Center for New Music: December, 2019

As the year winds down, the monthly calendars tend to thin out in the interests of shopping and parties. Nevertheless, the Center for New Music (C4NM) has already lined up several events of note for next month. As usual, I shall use my Facebook shadow site to put out the word of any updates to the schedule.

C4NM is located at 55 Taylor Street, half a block north of the Golden Gate Theater, which is where Golden Gate Avenue meets Market Street. All tickets may be purchased in advance through a Vendini event page. Hyperlinks to the appropriate Web pages will be attached to each of the dates in the following summary:

[added 11/20, 9:35 a.m.:

Thursday, December 5, 8 p.m.: This evening will be shared by bassist Mark Helias and clarinetist Ben Goldberg. Between the two of them, they will present an evening of schemes, diatribes, unholy postmortems, and fractured analysis. Both musicians will give solo performances and will join forces for a duo at the end of the program. The charge will be $15 for general admission and $10 for C4NM members and students.]

Saturday, December 7, 7 p.m.: This will be a release party for Bon Voyage, the second album of performances by the Mobius Trio. Regular readers probably know by now that this is the trio of guitarists Robert Nance, Mason Fish, and Matthew Holmes-Linder. This will basically be a listening party that will account for the entire album enhanced by food, drink, and great company. The charge for admission will be a $20 donation on Kickstarter, enabled through the above hyperlink.

Wednesday, December 11, 7 p.m.: This program will present the world premiere of Larry Polansky’s five songs for kate and vanessa, composed for violin and cello. It is named after the performers, violinist Kate Stenberg and cellist Vanessa Ruotolo. For two of the songs, they will be joined by pianist Amy Beal.

There will also be a premiere performance of “At First,” a solo violin composition by Henry Cowell. Since Cowell died in 1965, this may raise some eyebrows. The music consisted of a single page, presented by violinist Anahid Ajemian when she gave birth to her daughter Maro in 1953, after which Ajemian had the score page framed behind glass. A copy was made for Stenberg for research purposes; but, apparently, Ajemian never felt the music was suitable for public performance.

Polansky will also give a guitar performance of his composition “34 Chords,” subtitled (with a nod to Morton Feldman) “Christian Wolff in Hanover and Royalton.” The program will also include Mark Applebaum’s “Aphasia,” Terry Longshore’s “Crash,” and Salina Fisher’s “Komorebi” for violin and vibraphone with Longshore on vibraphone. The charge will be $15 for general admission and $10 for C4NM members and students.

Saturday, December 14, 7 p.m.: This will be a continuation of the Inception series, which began at C4NM this past Friday evening. The series is presented by Global Art Bridges, a collaborative project uniting various musical and artistic traditions of the world, which was launched by Leo Iogansen and Sasha Burdin this past spring. The program will present works by both of these founders, as well as compositions created by other members of the ensemble. The charge will be $15 for general admission and $10 for C4NM members and students.

Sunday, December 15, 7 p.m.: Guitarist Giacomo Fiore will curate a solo acoustic guitar recital by Charlie Rauh. The program will consist of lullabies inspired by the Welsh concept of hiraeth: longing for a place or a point in time that you cannot return to, and possibly never existed. The charge will be $15 for general admission and $10 for C4NM members and students.

Friday, December 20, 7 p.m.: The Bay Area Composer Group will present a two-set evening. The opening set will be taken by guitarist Roberto Granados, playing new works for solo classical guitar and the premiere of a solo violin composition. He will be followed by The Unquiet Grave, the vocal duo of Randall Krieger and Elise Ebbinghaus. Ebbinghaus provides rhythm on the Irish bodhrán drum, and Krieger also plays guitar. The charge will be $15 for general admission and $10 for C4NM members and students.