Don Scott Carpenter conducting in St. Mark's Lutheran Church
St. Mark’s Lutheran Church will again serve as the home for the Zephyr Symphony led by conductor Don Scott Carpenter. The new season will present five programs (one more than last season). Three of them will involve vocal soloists, and one will have guitarist Thibault Garcia as the visiting soloist. Most readers probably know by now that St. Mark’s Lutheran Church is located at 1111 O’Farrell Street, just west of the corner of Franklin Street. All performances will begin on Saturday evenings at 7:30 p.m. on the following dates:
September 26, The Work at Hand: Mezzo Jamie Barton and cellist Nathan Chan will be featured in the Bay Area premiere of Jake Heggie’s song cycle The Work at Hand. The program will begin with Arvo Pärt’s “Trisagion.” The second half of the program will be devoted entirely to Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 90 (MWV N 16), his fourth (“Italian”) symphony composed in the key of A major.
November 14, Trans Requiem: The title of the program is the title of the work to be performed during the second half, composed by Andrew Yee in 2025. Soprano Breanna Sinclairé and vocalist Katherine Goforth will be soloists performing with the Zephyr Chorus. Yee will also be cello soloist. The program will begin with Jesse Montgomery’s “Banner,” followed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 48 in C major, his four-movement “Serenade for Strings.”
December 19, Mozart’s Messiah: K. 572, is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's 1789 German-language version of George Frideric Handel’s HWV 56 oratorio Messiah. This version has its own Wikipedia page, which describes Mozart’s efforts as follows:
The libretto of Mozart's adaptation was largely based on Luther's translation of the Bible. Mozart re-orchestrated about three-fifths of Handel's composition, primarily providing additional parts for an extended section of wind instruments, which was called Harmonie at the time. In general, a half-century after the inception of the work, Mozart adapted an English-language work conceived for a baroque orchestra in a public venue, to accommodate the constraints of private performances and the musical tastes of Vienna.
The vocal soloists for this performance will be soprano Nicole Heaston, mezzo-soprano Kayleigh Decker, tenor Isaiah Bell, bass-baritone Sreten Manojlović. The chorus will be Vox Humana SF.
March 6, Sacred & Sensuous: Music of Devotion: The next performance by Vox Humana SF will be of the Missa pro defunctis (a setting of the Requiem mass) by Cristóbal de Morales. The second half of the program will be devoted to the best-known composition by Joaquín Rodrigo, his “Concierto de Aranjuez” guitar concerto. The soloist will be Thibault Garcia.
May 8: Kindertotenlieder: Music of Sorrow, Serenity, and Radiant Joy: Baritone Benjamin Appl will be the vocalist in the performance of Gustav Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder (songs on the death of children) song cycle. This will be followed by Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 92, his seventh symphony in A major. Musicologist Harry Goldschmidt has suggested that (as noted in the Wikipedia page for the symphony) the symphony “seems to be another one of his musical confrontations with Napoleon, this time in the context of the European wars of liberation from years of Napoleonic domination.” The program will begin with Anna Clyne’s “Within Her Arms.”
