Center for New Music: November, 2020

The Center for New Music (C4NM) seems to be progressing towards developing monthly schedules. Readers may recall that, when I tried to write about this month’s C4NM plans, I began with a list of two items, deleted one, and added another. Granted, every day is still Anything Can Happen Day (for those that remember the weekly occasion offered by Walt Disney); but, as of this writing, C4NM has plans for four programs during the month of November. All of them will be live-streamed.

Those concerts for which admission will be charged will provide information about the streaming source as in the past: All tickets must be purchased 45 minutes prior to performance. 30 minutes before the performance begins, all ticket-holders will receive electronic mail with a link to the YouTube Web page through which the performance will be streamed. For the free concerts, the same procedure may take place through a donation Web page; or, possibly, the link will simply be added to the Center for New Music YouTube Web page. The events currently planned for next month are as follows with hyperlinks to their respective Web pages:

from the www.pianolibrary.org Web page

• Saturday, November 7, 8 p.m.: This program will be shared by two solo pianists. Janis Mercer will play selections from her new CD commemorating the 75th anniversary of the death of Anton Webern. These will include short works taken from The Kinderstück Project, music composed used the twelve-tone row taken from Webern’s 1924 “Kinderstück” (see above). Contributing composers will be Brian Belet, Pablo Furman, Donivan Johnson, and Martha Stoddard. William Sorenson will then play Roger Sessions’ first piano sonata and Igor Stravinsky’s 1919 “Piano-Rag-Music.” Tickets will be sold for $15 for general admission and a $1 rate for C4NM members and students. There is currently a hyperlink for online purchase.
• Friday, November 13, 8 p.m.: Flutist (and former C4NM curator) Meerenai Shim will give a solo recital. She will premiere her own graphic score composition “On All Sides” and also give the first performance of “Wings to Air,” composed by Andrea Reinkemeyer and dedicated to Natalie Haworth-Liu, who commissioned the work. She will also perform solo compositions by Alice Jones, Janice Misurell-Mitchell, and Adolphus C. Hailstork. Tickets will be sold for $15 for general admission and a $1 rate for C4NM members and students. There is currently a hyperlink for online purchase.
• Sunday, November 15, 8 p.m.: Tom Nunn will return to C4NM to perform on his invented instruments. On this occasion he will be accompanying six solo dances performed by Christina Braun. Underlying the dance and music is the idea of chaos and our human response to it. Instruments newly born and without a history offer a unique “field of play” where the random can subvert the purpose. Improvised dance born from Butoh and the modern dance techniques of Isadora Duncan may express intention emerging from chaos. There will be no charge for admission for this performance. However, a donation of between $10 and $20 is suggested, all of which will be split between C4NM and the artists. [added 11/4, 5:45 p.m.
• Saturday, November 21, 8 p.m.: The San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the National Association of Composers/USA (NACUSA) will present a program entitled New Music for Strings & Piano. The program will consist of new duo and trio works by eight West Coast composers Adrienne Albert (“Musescape”), Davide Verotta (“Asynchronous”), John Beeman (“Luminosity”), Joanne Carey (second piano trio), Sheli Nan (“Awaken”), Karl Schmidt (“Interlude”), Allan Crossman (“Frequent Flyer”), and John Bilotta (“Sass”). All performances will be by three members of the Ives Collective: Susan Freier (violin and viola), Stephen J. Harrison (cello), and Lori Lack (piano). There will be no charge for admission, but donations to NACUSAsf are encouraged.]
  
• Saturday, November 28, 8 p.m.: This will be a pre-recorded broadcast through the C4NM YouTube Live channel. The Friction Quartet of violinists Otis Harriel and Kevin Rogers, violist Lucia Kobza, and cellist Doug Machiz will showcase some of the new works by Bay Area composers that were originally planned to be performed this past October 17. The composers whose works will be presented will be Monica Chew, Allan Crossman, Davide Verotta, and Shawne Workman. The concert will be free, but donations to C4NM are suggested and encouraged.