Jennifer Koh Surveys Three French Composers

Jennifer Koh (photograph by Juergen Frank, from Wikimedia Commons Web page, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license)

Last night violinist Jennifer Koh returned to Herbst Theatre to give her fourteenth recital performance for San Francisco Performances. Accompanied at the piano by Thomas Sauer, her program was structured around three French composers from roughly a century ago. She began with the least familiar of those composers, Lili Boulanger, who lived only a quarter century but left a significant repertoire of music from the early twentieth century. The repertoire of the other two composers, Maurice Ravel and Gabriel Fauré (in “order of appearance” on the program) consisted of violin sonatas more familiar to chamber music lovers. Each half of the program also included a more recent composition. Tania León’s “Para Violin y Piano” was situated between Boulanger and Ravel, while Kaija Saariaho’s “Tocar” began the second half of the program.

As has been the case in my many previous recital encounters with Koh, her command of the repertoire was unquestionably solid. Nevertheless, as is often frequently the case, there were offerings that overstayed their welcome. I first became aware of León when I was living in Connecticut in 1981; and I have tried to follow her work since then, even as I moved from one coast to the other. That included keeping up with an album of her orchestral music released this past July. Nevertheless, last night’s selection went on longer than even sympathetic attention could sustain. To be fair, however, I felt the same way about the final movement of Ravel’s second violin sonata in G major, which concluded the first half of the program!

Far more interesting (for me at least) was my encounter with a performance of Kaija Saariaho’s “Tocar.” I became familiar with this piece when I made it a point to start collecting recordings of that composer’s music, during the first decade of the current century. Koh’s performance triggered fond memories of when I first came to know “Tocar” through that collection. The contrast with the Fauré sonata that followed it made the second half of the program the high point of the evening for me.

It is always good (if not healthy) to leave a recital with a sense of satisfaction!

SFP: Remainder of February, 2026

Having written about San Francisco Performances (SFP) events during the first half of February exactly one week ago, it is now time to account for the last two performances that will take place towards the end of that month. These will take place on the last two Fridays. As usual, both programs will begin at 7:30 p.m.; and each will be a different sub-genre of chamber music. Specific dates are as follows:

Jennifer Koh with her violin (photograph by Juergen Frank, from her SFP Web page)

February 20: Unless I am mistaken, violinist Jennifer Koh has not visited San Francisco since the SFP performance of Summer Music Sessions 2021, when she was part of a trio with Jay Campbell on cello and pianist Timo Andres. She will return next month for a violin recital performed with piano accompaniment provided by Thomas Sauer. She has structured her program around two violin sonatas by French composers. She will conclude the first half of the program with Maurice Ravel’s M. 77 second sonata in G major, and the second half will conclude with Gabriel Fauré’s first sonata, his Opus 13 in A major. Each of these sonatas will be preceded by a shorter work by a contemporary composer. Tania Léon’s “Para Violin y Piano” will precede Ravel, and the second half of the program will begin with Kaija Saariaho’s “Tocar.” The program will begin with a selection of compositions by Lili Boulanger.

February 27: The entire program will be the West Coast premiere performance of note to a friend by David Lang. Vocalist Theo Bleckman will be accompanied by the Attacca Quartet, whose members are violinists Amy Schroeder and Domenic Salerni, Nathan Schram on viola, and cellist Andrew Yee. The texts of the “note” are taken from works by the Japanese novelist Ryunosuke Akutagawa, who is probably best known as the author of Rashomon.

SFS: More Rich Sonorities from Guerrero

Conductor Giancarlo Guerrero (photograph by Lukasz Rajchert taken on February 4, 2020, from Guerrero’s Web site)

Last night Giancarlo Guerrero returned to Davies Symphony Hall for his third visit to the podium of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS). His last visit took place almost exactly two years ago, at the end of May in 2023. The high point of that visit was his delivery of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Opus 35 symphonic suite Scheherazade with a solid command of the full complement of instruments in the orchestra.

That command was in full force again last night, exercising the entire forces of the SFS ensemble for all they were worth. The second half of the program was devoted entirely to the two best-known tone poems of Ottorino Respighi, “Fountains of Rome,” composed in 1916, followed by his 1924 “Pines of Rome.” (He would compose “Roman Festivals” in 1928 to complete his “Roman trilogy.”) Instrumental sonorities were just as rich in the first half with Igor Stravinsky’s 1947 version of the complete score for the one-act ballet “Petrushka.” (Stravinsky would revise his works when the copyright ran out in the interest in maintaining a flow of royalties!) The program began the full-ensemble spirit with the first SFS performance of “Asteroid 4179: Toutatis,” composed by Kaija Saariaho in 2005.

Guerrero clearly enjoys working a large orchestra for all it is worth. One can see it in the joyfulness of his body language. However, it is just as clear that he wants to make sure that every last detail will register in the minds of the attentive listeners. Whether or not the music he was conducting was familiar to many (if not most) in the audience, there was a freshness in his approach that made even the most familiar passages feel like a journey of discovery. Thus, whether it was a first-encounter with music of Saariaho or works by Respighi and Stravinsky found in just about every collection of recordings, Guerrero knew how to get his listeners to sit up and take notice. I am already looking forward to what he will plan for his next visit!

