Choices for October 18–20, 2019

Having written an article yesterday about a busy Sunday, rather than a busy weekend, I have discovered that choices for the following weekend will, in fact, involve all three days. This is due, in part, to this being the weekend of the third Bard Music West festival, which will occupy Friday evening and both the afternoon and evening of Saturday. However, there will be a diverse assortment of alternatives spanning the entire weekend to add to the concerts taking place on Friday and Saturday included in the monthly summaries listed this past Tuesday. Here are the additional alternatives, ordered by start time:

Friday, October 18, 7:30 p.m.–Saturday, October 19, 10 p.m., Noe Valley Ministry: The title of the third Bard Music West festival will be The World of Grażyna Bacewicz. Once again the event will be organized around the work and context of a single composer, as was the case in the first two festivals, which were devoted to György Ligeti and Henry Cowell, respectively. This year Poland is celebrating the 110th anniversary of Bacewicz’ birth and the 50th anniversary of her death, yet there are few opportunities to listen to her music performed in the United States.

Here in San Francisco, we have been a bit more fortunate. When Krzysztof Urbański returned to the podium of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) as guest conductor this past May, he began his program with a Bacewicz composition titled simply “Overture.” This was the first time that SFS had performed the composition, it was the first time I had encountered her orchestral writing, and, in the absence of any useful online archival site for SFS, I would hazard the guess that this was the first time the ensemble played anything she had composed. Things have been somewhat better on the chamber music side. Sarah Cahill played one of her solo piano compositions during her slot at the Flower Piano music festival this past July as part of her ongoing The Future is Female project; and, in October of last year, when she gave a duo recital with violinist Kate Stenberg for Old First Concerts, the two of them played two Bacewicz duo compositions, “Stained Glass Window” and “Melodia.” (I should also add that, back in my days with Examiner.com, I wrote about the Naxos recordings of all of Bacewicz’ string quartets performed by the Lutosławski Quartet.)

As in the past, the heart of the festival will consist of the performance of three full-length concerts, each of which will establish the context for a different period of Bacewicz’ life and works. Briefly summarized, program content will be as follows:

1. Friday, 7:30 p.m., A Rising Star: This program will survey some of Bacewicz’ key influences, framed by performances of her first string quartet and her first piano quintet. Those influences include her Polish predecessors, Ignacy Jan Paderewski and Karol Szymanowski, Nadia Boulanger, with whom she studied in Paris, and two of her contemporaries at that time, Claude Debussy and Igor Stravinsky. There will also be a selection of nine madrigals by Claudio Monteverdi.
2. Saturday, 4 p.m., From War to Warsaw Autumn: This program will follow Bacewicz back to Warsaw, through the horrors of World War II and the repressive Polish communist regime that isolated Poland’s artists from the Western world until the Thaw of 1956. Once again, the program will be framed by her own compositions, opening with “Polish Capriccio.” The second half of the program will survey a selection of her songs for soprano and piano, her second piano sonata, and her fourth string quartet. The other Polish composers on the program will be her friend Tadeusz Baird and Andrzej Panufnik, known both as a composer and as the four-hand piano partner of Witold Lutosławski. The program will also include the world premiere of a string trio composed by Mélanie Clapiès on a commission from Bard Music West.
3. Saturday 8 p.m., Evolution and Persistence – Bacewicz and Her Legacy: This program will investigate Bacewicz’ musical evolution in her later years, her exploration of but ultimate dislike of serialism, and her insistence on finding her own path. It will include her last (seventh) string quartet, a quartet for four cellos, and the viola version of a set of four caprices, which will be played by Luosha Fang, recent winner of the Tokyo International Viola Competition. The program will account for the influence of serialism with a performance of Alban Berg’s Opus 5, a set of four short pieces for clarinet and piano. Bacewicz’ legacy will then be experienced through subsequent Polish women composers: Agata Zubel, Marta Ptaszynska, Hanna Kulenty, and Lidia Zielińska.

The program will also include the screening of a film about Bacewicz, The World Only Sees My Cheerful Face. This film provides a profile of Bacewicz’ life and works over the course of about 50 minutes. It includes rare footage of Bacewicz herself, clips for performances of her music, and interviews with her family and friends. This film will be screened at 3 p.m. of Saturday, October 19, just prior to the Saturday afternoon concert.

Further information about both the concert programs and the film will be found through hyperlinks on the Festival home page. All events will take place at the Noe Valley Ministry, located in Noe Valley at 1021 Sanchez Street, near the corner of 23rd Street. There are several options for ticket prices. General admission for the entire festival will be $135 for premium seating, $80 for general admission, and $20 for students. There will also be a “marathon option,” covering the two concerts on Saturday and the film. The prices will be $90 for premium seating, $55 for general admission, and $30 for students. For individual concerts the price will be $35 for general admission, $50 for premium seating, and $20 for students. Admission to the film will be free with the purchase of tickets to any program. A single Web page has been created with hyperlinks to account for all the alternatives for purchasing tickets.

Friday, October 18, 7:30 p.m., Herbst Theatre: San Francisco Performances (SFP) will present the first concert in its Chamber Series with a recital by the Z.E.N. Trio. This group takes its name from the first initials of the first names of the players: Zhang Zuo on piano, Esther Yoo on violin, and Narek Hakhnazaryan on cello. Hakhnazaryan made his San Francisco debut when he performed in the SFP 2017–2018 Young Masters Series in February of 2018. The program will begin with Franz Schubert’s D. 897 poignant “Notturno” in E-flat major. This will be followed by Johannes Brahms Opus 8 (first) piano trio in B major. The second half of the program will be devoted entirely to Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 67 (second) piano trio in E minor, composed during the darkest days of World War II.

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. Ticket prices will be $70 for premium seating, $55, and $45. Tickets may be purchased in advance online through a City Box Office event page.

