SFCM Announces Specifics for First Faculty Centennial Concert

When plans for the centennial season of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) were first announced, they included dates for three Faculty Centennial Concerts that would be planned to feature both performances and compositions by faculty members. Program details have now been released for the first of these concerts, which will take place this coming Monday. True to the original plan, the faculty will be involved in both performance and composition.

The program will consist entirely of chamber music but it will involve some innovative combinations of instruments. Thus, the participating faculty members will be three guitarists and two clarinetists. The guitarists will be Larry Ferrara, Mark Teicholz, and Giacomo Fiore, who is also an alumnus (’09). Both clarinetists will be playing bass clarinet. They will be Jerry Simas and Jeff Anderle, another alumnus (’06). Indeed, five other alumni will also be playing bass clarinet at this recital: Jon Russell (’03), Kevin Tang (’14), Sophie Huet (’09), Dan Ferreira (’08), and Clark Forbes (’83). Alumnus Max Stoffregen (’08) will be providing live electronics. All other performers are also clarinetists: Haiwen Xu, Tian Qin, Yijin Wang, Ivan Ferguson, Zhenyu Wang, Sahand Soltani-Nobakht, and Ayslin Rice on clarinet and Christian Barazai and Nicolas Harrington on bass clarinet.

With the exception of “Imbricatta,” composed for solo guitar by Sérgio Assad, all of the compositions to be performed will be by alumni, two of whom are faculty members. This will include the world premiere of “under the presence” by Kyle Hovatter (’12). The composers now on the faculty are Stefan Cwik (’10), who has contributed a guitar sonata, and Ryan Brown (’05), whose piece is entitled “KNEE GAS (ON).” Two of the performers are also composers, and both of them have written pieces for an ensemble of nine clarinets. Russell’s piece is entitled “Supra;” and Stoffregen’s “Black Oak” will also include his own performance of live electronics. The other works on the program are as follows:

• Kenji Oh (’14): Yoshitune and the Thousand Cherry Trees—Horikawa Mansion
• Olga Neuwirth (’87): Spleen
• Ian Dicke (’04): Profiteering

This concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. this coming Monday, October 16. It will take place in the SFCM Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall. SFCM is located at 50 Oak Street, a short walk from the Van Ness Muni Station on the north side of the street, about halfway between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street. This will be a free concert and neither tickets nor reservations will be required.