SFS: Update to Next Month’s Guerrero Program

Conductor Giancarlo Guerrero (from the Web page providing details for the SFS concert he will conduct)

Last summer, when I wrote my article about the conductors that would visit the podium of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) during the current season, I was interested enough in Giancarlo Guerrero that I included his photograph! That program was given the title Talent & Phoenix, which was also the title of a work that Gabriel Kahane composed on an SFS commission that had been scheduled for performance under Guerrero’s baton. (This struck me as important enough that I included a photograph of Guerrero in my article!)

Sadly, the performance of this work has been postponed to a future date not yet announced. The good news, however, is that the program will still begin with the first SFS performance of Kaija Saariaho’s “Asteroid 4179: Toutatis.” The second half of the program will still present Ottorino Respighi’s “Fountains of Rome,” which will now be coupled with “Pines of Rome.” (Those familiar with the latter will know that it will bring the entire program to a roaring conclusion!) In the first half of the program, Saariaho’s composition will be followed by the 1947 version of the music that Igor Stravinsky composed for Michel Fokine’s one-act ballet in four “tableaux,” “Petrushka.”

As most readers probably already know, this performance will take place in Davies Symphony Hall. The address is 201 Van Ness Avenue; but it occupies the entire block with Van Ness to the west, Franklin Street to the east, Hayes Street to the south, and Grove Street to the north. The entrance is on the Grove Street side, which is also where tickets may be purchased at the Box Office. Tickets are currently available at prices from $49 in the Second Tier to $149 in the Orchestra and Boxes. (Tickets for the Terrace areas behind the stage are not currently available for this event.) A Web page has been created for online purchases. Tickets may also be purchased by calling the SFS Box Office at 415-864-6000.

SFCMP Continues 54th Season This Month

Swedish composer Mika Pelo (from the event page for the performance being discussed)

One week from this Saturday, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players (SFCMP) will continue its 54th concert season with its third program. The title of the program is Northern Lights, and it will present four works by composers from two Scandinavian countries. Sweden will be represented by Jesper Nordin and Mika Pelo, who will begin each half of the program. Each of those works will be followed, respectively, by works by Finnish composers Kaija Saariaho and Magnus Lindberg.

Pelo’s offering will be a world premiere made possible through an SFCMP commission. The title of the composition is “Working from a Postcard;” and it will incorporate live electronics. This will be followed by a United States premiere of “Jubilees,” which Lindberg composed in 2002. The first half of the program will be presented in reverse chronological order, beginning with Jesper Nordin’s “Surfaces scintillantes,” completed in 2007, followed by the earliest work on the program, “Lichtbogen,” which Saariaho completed in 1986. She conceived this piece as a musical reflection on the Northern Lights.

This performance will take place in the Dianne and Tad Taube Atrium Theater on Saturday, April 12, beginning at 7:30 p.m. It will be preceded by an “Under the Hood” pre-concert conversation with Pelo at 6:30 p.m. The venue is on the fourth (top) floor of the Veterans Building, which is located at 401 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. General admission will be $45 with student admission for $18. Tickets may be purchased online through a City Box Office Web page.

“Dangerous” may be Worse Than “Stupid”

Back in November of 2013, I departed from my focus on the performing arts to reflect on the technology that allows me to do what I do. On November 13 of that year, I wrote an article entitled “Is Google Making the Next Generation Stupid?,” which was my own reflection of an article that Nicholas Carr had written for Atlantic Monthly entitled “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” While I doubt that things have improved very much since then, I fear that we are now up against a more critical question, which probably goes beyond the repercussions of Google searches: “Is the Internet making the world a more dangerous place?”

This question was motived by an article I read this morning on the Web site for The Guardian. To be fair, I know nothing about Ben Makuch, the author of this article, given the headline “Rise in vigilante attacks in US highlight growing online DIY terrorism resources.” As readers can probably expect, there is a connection to the Internet behind this threat. This was made explicit by The 5-Eyes, described in the article as “an intelligence sharing alliance between the spy and law enforcement agencies of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the US.” The following paragraph extracted two sentences from the report to summarize the threat:

Violent extremist content is more accessible, more digestible and more impactful than ever before. Violent extremist individuals and groups share material which individuals often consume as part of their radicalisation process.

It goes without saying that such sharing is most easily achieved through electronic mail.

A classroom scene from the opera Innocence (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera)

Mind you, I would not be able to provide background material for the articles I write about music without the Internet as a resource. Furthermore, I would hate to be labeled as a “person of interest” just because I happened to write about Innocence, Kaija Saariaho’s opera about a “violent shooting incident, which took place at an international high school.” Nevertheless, I find it hard not to worry about the extent to which accounts of violence can beget further violence, rather than deter such activities.

If the Internet has become a dangerous place, then I fear that there is little more that I can to other than to be vigilant about the dangers. I suppose that my own efforts are guided by the immortal words of the architect Frank Lloyd Wright: “There is nothing more uncommon than common sense.” As a writer, I have no problems being guided by common sense; but none of us that put our efforts into writing can second-guess the reactions of our readers.

