Another “Special Relationship” Bites the Dust!

When I was studying American history in high school, I learned about how the transatlantic conflicts that led to the American Revolution and the War of 1812 eventually gave way to a “special relationship” between the United States and the United Kingdom. However, that epithet has had to endure any number of strains, most of which tend to originate on our side of the pond. For example, about ten years ago, Geoffrey Wheatcroft wrote an article for The New York Review of Books that worked very hard at avoiding the phrase “unholy alliance” in the relationship between President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair.

This phrase also comes to mind when I think about how our country deals with the state of Israel. I had not given this country much thought (regardless of my Jewish upbringing) until I found that the only job I could get after receiving my doctoral degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was at the Technion (which was also known at the “Israel Institute of Technology”). The good news was that this provided an excellent “proving ground” for honing the skills for teaching computer science for undergraduates, graduate students, and thesis candidates.

I then returned to the United States to teach computer science at the University of Pennsylvania; and that was probably where I first encountered the “special relationship” epithet about the relationship between Israel and America. I have to confess that none of this had much to do with any Jewish background. Indeed, the more I read the news, the more I found myself calling Israelis “God’s Chosen People consistently trying to convince God that he made the wrong choice!” This was an insight that took root and gradually grew over the course of the last quarter of the last century.

Now the first quarter of the new century has elapsed, and the “special relationship” seems to have lost its “speciality.” This was affirmed in the headline of an Opinion article for Al Jazeera by journalist Said Arikat, “America’s decades-old bipartisan consensus on Israel has been shattered.” The opening paragraph deserves to be quoted in full:

Last week, more than 100 House Democrats voted to cut off military aid to Israel. Though the amendment failed because some Democrats and almost all Republicans voted against it, it exposed something far more significant than the legislative outcome: The bipartisan consensus that shielded Israel from meaningful congressional scrutiny for generations is beginning to fracture.

I suppose that there are cynics that would argue that, where international diplomacy is concerned, nothing is “special” any more. Personally, I think it is more a matter of trying to take a “global view” without interference from “self interest.” To be fair, this is no easy matter, particularly when it would be fair to say that there is considerable dissatisfaction over the state of governance in our own country.

That said, I wonder if we should just focus on matters other than governance. Voltaire understood this in his “punch line” for Candide. All that matters is that we should “cultivate our own gardens.” Hopefully, we can manage that task without interference from “higher powers,” governmental or otherwise!

Those Who Ignore Santayana

My guess is that just about any reader willing to pay attention to the texts on this site is well acquainted with the aphorism, “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.” This is one of those examples of the text being more familiar than the source, the source being the philosopher George Santayana, whom I first encountered when writing a high school term paper about Bertrand Russell. This morning my memory was triggered while I was browsing through the Al Jazeera Web site and found a NewsFeed Web page with the headline “Schumer slams Trump over Iran war.” This is a video summarized by a single sentence:

‘A recipe for utter disaster.’ Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has slammed President Donald Trump’s handling of the war on Iran, accusing him of repeating past mistakes without a clear strategy.

Mind you, expertise in history is not necessarily a prerequisite for holding any political office, particularly one selected by the electoral process; but these days, whether I am reading about the news or watching accounts on television, I keep feeling that I have already “seen the movie” and know that the ending is seldom a happy one.

Communism?

If I am not mistaken, the first time I encountered the word “communism” in this century was when Donald Trump gave his recent speech at Mount Rushmore. [added 7/9, 7:40 a.m.: It turns out this this was just the tip of an iceberg. This morning I encountered a NewsFeed article for Al Jazeera written by Soraya Lennie. The text for this article states, “Donald Trump has denounced communism more than 80 times in the past two weeks.”] I learned this through an Analysis article in The Guardian, which I encountered this morning. If anything, I find it ironic that Russia’s Vladimir Putin carries the same title as Donald Trump: President! This is not to say that governance in Russia is the same as it is here in the United States, but it serves as a reminder that we need to be careful about the words we choose and the semantics behind those words. Indeed, the very concept of diplomacy usually comes down to a battle of words and disagreements over semantics.

Georges Clemenceau (from his goodreads Web page)

This all reflects on the best known quotation of Georges Clemenceau from the last century: “War is too important to be left to the generals.” One might just as well substitute “heads of state” for “generals.” Disagreements can only be resolved through individuals with a solid command on knowing what they are talking about. Sadly, those individuals are few and far between. They are rarely heads of state and are more likely to serve as advisors. Nevertheless, disagreements can only be resolved through knowledge; and the real problem is finding the right individuals to enable such resolutions.

In that context, I have to confess that I cannot name any names, because, to be perfectly frank, I cannot think of any as I write this!

