Center for New Music: March, 2018

It is not too soon to start making save-the-date plans for events at the Center for New Music (C4NM) during the month of March. The current list of possibilities is probably not complete; but, as always, I shall do my best to keep it updated, using the Facebook shadow site to post notifications of additional events. C4NM is located at 55 Taylor Street, half a block north of the Golden Gate Theater, which is where Golden Gate Avenue meets Market Street. There will be some variation in admission charges for the events in March, including at least one free event. All tickets may be purchased in advance through a Vendini event page. Hyperlinks to the appropriate Web pages will be attached to each of the dates in the following summary:

[added 2/17, 9:50 a.m.:

Saturday, March 3, 8 p.m.: Matt Ingalls will curate the return to C4NM of the sfSoundGroup, giving their first concert of this year. Dan Joseph will appear as guest composer and performer, bringing with him his hammered dulcimer, which is the primary vehicle for his music. The sfSoundGroup will perform his “Notes & Queries.” The memory of Pauline Oliveros will be honored with a performance of her text score “Earth Ears.” The program will also include “harmony series” by Michael Pisaro and “Tinnitus Insect Volume Knobs,” a collaborative project by sfSound. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members.]

Saturday, March 10, 8 p.m.: Emma Logan will curate a visit by Chad Goodman’s Elevate Ensemble, a chamber orchestra that has given an impressive amount of exposure to recent compositions. The title of the program will be Old Girls Club; and, as might be expected, the program will consist entirely of works by female composers. Full specifics have not yet been provided; but the composers whose music will be presented will include Lisa Bielawa, Julie Barwick, Tania León, Edie Hill, and Jocelyn Hagen. General admission will be $35; but there will be an “early bird” rate of $25 for tickets purchased up to February 24. There will also be a discounted rate of $20 for C4NM members and students.

Thursday, March 15, 8 p.m.: Jason Thorpe Buchanan will curate a visit from ensemble proton bern. This is one of the leading groups for contemporary music performance in Switzerland (based, as one might guess, in Bern). The ensemble is currently enjoying residences at both Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley. Their program will include music prepared as part of those residences, as well as music by Swiss composers such as Walter Feldmann, Tobias Krebs, Katharina Rosenberger, and Jürg Wyttenbach. There will be no admission charge for this concert, but donations will be taken at the door.

Friday, March 16, 7 p.m.: C4NM will host a special event entitled Free As AIR. This will be an evening of live jazz reflecting on 30 years of music and activism that have come out of Asian Improv aRts (AIR). Music will be provided by AIR co-founders, Jon Jang on piano and Francis Wong on saxophone. Over those course of 30 years, AIR has mentored many up-and-coming artists, some of whom, like Vijay Iyer, may now be said to have “arrived.” General admission will be $50, but there will also be a special $100 Benefactor rate. C4NM members will be admitted for $25.

Saturday, March 24, 8 p.m.: Logan will curate a visit from New York by the Miolina duo of violinists Mioi Takeda and Lynn Bechtold. They will present a program entitled All Good is Luck. This will be another program focusing on women composers, this time from the East and West Coasts. There will by a premiere performance of Logan’s own music. Other premieres and new arrangements will involve composers Eve Beglarian, Jessica Meyer, Lynn Bechtold, and Rain Worthington. Other composers to be performed will be Angélica Negrón, Mari Kimura, and Melissa Grey. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members, seniors, and students.

[added 2/19, 12:20 p.m.:

Sunday, March 25, 7:30 p.m.: The next concert to be offered in the five-part HUSH Series curated by Julia Ogrydziak will present the Northern Californa premiere of Polytope, a composition by Daniel Corral scored for live MIDI quartet. In other words there will be four performers, each operating a MIDI controller in real time. The music will be performed entirely in darkness, interrupted only by projections of the real-time MIDI signals, which will constitute a visual score. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members.]

Thursday, March 29, 7:30 p.m.: This will be an album release concert presented by soprano Emily Sternfeld-Dunn, whose new album will be titled simply SHE. Her program will present art song selections by Ricky Ian Gordon, Jake Heggie, and Aleks Sternfeld-Dunn. Instrumental accompaniment will be provided by pianist Jeffrey Sykes, as well as Stephanie Patterson on bassoon, Meerenai Shim on flute, and Lacey Waggener on horn. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members and students.

[added 2/28, 4:15 p.m.:

Friday, March 30, 8 p.m.: Kurt Rohde will curate a recital by vocalist Nina Dante entitled Extending the Voice. Dante will perform two pieces, each by a different composer taking a unique approach to dramatic source material. “AGGELOI III” by Stratis Minskakis is a rethinking of the messenger scene that concludes “Oedipus at Colonus” by Sophocles. “Without a Solution of Continuity” by Tiffany Skidmore takes the text of “That Time” by Samuel Beckett as a point of departure. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members.]