Berkeley Symphony to Continue Film Series

Composer and conductor John Adams (courtesy of the Berkeley Symphony)

A week from this Sunday the Berkeley Symphony will stream the third episode of its four-episode REAL Berkeley film series. The previous episode, which took place late in May, was entitled Edgy Art, because the music was supplemented by a video account of exhibits and artwork from the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. The title of this month’s offering will be Audacious Performances, and it will be organized around a single composition by John Adams.

What may well be the first public awareness of Adams’ audacity can probably be traced back to 1975 with the release of Ensemble Pieces, the second album on the Obscure Records label, created and curated by Brian Eno. Adams was the first American to appear on this label; and his contribution was American Standard, a tongue-in-cheek suite in three movements, best known today for its second movement, “Christian Zeal and Activity.” The tracks on Ensemble Pieces were taken from a performance by the New Music Ensemble (NME) of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM), which took place at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art on March 23, 1973. (Adams was teaching at SFCM at the time and directing NME.)

Adams himself has asserted that his “first mature composition” was written about four years later, the half-hour minimalist “Phrygian Gates,” composed for solo piano in 1977. The following year he completed the original string septet version of the four-movement “Shaker Loops,” which will be the “audacious” composition around which this REAL Berkeley episode will be organized. The seven performers, violinists Helen Kim, Dan Flanagan, and Stephanie Bibbo, violist Alexandra Leem, cellists Isaac Pastor-Chermak and Chloé Mendola, and bassist Michel Taddei, have all had past encounters with audacity. They will be led by Adams, marking his first time conducting in more than a year. In addition, that audacity will be reinforced with choreography created by Robert Dekkers and performed by members of his Post:ballet. Readers may recall that Kim is no stranger to Post:ballet, having been involved with two of Dekkers’ past projects prepared for streaming during pandemic conditions.

This performance will take place at 4 p.m. on Sunday, June 13. It will be streamed through YouTube with no charge for admission. Connectivity will be established through the REAL Berkeley event page. Those visiting this Web page prior to that date will see that YouTube windows have been embedded for the first two episodes of the series. After the new window has been added, it will be available for viewing at any time. It will also include a hyperlink for viewing on a separate browser Web page.