century. In alphabetical order (which is how they appear on their Wikipedia Web page), these composers were Georges Auric (1899–1983), Louis Durey (1888–1979), Arthur Honegger (1892–1955), Darius Milhaud (1892–1974), Francis Poulenc (1899–1963), and Germaine Tailleferre (1892–1983).

I first became aware of them in secondary school, due in some part of Poulenc’s relationship with the Philadelphia Orchestra but also through albums released by Columbia Records. Sadly, by the time my vinyl collection gave way to compact discs, both the composers and their works seldom made appearances in either symphonic performances or chamber music. As a result, my reaction to the new Naxos newsletter was one of irresistible nostalgia.

Nevertheless, I do not feel a strong need to take a “deep dive” into all of the music that emerged from this period in the twentieth century. Instead, I plan to limit myself to only two compositions, both with “roots” in Judaism. Mind you, the composers’ “roots” to the religion were not particularly deep. Honegger’s feelings seem to be, at best, tenuous, while Milhaud’s interests were more inclined to Brazilian popular music than in his Jewish ancestry.

Cover design for the album begin discussed (from its Amazon.com Web page)

That said, the Naxos album I selected was Honneger’s Le Roi David with the subtitled “Psaume symphonique en trois parties” (symphonic psalm in three parts) based on a play by René Morax. The unfolding of the narrative of that play is framed by a narrator (Jacques Martin on the Naxos album). There is also a spoken role for “La pythonisse” (better known in this country as the Witch of Endor). The Wikipedia page accounts for the narrative framework as follows:

The plot, based on biblical narration, tells the story of King David, first a shepherd boy, his victories in battle, relationship to Saul, rise to power, adultery, mourning of his son's death, and finally his own death.

Listening to this recording felt like a journey into my distant past. Unless I am mistaken, I have not listened to Honneger’s music since I wrote about his third symphony in 2022, when it was included in the French Music album in the Hans Rosbaud Edition collection. The Naxos album, on the other hand, dates back to a recording session in 1997. Nevertheless, I have to confess that, these days, I feel as if I am being bombarded with novelty; so I find it almost refreshing to “turn back the clock” for more than a couple of decades!

Summer with the Symphony: Only One Concert

Summer is when the repertoire presented by the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) broadens to prioritize “entertainment” for its listeners. As a result, among the seven performances that will take place between July 1 and August 1, only one (the first) will present a basic “nuts and bolts” concert program. Fortunately, that offering should be well worthy of attention.

Conductor Chloé Van Soeterstède (from the Web page for her SFS performance)

Somewhat to my disappointment, the conductor has not yet earned herself a Wikipedia page. Chloé Van Soeterstède is the founder and director of Arch Sinfonia, a chamber orchestra based in London. She is also the Principal Guest Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Her Web page gives no indication of any previous performances in the United States; but, following her performance here, she will present almost the same program with the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center in the David Geffen Hall. The concerto will be Max Bruch’s Opus 26, his first violin concerto in G minor, with soloist Paul Huang. The second half of the program will be devoted entirely to Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 107, his fifth symphony in D major, given the title “Reformation.” Her San Francisco program will begin with the first SFS performance of a concert overture in D major by Elfrida Andrée.

This program will be given only one performance in Davies Symphony Hall. It will begin at the usual time, 7:30 p.m., on Wednesday, July 1; and a Web page has been created for seat selection, showing the prices for the different sections of the house. Ticket prices begin at $29 and range to $99. 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.

Getting to Know Darius Milhaud Again

Cover of the album being discussed, showing both Madeline Milhaud and pianist Alexandre Tharaud

Back in my student days, one of the composers that particularly drew my attention was Darius Milhaud. He was one of the French composers in the group called Les Six, which had been organized by Jean Cocteau. However, his interest in music also took him across the Atlantic Ocean, where he was particularly drawn to Brazilian music.

Sadly, Milhaud gets little attention these days. I have not written about him on this site since November of 2024, when he received a generous share of attention from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music New Music Ensemble. Over the last few days, I have been listening to a Naxos album of piano music, which first became available in the winter of 2007. It consists of three multi-movement suites: Saudades do Brazil (inspired by a particular dance form from that country), La muse ménagère (the household muse), and L’album de Madame Bovary (inspired by the novel by Gustave Flaubert). The individual movements are, for the most part, short; but each of the suites has its own way for deploying them as a journey. In addition, the individual movements for the latter two suites are given verbal introductions, delivered by Madeline Milhaud, who married Darius (who happened to be her cousin) in 1925 and outlived him by a little more than a quarter century.

This release may not be a “must-have” item for many listeners. However, French was the first foreign language that I seriously mastered; and my interest in twentieth-century French composers was a major motivating factor. Listening to this Naxos album feels a bit like going into a time machine, but that invokes a journey that revives pleasant memories of my younger days!