Volti Begins 46th Season with Digital Electronics

Last night at the Noe Valley Ministry, Volti launched its 46th season with a program entitled Electronics & New Music. Composer-in-Residence Mark Winges presided over electronic gear most (all?) of which was digital. The program began with the world premiere performance of “Becoming Within” by Anne Hege. The Volti vocalists also manipulated a Rope Instrument designed by Hege, which seemed involve laptop technology and apparently some level of supervision from Winges’ facilities. The result was an integration of vocalization and choreography for which viewing was as important as listening.

A more analog approach to electronics figured in Angélica Negrón’s FONO, a four-movement suite with each movement having a lexeme for a title. In many ways this struck me as “middle ground” between more traditional vocalization and sonorities based on those lexemes identified by the movement titles. Somewhat in the spirit of serial music, it also struck me that permutation contributed to Negrón’s approach to composition. While all of this may sound abstract, there was no shortage of expressiveness in Volti’s performance.

“Becoming Within” was commissioned by Volti, but the program featured two other world premieres. The second half began with Victoria Fraser’s “Lux Aeterna.” This struck me as a reflection on the relationship between light and time, particularly since the vocalists performed against a ticking media track. The overall structure involved a bit of playing around with mathematics, but I found the overall flow of the sonorities to rise above any structural details.

Set design by Josef Hoffman showing Yggdrasil in the first act of Die Walküre (photograph by Viktor Angerer, from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

The other introductory offering was actually a “world premiere preview.” Winges is currently working on s multi-movement composition inspired by Norse mythology entitled Guardians of Yggdrasil. Yggdrasil is a sacred tree in Norse mythology. It is the one that holds the sword that Siegmund appropriates at the end of the first act of Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre. That may establish the context for the title of the first movement, “Yggdrasil, Held,” which has no verbal text for the choral performance. There was also a preview performance of Winges’ third movement, “Wanting More” (which may describe the rest of us waiting for him to complete his composition).

In the context of the entire evening, I was struck by the fact that the earliest work on the program was composed in 2001. This was Kaija Saariaho’s “four seasons” cycle, entitled Tag des Jahrs. These were settings of late poems by Friedrich Hölderlin, which he published under the pen name Scardanelli. The chorus performed with electronic accompaniment, including taped recordings of the human voice and natural surroundings.

From a personal point of view, I felt a bit overwhelmed by the prodigious diversity of approaches to choral performance in this program; but I was definitely impressed that there was never a dull moment.

Salonen and SFS on Deutsche Grammophon

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

The end of last month saw an album release that involved a series of “firsts.” Unless I am mistaken, it was the first time that Deutsche Grammophon released a recording of a performance by the San Francisco Symphony (SFS). It was also the first recording of SFS conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. Finally, the content itself was taken from the first SFS performances in Davies Symphony Hall of Kaija Saariaho’s two-act opera Adriana Mater. Saariaho had died the week before those performances took place. I do not know whether or not this the first time that Amazon created a Web page for a full-length opera only for digital download. Sadly, that download does not include a libretto; but Saariaho’s Web site includes a Web page with hyperlinks for both the libretto and background material.

Some readers may recall that I documented the opening night performance in Davies. It was one of those ill-fated partnerships of Salonen with Peter Sellars. Sellars used the pre-concert talk to describe the overall plot, which involved a generous share of maudlin acting chops. Nevertheless, that was pretty much all the acting that took place, since the performance by the vocalists involved little more than a lot of coming and going.

When I wrote my account, I refrained from declaring this to be the worst production of the SFS season. That was only because this was not the final production! Now I can definitely declare it to be the nadir. There was nothing in the narrative to establish and maintain attention, and the music had nothing to offer to improve those circumstances. Indeed, I felt that the participating vocalists did so little to establish their respective characters that it would be almost an affront to identify them by name. (At least one of them can be credited with far better qualities in previous performances with SFS.)

There is a Zen proverb that states that, if you find something boring, you should do it again. If it is still boring, you should continue to repeat. After a while, what was originally boring will gradually become interesting! In that spirit, I took the opportunity to listen to this recording several times. It has yet to strike me as interesting.

Four LCCE Players Visit SF Public Library

Early yesterday evening, as part of its Workshops & Education program, the Main branch of the San Francisco Public Library hosted a visit by four of the members of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble (LCCE). They presented a one-hour program entitled Deep Ecology and Deep Listening. This began with a piano trio performance of “Tree/Peace” by Pauline Oliveros, played by violinist Anna Presler, Leighton Fong on cello, and pianist Allegra Chapman. Only one other selection involved more than one performer, Amy Beach’s “Romance,” which was scored for violin and piano.

Hildegard of Bingen with nuns, possibly leading them in chant (source unknown, public domain, from a Wikimedia Commons Web page)

Stacey Pelinka delivered two solo flute performances, which were as engaging as they were contrasting. The first of these was an instrumental account of the monodic chant of Hildegard of Bingen: “O viridissima virga, Ave.” The absence of voice detracted from the rich semantics of the text, but Pelinka’s account of the vocal line was both compelling and engaging. This contrasted sharply with her account of “Ainava ar putniem” (landscape with bird), composed by Pēteris Vasks, a bold effort to capture natural sounds through a solo instrument. This was preceded by another recent European selection, “Nocturne,” composed for solo violin by Kaija Saariaho in 1994. The solo piano offering was “Ice Calf” by Monica Chew, who is currently based in Oakland.