New Century Chamber Orchestra: 2026/27

As was the case last year, the 2026/27 season of the New Century Chamber Orchestra (NCCO) and its Music Director and Concertmaster Daniel Hope will begin this coming November. This season there will be five concerts performed in San Francisco at three different venues. Dates, times, and location specifics are as follows:

Saturday, November 7, 7:30 p.m., Herbst Theatre: Following up on their last collaboration with NCCO, the Marcus Roberts Trio will return for performances of music by Duke Ellington and George Gershwin in a performance entitled GROOVE. Roberts leads the trio on piano, joined by drummer Jason Marsalis and Rodney Jordan on bass. They will join NCCO for a suite of Ellington tunes. The program will also include a string ensemble performance of “Entr’acte,” originally composed for string quartet by Caroline Shaw. The other contributing composer will be Rhiannon Giddens with her “At the Purchaser’s Option.” For those that do not already know, Herbst is in the Civic Center on the ground floor of the Veterans Building, across the street from City Hall at 401 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of McAllister Street.

Saturday, December 12, 2 p.m., Taube Atrium Theatre: Violinist Benjamin Beilman will be the visiting soloist. He will perform the arrangement for violin and string orchestra of Eugène Ysaÿe’s “Rêve d’enfant” and Jean Sibelius’ Opus 117, a suite for violin and string orchestra. The program will begin with Olli Mustonen’s second nonet, which he completed in 2000. The final work on the program will be the oldest: Arnold Schoenberg’s Opus 4 “Verklärte Nacht,” which he originally composed as a string sextet. The venue is located on the top floor of the Veterans Building.

Saturday, January 30, 7:30 p.m., Herbst Theatre: Pianist Lara Downes will join the ensemble for the world premiere of “Beauty Has No Borders,” just composed by Clarice Assad. The earliest work on the program will be Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 201/186a, his 29th symphony composed in the key of A major. (He was eighteen years old at the time.) The program will conclude with the strings-only music for “Apollo,” the ballet choreographed by George Balanchine in 1928 when he was only 24 years old.

Saturday, April 17, 2 p.m., Presidio Theatre: The soloist will be bandoneonist Omar Massa, performing the world premiere of his double concerto for bandoneon and violin. The entire program will present music from “south of the border.” The most familiar work is likely to be Astor Piazzolla’s suite, The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires. The remaining selection will be “La Calaca,” composed by Gabriela Ortiz in 2021. The venue is in the southwest corner of the Presidio at 99 Moraga Avenue.

Thomas Hampson and Daniel Hope (from the NCCO Web site for the San Francisco Rising concert)

Friday, May 14, and Saturday, May 15, 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, May 16, 2 p.m., Herbst Theatre: The title of this program is San Francisco Rising, and it will be jointly curated by Hope and baritone Thomas Hampson. The program has not yet been finalized, but particular attention will be given to Ernest Bloch. Bloch was Director of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in the 1920s, after which he became Professor Emeritus of Music at the University of California in Berkeley. His compositions will “rub shoulders” with traditional songs from China, Ireland, Mexico, and Africa. Sources will date back to the 1849 California Gold Rush and advance to the 1945 signing of the United Nations Charter (which took place in San Francisco … check out the painting in Herbst).

As of this writing, single tickets do not appear to be on sale. However, there is a Subscriptions Web page which allows for purchases for not only all five concerts but also four, three, and even two concerts. These will all involve 25% discounts from single-ticket purchases, which will probably become available in the coming fall.

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.

Congress Questions Executive Authority (at last)

As I was going through this morning’s news feeds, I found two back-to-back articles from The Guardian (which, hopefully, at least a few readers may know began as the Manchester Guardian) involving efforts of the Legislative Branch of our government to have as much say as the Executive Branch. Mind you, I suspect that the current President of the United States may not be informed about what the Constitution has to say about both of those branches. Fortunately, there are members of the Congress who are better informed about these matters and have decided to push back against some of the President’s latest efforts.

The first of the two articles involved the President considering withdrawal from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The treaty was signed in 1949 to create an alliance that would deter any threat from the Soviet Union and the other Warsaw Pact countries. The second involved providing funds to aid Israel’s defense forces. For the second half of the twentieth century, Israel had reason to be threatened by all of the countries on its borders. (Full disclaimer: My first job after receiving my doctoral degree involved teaching graduate and undergraduate computer science at the Technion, often called, with a nod to the state of Massachusetts, the “Israel Institute of Technology.”)

The focus of the first article is Mitch McConnell, currently Chair of the Senate Rules Committee; and it concerns the fact that the Senate has a NATO observer group, which is chaired jointly by Democrat Jeanne Shaheen and Republican Thom Tillis. Both of them are strong advocates of NATO, strong enough for McConnell to agree with their rejection of the possibility of withdrawal.

The leader in the second article is Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She used social media to release a statement beginning as follows:

The Israeli government is well able to fund the Iron Dome system, which has proven critical to keep innocent civilians safe from rocket attacks and bombardment.

Consistent with my voting record to date, I will not support Congress sending more taxpayer dollars and military aid to a government that consistently ignores international law and U.S. law.

