Old First Concerts: September 2020

Old First Concerts appears to have finalized its plans for next month. As was the case for this month, all performances will be live-streamed through YouTube. As of this writing, only three concerts have been planned for September. If any further concerts are scheduled, there will be the usual updating processes through both this Web page and the Facebook shadow site. Specifics are as follows:

Sunday, September 6, 4 p.m.: This will be jazz pianist Mike Greensill’s annual Labor Day concert at Old First. The title of this year’s program will be A Celebration of Melody. As usual, the repertoire will concentrate on the melodic joys of the Great American Songbook, along with a “hefty dose” of Greensill originals. This year Greensill will be joined by Jon Wiitala on bass.

Friday, September 18, 8 p.m.: Some readers may recall that this site reported on a live-streamed performance from Manny’s in the Mission. The concert itself was a three-set solo guitar recital by Lyle Sheffler. Old First Church will host Sheffler’s next recital. We can expect another sampling of the extensive repertoire for solo guitar with many selections that can probably be traced back to the programs and recordings of Andrés Segovia. Specific composers that Sheffler has announced for this program include Isaac Albéniz, Francisco Tárrega, and Heitor Villa-Lobos.

Friday, September 25, 8 p.m.: Ensemble Ari is an ensemble of Korean-American women, whose repertoire is devoted to music by women composers. The participating musicians for his concert will be violinist Jiwon Evelyn Kwark, cellist Sarah Hong, and pianist Sharon Lee Kim. The only trio selection will be Amy Beach’s Opus 150 piano trio, which will be coupled with her Opus 23 romance for violin and piano. Kim will give a solo performance of Addie Camsuzou’s first étude, composed in 2018. This will be complemented by Hong’s performance of selections from the ten études for solo cello by Sofia Gubaidulina.

[added 9/3, 4:45 p.m.:

Sunday, September 27, 4 p.m.: September will conclude with a recital by the Del Sol String Quartet. The current members are now Sam Weiser, first violin, Benjamin Kreith, second violin, Charlton Lee, viola, and Kathryn Bates, cello. The featured work on the program will be Julius Eastman's “Gay Guerilla.” The other composers to be represented on the program will be Jonah Gallagher (“Ghosts of Grass”), Erika Oba (“Halcyon”), and Rajna Swaminathan (“Borne”).]

Each of the above hyperlinks points to the O1C event page for that respective concert. Each event page will provide the necessary link to the YouTube site through which the concert will be streamed. Usually there is also a hyperlink for program notes.