Whether or not this program reflected ecological connotations (or denotations) was left as an exercise for the listener. Personally, I was more inclined to reflect on the music, rather than the titles. I was particularly struck by the sensitivity of the contemporary composers’ efforts to explore diversities of sonorities, and I was impressed by how the LCCE players rose to the challenges of those sonorities. Taken as a whole, this was an hour well spent venturing into unfamiliar territories.

SFPL to Host Free LCCE Concert

The LCCE musicians that will perform at SFPL: Allegra Chapman (piano), Stacey Pelinka (flute), Leighton Fong (cello), and Anna Presler (violin) (photographs by Miles Caliboso and Bonnie Rae Mills, from the SFPL event page for the concert being discussed)

At the end of this month, the San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) will host a performance by members of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble (LCCE) as part of their Workshops & Education program. The Main branch of the Library, which is located in the Civic Center, a short walk from City Hall, will present a concert entitled Deep Ecology and Deep Listening. Each of the four selections on the program will involve the exploration of innovative sonorities, conceived to reflect different aspects of the natural world.

The program will begin with “Tree/Peace,” which Pauline Oliveros composed for violin, cello, and piano, making it one of her most conventional approaches to instrumentation. This will be followed by the solo piano composition “Ice Calf” by Monica Chew, who is currently based in Oakland. While Oliveros was one of the most adventurous composers of the last century, “Ice Calf” was given its first performance on June 26, 2021. The program will then lapse back into the twentieth century with a solo violin performance of “Nocturne,’ composed by Kaija Saariaho in 1994. The final work on the program will be “Ainava ar putniem” (landscape with birds), written for solo flute by Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks (who happens to be my senior by only about three months).

SFPL has created a Web page for this event. It will begin at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, July 31. The entire program will be performed without intermission and is expected to last for 45 minutes. SFPL does not charge for admission to any of its facilities or events (of course).

Further Reflections on Saariaho’s Final Opera

Yesterday afternoon I returned to the War Memorial Opera House for a second encounter with a performance by the San Francisco Opera (SFO) of Innocence, Kaija Saariaho’s sixth and final opera. On my first encounter, Orchestra seating provided an excellent account of the rich complexity taking place on stage. However, my subscription ticket also affords an equally excellent view of the orchestra pit, which turned out to be very informative.

The fact is that, for a relatively brief opera (about 105 minutes), Innocence begins with a moderately lengthy overture, which makes full use of the instrumental resources. This includes a large percussion sections, divided between the right and left extremes of the orchestra pit, framing a rich collection of strings, winds, and brass. Listening to that orchestra became a visual journey to discover how different combinations of instruments were deployed, all in the interest of establishing the performances that would take place by both the vocal soloists and the choral resources after the rising of the curtain. All of those resources were meticulously managed by conductor Clément Mao-Takacs, beginning with the opening gesture of that overture.

Soprano Vilma Jää as one of the high school students with soprano Lucy Shelton as the teacher (left) and Rowan Kievits as another student (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO)

After the overture concluded, I was back on familiar territory. The basic time-line of the plot is fragmented in such a way that each episode accounts for an event that has both predecessors and successors. Central to that time-line is a violent shooting incident, which took place at an international high school. The event justified the creation of a libretto developed by dramaturg Aleksi Barrière in which Finnish (Saariaho’s own language) is interleaved with English, Czech, Romanian, French, Swedish, German, Spanish, and Greek, presumably all spoken by different students at the international school where the shooting took place. An all-English account was projected above the stage, while on both the right and left of the stage, there were projections of the words actually being sung. This approach enriched the context of the school in which the shooting took place, and those in the audience could appreciate the diversity of the students when they “spoke” in their own respective languages.

The narrative of the opera itself unfolds through the disclosure of the events that take place before and after that shooting. The “after” events deal with how the family of the shooter moved on, and the opera begins with the reception for the wedding of the family’s younger brother. As might guessed, in such a celebratory event, denial of the past dominated. However, much of the drama hinges on how the caterer is just as connected to the school shooting as were the groom and his parents. On the other hand, the “before” events are only disclosed towards the very end of the opera, throwing an entirely new light of the viewer’s perspective of just about all the members of the cast.

Between the polyglot libretto and the meticulous reordering of the time-line, Innocence is an impressively sophisticated undertaking. Nevertheless, the staging by Simon Stone (making his SFO debut) and the direction here in San Francisco by Louise Bakker (also an SFO debut) never confounded the audience with too-much or too-obscure. The clarity of the overall time-line emerged through the interplay of the individual episodes. One might almost say that this is a narrative that does not reveal itself until the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle is put in place, but the unfolding of the episodes themselves never bogs down the attentive viewer in confusion.

In my earlier article, I discussed the individual members of the cast. On this second encounter I found myself more wrapped up in Saariaho’s music. Having already familiarized myself with the diversity of personalities,  I could focus on how the music disclosed the events they experienced. Of course all operas are products of the interplay between narrative and music. In this case, however, the narrative was so sophisticated that I came away highly impressed by how effectively the music guided me through its many twists and turns, enhancing the clarity of the experience, rather than merely accompanying it.

