San Francisco Performances (SFP) will resume live performances in Herbst Theatre this coming July. This will mark the first time that SFP has presented a summer music concert series in its 41-year history. Nine concerts will be performed over the course of 11 days from July 14 through July 24. Programming will feature fourteen artists in chamber music, piano, and guitar. [updated 6/8, 9:20 a.m.: Three vocal recitals have been added to the original list.] Program details have not yet been finalized. Here is a summary of what is currently known:
Wednesday, July 14, 7:30 p.m.: Pianist David Greilsammer will make his SFP recital debut. He has prepared a program based on selections from his latest Naïve album, Labyrinth. This will include selections from Ofer Pelz’ Repetition Blindness, written especially for that album. Selections from “the other end of music history” will include the “Chaos” movement from Jean-Féry Rebel’s 1873 ballet suite Les Élémens in a solo piano arrangement by Jonathan Keren and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s D minor fantasia (presumably taken from the W. 117 collection). He will also play selections from the first book in Leoš Janáček’s On an Overgrown Path cycle. Greilsammer will also play a selection by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart that was not taken from the Labyrinth album.
Thursday, July 15, 7:30 p.m.: Pianist Garrick Ohlsson will complete his survey of the complete works that Johannes Brahms composed for solo piano. Originally scheduled for March 31, 2020, this program will finally conclude the series of four recitals that Ohlsson planned for this project. It will include the “bookends” of this corpus, the Opus 1 (first) sonata in C major and the Opus 119 collection of short pieces. The program will also present the Opus 4 scherzo in E-flat minor, the Opus 9 set of variations on a theme by Robert Schumann, and the Opus 39 collection of sixteen short waltzes.
Friday, July 16, 7:30 p.m.: The Alexander String Quartet (ASQ), with new violist David Samuel, will perform the British Invasion program originally scheduled for March 7, 2020. They will be joined by William Kanengiser, a member of the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, which had performed their American Guitar Masterworks concert in Herbst on November 23, 2019. The ASQ program will feature the United States premiere of Prism, arrangements of six songs by Sting prepared by Dušan Bogdanović. The “pop” spirit of the program will continue with Leo Brouwer’s arrangements of seven Beatles songs, after which the group will play “Labyrinth,” composed by Ian Krouse and based on a theme by Led Zeppelin. Earlier British music will be represented by Krouse’s “Music in Four Sharps,” based on John Dowland’s “Frog” galliard. Kanengiser will also give solo performances of several of Dowland’s songs. [added 6/8, 9:35 a.m.:
Saturday, July 17, 7:30 p.m.: Gabriel Kahane will give his first post-pandemic performance. In October of 2020 he composed one song for each day of the month as a personal account of the impact of life under lockdown conditions. His program, entitled After the Silence, will survey the results of that undertaking.
Sunday, July 18, 2 p.m.: Kahane will return to perform the world premiere of his own composition, Final Privacy Song. This work had been commissioned by SFP for performance at its 40th Anniversary Concert on April 26 of last year, which had to be cancelled due to COVID-19.) Setting a text by Matthew Zapruder, the work explores our ever-shifting relationships to nature and technology. This music will be juxtaposed by a selection of songs by Franz Schubert, which will be sung by tenor Nicholas Phan.]
Sunday, July 18, 7 p.m.: Kanengiser will remain in San Francisco to return to Herbst for a solo recital. This will feature a world-premiere performance of “Lost Land” by Golfram Khayam. Further details have not yet been announced, but the program will also include works by Dionisio Aquado, Frank Wallace, and Bryan Johanson. Kanengiser will also perform his own arrangement of music by the eighteenth-century Spanish guitarist Santiago de Murcia.
Monday, July 19, 7:30 p.m.: Pianist Natasha Paremski launched SFP’s 40th anniversary season with a solo recital set that she shared with jazz pianist Alfredo Rodríguez on September 27, 2019. This summer she will have the stage all to herself! Program specifics have not yet been announced; but the composers will be Frédéric Chopin, Thomas Adès, and Sergei Prokofiev.
Tuesday, July 20, 7:30 p.m.: Pianist Marc-André Hamelin had also been scheduled for that 40th anniversary season with a special concert on April 26, 2020. He has prepared a new program for his return to Herbst, which will feature the world premiere of his own composition, “Nowhere Going Fast,” which he will perform with ASQ. Further specifics have not yet been announced but will include music by Emanuel Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven.
Wednesday, July 21, 7:30 p.m.: Pianist Aaron Diehl will make his SFP recital debut with a program that reflects his experienced accounts of both the classical and jazz genres. His selections will focus on Black composers. On the classical side these will include William Grant Still and Nathaniel Dett. The jazz composers will be Duke Ellington and Roland Hanna. [added 6/8, 9:45 a.m.:
Thursday, July 22, 7:30 p.m.: Tenor Lawrence Brownlee will return to SFP, following his San Francisco recital debut on March 31, 2018. He has prepared a program to survey songs of his youth in Italian, French, and German. The composers of those songs include Alessandro Scarlatti, Giuseppe Torelli, Giulio Caccini, Giovanni Legrenzi, Franz Schubert, Franz Liszt, Richard Strauss, Gabriel Fauré, and Francis Poulenc. He will also sing spirituals by Harry Burleigh and Hall Johnson.]
Friday, July 23, 7:30 p.m.: Pianist Timo Andres produced two video recordings for SFP that were uploaded to the Front Row Web site as part of the Front Row Premium Series. Like Diehl, Andres is equally at home in the classical and jazz domains. His program will also include music by Ellington, as well as his own compositions. He will also play works by Claude Debussy, Ned Rorem, and Ann Southam. My advance material also includes “Schumann;” but those that viewed his Pithy Program video know that Andres made it a point to perform compositions by both Robert and Clara!
Saturday, July 24, 7:30 p.m.: Andres will return for a recital with violinist Jennifer Koh and cellist Jay Campbell. Once again, his own music will be included on the program. These will include solo compositions for violin and cello, respectively. Similarly, Janáček will be represented by his “Pohádka” (fairy tale), a duo for cello and piano and his sonata for violin and piano. The only selection that will involve all three performers will be Andres’ piano trio.
Single tickets will go on sale to the public on Monday, June 14. Prices for all performances will be $45, $55, and $65. A Summer Music Sessions 2021 Web page has been created, and hyperlinks for online ticket purchases will be added on that date. Telephone orders will be taken on Mondays through Fridays between 9:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. at 415-677-0325. Patrons with questions should call 415-677-0325 within the same time frame. Finally, all those planning to attend any of these performances are strongly advised to consult the Summer Music Sessions Health and Safety Factsheet Web page on the SFP Web site. This provides a useful account of all of the “ground rules” associated with visiting a public space during this time when many of the constraints of pandemic conditions are gradually being lifted.
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