This week began with the announcement that the four programs in the San Francisco Performances (SFP) PIVOT Festival, talking place on April 16, 17, 21, and 23, would be cancelled. Yesterday it was announced that the SFP Front Row Web site would launch an alternative streamed PIVOT series of three concerts, which will be launched on alternate Thursdays next month. All of these performances will be made available for free online streaming. Like previous “physical” PIVOT offerings, these will be performances that “stray from the beaten path,” each following the beat of its own drummer (to mix metaphors). The three offerings and their respective launch dates will be as follows:
The members of George Hinchliffe’s Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain (courtesy of San Francisco Performances)
April 1: Once again Great Britain has come up with an oddity that was launched on a lark and, shortly thereafter, began to attract sell-out audiences. (My favorite ensemble of this sort used to be the Penguin Cafe Orchestra, which my wife and I followed enthusiastically, bringing a stuffed-toy penguin to a concert they gave in Los Angeles.) The full name of the group is George Hinchliffe’s Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, and the title of their program will be Ukulele Lockdown. Their programming tends to favor the pop repertoire; and the program they will bring to SFP cyberspace will include Tom Waits, Kate Bush, and David Bowie (none of whom, most likely, would have imagined ukulele versions of their respective songs). However, those that prefer the concert repertoire will be able to listen to the group’s own arrangement of the Sinfonia that opens the third act of George Frideric Handel’s HWV 67 oratorio Solomon. (The title of that Sinfonia is best known as the “Arrival of the Queen of Sheba”).
April 15: Vocalist Theo Bleckmann was last seen in last year’s PIVOT series. For this year’s streamed performance, he has prepared a program entitled Duet for One. He has not yet provided the details; but the program will consist of music that he recorded utilizing voice, loops, and “other toys.”
April 29: The final program was recorded this past December as part of the “digital residency” hosted by the Library of Congress for the JACK Quartet. The quartet members are violinists Christopher Otto and Austin Wulliman, violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Jay Campbell. Readers may recall that, at last year’s PIVOT, Campbell gave a duo recital with violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja. For this program JACK will be joined by pianist Conrad Tao. Not all program details have been announced; but there will be performances of two works by Elliott Carter, his third string quartet and “Duo.” There will also be a string quartet by Ruth Crawford Seeger and a performance of Tyshawn Sorey’s “For Conrad Tao.” In addition Otto has prepared an arrangement of the ballade “Angelorum psalat,” included in the Chantilly Codex and sometimes attributed to the fifteenth-century Spanish lutenist Rodrigo de la Guitarra.
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