Saariaho’s Final Opera in Space and Time

Last night in the War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco Opera presented the first of six performances of Kaija Saariaho’s sixth and final opera, Innocence, structured in five acts performed without any interruptions. This was also the first time the opera was performed in the United States, having received its world premiere during the Aix-en-Provence Festival in July of 2021. Over the course of her career, Saariaho’s compositions explored a diversity of rich sonorities from both acoustic and electronic sources. These made for engaging listening experiences, so her move into the narrative foundations of opera made for a radical shift in attention. The good news is that the shift also introduced her to new colleagues and partnerships that prospered as she explored the domain of opera as inventively as she had developed her instrumental chops.

Chloe Lamford’s set for Innocence (photograph by Jean-Louis Fernandez, courtesy of SFO)

When I wrote my preview article for this opera about a month ago, I included the above photograph. Little did I realize how much it would disclose about the nature of the opera itself. The lower-left corner shows a room that provides the reception space for a party following a wedding ceremony. To the right is the kitchen providing the food for that ceremony. The upper level is occupied primarily by the classroom of an international high school, where a shooting had taken place ten years earlier. The remaining segment is taken from the home of the groom’s family.

However, it is no mere segment. This entire set was situated on a rotating platform, which is in motion for pretty much the entirety of the 105-minute performance. This allows for spaces, such as that upper-right segment, to reveal more of themselves, while also introducing other spaces that advance the overall narrative. That narrative involves the interleaving of the past circumstances of the groom’s family with the present day context of the relationship between groom and bride. Indeed, it is the complexity of that interleaving that guides the narrative line, which involves a plot of so many surprises that further details would spoil the experience of viewing the opera.

Rather, it would be more appropriate simply to account for the basic foundations. Of greatest interest is the polylingual libretto of texts in English, Czech, Romanian, French, Swedish, German, Spanish, and Greek, as well as Finnish, developed by dramaturg Aleksi Barrière. Above the stage, an all-English version of this libretto was projected. However, on both the right and left of the stage, there were projections of the words actually being sung, providing a reflection on the characters singing them.

In the orchestra pit Clément Mao-Takacs led a seriously large instrumental ensemble. Unless I am mistaken, this consisted entirely of acoustic instruments. However, I was particularly impressed by the abundance of percussion instruments occupying both the right-hand and left-hand extremes of the pit. In spite of that abundance, however, Mao-Takacs always knew how to strike just the right balance between all those instrumental resources and the vocalists on stage.

Almost all of the vocalists were making their respective SFO debuts. The only exceptions were mezzo Ruxandra Donose as the waitress at the wedding reception, baritone Rod Gilfry as the groom’s father, and bass Kristinn Sigmundsson as the Priest. From a narrative point of view, the key figure was the bride (soprano Lilian Farahani), who gradually learns of the past of the man she has just married (tenor Miles Mykkanen). The other significant figure was soprano Lucy Shelton as one of the teachers at the school at the time of the shooting. The relationships among these characters were developed through staging by Simon Stone (another SFO debut), directed in this production by Louise Bakker (also an SFO debut); and the skill behind that development is reason enough for me to hold off on any further details (which might lead to spoilers)!

Simon Rattle in Berlin: 20th Century Britain

Simon Rattle conducting the Berlin Philharmonic (photograph by Monika Rittershaus, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license, from Wikimedia Commons)

Given that Simon Rattle was born in Liverpool, one might have expected that, even during his tenure with the Berlin Philharmonic, he would have given more attention to “England's green and pleasant land” than is evident in the anthology of his recordings with that ensemble. The only British composer to be allocated an entire CD is Benjamin Britten. Nevertheless, where my own interests are concerned, that CD is definitely a good one. It accounts for the three major song cycles with instrumental accompaniment, the Opus 18 Les Illuminations, the Opus 31 Serenade, and the Opus 60 Nocturne. All of these are sung by tenor Ian Bostridge, and only horn player Radek Baborák is given credit on the CD sleeve for his contribution to Opus 31. At least some readers probably know that I am already familiar with the recordings that Britten himself made of all three of these composition; but I could still appreciate the “contemporary take” on this music while listening to Bostridge performing with Rattle.

The only other major work to be recorded was Gustav Holst’s Opus 32 suite, The Planets. I tend to blow hot and cold when I encounter this music in performance, but Rattle certainly gives the overall flow of the suite a creditable account. However, the recording is given a “++” treatment, which, as far as I am concerned, lives up to the old joke about filling a well-needed gap.

The first track to follow The Planets adds the “questionable one” beyond Neptune. “Pluto, the Renewer” was composed by Colin Mathews and dedicated to the memory of Imogen Holst. This is followed by Kaija Saariaho’s “Asteroid 4179: Toutatis,” Matthias Pintscher’s “towards Osiris,” and Mark-Anthony Turnage’s “Ceres.” (Yes, I know that Pintscher is German; but, since he seems to be big on astronomy, I can understand why he was included on the album! Also, since I have been interested in Saariaho’s music for pretty much as long as I have been at this writing gig, I cannot complain about her presence, even if she is not British!) “Ceres” is followed by the darker “Komarov’s Fall,” composed by Brett Dean and named after Vladimir Komarov, the Soviet cosmonaut, who was the first human to die in a space flight. All but the first of these “post-Planets” compositions were commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic.