The first page of the first edition of Thomas Paine’s pamphlet The American Crisis (from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

I have to confess that, for the most part, I tend to be skeptical of “social media.” Nevertheless, if The Guardian was willing to accept Ocasio-Cortez’ post on X, I am willing to take the same stand. The fact is that we are now back on a “turf” that Thomas Paine first published in 1776 under the title The American Crisis: “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Our President may be happy enough with the state of his soul, but it looks like there is a rising tide of those disagreeing with him. Since that tide involves Republicans as well as Democrats, I personally think that it is too serious to be ignored!

On the “Ten Best” Fixation

This is the time of the year when many, particularly journalists, like to reflect on what has happened since January 1, 2025. Those reflections often lead to “Ten Best” lists, written to reassure readers that, over the long run, this was a good year after all. The one thing I know about these lists is that, more often than not, they never seem to agree with my personal tastes and values!

It is in this context that I just finished reading an article by G. Allen Johnson in the “Datebook” section of today’s San Francisco Chronicle. The title of the article was “Year’s 10 best movies tackled politics, culture wars.” I shall not enumerate the selections; but it would be fair to say that each of them was more “tackled by” than “tackling.” Put another way, this seems to be a year in which breadth triumphed over depth; and, in the context of yesterday’s news about the Kennedy Center, this is a triumph that is running rampant, if not entirely out of control.

Hermann Göring during cross examination during the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg (official Army photograph by Raymond D’Addario, public domain)

The fact is that my only agreement with Johnson showed up in the “Honorable Mentions” list. That was Nuremberg. I went to see that film with initial skepticism, having watched and enjoyed several viewings of Stanley Kramer’s Judgment at Nuremberg. Nevertheless, I was impressed with the overall narrative flow in Nuremberg, even if Johnson seemed to think that the primary asset was the casting of Russell Crowe in the role of Hermann Göring.

To be fair, mine is the generation born right after the conclusion of World War II. We grew up on action movies reliving episodes from the battles in both Europe and the Pacific. That makes me a little less than 40 years older than James Vanderbilt, who wrote the script for Nuremberg (and also produced the film). Put another way, it is unlikely that Vanderbilt had any “immediate sources” to consult while working on the script. I suspect that the best he could have done would have been to read William L. Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, but a book of over 1200 pages can be pretty daunting!

To be fair to both Vanderbilt and Johnson, however, those of us with memories that reach back into the middle of the last century, will not be around to complain much longer; so, for the present at least, just bear with us!

Center for New Music: September, 2025

The first concert of this month at the Center for New Music was actually reported in yesterday’s Bleeding Edge article. This is the album release concert for bassist Harold Carr, which will take place at 2 p.m. this coming Sunday. This will be the first of five performances scheduled throughout the course of the month. As usual, one of those events 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. This will be followed by another album release concert, a solo guitar recital, and a performance by the Simple Excesses Quartet. As most readers probably know by now, the venue is located at 55 Taylor Street, half a block north of the Golden Gate Theater, which is where Golden Gate Avenue meets Market Street. Each of the below dates is hyperlinked to an event page through which tickets may be purchased as follows:

Sunday, September 7, 2 p.m.: This is the album release concert reported yesterday.

Saturday, September 13, noon: This month’s G|O|D|W|A|F|F|L|E|N|O|I|S|E|P|A|N|C|A|K|E|S will celebrate 25 years of sculpting soundscapes. As usual, this is the monthly opportunity to listen to “bleeding edge” music while enjoying freshly made pancakes. As was the case last month, there will be five sets. One of these will be a solo performance from Kyle Bruckman, who commands a generous share of instruments in the wind family. The remaining sets have the usual “bleeding edge” eccentricities as follows:

• Medicine Cabinet (Sac)
• Voicehandler
• Dominic Cramp
• Lime Eyelid

Also as was the case last month, general admission will be $10 with a $6 rate for C4NM members and students.

Elizabeth A. Baker’s self-portrait (from the biography page on her Web site)

Sunday, September 14, 7:30 p.m.: Flutist Meerenai Shim is based in the South Bay. Her solo recital will be another release concert, this time for the album entitled The Audacity. The most familiar work on the program will probably be Steve Reich’s “Vermont Counterpoint.” There will also be a performance of “Whispers on the Wind,” whose composer prefers to be known as The Honourable Elizabeth A. Baker. Finally, there will be world premiere performances of works by Brent Miller and Janice Misurell-Mitchell.

