Sunday, April 28, 2019

Choices for May 11–12, 2019 (and beyond)

Choices for the first weekend in next month were relatively moderate. The following weekend, however, will be much busier. Furthermore, it will mark the beginning of the return of a free music series held every summer in Union Square. So this will be another one of those long articles. Specifics are as follows:

Saturday, May 11, 6 p.m., Ansel Adams house: Left Coast Chamber Ensemble (LCCE) will be holding its Spring Gala. As is usually the case with such events, music will be part of the evening’s offering. Cellist Leighton Fong will give a performance of Franz Schubert’s D. 821 sonata in A minor, which he composed for piano and arpeggione. The score was not published until 1871, long after Schubert’s death; and it included parts for both cello and violin as alternatives for the arpeggione. Fong will be accompanied by guest pianist Ron Valentino. The social side of the occasion will include wine, a light supper, and dessert. In addition, there will be a brief live auction and Fund-A-Need in support of both the offerings for the concert season and education initiatives.

Admission will be by donation with $150 as the minimum amount. The house is located in Sea Cliff at 129 24th Avenue. Donations may be given online through a Web page on the LCCE Web site. In addition, LCCE may be reached through electronic mail. Further information will be provided once the donation has been processed.

Saturday, May 11, 7:30 p.m., San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM): The New Century Chamber Orchestra (NCCO) and Music Director Daniel Hope will conclude the 2018–2019 season with a debut appearance by the Marcus Roberts Trio. The program will provide a showcase of music by American composers in different genres. NCCO will share the stage with Roberts’ trio to perform a selection of songs by George Gershwin arranged for violin, jazz trio, and orchestra by Paul Bateman. There will also be Bateman arrangements of music from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story and Aaron Copland’s settings of American folk songs. NCCO will begin the program with a performance of Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings,” the ensemble version of his string quartet Adagio movement.

SFCM is located at 50 Oak Street, between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street, a short walk from the Van Ness Muni station. Prices for single tickets are $29, $49, and $61. Tickets may be purchased online through a City Box Office event page. Discounted single tickets will be available at the door, $15 for patrons under the age of 35 and $10 for students with valid identification.

As in the past, there will be an Open Rehearsal. It will be held on Wednesday, May 8, beginning at 10 a.m. The venue will be Trinity+St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, located at 1620 Gough Street on the northeast corner of Bush Street. Admission will be free and can be arranged by making a reservation through electronic mail.

Saturday, May 11, 8 p.m., Holy Innocents’ Episcopal Church: In a similar vein, Clerestory will return to the Great American Songbook with a program entitled Songbook II. This will cast a wide web across genres including African American spirituals, barbershop, folk songs, jazz, and more. Holy Innocents’ Episcopal Church is located in the Mission at 455 Fair Oaks Street. For those unfamiliar with the area, this is located between Guerrero Street and Dolores Street and between 25th and 26th Streets. That makes it convenient walking distance from both the BART 24th Street station and the Muni J line, which stops at the corner of 24th Street and Church Street. General admission will be $25 with a $15 rate for seniors and $5 for students. Tickets may be purchased in advance online from an Eventbrite event page.

Saturday, May 11, 8 p.m., SFJAZZ Center: This will be the second concert in the two-concert series Guerrilla Sounds: Julius Eastman’s Legacy, presented by the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players; details were provided on this site this past Friday.

