Monday, March 19, 2018

The Bleeding Edge: 3/19/2018

This is one of those weeks when the performances already announced outnumber the new ones. Mind you, this is due primarily because the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players is concluding its 2017–18 season with a weekend series of four concerts; but the Center for New Music is already “on the books” with two concerts of its own. Specifics for the remaining events are as follows:

Wednesday, March 21, 8 p.m., Peacock Lounge: This is the week of the monthly installment of adventurous programming. As usually is the case, the names of the performers for the four sets are (the one exception this month) as intriguing as their respective offerings: Relay For Death, Jim Haynes, AEMAE, and The Third Ear. (Finding the exception is left as an exercise for the reader.) The Peacock Lounge is located in the Lower Haight at 552 Haight Street. Admission on a sliding scale will begin at $5. However, this will be a NOTAFLOF (no one turned away for lack of funds) event.

Thursday, March 22, 8 p.m., Luggage Store Gallery (LSG): This week’s LSG Creative Music Series concert will follow the usual two-set format. The first set will be a duo improvisation bringing tenor saxophonist Kevin Robinson together with Collette McCaslin on soprano saxophone, trumpet, and percussion. They will be followed by a solo electronics set taken by L.J. Altvater. Altvater creates cassette loops through his own cutting and splicing and then post-processes realtime playback through guitar effects pedals. LSG is located at 1007 Market Street, across from the corner of Golden Gate Avenue and Taylor Street; and admission is on a sliding scale between $8 and $15.

Sunday, March 25, 4 p.m., Old First Presbyterian Church: Old First Concerts (O1C) will present pianist Edward Neeman performing the West Coast premiere of Larry Sitsky’s first piano sonata. Given the title “Retirer d’en bas de l’eau” (retrieve from below the water), the sonata was inspired by the voodoo ritual that invokes the invisible spirits of the dead. This dark composition will be complemented by Paul Schoenfield’s tongue-in-cheek Peccadilloes, a suite of six “offenses” against standards of “good taste.” The program will begin with the last (Opus 77) of Jan Ladislav Dussek’s 34 piano sonatas, written the year before his death in 1812, by which time alcoholism had gotten the better of him. He gave this sonata the title “L’invocation;” and it veers between raging invective and penitent prayer.

The Old First Presbyterian Church is located at 1751 Sacramento Street on the southeast corner of Van Ness Avenue. If purchased in advance online from an O1C event page, general admission will be $23 with a discounted rate of $18 for seniors aged 65 or older. Tickets for full-time students showing valid identification will be $5; and children aged twelve and under will be admitted for free. There is also a discount available for those parking at the Old First Parking Garage at 1725 Sacramento Street, just up the street from the church.

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