Saturday, September 20, 8 p.m.: Guitarist Alex Heigl will perform his own original compositions; he will augment the program with “California Gold: Northern California Folk Music from the Thirties,” a collection of recordings and historical images from the Library of Congress. [added 9/22, 10:15 a.m.:

Saturday, September 27, 11 a.m.: The Center will host eight hours of playing horror games. The games available for playing will be Cave Evil, Psycho Raiders, Freakface!!!, Sea Evil, Don't Let The Wolves Eat Our Baby! Given the venue, background music will be provided.  The performing groups will be as follows:

• Headboggle Marsh-Suckled Groutogre
• The Slow Poisoner
• Mas Coad
• Ouroboros Emetic>Prolapses Redeemable Crypt]

Sunday, September 28, 8 p.m.: The repertoire for the Simple Excesses Quartet is described as “a bold blend of classical chamber music, jazz, free jazz, and experimental sound.” Pianist Motoko Honda serves as the composer for the group. Cory Wright plays a diversity of woodwind instruments, and rhythm is provided by drummer Jordan Glenn and Matt Small on bass. 

LSO Live to Release Meyerbeer Opera

This coming Friday, LSO, the “house label” of the London Symphony Orchestra, will release its latest album. Like its most recent release this past February of Leoš Janáček’s opera Káťa Kabanová, the album is a “live” recording of a complete opera performance. This time Mark Elder conducts a complete performance of Giacomo Meyerbeer’s opera Le Prophète, and the recording was made during a performance at the Aix-en-Provence Festival on July 15, 2023. Based on a libretto in French by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps, this is a five-act opera; and the physical recording, currently available for pre-order through an Amazon.com Web page, fills three CDs.

The coronation scene in the fourth act of Le Prophète (engraving published in L'Illustration on April 24, 1849, public domain, from a Wikimedia Commons Web page)

This opera was successful in its day. Meyerbeer was a leading figure at the time, and the opera’s popularity endured into the early twentieth century. Tenor Enrico Caruso sang the leading role of Jean de Leyde when the Metropolitan Opera revived it in 1918. However, by the time I was born in 1946, it was known for little more than the Coronation March, extracted from the second scene of the fourth act.

One might think from the title that this opera is set in Biblical times. It is not. It is set in the sixteenth century in what is now Germany. That leading role is based on John of Leiden, the leader of the Dutch Anabaptist movement. As his Wikipedia page observes, “he became a recognized prophet of a sect which would eventually take over the German town of Münster.” By the end of the opera’s final act, he has been denounced as a false prophet; and (as is often the case in these fictionalized historical narratives) everything goes up in smoke.

Personally, I have my doubts about sitting through a complete performance of this opera. (If it shows up as a San Francisco Opera production, I would give serious thought to wearing a T-shirt saying “I’d rather be watching Götterdämmerung!”) However, once the music is detached from the plot, I am willing to recognize Meyerbeer’s skills as a composer; and tenor John Osborn’s talents in singing the title role should not be overlooked. As a result, I shall probably return to this album, as long as I can listen to the individual acts one at a time!

A Jazzy Reflection on the Civil Rights Movement

Matt Wilson (center) and his colleagues (all correctly identified) on the cover of the album being discussed

One week from today, Palmetto Records will release jazz drummer Matt Wilson’s fourteenth album on which he serves as leader. (This also happens to be the year of Wilson’s 60th birthday.) The title of the album is Good Trouble, and Amazon.com has created a Web page for processing pre-orders. It was conceived to reflect on the march for civil rights that took place at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, 55 years ago. One of the leaders of that march was John Lewis, who would later represent Georgia’s fifth congressional district in the House of Representatives from 1987 until his death on 2020. Lewis had been active long before the Selma march, having been one of the thirteen original Freedom Riders, which had formed in 1961.

The title of the album is also the title of a three-movement suite, which Wilson dedicated to Lewis. The movements of that suite are as follows:

1. RBG: a salute to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, which concludes with the band chanting her name along with the injunction to “honor her plea/serve your community”
2. Walk With the Wind: based on the title of Lewis’ 1998 autobiography, Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement
3. Good Trouble: a lively coda to celebrate Lewis’ impact on civil rights

The album includes seven other tracks, the last of which, “CommUnity Spirit,” has Wilson reflecting on the impact of both Lewis and Ginsberg.

Wilson leads a quintet on Good Trouble. He is joined in the rhythm section by Ben Allison on bass and pianist Dawn Clement, who also provides vocals. The front line is shared by Tia Fuller on alto saxophone and Jeff Lederer, alternating between tenor saxophone and clarinet.

This is clearly an album of good intentions, which are collectively shared by all of the performers. Nevertheless, the journey through all ten of the tracks is an uneven one, the lowest point being Clement’s vocal delivery of John Denver’s “Sunshine on My Shoulders.” (Full disclaimer: I had really hoped that, in the present day, I would have heard the last of John Denver!) Far more satisfying is the group’s account of “Feet Music,” which Ornette Coleman composed and recorded on his In All Languages album. Whether this carries more significance than Clement’s vocal work will be left to the reader to decide!

Opera Parallèle to Conclude Season with Premiere

Next month Opera Parallèle will conclude its 2023–24 season with three performances of the West Coast premiere of Fellow Travelers. Greg Pierce developed the libretto for this opera by turning to the novel by Thomas Mallon with the same title. The music was composed by Gregory Spears. Cincinnati Opera presented the world premiere in 2016. This was followed by performances in New York during the 2018 Prototype Festival. Subsequent performances were presented by the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Minnesota Opera, and the Boston Lyric Opera. Finally, the opera is making its way to the West Coast!