Sunday, May 12, 2 p.m., Union Square: This will be the first concert in this year’s series of free Union Square Live concerts. Once again the series will run through September. This is very much a something-for-everybody affair with the full series serving a wide diversity of genres. The opening concert will provide Americana performed by Mitch Polzak’s Royal Deuces. The best place to find further information is through the Events page created by Union Square Live for their Facebook site. Remaining events for May are as follows:
  • Wednesday, May 15, 6 p.m.: Stompy Jones (Swing/Blues)
  • Sunday, May 19, 2 p.m.: Matt Jaffe (Indie/Rock)
  • Sunday, May 26, 2 p.m.: The Nightcap Blues Band (Blues/Rock)
  • Wednesday, May 29, 6 p.m.: Afro-Cuban Ensemble of San Francisco State University (SFSU) (Latin/Jazz/Cuban)
Sunday, May 12, 3 p.m., McKenna Theatre: The 2018–2019 season of the Morrison Artists Series, presented by the College of Liberal and Creative Arts at SFSU will conclude with a concert by the JACK Quartet. This group is dedicated to the performance of contemporary classical music. Current members are violinists Christopher Otto and Austin Wulliman, violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Jay Campbell. They will present the Bay Area premiere of Zosha Di Castri’s first string quartet. The program will also include John Zorn’s “Necronomicon” and Elliott Carter’s third string quartet. In addition, Otto has prepared arrangements for the ensemble of music from both the Medieval and Renaissance periods.

The McKenna Theatre is in the Creative Arts Building at SFSU, a short walk from the SFSU Muni stop at the corner of 19th Avenue and Holloway Avenue. Tickets are free but advance registration is highly desirable. Reservations may be made through the event page for this concert. As usual, there will be a pre-concert lecture, which will begin 2 p.m. in Knuth Hall.

Sunday, May 12, 4 p.m., St. Mark’s Lutheran Church: The San Francisco Early Music Society will present its final season concert to be performed in San Francisco. Antic Faces will present a program entitled Joyne Hands: Elizabethan Entertainments for Mixed Consort. The “mixture” will consist of Shira Kammen (violin and viol), David Morris (viol), John Lenti (lute and viol), Julie Jeffrey (viol and cittern), Peter Hallifax (viol and bandora), and Mindy Rosenfeld (flute).

Single ticket prices will range between $45 and $12. All information about ticketing options has been summarized on a single Web page. Tickets may also be purchased by calling 510-528-1725.

Sunday, May 12, 4 p.m., Noe Valley Ministry: Noe Valley Chamber Music will close out its season with a program of chamber music from the Romantic period organized by Artistic Directors Meena Bhasin (viola) and Own Dalby (violin). The pianist will be Eric Zivian, playing on a Beethoven-era fortepiano. The other performers will be Tom Stone (violin) and Tanya Tomkins (cello). Tomkins and Zivian will play the first of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 102 sonatas, written in the key of D major. the program will begin with Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 49 (first) piano trio in D minor and conclude with Robert Schumann’s Opus 44 piano quintet in E-flat major.

The Noe Valley Ministry is located at 1021 Sanchez Street, between 23rd Street and Elizabeth Street. Ticket prices are $40 for general admission, $35 for seniors, and $15 for students thirteen and older. They may be purchased online through a Brown Paper Tickets event page. Tickets may also be purchased in advance by calling NVCM at 415-648-5236.

Sunday, May 12, 7:30 p.m., Davies Symphony Hall: The Great Performers Series presented by the San Francisco Symphony will present an “all-star” piano trio recital. The performers will be Joshua Bell (violin), Steven Isserlis (cello), and Jeremy Denk (piano). They will present a program of four trios, beginning with the same Mendelssohn piano trio scheduled for earlier in the afternoon at the Noe Valley Ministry. This will be followed by Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 67 trio in E minor (performed last night in Herbst Theatre). The intermission will be followed by the first of the two pieces that Sergei Rachmaninoff called “Trio élégiaque,” composed in the key of G minor and never assigned an opus number. The concluding work will be Maurice Ravel’s A minor trio.

Davies Symphony Hall is located at 201 Van Ness Avenue and fills an entire city block. The other boundaries are Grove Street (north), Hayes Street (south), and Franklin Street (west). The main entrance (which is also the entrance to the Box Office) is on Grove Street, roughly halfway down the block. All tickets for this recital will be sold for between $75 and $265. Tickets may be purchased in advance online through a Web page on the SFS Web site. Flash must be enabled for online ticket transactions. Tickets may also be purchased by visiting the Box Office or calling 415-864-6000. The Box Office is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, from noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday, and two hours before the beginning of the concert on Sunday.

No comments: