Choices for November 15, 2020

I hesitate to guess whether or not this will be the only list-of-alternatives article for the current month. Readers may recall that there was only one for last month; and, as in that case, the overlapping events are taking place in the afternoon. However, before “reviewing the bidding” for those events, I should let readers know that, as of this writing, my own plan will be to cover an evening event, the performance by Tom Nunn and Christina Braun at the Center for New Music, which will begin at 8 p.m. on Sunday, November 15. That said, here are the afternoon options for that date:

2 p.m.: As has already been announced, Old First Concerts has prepared a 50th anniversary program, which will showcase some of the favorite musicians that have performed for the series.

3 p.m.: Michael Christie, Artistic and Music Director of the New West Symphony in Los Angeles, has planned the entire season around the theme Global Sounds, Local Cultures. The title of this month’s program will be A Tour of India. The concert will coincide with the holiday of Diwali (which I knew as Deepavali when I was living in Singapore), which is the Indian festival of lights. The program will explore the influences of Indian and Western classical music upon each other. It will include “Magan Rehna” (be merry) by Reena Esmail and “Ajapa Jaap” by Shane Cook. Soprano Saili Oak and tenor Sean Panikkar will be featured soloists. The program will include Panikkar singing the “Evening Song” from Philip Glass’ opera inspired by the life of Mahatma Gandhi, Satyagraha. Other Western composers featured on the program will be Edward Elgar, Claude Debussy, and Joaquín Turina. The concert will be the final event of a Cultural Festival; and admission to the entire Festival will be $25 for a Festival Passport, which may be purchased online through the Festival event page. Passport holders will then be provided with information on how to stream the individual events.

4 p.m.: The Music at Grace concert series held at Grace Cathedral will present a program entitled Kevin Baum and Friends. Baum is a tenor in the Grace Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys; and he has prepared a program of vocal solos from the English Baroque period with particular attention to Henry Purcell, Jeremiah Clarke Pelham Humfrey, and Nicola Matteis. He will be accompanied at the organ by Christopher Keady, who is Assistant Director of Music at Grace; and they will be joined by cellist William Skeen, a major figure in the performance of Early Music in the Bay Area. This concert will be live-streamed though both the Grace Cathedral Web site and Facebook, but registration is required through an Eventbrite event page. There is no charge for admission; but the registration page allows for gifts of $5, $10, $20, and $100, the last of which has a $7.72 processing fee that will not be tax-deductible. (There is also an option for making donations of any amount, from which fees will also be deducted accordingly.) Streaming information will be provided once registration has been finalized.