Choices for December 13–15, 2019

The second weekend in December will not be quite as busy as the first weekend. However, most of the events will be concentrated on Saturday, with fewer options on both Friday and Sunday. Once again, specifics are listed in order of start time as follows:

Friday, December 13, 7:30 p.m., San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM): The last major public event of the fall term will be a performance by the SFCM Orchestra conducted by Joseph Young. This will be the concert that presents the winning composition of the 2019 SFCM Highsmith Competition. The winner is Nicholas Denton-Protsack, who graduated this past spring, and the title of his work is “Visions of a Flaxen Sea.” The program will also present Julia Perry’s “A Short Piece for Small Orchestra” and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 13 (first) symphony in G minor, given the title “Winter Daydreams.”

The venue will be the Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall. General admission will be $20 with a $15 rate for seniors and SFCM members. A hyperlink has been created for online purchase. For those who do not already know, the SFCM building is located at 50 Oak Street, between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street, a short walk from the Van Ness Muni Station.

Friday, December 13, and Saturday, December 14, 8 p.m., Davies Symphony Hall: The annual performance of George Frideric Handel’s HWV 56 oratorio Messiah by the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) and the SFS Chorus has been a long-standing SFS tradition. This season the conductor will be SFS Chorus Director Ragnar Bohlin. Soloists will include two countertenors, Ben Bliss and Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, the latter making his SFS debut. The other vocal soloists will be soprano Lauren Snouffer and bass Adam Lau.

While this is not a subscription event, both concerts will be preceded by a free Inside Music talk given by Alexandra Amati one hour prior to each concert. Ticket prices range from $20 to $170, and a single event page has been created for online purchase for both performances. They may also be purchased 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. In addition the event page has embedded sound file clips from past performances of HWV 56. Flash must be enabled for both streamed content and online ticket purchases. 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 prior to Sunday performances.

Friday, December 13, 8 p.m., St. Mark’s Lutheran Church: The title of this season’s California Bach Society concert is Christmas in the Americas. Artistic Director Paul Flight has prepared a program that draws heavily upon music from the cathedrals of Lima, Cuzco, and Mexico City. There will also be Canadian works based on old French tunes, and Christmas pieces by New England composers such as William Billings. Instrumental accompaniment will be provided by guitarist Paul Psarras, percussionist Tim DeCillis, and keyboardist Yuko Tanaka.

St. Mark’s is located at 1111 O’Farrell Street, just west of the corner of Franklin Street. Ticket prices will be $30 for general admission, $25 for seniors, and $10 for students and those under the age of 30. Prices at the door will be $35 for general admission and $30 for seniors. All tickets are being sold online through a Brown Paper Tickets event page.

[added 12/3, 9:40 a.m.:

Saturday, December 14, 7:30 p.m., St. Mark's Lutheran Church: The next program to be presented by the International Orange Chorale of San Francisco (IOCSF) is entitled East by Southeast. The concert will present a selection of 20th and 21st century choral pieces by composers from the Philippines, Indonesia, and South Korea. Composers represented on the program include Excelsis Betil-Viña, Fidel Calalang Jr., Ryan Cayabyab, Saunder Choi, Francisco Feliciano, Gregorio Responso Labja, Slamet Sjukur, Mary Katherine Trangco, and Hyo-Won Woo. This program is likely to provide a journey of discovery for just about everyone in the audience. As always, IOCSF programs are presented without a charge for admission, but donations are always welcome.]

Saturday, December 14, and Sunday, December 22, 8 p.m., Saint Ignatius Church: Another local annual tradition is the performance of A Chanticleer Christmas. Every year Chanticleer tours with this program within a generous radius with San Francisco as its hub. Reader will note that the two concerts in San Francisco will be separated by about a week. As always, the program will be diverse and eclectic, beginning with Renaissance compositions and concluding with innovative arrangements of traditional carols. The composers to be represented in the “middle ground” between these extremes will be Trond Kverno, Franz Biebl, and Herbert Howells.

