Full and partial subscription tickets are still on sale for the 39th season of concerts given by the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (PBO) & Chorale. This season has the descriptive title Reflections, since it will reflect on the legacy of Nicholas McGegan and his 35 years of service as Waverley Fund Music Director. Once again, the season will consist of six programs, each of which will be given at least one performance in San Francisco. Also, as was the case last season, programming will extend the usual repertoire of the “distant past” by presenting a newly commissioned work by composer Caroline Shaw. Finally, all San Francisco performances will again take place at Herbst Theatre, located at 401 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. Specifics are as follows:
Thursday, October 17, 8 p.m.: San Francisco will have the honor of hosting the world premiere of Shaw’s commissioned composition, “The Listeners,” which will open the first program of the season, entitled A Cosmic Notion. Little information has been released to date other than the fact that it will feature the otherworldly low-register voices of contralto Avery Amereau and bass-baritone Dashon Burton. Scoring will involve the full forces of PBO joined by the Philharmonia Chorale directed by Bruce Lamott. Shaw’s piece will be complemented by George Frideric Handel’s HWV 74 “Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne” with a libretto by Ambrose Philips. This ode is often known by the first line of the text, “Eternal source of light divine.” Burton will be one of the three soloists, the other two being soprano Arwen Myers and countertenor Reginald Mobley.
Friday, November 15, 8 p.m.: San Francisco native Jeannette Sorrell, founding director of Apollo’s Fire, will make her long-awaited debut as PBO guest conductor. The title of her program will be Mozart’s Musings; and one of those “musings,” the K. 314 oboe concerto in C major, will feature PBO oboist Gonzalo X. Ruiz. The overture-concerto-symphony format will begin with the overture to the K. 51 opera La finta semplice (the fake innocent). The symphony will be K. 550 in G minor, probably Mozart’s best known symphony. As a “bonus” the overture will be followed by a suite of music from Zémire et Azor, a four-act opera by Mozart’s Belgian contemporary André Grétry.
Thursday, December 5, 7 p.m.: This December Hanukkah will take precedence over Christmas when McGegan conducts Handel’s HWV 63 oratorio Judas Maccabaeus. The title role will be sung by tenor Nicholas Phan. The other vocal soloists will be soprano Robin Johannsen, mezzo Sara Couden, and baritone William Berger. Lamott will again prepare the Philharmonia Chorale.
Friday, February 7, 8 p.m.: Music Director Designate Richard Egarr will return to the PBO podium to present a program entitled The Well-Caffeinated Clavier. This will be a program consisting entirely of music by Johann Sebastian Bach, bringing his BWV 211 “Coffee” cantata together with two keyboard concertos, BWV 1058 in G minor and BWV 1052 in D minor. Egarr will conduct both concertos from the harpsichord. Bach cantatas tend to be known by the first line of German text; but, where BWV 211 is concerned, I have always had a preference for the (very?) loose English translation, “All right, you guys, shut up and listen to me!” The cantata vocalists will be soprano Nola Richardson as the coffee addict Lieschen, tenor James Reese as the narrator, and bass-baritone Cody Quattlebaum as Lieschen’s father Schlendrian (another opportunity for English translation, since the name translates as “stick in the mud”). Egarr will conclude the program with the BWV 1068 orchestral suite in D major.
Friday, March 13, 8 p.m.: This will be McGegan’s annual program of nineteenth-century music. Violinist Alana Youssefian will return to the PBO stage as soloist in Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 64 concerto in E minor. This will be another overture-concerto-symphony program. The overture will be that of Luigi Cherubini’s opera Démophoon (which was actually first performed near the end of the eighteenth century but is admissible within “experimental error”). The symphony, however, will be decidedly nineteenth-century, Franz Schubert’s D. 944 (“The Great”) in C major.
Wednesday, April 15–Saturday, April 18, 7 p.m., and Sunday, April 19, 3 p.m.: All four of the performances of the final program will take place in Herbst. This will be a fully-staged production of Scylla et Glaucus, the only surviving full-length opera by Jean-Marie Leclair. This offering will be co-produced by the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles. The title roles will be sung by soprano Chantal Santon-Jeffery and haute-contre Aaron Sheehan. The other vocal soloists will be sopranos Véronique Gens and Judith van Wanroij and baritone Douglas Williams. The production will be staged by Catherine Turocy, who will also provide choreography for her New York Baroque Dance Company. The choral resources will be provided by Les Chantres de la Maîtrise du Centre de musique baroque de Versailles.
As noted above, there are a variety of subscription options for those not wishing to attend all six of these concerts. Prices range from $90 to $660. Single tickets will go on sale on August 1. The season summary Web page includes More Info hyperlinks for each of the individual concerts. Each of those program-specific Web pages will include a hyperlink for purchasing single tickets. Further information may be obtained by calling Patron Services at 415-295-1900, which is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
In addition there will be three augmentations to the subscription offerings taking place in San Francisco. The first of these will be another side-by-side performance that will bring the Philharmonia Baroque Chamber Players together with members of Juilliard415, the period instrument ensemble at the Juilliard School. The program will consist of two Bach compositions, the BWV 1066 (first) orchestral suite in C major and the BWV 1048 (third) “Brandenburg” concerto in G major. Antonio Vivaldi will be represented by a concerto in D major for violin and double orchestra, and the program will conclude with an orchestral suite from Jean-Philippe Rameau’s opera Castor et Pollux.
This program will be given only one performance, at 4 p.m. on Sunday, November 10. As was the case last year, the venue will be the ODC Theater, located at 3153 17th Street on the northwest corner of Shotwell Street. All tickets will be $25 and a post-concert wine reception will be included.
The second augmentation will be on a much larger scale. This will be a staged performance of Handel’s HWV 72 dramatic cantata Aci, Galatea e Polifemo. The production is shared with National Sawdust, and the producers are Anthony Ross Costanzo and Cath Brittan. Staging will be by Christopher Alden, and McGegan will conduct the Philharmonia Baroque Chamber Players. The title roles will be taken, respectively, by soprano Lauren Snouffer, countertenor Costanzo, and bass-baritone Davóne Tines.
There will be an Opening Night Gala Performance on Wednesday, January 22, at 8 p.m. The venue will be the Taube Atrium Theater, part of the Diane B. Wilsey Center for Opera, which is located in the Veterans Building (on the fourth floor) at 401 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. This will be followed by seven performances at the ODC Theater at 8 p.m. on Friday, January 24, Saturday, January 25, Tuesday, January 28, Wednesday, January 29, Friday, January 31, and Saturday, February 1, as well as a 3 p.m. matinee on Sunday, January 26. Ticket prices will be announced when single tickets go on sale.
Finally, there will be only one PBO SESSIONS event taking place in San Francisco during the coming season. However, this will mark Egarr’s first participation in this series. The title of the event will be A Cup o’ Johann. It will explore the activities of Bach and his Collegium Musicum colleagues in the weekly concerts at Leipzig’s Café Zimmermann. This event will also take place at 8 PM on February 8. The venue will again be the ODC Theater, and ticket prices will be announced when single tickets go on sale.
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