Sunday, September 9, 2018

The SFP 2018–2019 Guitar Series

Once again San Francisco Performances (SFP) will present a five-concert Guitar Series for the new season. Only two of the concerts will be solo recitals, while each of the other three will take its own approach to duo performance. All of the concerts will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday evenings, but the venue will alternate between Herbst Theatre and St. Mark’s Lutheran Church. The entrance to Herbst is the main entrance to the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue, located on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. The church is located at 1111 O’Farrell Street, just west of the corner of Franklin Street. The specific dates and their related performers are as follows:

October 13, Herbst Theatre: The first duo recital will bring together Sharon Isbin and Romero Lubambo. They have prepared are richly diverse program that will probably involve solo offerings interleaved with the duo performances. One of the more interesting of those offerings will be the second (Adagio) movement from Joaquín Rodrigo’s “Concierto de Aranjuez,” arranged for two guitars by Laurindo Almeida. Equally interesting will be the “Porro” movement from the second of Gentil Montaña’s four suites for guitar based on Colombian dances with a second guitar part added by Gustavo Colina.

November 3, Herbst Theatre: For the second duo recital guitarist Paul Galbraith will be joined by cellist Antonio Meneses. Meneses is a former member of the Beaux Arts Trio; and he will perform Franz Schubert’s D. 821 (“Arpeggione”) sonata in A minor with Galbraith providing the accompaniment. (This is not as odd as it may seem, since Swedish guitar virtuoso Göran Sölischer prepared an arrangement for violin with guitar accompaniment, which may have been the inspiration behind the performance prepared for this program, as it had similarly inspired a viola/guitar performance given by students at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in February of 2013.) The program will also include the San Francisco premiere of Andre Mehmari’s second Brazilian Suite and Galbraith’s arrangement of Joseph Haydn’s Hoboken XVI/36 piano sonata, originally composed in C-sharp minor but transposed into E minor.

December 8, St. Mark’s Lutheran Church: The first solo recital will be given by Croatian guitar master Ana Vidovic. Her repertoire will extend from the Baroque to recent modern compositions, including four pieces by Astor Piazzolla. Her Baroque offerings will include Domenico Scarlatti’s K. 213 sonata in D minor and Valter Despalj’s transcription of Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 1013 partita in A minor, originally composed for solo flute.

February 9, Herbst Theatre: The brothers Sérgio and Odair Assad have been frequent visitors to SFP. They usually present a program of both duo and solo performances. Details for next year’s program have not yet been announced.

March 2, Herbst Theatre: The Series will conclude with a recital by Pablo Sáinz Villegas. He has prepared a program that will serve as a tribute to Andrés Segovia in celebration of the 125th anniversary of his birth. Segovia left a rich catalog of recorded performances of an extensive and diverse repertoire. The program for the evening will be inspired by that repertoire.

Subscriptions are now on sale for $275 for premium seating, $235, and $185. Subscriptions may be purchased online in advance through a City Box Office event page, which includes information about the locations associated with each of the price levels. Orders may also be placed by calling the SFP subscriber hotline at 415-677-0325, which is open for receiving calls between 9:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. Single tickets are also now being sold by City Box Office. They may be purchased through the hyperlinks attached to each of the above dates.

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