That leaves only one remaining track, Thomas Adès’ “Tevot,” which is about twenty minutes in duration. Early in his tenure with the San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas seemed to show an interest in Adès’ music. His performances never really persuaded me to share that interest, nor did the television broadcast of The Exterminating Angel from the Metropolitan Opera. So it did not surprise me that “Tevot” left me (in the immortal words of Dorothy Fields for Jerome Kern’s “A Fine Romance” song) “as cold as yesterday’s mashed potatoes!”

SFO: The Second Spring Opera

The second of the three programs to be presented by San Francisco Opera (SFO) during its spring season will be the United States premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s sixth and final opera, Innocence. SFO co-commissioned this work in conjunction with the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, where it received its world premiere on July 3, 2021, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Finnish National Opera and Ballet, and the Dutch National Opera. The opera is structured in five acts with no intermissions, and the overall duration is about 105 minutes.

A set design by Chloe Lamford, which accommodates the unfolding of multiple narratives in Innocence (photograph by Jean-Louis Fernandez, courtesy of SFO)

The original libretto was written in Finnish by Sofi Oksanen. However, when dramaturg Aleksi Barrière began in 2013 to develop the production of the world premiere, he developed a polylingual libretto, which included texts in English, Czech, Romanian, French, Swedish, German, Spanish, and Greek, as well as Finnish. The narrative is one of multiple stories, beginning with a wedding taking place at the beginning of this century, which is then intertwined with an account of a school shooting, which took place ten years earlier. What emerges is an exploration of questions of innocence (hence the title of the opera) and guilt in a context of painful truths.

Staging was directed by Simon Stone, whose work will be presented by SFO for the first time. The production here will be directed by Louise Bakker, who will also be making her SFO debut. Conductor Clément Mao-Takacs will also be making his SFO debut. The bride (Stela) and bridegroom (Tuomas) at the wedding will be sung by soprano Lilian Farahani (another SFO debut) and tenor Miles Mykkanen, making his role debut as well as his SFO debut. The character that links present and past at the wedding is the waitress Tereza, whole role will be sung by mezzo Ruxandra Donose, also making her role debut.

As has already been observed, this production will be given five performances at 7:30 p.m. on June 1, 7, 12, 18, and 21, and 2 p.m. on June 16. The performances will take place in the War Memorial Opera House at 301 Van Ness Avenue on the northwest corner of Van Ness Avenue and Grove Street (across MTT Way from Davies Symphony Hall). Ticket prices range from $26 to $426, and a single Web page has been created for purchasing tickets for all of the above dates and times. Tickets may also be purchased at the Box Office in the outer lobby of the Opera House or by calling 415-865-2000. The Box Office is open for ticket sales Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Web page also includes a hyperlink to an Opera Previews Web site and a second Web page with information about pre-performance talks.

LCCE to Present First SFIAF 2024 Concert

LCCE musicians Michel Taddei, Stacey Pelinka, and Phyllis Kamrin (from the SFIAF Web page for this program)

Following an opening reception on April 28, performances for this year’s San Francisco International Arts Festival (SFIAF) will get under way on Wednesday, May 1, and will run through Sunday, May 12. Not wasting any time, the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble (LCCE) will present the first concert event of the Festival. Working with Artistic Director Matilda Hofman, three of the instrumentalists of the ensemble have joined forces to present an eclectic program entitled Borealis. Those performers will be violist Phyllis Kamrin, Michel Taddei on double bass, and flutist Stacey Pelinka. Full program details have not yet been provided; but, on the basis of the information I have been able to gather, I can state with some certainty that one of the selections will be a solo performance by Taddei of Tom Johnson’s “Failing, A Very Difficult Piece For Solo String Bass.” The program will also include compositions by Kaija Saariaho, Erwin Schulhoff, and Chelsea Komschlies.

There will be no charge for admission to this recital. The performance will begin at 6 p.m. on Thursday, May 2. There will be no intermission, and the duration is expected to be about 50 minutes. The venue will be El Rio, which is located in the Mission at 3158 Mission Street. An RSVP is highly recommended, and tickets may reserved through the Festival event page for this recital. SFIAF has created a Web page to account for all of the music events; but readers should be cautioned that the order of the list is alphabetical, rather than chronological!

Earplay Launches 2024 Season at Old First

Last night Earplay returned to Old First Presbyterian Church to launch this year’s season under the auspices of Old First Concerts. Unfortunately, the West Coast premiere of Yotam Haber’s “Estro Poetico—Armonico II,” the major work on the program, had to be cancelled due to the illness of conductor Mary Chun. The remainder of the program consisted of one piano solo, one duo, and two trios.

The solo pianist was Guest Artist Keisuke Nakagoshi, who began the evening with Inés Thiebaut’s “panta rhei.” His performance involved engaging with electronics. Thiebaut conceived that engagement as symbiotic, describing in her program note how piano and electronics “both need each other throughout, starting and finishing each other’s gestures and colors.” Rhei is the Ancient Greek word for “flow;” and that sense of flow was articulated clearly by Nakagoshi, making for an engaging account of contrasting sonorities.

