Thus far this site has discussed the four San Francisco Performances (SFP) subscription series that will get under way during the last quarter of this year: Uncovered, PIVOT, Piano, and Chamber Music. The remaining four series will not begin until next year. However, because subscriptions are available for all of them, sooner is likely to be better than later. Today’s article will discuss the Art of Song series, one of two to offer its first performance during the second half of January. The series title was intended to reach beyond the usual conventions of vocal recitals, and there are definitely signs of where that reach will extend this season. All of these events will take place at 7:30 p.m. on different days of the week.
As usual, all of the concerts will be held in Herbst Theatre. The entrance to Herbst is the main entrance to the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue, located on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. The venue is excellent for public transportation, since that corner has Muni bus stops for both north-south and east-west travel. The specific dates and their related performers are as follows:
Friday, January 21: Soprano Golda Schultz has prepared a program of songs all written by women composers from different periods of music history. Thus, she will begin with a selection of songs composed by Clara Schumann, and her program will also include two works by Nadia Boulanger. At the other end of the “time-line,” her program will conclude with a new work by Kathleen Tagg, which has not yet been given a title. One of the more fascinating offerings will be a piece by Emilie Mayer entitled “Erlkönig II.”
Wednesday, March 16: Tenor Mark Padmore has been a regular visitor to SFP offerings. However, this may be his first recital with an accompanist not only from the United States but also associated with some of the more adventurous approaches to contemporary jazz. That accompanist will be Ethan Iverson, more familiar to SFP audiences as the composer, pianist, and founder of the combo The Bad Plus. The title of the program will be Songs of the Earth. Those expecting to get their “Franz Schubert fix” from Padmore will not be disappointed; but he will also devote a portion of his program to the twentieth-century American composer Samuel Barber. Any directions that Iverson may lead him are yet to be revealed.
Friday, April 1: Turkish-born Austrian tenor Ilker Arcayürek made his San Francisco debut in February of 2019 as one of the featured artists in the SFP Discovery Series. Not shy about first impressions, he introduced himself to the audience with a compelling account of Franz Schubert’s D. 911 song cycle Winterreise (winter journey). He will return to Herbst with a more diverse account of the many songs that Schubert composed. As was the case at his debut, he will be accompanied by British pianist Simon Lepper (who also made his San Francisco debut at that 2019 recital). Program details have not yet been provided, but Arcayürek is organizing his selection around the program title The Path of Life.
Saturday, April 9: Matthias Goerne will return with a program of selections shared between Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. He will be accompanied by Seong-Jin Cho, better known as a recitalist and concerto soloist. (Cho won the XVII International Chopin Piano Competition in 2015.)
Thursday, May 12: If the account of Arcayürek’s SFP debut left readers hungry for another performance of Winterreise, they will get that opportunity at the end of this Series. However, that opportunity has a twist. If Schultz decided to focus on women composers, the vocalist for this Schubert performance will be mezzo Angelika Kirchschlager. She will be accompanied at the piano by Julius Drake.
Subscriptions are now on sale for $340 for premium seating in the Orchestra and the front and center of the Dress Circle, $265 for the Side Boxes, the center rear of the Dress Circle, and the remainder of the Orchestra, and $205 for the remainder of the Dress Circle and the Balcony. Subscriptions may be purchased online in advance through an SFP Web page. Orders may also be placed by calling the SFP subscriber hotline at 415-677-0325, which is open for receiving calls between 9:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. When single tickets go on sale, they may be purchased by visiting the specific event pages. The above dates provide hyperlinks to the appropriate Web pages.
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