Back when the season was first announced, I cited a Wikipedia page to account for the opera’s title. The “capsule description” of “fellow traveler” is “a person who is intellectually sympathetic to the ideology of a political organization, and who co-operates in the organization's politics, without being a formal member of that organization.” In this case the ideology was Communism; and the “fellow travelers” were those sympathetic to the ideology without becoming “card-carrying members” of the Communist Party. Many of those sympathizers were accused of homosexuality, resulting in an anti-Communist movement known as the “Lavender Scare.”

Guest Conductor Jaymes Kirksey (from the Opera Parallèle Web page for Fellow Travelers)

Jaymes Kirksey will be Guest Conductor, leading the seventeen-piece Opera Parallèle Orchestra. Creative Director Brian Staufenbiel will provide the staging. The vocalists will include Jonathan Pierce Rhodes, Joseph Lattanzi, Victoria Lawal, Kurt Winterhalter, Elena Galván, Cara Gabrielson, Daniel Cilli, Matthew Worth, and Matthew Lovell, several of whom will be performing multiple roles. The most significant role to be called out by a familiar name is that of Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose part will be sung by Cilli. (Those of us that can look back on “Tail-Gunner Joe” without choking or spitting are getting fewer in number!)

Opera Parallèle will present three performances of Fellow Travelers. These will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, June 21, and Saturday, June 22, and at 3 p.m. on Sunday, June 23. The venue will be the Presidio Theatre at 99 Moraga Avenue, in the southwest corner of the Presidio. All tickets are being sold through a Presidio Theatre Web page. Prices range from $30 to $120. The Web page also includes a hyperlink for information about round trip bus tickets for $35 The opera will be performed in two acts separated by an intermission, with an overall run time of 135 minutes.

Jazz Hang Records Disappoints Again

Cover of the album being discussed (from the Jazz Hang Records Web site)

Those reading this site yesterday are probably aware of my discontent with Jazz Hang Records for its release of the vocal album Bob Anderson LIVE!  This morning I decided to give the label a second chance, checking out another vocal album. This one was The Gal That Got Away, a compilation of past recordings by vocalist Jack Wood with a “guest appearance” of the Australian jazz singer Nichaud Fitzgibbon on two of the tracks. Once again, the album (this time of twelve tracks) is available from download from Amazon.com (through the above hyperlink); and the CD is scheduled for release on Friday.

So as not to be entirely negative, I have to say that there were a few imaginative riffs from some of the instrumentalists. The guitar work for “Secret Love,” performed (presumably) by Doug MacDonald. made me sit up and take notice. The same can be said about the alto saxophone work by Greg Floor; and, on several of the tracks, the two made for a dynamic duo worthy of forming their own combo. There were also a few gratifying moments provided by the Salt Lake City Jazz Orchestra. All of those swallows could make for an inspiring spring if they did not have to contend with providing backup for mediocre vocal work.

If this is the complaint of a “grumpy old man,” then so be it. The fact is that I treasure every track I have of Ella Fitzgerald. Granted, she set a very high bar. However, I have little tolerance for any vocalist that cannot at least aspire to that height!

A Time Machine Trip Not Worth Taking

Cover of the album being discussed (from the Jazz Hang Records Web site)

Jazz Hang Records recently produced an album entitled Bob Anderson LIVE!, a sixteen-track compilation  of live performances by the vocalist in New York City, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Hollywood, and Boston. All sixteen tracks are currently available for download from an Amazon.com Web page. The CD is scheduled for release this coming Friday, at which time the Web page will be updated with an appropriate hyperlink.

With the exception of Anderson’s own opening track, “So Much Music in Me,” the album is a time machine that transports the listener through fifteen iconic songs from the twentieth century. Having lived in a little more than half of that, almost all of those songs were familiar to me as I listened to the album. Where the ones that were not familiar were concerned, the style still rang true.

Anderson’s delivery, however, is another matter. There is never any faulting in his diction. However, his approach to expression tends to come across as tedious. It is almost as if he is trying to prompt memories from a sympathetic audience without endowing those memories with any signification. Put another way, this is the sort of performance one might expect at a night club where familiar music is expected and appreciated, as long as it does not interfere with the food, the drinks, and the conversation. Take away the setting, and there is little motivation to focus attention on the recording.

Perhaps Anderson leaves a stronger impression when one is in his presence.

De los Ángeles: Pre-Classical Songs and Arias

Having traversed the full-length opera recordings of Victoria de los Ángeles ranging from the late seventeenth century of Henry Purcell to the twentieth century of Claude Debussy, I can now shift my attention from the opera house to the recital stage. If the albums that she recorded were representative of her recital programs, then it is worth noting that she seems to have shown a preference for “historical journeys.” Indeed, the title of one of those albums was Five Centuries of Spanish Songs, beginning with medieval selections from the early fourteenth century and extending to eighteenth-century composers such as Blas de Laserna (who lived into the early nineteenth century). She also released a more focused album entitled Spanish Songs of the Renaissance.

