Choices for May 23, 2021

According to my records, I have written only one “busy weekend” article since lockdown conditions due to COVID-19 were imposed. That weekend was the one preceding this past Thanksgiving Day weekend; and, after I compiled the list, I found that only one subsequent update involved a deletion. This list is a bit more modest and is limited to a single Sunday afternoon, May 23. Nevertheless, all of the offerings will involve streaming and will involve making choices as follows:

3 p.m.: San Francisco Contemporary Music Players will present this season’s in the COMMUNITY event entitled Sound Encounters. This will mark their first collaboration with the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) at the University of California at Berkeley. The works of three composers associated with CNMAT, Jon Kulpa, Maija Hynninen, and Jon Yu, will be showcased. Two of those pieces involve electronic technology. Kulpa’s “QuFoam” is based on real-time synthesis performed by the composer. Hynninen’s contribution is a radiophonic work involving multi-channel audio entitled “it is always today.” Yu, on the other hand, has contributed “15 eyes” scored for percussion; and it will be played by Chris Froh. Froh will also begin the program with a performance of “Koan: Having Never Written a Note for Percussion” by James Tenney, who was involved with the University of California prior to the creation of CNMAT.

This video will become available at 3 p.m. on Sunday, May 23, after which it will remain on demand through Wednesday, June 23. The entire program is 60 minutes in duration. There will be no charge for admission. However, in order to receive the URL for viewing the program, it will be necessary to “purchase” one (or more) free tickets through the General Admission window on the ticketing Web page. Those that do not currently have membership should be able to process an order of $0.00 with “Guest” status. [added 5/11, 9:45 a.m.:

3 p.m.: This past November this site announced that 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 November concert was a “tour” of India. This month the series continues with a similar “tour” of Mexico. Guest artists will include guitarist Jiji Kim, harpist Maria Casale, and the Mariachi Divas ensemble. The featured composers will be Arturo Marquez, Fernando Arroyo Lascurain, Silvestre Revueltas, Manuel Ponce, Gabriela Ortiz, and Jose Enrique Gonzalez-Medina. Once again, 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.] [added 5/17, 9:20 a.m.:

3 p.m.: This will be a four-hour concert by the duo B. Experimental Band, which will be broadcast by KFJC and, for those whose radios cannot reach as far south as Foothill College in Los Altos streamed live through the KFJC Web site. The group is led jointly by bassist Lisa Mezzacappa and drummer Jason Levis, both of whom are composers whose work almost always involves improvisation. They are describing this program as an “online improvisation workshop,” presented as a four-hour continuous performance showcasing compositions and structured improvisations by different members of the ensemble. The other performers will be Polly Moller Springhorn (flutes), Suki O'Kane (percussion), Steve Adams (saxophones and electronics), Jon Raskin (saxophones), Joel Reber (saxophone), Joe Hellerstein (trumpet), Heikki Koskinen (e-trumpet and flute), Rent Romus (saxophone), Erika Oba (flute), Nora Stanley (saxophone), Dave Cassini (vibraphone), Lea Cassini (koto and French horn), Rob Ewing (trombone), Charles Sharp (woodwinds), Jeff Schwartz (bass), and David Slusser (listed as playing “all of the above”).]

4 p.m.: Lamplighters Music Theatre will present a one-act operetta with music that Arthur Sullivan composed prior to beginning his partnership with W. S. Gilbert. The libretto for “Cox and Box” was written by F. C. Burnand. Bouncer is a retired military man who rents the same apartment to two different tenants (the names in the title), because one works during the day and the other works at night. The performance will be preceded by a new video of a performance of the overture for The Mikado. The duration will be 90 minutes. Admission will be on a sliding scale with a minimum of $5. A Web page has been created for ticket sales. The performance will be streamed through YouTube.

4 p.m.: At exactly the same time, the Berkeley Symphony will stream the second episode of REAL Berkeley, a four-episode virtual film series. The title of this particular episode is Edgy Art. The music to be performed will supplement a video account of exhibits and artwork from the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. The program will begin with an excerpt from Florence Price’s string quartet in G major. This will be followed by “Appel Interstellaire” (interstellar call), which Olivier Messiaen composed for solo horn as the sixth movement from his two-part suite Des canyons aux étoiles (from the canyons to the stars). The next selection with be Michael Daugherty’s “Diamond in the Rough,” scored for violin, viola, and percussion. The program will conclude with “Strum,” a string quartet by African American composer Jessie Montgomery (which One Found Sound performed at its “virtual watch party” this past November). This performance will also be streamed through YouTube with no charge for admission. Connectivity will be established through the REAL Berkeley event page. [added 5/12, 9 a.m.:

6 p.m.: This will be the second performance by the Chamber Music Society of San Francisco with guest artist Kay Stern, whose first performance has just been announced in an article of choices for May 21. The program of Antonio Vivaldi, Franz Schubert, and Jules Massenet is described in that article. Tickets for this performance are being sold through an Eventbrite event page.]