SFCM: October, 2020

At the beginning of this month, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) announced its Fall 2020 concert series. The overall theme for the entire 2020–21 season will be Music and (e)Motion.” It will feature a thematically linked repertoire and curriculum exploring the ways in which music moves us, from meaningful emotional connections to the more literal embodiment of breath and rhythm experienced by instrumentalists, singers, and dancers.

While the concert halls and campus are closed to the public during the COVID-19 pandemic, all events will be presented as a digital concert series with an expansive line-up of free live-streamed performances. The “underlying mechanics” (so to speak) for these offerings will be based on the Performance Calendar Web site. The event page for any live-streamed concert will include a hyperlink for using an electronic mail address to make a reservation. Then, on the day of the concert, the hyperlink for “attending” the event will be sent to that address. In that context, here is the summary for the October events, each with a hyperlink to its event page:

Monday, October 12, 7:30 p.m.: Cellist Jean-Michel Fonteneau will present a solo recital in the Faculty Artist Series. He will begin with Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 1008 (second) solo cello suite in D minor. He will then shift attention to the twentieth century with two adventurous compositions. The first of these will be the third piece in Mario Davidovsky’s Synchronisms series, each of which involves a soloist playing against a tape recording of electronic sounds. The second will be a set of four pieces for solo cello composed by Tania León. Fonteneau will then conclude his program with three short pieces by cellist Gregor Piatigorsky: “Prayer – Homage to Ernest Bloch,” “Syrinx,” and “Prokofiev and Shostakovich Strolling in Moscow.”

Thursday, October 15, 7:30 p.m.: The next Faculty Artist Series program will feature the Telegraph Quartet, which is the SFCM quartet-in-residence. Eric Chin and Joseph Maile share the first violin chair, and they are joined by violist Pei-Ling Lin and cellist Jeremiah Shaw. Chin, Maile, and Lin are all SFCM alumni currently serving on the faculty. The second half of the program will be devoted entirely to Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 131 quartet in C-sharp minor as their way of celebrating the 250th anniversary of the birthday of Ludwig van Beethoven. The program will begin with Eleanor Alberga’s second quartet and Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Opus 34 (third) quartet.

Sunday, October 18, 2 p.m.: Pianist William Wellborn will continue the Beethoven celebration with a Faculty Artist Series program entitled Beethoven and His Contemporaries. He will share the program with current students and alumni of the Pre-College Program. He will play only two solo selections, Beethoven’s Opus 34 set of six variations in the key of F major and the A major Allegretto from the six impromptus that Jan Václav Voříšek collected as his Opus 7. The only other solo composition will be Carl Maria von Weber’s Opus 39 (second) piano sonata in A-flat major, which will be played by Pre-College alumnus (class of 2010) Andrew Yang. The remainder of the program will be devoted to music for “multiple hands.” It will begin with Johann Nepomuk Hummel’s duo sonata played by brothers Alexander and Lucas Perry. Wellborn will then join Leo Jergovic to play Franz Schubert’s D. 940 fantasy in F minor. The performers will then “double down” for two selections performed by four pianists on two keyboards. Wellborn, Jergovic, and Yang will be joined by Evelyn Dimov for the other Beethoven selection on the program, his Opus 93 (eighth) symphony in F major. Finally, the two Perrys will join Wellborn and Yang to play Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 20 octet in E-flat major.

Sunday, October 25, 2 p.m.: The next Faculty Artist Series program will present a solo electric guitar performance by Giacomo Fiore. He will perform Michael Pisaro’s “black, white, red, green, blue,” which he had released as a self-produced album at the beginning of this past May. The program will also include a lecture to familiarize listeners with Pisaro’s work before Fiore plays this particular composition.

Monday, October 26, 7:30 p.m.: Violinist Cordula Merks has scheduled a Faculty Artist Series recital but has not yet announced the program, which will be posted to the event page when it has been finalized.

Tuesday, October 27, 7:30: The first student recital will be given by those in the Cello Department; and, again, specifics about the program (both performers and selections) will be provided to the event page closer to the scheduled date for the performance.

Friday, October 30, 7:30 p.m.: The final program of the month will be the first String and Piano Chamber Music offerings at which the performers will be students, alumni, and faculty. The major work on the program will be Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 117 (ninth) string quartet in E-flat major, prepared by Chin, who will play first violin along with two students and one alumna. The program will begin with the string quintet (with two violas) “Primal Message” by Nokuthula Ngwenyama, prepared by Ian Swensen, who will play first violin. The program will conclude with a student-alumnus performance of Johannes Brahms’ Opus 26 (second) piano quartet in A major, led by student violinist Shintaro Taneda.