SFO Announces Program for Pride 2026

Photograph of last year’s Pride Concert by Kristen Loken

Some readers may recall that this past Wednesday saw the announcement on this site of the program Dearly, Queerly, Over the Rainbow, the contribution of the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony (BARS) to this year’s 56th annual Pride Celebration. Of course, BARS is not the only ensemble to prepare for the event. San Francisco Opera (SFO) has announced its second annual Pride Concert, which, as most readers will probably expect, will be performed in the War Memorial Opera House. The SFO Orchestra will be conducted by Robert Mollicone. Program details have not yet been announced; but three vocal soloists will perform with the musicians: soprano Melody Moore, mezzo Nikola Printz, and baritone Reginald Smith, Jr. The host for the event will be Sapphira Cristál, best known as Miss Congeniality for Season 16 of RuPaul’s Drag Race.

As might be expected, there will be a diverse ensemble of composers involved with different genres. The nineteenth century will be accounted for with music by Umberto Giordano, Charles Gounod, and Jacques Offenbach. However, it is also worth noting that the program will include a composition by Michael Tilson Thomas (who died almost exactly a month ago).

The performance will take place a little less than a week after the BARS concert. It will begin at 8 p.m. on Friday, June 26. Most readers probably already know that the venue is located at 301 Van Ness Avenue, directly across from City Hall on the southwest corner of Grove Street. Ticket prices range from $30 to $229 and may be purchased at the Box Office or by calling 415-864-3330. SFO has also created a Web page for online purchases. There will be a facility fee of two or three dollars, depending on the seat location. Box Office hours are 10 AM to 5 PM on Monday and 10 AM to 6 PM Tuesday through Friday. Tickets may also be purchased by phone on Saturday between 10 AM and 6 PM.

DSO Live-Streams Russian Program

Once again my wife and I had our dinner while watching the latest live-streamed performance by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO). The title of the program was Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake” and Other Tales, but I would have preferred to call the event a “Russian excursion.” Three of the four composers on the program were Russian, each with a different background. In “order of appearance,” they were Dmitri Shostakovich, Igor Stravinsky, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The first composer on the program was John Adams; but he was represented by “Slonimsky’s Earbox,” named after the Russian-American musicologist who may be best known for the throughly engaging book he wrote entitled Lexicon of Musical Invective.

Cellist Wei Yu performing Shostakovich’s concerto (screen shot from yesterday’s live-stream)

The program was led by the Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu, who had a solid command in approaching all four of the composers. The concerto soloist was DSO Principal Cello Wei Yu, performing Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 107, the first of his two cello concertos, composed in the key of E-flat major. The second half of the program began with Stravinsky’s poéme symphonique, “Le chant du rossignol” (song of the nightingale), followed by selections from Tchaikovsky’s full-length ballet Swan Lake. All of these offerings were richly orchestrated; and, as is usually the case with these telecasts, the camera work guided the viewer through the panoply of diverse instrumental sonorities.

The performance was consistently satisfying from start to finish. Lintu knew just how to capture the brash rhetoric of Adams’ overture. I was fortunate enough to see Slonimsky “in action” with his coy but always perceptive rhetoric. I would like to believe that Adams was just as fortunate, because his music definitely aroused my own personal memories of the musicologist.

Nevertheless, the concerto was the high point of the evening; and the soloist’s command of the extended cadenza was nothing less than jaw-dropping. I would have thought that he had enough by the conclusion of his performance, but he returned to given an encore. This was the opening Prelude movement of Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 1012 (sixth) solo cello suite (which always seems to remind me of “The Irish Washerwoman”).

“Le chant du rossignol” is based on one of the more poignant fairy tales by Hans Christian Anderson. Stravinsky composed a full-length opera based on this tale, and the tone poem is basically a distillation of the opera. The distilled version is as engaging as it is brief, and I am somewhat disappointed that the music does not receive more attention. (The last time I wrote about it was in September of 2016, when Michael Tilson Thomas conducted a performance by the San Francisco Symphony.) The instrumentation shows Stravinsky at his best, and those qualities were excellently captured by last night’s camera work.

Given that my writing career (so to speak) began in my efforts as a ballet critic, I am still more than familiar with the full score of Swan Lake. It is usually abbreviated down to the music for the second of the four acts for concert purposes. However, Lintu assembled a suite of his own that accounted for all of those acts (but not with any regard for the narrative). He began with the prologue for the second act (because that is the most familiar music); but this was followed by the waltz in the first act. While his selections did not provide much of an account of the narrative, where this performance is concerned, there was no need to do so!

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. [added 5/24, 8:05 a.m.: According to Lisa Hirsch’s article on May 23 for the San Francisco Chronicle, the encore selection was the third and final movement (“Precipitato”) of Prokofiev’s Opus 83, seventh, piano sonata in B-flat major.] Assistant Concertmaster Wyatt Underhill then joined Trpčeski for a duo performance of music that was not identified. [added 5/24. 8:10 a.m.: According to the same source, this selection was a composition by Evgeny Svetlanov entitled “Two Simple Tunes.”]

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 two works on the program. The first is 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.