De los Ángeles’ earliest recordings were first released as 78 RPM discs; and, where this repertoire is concerned, her most recent recordings were made in 1960, including her participation in the “retirement recital” given by pianist Gerald Moore. Unfortunately, during the first half of the twentieth century, there was a tendency to approach early music as if it were some sort of delicate antique. That tendency was reinforced by releases from the Musical Heritage Society, many of which were about as stimulating as canned spinach. I had the good fortune to be teaching computer science at the University of Pennsylvania, which turned out to be a forerunner in the turning of that tide. As a result, I was able to experience several early music programs that had all of the excitement of twentieth-century aesthetics.

Obviously, I cannot blame de los Ángeles for not being there when the tide of early music performance began to turn. I can only say that she never seems to have had the opportunity to give that repertoire a fair shake. Whether or not circumstances change for the better as the repertoire advances into the nineteenth century can only be determined on the basis of further listening.

Reencountering Omar ibn Said at SFO

Last night I returned to the War Memorial Opera House to attend the last of six performances by the San Francisco Opera (SFO) of Omar, an opera about the life of Islamic scholar Omar ibn Said composed by Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels. Demand for tickets has been high, and it has been comforting to see that an opera that is only about a year old should receive such a massive and appreciative demand for audience seats. One reason may be that an account of Omar’s life and personality makes for a positive and uplifting experience in a time when we seem to be confronted with bad news on all fronts.

Omar (Jamez McCorkle, center) explains Islam to his second owner Owen (Daniel Okulitch, right) while Owen’s friend Taylor (Barry Banks, left) observes (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO)

Mind you, the narrative itself is not consistently positive. As an Islamic scholar, Omar could not have imagined being torn away from his country to be shipped to South Carolina, where he would be auctioned off as a slave. His relationship with the master that purchased him was far from an agreeable one, and the first of the opera’s two acts concludes with his running to escape his owner. Ultimately, he is taken in by a second master, who learns about Islam while Omar learns more about Christianity.

From a musical point to view, this is an opera based on a thoughtfully-conceived libretto by Giddens. There is a maturity to the text that continued the twentieth-century approach to opera as a performance in which the narrative is as compellingly meaningful as the music. There is so much for the viewer to learn about a variety of topics, including the role of Islam in Africa, the rise of the slave trade, and the “sense of self” of different slaveholders. Indeed, there is so much to keep the mind occupied that my attention to the narrative tended to overshadow the usual interest in vocal talents and expressive acting. Perhaps this is because, under the efforts of Director Kaneza Schaal, the personalities of all the characters (primary and secondary) emerge more through the narrative than through the music.

This is not to dismiss the qualities of the vocal performances. In the title role tenor Jamez McCorkle is “front-and-center” almost all of the time, providing viewers with a richly-developed account of the title character’s life and personality. On the other hand Omar’s two owners are sung by the same bass-baritone, Daniel Okulitch. The first is Johnson, who expects hard work to be the response to all of his demands, leaving Omar with no choice but to flee his plantation. In contrast, the second, Owen, quickly appreciates Omar’s intellectual background, even if he never seems to get his head around the beliefs and practices of Islam.

Nevertheless, it is the personalities that prevail; and Giddens and Abels provided just the right foundations for those personalities to reveal themselves through vocal performance. Ultimately, like Owen, we in the audience are drawn to Omar for what he has to say. What is impressive is how the music is always there to enhance our perception of the verbal content. Ultimately, we come away with a strong impression of an extraordinary life; and I would not be surprised if at least some of us decide to turn to reading matter to learn more about that life.

SFO: Islam Comes to the United States

Omar ibn Said was an Islamic scholar who had the misfortune of living in Senegal during the first half of the nineteenth century, when he became one of many Africans to be packed into an American ship with the density of a sardine tin. The ship transported him and his fellow Africans through the Middle Passage, ending up in South Carolina where they were all auctioned off as slaves. What may be most remarkable is that Said kept to his faith surrounded entirely by a population (owners as well as slaves) that had no idea that there was more to religion than the Old and New Testaments.

Is this the stuff of opera? Rhiannon Giddens seemed to think it was and wrote a libretto about Said’s life. She then partnered with Michael Abels to compose the score for that libretto supported by a co-commission shared by Spoleto Festival USA, Carolina Performing Arts, San Francisco Opera (SFO), Los Angeles Opera, and the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The result was Omar, given its world premiere at the Spoleto Festival USA in 2022 and its West Coast premiere with the Los Angeles Opera the following October.