Saint Ignatius Church is located on the campus of the University of San Francisco at 650 Parker Avenue on the northeast corner of Fulton Street. Ticket prices will be $79 for Premiere seating, $67 for Preferred seating, $53 for Reserved seating in the Balcony, and $35 for general admission seating in the side sections of the sanctuary. All tickets are being sold online by City Box Office with separate event pages for December 14 and December 22.

Saturday, December 14, 8 p.m., Old First Presbyterian Church: Those who feel they need a break from seasonal offerings will be happy to known that Old First Concerts (O1C) has scheduled a thoroughly secular recital by Hank Dutt, violist of the Kronos Quartet, who will be accompanied at the piano by Hadley McCarroll. Dutt will present the West Coast premiere of a sonata for viola and piano by John Harbison, and the composer will be in attendance for this event. In addition Dutt will give a world premiere performance of his own adaptation of “fourth circle,” by the Polish-Dutch composer Hanna Kulenty. Other composers on the program will be Aleksandra Vrebalov, Toru Takemitsu, and Leonid Desyatnikov, as well as early works by both Philip Glass and Meredith Monk.

The Old First Presbyterian Church is located at 1751 Sacramento Street on the southeast corner of Van Ness Avenue. If purchased in advance online from the O1C event page, general admission will be $23 with a discounted rate of $18 for seniors aged 65 or older. Tickets for full-time students showing valid identification will be $5; and children aged twelve and under will be admitted for free. There is also a discount available for those parking at the Old First Parking Garage at 1725 Sacramento Street, just up the street from the church.

Saturday, December 14, 8 p.m, Monument: One Found Sound will present the second orchestral concert in its Sounds of 7 season, entitled Chroma. As might be guessed, the title refers to different sonorous colors that emerge from imaginative combinations of instruments. The program will conclude with Igor Stravinsky’s “Symphonies of Wind Instruments.”This was written in 1920 for one-to-a-part performance by 24 players of wind and brass instruments. (Stravinsky wrote a revision in 1947 requiring only 23 players, removing the requirement for an alto flute from the instrumentation.) Similarly imaginative approach to winds will be found in the opening selection. Francis Poulenc composed a suite of arrangements of dance tunes collected by Claude Gervaise in Le livre de danceries for wind ensemble supplemented by drum and harpsichord. The result was the seven-movement Suite française. This will be followed by “Youth,” composed late in life by Leoš Janáček and scored for a sextet of flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon, and bass clarinet.

Monument is located in SoMA at 140 9th Street. General admission tickets are being sold for $25. Tickets may be purchased online in advance through Eventbrite. The price for tickets purchased at the door will be $30.

Sunday, December 15, 4 p.m., St. Mark’s Lutheran Church: San Francisco Choral Artists (SFCA) and its Artistic Director Magen Solomon will begin its 2019–2020 season with a program entitled from Pole to Pole: Christmas in the Three Americas. In a spirit similar to that of the California Bach Society, the program will explore music from ancient Peru, Baroque Mexico, early New England, modern-day Canada, and contemporary California. “Contemporary” means new compositions by Composer-in-Residence Alexis Alrich and Composer-Not-in-Residence Timothy Kramer.

Ticket prices will be $30 for general admission, $25 for seniors, and $12.50 for those under 30. Prices at the door will be $35 for general admission, $29 for seniors, and $15 for those under 30. All tickets are being sold online through a Web page on the SFCA Web site. Orders can also be placed for the entire three-concert season.

Sunday, December 15, 4 p.m., Old First Presbyterian Church: Season offerings will continue with a performance by the Young Women’s Chorus of San Francisco, led by Artistic Director Susan McMane. This will be the group’s O1C debut. Featured composers will be Hildegarde von Bingen, Jacob Handl, Arvo Pärt, and Maurice Duruflé, as well as the young American woman composer Abbie Betinis. Ticket prices will be the same as those for the Saturday evening concert, and they can be purchased through a separate event page.