David Russell to Return to Herbst Next Month

Classical guitar maestro David Russell (courtesy of the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts)

I feel as if I have been listening to solo recitals by Scottish-born classical guitarist David Russell for almost as long as I have been writing about the performance of music. He has made regular visits to San Francisco, usually under the joint auspices of the Dynamite Guitars program presented by the Omni Foundation of the Performing Arts and the San Francisco Performances (SFP) Guitar Series. Next month he will return to Herbst Theatre for the last of this season’s Guitar Series recitals, while two further concerts will remain on the Omni calendar.

As always, Russell has prepared a program of considerable diversity, combining arrangements with original compositions for guitar. This month’s program will begin with an arrangement of lute music composed by Jacques de Saint-Luc, probably during his service to the court in Brussels in the seventeenth century. From the eighteenth century, Russell has selected three compositions from François Couperin’s four volumes of harpsichord and two chorale preludes by Johann Sebastian Bach (who was a great admirer of Couperin’s keyboard music). With the nineteenth century the program moves into music written for guitar, the Opus 21 “Air varié” by Swiss-born Giulio Regondi. In the twentieth century the repertoire crosses the Atlantic to Paraguay with two selections by Agustín Barrios (sometimes known as Mangoré). The one living composer on the program will be Sergio Assad (formerly a Bay Area resident) with a performance of “Phyllis's Portrait,” which was given its world premiere performance by Russell in New York in April of last year.

This performance will take place in Herbst Theatre at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 21. Herbst Theatre is located on the first two floors of the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue, convenient to public transportation on both Van Ness Avenue and McAllister Street. Ticket prices will be $60 for premium seating on the Orchestra level and in the front of the Dress Circle, $50 for the Boxes, the remainder of the Orchestra, and the remainder of the center Dress Circle, and $45 for the Balcony and the remainder of the Dress Circle. Tickets may be purchased in advance online through a City Box Office event page.