In addition, because this is the first concert in the Chamber Series, subscriptions are still on sale for $260 for premium seating, $200, and $160. 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.

Saturday, October 19, 4 p.m., Sutro Baths: Readers may recall that this will be the date and venue for “Tremble Staves,” a synthesis of mixed media installation, manipulation of natural and artificial lights and sound, wordless opera, and theatrical performance created by Raven Chacon. The performance will be by The Living Earth Show, the duo of percussionist Andy Meyerson and guitarist Travis Andrews; and it is expected to last for about an hour. The Sutro Baths ruins are located at 680 Point Lobos Avenue. They are best approached by taking the 38R bus down Geary Boulevard to the end of the line and then walking the remaining distance. There will be no admission charge. Nevertheless, the event page created by the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy includes a DONATE hyperlink. This performance will be enabled through a partnership with the Conservancy, and all financial assistance for the Conservancy’s activities will be greatly appreciated.

Saturday, October 19, 7:30 p.m., Seventh Avenue Presbyterian Church: The Seventh Avenue Performances recital series will host a performance by the Curium Trio. This will be the latest result of a collaboration between the Helia Music Collective and a performing ensemble. Readers may recall a report of Helia’s partnership with the members of the Liaison Ensemble early music group, mezzo Melinda Becker, harpsichordist Susie Fong, cellist Hallie Marshall-Pridham, and Tatiana Senderowicz on theorbo, whose results were performed at the Episcopal Church of the Incarnation this past January.

The title of this new collaborative effort is Color Through Music, which was inspired by Jennifer Higdon’s piano trio, entitled “Color Through.” The Helia composers whose works will be included on the program will be Emily Shisko, Julie Barwick, and Emma Logan. Curium will also play Higdon’s 2003 piano trio and selections from “Color Through,” as well as the piano trio by Germaine Tailleferre, the only female member of the group of French composes known as “Les Six.”

The Seventh Avenue Presbyterian Church is located at 1329 Seventh Avenue, about half a block south of the stop for the Muni N trolley line. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for students and seniors. Tickets will be available in advance online through Brown Paper Tickets, but the event page has not yet been created.

Saturday, October 19, 7:30 p.m., St. Mark’s Lutheran Church: The San Francisco Girls Chorus (SFGC) will launch is 2019–2020 concert season with a program entitled Daring Sisters / Atrevidas Hermanas. Curated by soprano Nell Snaidas, the program has been structured as an homage to the seventeenth-century Hieronymite nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. SFGC alumna and soprano Jennifer Ellis Kampani will also perform as soloist, along with Richard Savino’s El Mundo chamber ensemble. The program will be sung in Spanish, Nahuatl, and Quechua and will include works by Andres Flores, Juan Garcia de Zéspedes, Juan de Lienas and Sor Juana herself.

St. Mark’s Lutheran Church is located at 1111 O’Farrell Street, just west of the corner of Franklin Street. Tickets will be sold for $28 for general admission and $38 for preferred reserved seating. Tickets may be purchased in advance online through a City Box Office event page.

Sunday, October 20, 3 p.m., Congregation Sherith Israel: Readers may recall the first production to be presented by the Claude Heater Foundation, launched a little over a year ago. That offering was a concert performance of Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, which was warmly received by all those in attendance. (Sadly, I was not one of them.) Earlier this month the Foundation announced plans for its next concert performance in San Francisco. This time the opera will be Giuseppe Verdi’s Nabucco. Jonathan Khuner will return to conduct a full orchestra, chorus, and soloists including baritone Kenny Stavert (Nabucco), soprano Juyeon Song (Abigaille), bass-baritone Philip Skinner (Zaccaria), mezzo-soprano Tamara Gallo (Fenena), and tenor Alex Boyer (Ismaele).

Congregation Sherith Israel is located at 2266 California Street, on the northwest corner of Webster Street. Ticket prices range from $100 for the best seating to $18. Tickets may be purchased online through an Eventbrite event page.

Sunday, October 20, 3 p.m., Davies Symphony Hall: The annual series of solo organ recitals will begin with the return of Paul Jacobs. He has prepared an impressively diverse program that will highlight the capabilities of his instrument in a wide variety of contexts. He will begin with two compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach, the BWV 582 passacaglia in C minor, which concludes with an elaborate fugue, and the BWV 530 trio sonata (for two keyboards and pedal) in G major. This will be followed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 608, a fantasia in F minor originally composed for a clockwork organ. The twentieth century will be represented by the set of variations that Charles Ives composed for the anthem “America.” The second half of the program will be devoted to Louis Vierne’s Opus 59, the sixth (and last) of the symphonies he composed for solo organ.

Tickets are being sold for $40 and $30. They may be purchased online through the event page for this program on the SFS Web site, by calling 415-864-6000, or by visiting the Davies Box Office, whose entrance is on the south side of Grove Street between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street. Flash must be enabled for purchasing tickets online.

[added 9/27, 4:20 p.m.:

Sunday, October 20, 4 p.m., Church of the Advent of Christ the King: Resident choir Schola Adventus, led by Music Director Paul Ellison, will provide the music for a Solemn Evensong & Benediction service to begin the second season of Third Sunday programs. The composers to be included among the musical offerings will be as follows:

• Percy W. Whitlock: folk tune
• William Smith: Preces & Responses
• Charles V. Stanford: Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis
• Herbert Howells: A Hymn for St. Cecilia
• Walter Vale: O salutaris & Tantum ergo

The remaining Third Sunday events and their respective services will be as follows:

• November 17: Pentecost XXIII
• December 15: Advent III (Rose)
• January 19: Epiphany II
• February 16: Epiphany VI
• March 15: Lent III
• May 17: Easter VI]