Saturday, May 4, 2019

InterMusic SF: May, 2019 (and beyond)

InterMusic SF is probably best known for SF Music Day, its annual fall marathon of music performances held in many of the spaces available in the Veterans Building. Yesterday’s electronic mail brought me my first copy of a monthly newsletter, which acquainted me of other performances related, in one way or another, to InterMusic SF in ways I had not anticipated. Since the first of these activities will take place this afternoon, I feel a need to help in getting out the word in as timely a manner as I can muster. Here is a summary of the performances taking place in San Francisco:

Saturday, May 4, 4 p.m., St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church: Musae is a women’s vocal ensemble based in San Francisco. The name of the group refers to the nine muses of Greek mythology. The group was founded in 2004 and has performed diverse and accessible music throughout the Bay Area. It will celebrate its fifteenth anniversary season with a concert of favorite music from the repertoire it has accumulated. Featured composers will be Alice Park, Ryan James Brandau, and Alberto Grau, as well as a set of pieces by last year’s composer-in-residence, Eric Tuan.

St. Gregory’s is located at 500 De Haro Street, at the foot of Potrero Hill. Tickets may be purchased in advance through an Eventbrite event page. General admission tickets are $15 with a rate of $10 for tickets purchased for ten or more. Reserved seating tickets are $25 with a group rate of $20. The Eventbrite page also allows for the addition of money for donation.

Tuesday, May 21, 12:30 p.m., Old Saint Mary’s Cathedral: The Noontime Concerts series will present violinist Patrick Galvin, performing with pianist Jungeun Kim. He will perform Stefan Cwik’s “American Troubadour,” which Galvin recently commissioned and premiered. Galvin will also give a solo performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 1004 partita in D minor. Old St. Mary’s is located at 660 California Street, on the northeast corner of Grant Street. There is no charge for admission, but this concert series relies heavily on donations to continue offering its weekly programs.

Saturday, May 25, 8 p.m., Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA): The YBCA Forum will host a concert by the Real Vocal String Quartet celebrating the release of their new CD, Culture Kin. The current members of the ensemble are Irene Sazer, Sumaia Jackson, David Tangney and Sam Shuhan. The CD was produced in partnership with Women’s Audio Mission and in association with YBCA. It was envisioned and created in collaboration with artists from eight San Francisco international sister cities from Ivory Coast, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Ireland, Brazil and Japan.

The YBCA Forum is located on the side of Yerba Buena Gardens facing the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art on Third Street between Howard Street and Mission Street. General admission will be $29.50 with a discounted $24.50 rate for seniors, students, and teachers. Tickets may be purchased in advance online through an event page on the YBCA Web site.

Friday, May 31, 8 p.m., Noe Valley Ministry: The Nomad Session octet will present the final installment of its second season of concerts, entitled The Eight. Like the previous programs of the season, there will be a world premiere performance, this time of “Figure Eight” by Mario Godoy. All other works on the program will involve arrangements for the group’s instrumentation (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, and tuba) by its members.

The program will begin with “Troldtog” (march of the dwarfs), first included in the fifth book (Opus 54) of Edvard Grieg’s Lyric Pieces for solo piano and subsequently orchestrated for his Lyric Suite. Stephanie Stroud has prepared the arrangement for Nomad resources. She has also prepared an arrangement of Arvo Pärt’s setting of the Magnificat canticle, which will require members of the ensemble to sing as well as play their instruments. The other work on the program will be Percy Grainger’s suite for full concert band, Lincolnshire Posy. Fitting this to Nomad scale was the joint effort of Stroud, Kris King, and Jonathan Seiberlich.

The Noe Valley Ministry is located at 3021 Sanchez Street, a short walk from the 24th Street stop on the Muni J trolley line. General admission will be $25. Students with appropriate identification will be admitted to all concerts for $5. A single Web page has been created for both subscriptions and tickets for all three individual concerts. Tickets may be purchased in advance through an Eventbrite event page.

Finally, the “and beyond” in the headline refers to the fact that a benefit concert for InterMusic SF will take place next month. This will be an evening of classic jazz standards and original compositions by Berkeley-based pianist Nathan Bickart and his trio. The program will explore the many musical links between classical composers like Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel and jazz pianists like Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, and Ahmad Jamal.

This will be a house concert hosted by Côme Laguë and Charlene Li, who live in one of the “painted lady” houses on the east side of Alamo Square. It will begin at 7 p.m. on Saturday, June 22. Single tickets are being sold for $40 with $65 as the rate for a pair of tickets. There is also a Patron Supporter rate of $125 for a single tickets and $200 for a pair. This include tax-deductible donations are $85 for a single ticket and $120 for the pair. Patron Supporters will receive recognition in the next SF Music Day program book. All tickets may be purchased in advance through an Eventbrite event page. The specific address of the venue will be provided to attendees a week prior to the event.

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