Yesterday afternoon, Omar was given its first performance by SFO. (There will be five more performances at 7:30 p.m. on November 7, 11, 15, 17, and 21.) The result was a vast spectacle for eyes, ears, and all that grey matter that processes the stimuli. Just about everyone responsible for the staging was making their SFO debut. These included Director Kaneza Schall, working with Christopher Myers, who conceived the entire production design. He, in turn, worked with set designer Amy Rubin, costume designers April M. Hickman and Micheline Russell-Brown, lighting designer Pablo Santiago, and projection designer Joshua Higgason. Kiara Benn provided the choreography for the dance scenes. The conductor for this production was John Kennedy, also making his SFO debut; and the full force of the SFO orchestra was supplemented by Victor Avdienko and Raymond Froehlich augmenting the percussion resources. On a more personal note, this was the first time I was clearly aware of the cor anglais performance by Liam Bosset.

James McCorkle in the title role of Omar in a setting of Arabic texts (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO)

As might be expected, the cast was a large one based on the wide variety of individuals that Said encountered during his life journey. His role was sung by tenor Jamez McCorkle, another SFO debut. The other members of his family are his mother Fatima (mezzo Taylor Raven) and his brother Abdul (baritone Norman Garrett, yet another SFO debut). However, the most interesting of the American roles is that of Owen (baritone Daniel Okulitch). While he purchases Omar as his slave, Owen is the one white person to acknowledge Omar’s intellect; and one of the most interesting episodes involves this Christian master trying make sense of his slave’s faith (and vice versa).

As one might imagine, there is a fair amount of complexity in Giddens’ libretto. Nevertheless, Schaal’s staging both facilitates and encourages the audience to follow the many characters through the encounters of their trajectories and their post hoc reflections on those encounters. There is no questioning the cerebral qualities of this opera, but the current SFO performance could not do a better job of negotiating those qualities without intimidating the audience!

Cadillac Hotel to be Honored at its Next Gig

Album cover design for the release being discussed (from the Bandcamp Web page)

This coming Friday the Cadillac Hotel will host its next lobby concert. This time, however, the music will not only be in the hotel but also about it. At the beginning of this month, Free Press created a Bandcamp Web page for the first volume of House of Welcome. The album is an EP release consisting of two songs: “Near Avalon” and “Reality House.”

These tracks were recorded by Free Press Music, a Filipina American led, San Francisco based music collective with roots in soul, jazz, blues and improvisation. Four of the musicians will visit the Cadillac lobby to perform those two songs. They will be led by vocalist Christie Alda, performing with Dave Mihaly, alternating between percussion and guitar, violinist Alex Spota, and Billy White on the meticulously restored 1884 Model D Steinway concert grand, whose original soundboard is still intact.

As usual, this show will begin at 1 p.m. on Friday, November 3. The Cadillac Hotel is located at 380 Eddy Street, on the northeast corner of Leavenworth Street. All Concerts at the Cadillac events are presented without charge. The purpose of the series is to provide high-quality music to the residents of the hotel and the Tenderloin District; but all are invited to visit the venue that calls itself “The House of Welcome Since 1907.”

CMC Faculty to Present Four Free Concerts

Yesterday afternoon the Community Music Center (CMC) announced the 28th season of its Shenson Faculty Concert Series. I feel more than a little embarrassed that the last time I wrote about an event at the CMC Mission Branch, which I used to visit regularly, was in May of 2022. More recently, however, Old First Concerts hosted the nineteenth annual CMC Juliet McComas Keyboard Marathon at the beginning of last month. There is considerable diversity within the CMC faculty, and they used this marathon to explore the richness and range of the keyboard repertoire.

Over the next two months CMC will present four concerts that will take place in the Mission District but not at the Mission Branch. The venue will be Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, which will probably be familiar to readers that follow the Music in the Mishkan chamber music series presented by The Bridge Players led by Music Director Randall Weiss. Each of this summer’s concerts will be curated by a different CMC faculty member accounting for a different musical genre. All four of the performances will take place on a Thursday evening at 7 p.m. Program details have not been announced, but the genres and curators are as follows:

CMC faculty members Dorisiya Yosifova, Rita Lackey, Erick Peralta, and Jon Jang (from the Eventbrite Web page for the Shenson Faculty Concert Series)

July 13: Rita Lackey is a jazz vocalist and pianist; and she has described her program as a musical “gumbo” of jazz standards, soul tunes, and original compositions.

July 20: Dorisiya Yosifova is a Bulgarian violinist. The title of her program is A Journey Through Time. She will review the Eastern European repertoire with an emphasis on women composers from the Baroque period to the present day. She will also perform a solo commission composed by Jillian Honorof, which is based on a Bulgarian folk tune.

August 3: Erick Peralta is an Afro-Latin pianist who will be leading a jazz quintet. The title of his program is The Neo-Creolism of Peruvian Music. He has prepared original arrangements that blend traditional and Peruvian folkloric sound with contemporary and jazz elements.