The duo performance also featured a Guest Artist, clarinetist Matt Ingalls (known to many of us for his leadership of sfSound). He was joined by violist Ellen Ruth Rose in the world premiere performance of Miguel Chuaqui’s “Ad Hoc,” composed on an Earplay commission. The title reflected the composer’s impressions of his composition teacher Andrew Imbrie; and, to at least some extent, the music captured the spontaneous interplay of contrasting sonorities.

Both of the trios involved performances by violinist Terrie Baune and cellist Thalia Moore. For the West Coast premiere of Suzanne Sorkin’s “String Trio in Two Movements,” they were joined by Rose. Like “Ad Hoc,” this trio seemed to be driven by the interplay of contrasting sonorities and, to some extent, rhythms. It also seemed as if the composer had a conceived a structure in which lyricism would serve as the punch line.

The other trio was Kaija Saariaho’s “Light and Matter,” which inspired the title of the entire program, The Poetry of Physics. This was a piano trio, rather than a string trio, and Nakagoshi returned as pianist. The motivation behind the title was captured in a brief paragraph that the composer wrote by way of introduction:

I wrote this piece in New York, while watching from my window the changing light and colors of Morningside Park. Besides providing me with the name for the piece, perhaps that continuous transformation of light on the glinting leaves and the immobile trunks of the solid trees became the inspiration for the musical materials in this piece.

I must confess that it has been a while since my last encounter with Saariaho’s music, but this performance made for a welcome “return visit.”

In spite of last night’s obligatory “change in plans,” Earplay definitely brought its new season off to a good start.

Voices of Silicon Valley to Perform Pamela Z

Poster design for the program being discussed (from the Eventbrite Web page)

Voices of Silicon Valley is a vocal ensemble that combines singing with technology. The group was founded in 2014 and is led by American composer, conductor, and organist Cyril Deaconoff (originally from Russia). Their next program will perform “Pen Pal,” composed by Pamela Z, whose work has consistently and imaginatively explored the synthesis of vocalization and technology. Taken as a whole, the program will serve as a memorial for muralist Yolanda Lopez, who died in 2021. The program will also include a performance of Kaija Saariaho’s “Nuit, Adieux,” as well as music by Flannery Cunningham. The title of the concert will be Visions of Guadalupe.

The San Francisco performance of this program will be presented at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, which is located between Potrero Hill and Mission Bay at 2868 Mission Street. The concert will begin at 6 p.m. on this coming Sunday, October 22. Doors will open at 5 p.m., and a bar will be selling drinks and refreshments. The performance itself will run roughly one hour. General admission for open seating will be $30 with a $15 rate for students and seniors. Tickets may be purchased online through an Eventbrite Web page.

Chapel of the Chimes: Revisiting Familiar Faces

Once again a friend was kind enough to transport me to the Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland for the annual celebration of the summer solstice with the Garden of Memory concert. As was the case last year, this was a matter of navigating a very large space to check out different performances taking place in different areas. This year I had the presence of mind to print out the map of entire Chapel space indicating which performances would take place at which venues. It turned out that, for the most part, I revisited the performers I had encountered last year with one notable addition.

This year the most memorable performance I experienced came from my return to the space where Paul Dresher and Joel Davel were playing. As was the case last year, Davel played his Marimba Lumina; and Dresher played his Hurdy Grande. This is a massive instrument with a rotating wheel that strokes a single string, and the sound is probably sustained through electronics.

In all likelihood the performance was improvised. However, there was an almost fierce quality to the energy with which Dresher approached his instrument. The result was a wide diversity of thematic episodes (at least one of which seemed to be a waltz) with Dresher steering the melodic line while Davel provided continuo, sometimes departing from his Marimba Lumina controller to join Dresher at the Marimba Lumina. (The two played the instrument face-to-face.) A few of the audience members took this as an occasion to respond to improvised music with improvised dance; but the intricate interleaving of thematic passages kept me fixed in my seat, allowing mind to harvest as much as it could from what ear was providing.

In addition to bringing my map, I also brought my press release, which, for the most part, accounted for the music that Sarah Cahill played in her solo recital. She began with “Kotekan,” one of the movements from Vivian Fung’s suite Glimpses. The composer was present for the occasion and made a few introductory remarks. The movement title refers to a genre of Balinese gamelan music, a genre that has been familiar to me for many decades, reinforced by a trip to Bali that my wife and I made while we were living in Singapore. Listening to that movement left me wondering what Fung’s other “glimpses” were.

Cahill followed “Kotekan” with a solo piano composition by Kaija Saariaho, serving as a memorial for the composer’s death at the beginning of this month. Cahill’s performance of “Ballade” marked my first encounter with any of Saariaho’s piano music. She composed this short piece in 2005 for Emanuel Ax, but I never heard him play it on any of his visits to San Francisco. Cahill then concluded her set with music that had been composed for memorial purposes. Alvin Curran’s “for Cornelius” was composed in 1982 after Cornelius Cardew died by being hit by a car while crossing the street. Cardew was responsible for many adventurous (sometimes mind-boggling) approaches to composition; and he is the namesake for the Cornelius Cardew Choir, which gave an outdoor performance yesterday.

I also checked out the room in which percussionist Andy Meyerson was playing, again with Guillermo Galindo but without his Living Earth Show colleague Travis Andrews. The performances involved costumes and a decidedly bizarre mask. Once again Galindo was in charge of the electronics. As I recall, at least one wind instrument was involved and Meyerson’s work had less to do with “standard” percussion and more with seeking out sources for percussive sounds.

Finally, I had a brief encounter with guitarist Giacomo Fiore. I am pretty sure that his instrument had been both made and tuned for just intonation. He was playing with electronic enhancements that seemed to have provided for further explorations in the the harmonic series of natural overtones. I probably should have spent more time following his work, but I had to find my way back to the Chimes Chapel in time for Cahill’s performance. So it goes when one has to deal with such a feast of listening opportunities.

Salonen and Sellars Bring Opera to Davies

Last night in Davies Symphony Hall, the San Francisco Symphony presented the first of its three performances of Adriana Mater, the second opera composed by Kaija Saariaho, who died one week ago today at the age of 70. The opera is structured in two acts, which together present seven tableaux, three in the first act and four in the second. In the flow of the narrative, eighteen years elapse between the two acts.

Saariaho’s first opera, L’Amour de loin (love from afar) was first performed by the Metropolitan Opera in December of 2016, and that production was subsequently streamed and saved for broadcast on Public Television. The French libretto by Amin Maalouf was relatively minimal in content, but the overall flow of the telecast was engaging from beginning to end. He also provided the libretto, again in French, for Adriana Mater.

 

The four characters in Adriana Mater: Yonas (Nicholas Phan), Adriana (Fleur Barron), Refka (Axelle Fanyo), and Tsargo (Christopher Purves) (photograph by Brittany Hosea-Small, courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony)

There is a bitter irony to the opera’s title. The plot, which “takes place in a country at war” (quoted in an essay by Saariaho in the program book), revolves entirely around a woman named Adriana (sung last night by mezzo Fleur Barron). The irony comes from the fact she is raped by the soldier Tsargo (baritone Christopher Purves) in the first act, while the second act involves her coming to terms with the result of that rape, her son Yonas (tenor Nicholas Phan). There is only one other character in the narrative, Adriana’s sister Refka (soprano Axelle Fanyo).

Staging was directed by Peter Sellars, and Esa-Pekka Salonen conducted. Both of them had presented the world premiere in Paris in April of 2006. Last night was the first SFS performance. Sellars gave the pre-concert talk, which amounted to an account of the overall plot. It is probably fair to say that he brought more acting chops to that account than were evident during the performance itself, which basically involved a lot of coming and going by the four characters between two platforms that had been erected on the Davies stage.

That imbalance of priorities is typical of a Sellars production. He tends to provoke solely for the sake of provoking, and his overloaded staging for Adriana Mater tended to overwhelm the many subtleties of person-to-person engagement that emerge during the progression of Maalouf’s plot structure. I am not quite sure why his work has been embraced by so many opera companies (including the San Francisco Opera). My guess is that he feels that surface-structure provocations will be given better reception than more cerebral approaches to narrative. Personally, I felt that last night he had pulled almost all of his rabbits out of the hat by the end of the first act and never seemed to come to terms with the dark depths of narrative that need to be negotiated during the second act.

Peter Sellars to Stage Saariaho Opera for SFS

Clockwise from upper left: Esa-Pekka Salonen, Nicholas Phan, Axelle Fanyo, Christopher Purves, Fleur Barron, and Peter Sellars (from the SFS event page for the program being discussed)

Next month will see the second collaboration of stage director Peter Sellars with the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) and its Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen. Their four-year partnership began almost a year ago when Sellars staged an SFS program of Igor Stravinsky’s Oedipus rex and “Symphony of Psalms.” The second offering in that partnership will be a staged production of Kaija Saariaho’s one-act opera “Adriana Mater.” This followed her more elaborate first opera, the three-act L’Amour de loin (love from afar), which was given a thoroughly engaging account by the PBS series of HD video recordings of performances by the Metropolitan Opera.

“Adriana Mater” was given its world premiere (directed by Sellars) at the Opéra Bastille on April 3, 2006. Seventeen years later it could not be more relevant to current times. Its Wikipedia page provides the following synopsis:

The opera is set in the present day, in a crisis zone in an unnamed country. The story reflects on motherhood. Adriana, her son Yonas and her sister Refka are caught in the midst of civil war. Years ago, Tsargo, a soldier from their village, raped the young Adriana, and Yonas was born despite Refka's efforts to prevent her sister having the child. Adriana now anxiously watches Yonas as he grows into a man, and wonders whether he will grow up to be as violent as his father or gentler like his mother. 

In next month’s performance the title role will be sung by mezzo Fleur Barron, and Refka will be sung by soprano Axelle Fanyo, both of whom will be making their debuts in the SFS Orchestral Series. The two male roles will be taken by tenor Nicholas Phan (Yonas) and baritone Christopher Purves (Tsargo). The SFS Chorus will also perform, and Salonen will conduct.

This program will be given three performances at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 8, and Saturday, June 10, and at 2 p.m. on Sunday, June 11. A single Web page has been created with hyperlinks for purchasing tickets for each of those dates. Ticket prices range from $35 to $165 and may also be purchased by calling the SFS Box Office at 415-864-6000. (There will be no seating in the Terraces.)