August 10: Chinese-American composer and pianist Jon Jang will conclude the series. The title of his program is Civil Wrongs: Music about Black American & Japanese American Incarceration. He prepared it to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Liberties Act on August 10, 1988. That legislation granted reparations to Japanese Americans, who had been wrongly incarcerated during World War II.

Congregation Sha’ar Zahav is located at 290 Dolores Street at the northwest corner of 16th Street. While there is no charge for admission, reservations will be required. Eventbrite has created a single Web page with hyperlinks for making reservations for each of the individual performances.

Museo Italo Americano to Host Two Concerts

One of the displays at the Museo Italo Americano (photograph by Ando Caulfield for Drew Altizer Photography, courtesy of SFO)

The Museo Italo Americano, which is located in Landmark Building C at the Fort Mason Center, has mounted a new exhibition to celebrate the Centennial Season of the San Francisco Opera (SFO). This is the first museum in the United States devoted exclusively to Italian and Italian-American art and culture. The title of the exhibition will be, appropriately enough, BRAVO—Celebrating San Francisco Opera, Its Italian Roots and Legacy. It was prepared by Museo in partnership with both SFO and the Museum of Performance + Design, and it will run through this coming October 22.

The content of the exhibition will trace the history of Italian opera in the city of San Francisco, which was founded on June 29, 1776, from the Gold Rush years through the establishment of SFO in 1923 and up to the present. It will provide a rare opportunity to view silent film footage from the Thirties, including scenes with founder Gaetano Merola. The exhibits will include costumes, headpieces, programs, and historic photographs. There will also be QR codes for listening to musical excerpts.

As might be anticipated, the museum will also host a concert entitled Arias and Instrumentals. Mezzo Laura Krumm will be accompanied by the EOS Ensemble, a string quartet directed by violinist Craig Reiss, consisting entirely of members of the SFO Orchestra. The other members of the quartet are violinist Maya Cohon, violist Joy Fellows, and cellist Thalia Moore.

All five musicians will join forces for a performances of Ottorino Respighi’s “Il Tramonto” (the sunset), setting a text by Percy Bysshe Shelley. (The work can also be performed by mezzo and string orchestra.) The quartet will also perform Giacomo Puccini’s “I Crisantemi” (the chrysanthemums) and the second (Andantino) movement from Giuseppe Verdi’s 1873 string quartet (also performed by string orchestra in an arrangement by Arturo Toscanini). The other instrumental selections will be arrangements of the overtures to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 492 opera The Marriage of Figaro and Gioachino Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, along with the Intermezzo from Pietro Mascagni’s one-act “Cavalleria rusticana.”

Krumm will sing two arias from George Frideric Handel’s HWV 40 opera Serse (Xerxes). Her other two selections will draw upon the first two of the three Figaro plays by Pierre Beaumarchais. She will begin the program with “Voi che sapete” from The Marriage of Figaro. She will subsequently conclude the program with “Una voce poco fa” from The Barber of Seville.

This program will be given two performances, the first at 7 p.m. on Thursday, June 1, and the second at 1  p.m. on Saturday, June 3. (The second program will include a musical show-and-tell, so families with children will be welcome.) The venue will be the BATS Improv Bayfront Theatre, which is also in the Fort Mason Center in Landmark Building B. Admission will be $50 for the general public. Museo members will be admitted for $40, and there will be no charge for children under the age of sixteen. Museo has created a Web page with hyperlinks for purchasing tickets online for both of the performance dates.

Chelsea Hollow’s Album of “Social Significance”

Soprano Chelsea Hollow (photograph by Veronique Kherian, courtesy of Aerocade Music)

Towards the end of last month, Aerocade Music released an album of performances by soprano Chelsea Hollow, accompanied by pianist Taylor Chan, entitled Cycles of Resistance. This amounts to the current generation’s venture into musical activism. If we acknowledge the impact of folk music, then it would be fair to say that these ventures date back to the origins of the American Revolution. More recently, the repertoire thrived during the last century, each half of which had its own genres.

For example, 1937 saw the premiere of the Broadway musical Pins and Needles, which included the first Broadway score composed by Harold Rome. The title of the opening chorus was “Sing Me a Song with Social Significance;” and it not only set the tone for the entire show but also became an anthem for the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union. During the Sixties, on the other hand, “social significance” was directed toward the Vietnam War; and the musical response amounted to folk-rock with very sharp edges. Cycles of Resistance has picked up the torch with songs by nine composers accounting for texts in Mandarin, Dutch, Turkish, Arabic, Sanskrit, Czech, and (of course) English.

Beyond language, however, Hollow has a vocal range that reaches beyond the stratosphere; and the composers she commissioned were not shy about taking her up there. As might be expected, there are occasions when it is difficult to follow the texts in the accompanying booklet; and one might do better to become familiar with those texts prior to listening to any of them. This would allow for more attention to Hollow’s voice, and that attention is definitely well-deserved. I would also recommend listening to each of the nine compositions without the context of the other selections on the album. Social messages signify most effectively when they are not competing with each other!