Tuesday, August 24, 2021

San Francisco Performances: November, 2021

Having addressed the November schedule for Sunset Music and Arts, this site can now proceed to account for the concerts that will be presented by San Francisco Performances (SFP) during than same month. There will be four offerings, three of which will involve string quartets in different settings, followed by a solo piano recital. Single tickets will not go on sale until next month on September 13. At that time all of the Web pages for individual concerts will be updated to include a hyperlink for concert-specific purchases. Single tickets may also be purchased by calling 415-392-2545, the telephone number for the Box Office. However, it is still the case that there will be no “physical” box office service.

All of the November performances will take place in Herbst Theatre, whose entrance is on the ground floor of the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue, located on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. This venue is excellent for public transportation, since that corner has Muni bus stops for both north-south and east-west travel. That said, here is the chronological list of the performances that will take place in November, each with a hyperlink to the SFP Web page for that event, which will include the prices for single-ticket purchases. All performances will take place on weekday evenings at 7:30 p.m. as follows:

Tuesday, November 9: The first string quartet to perform will be the Dover Quartet, whose members are violinists Joel Link and Bryan Lee, violist Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, and cellist Camden Shaw. The program will be framed by two quartets composed during the late nineteenth century. The opening selection will be Alexander Zemlinsky’s Opus 4 (first) quartet in D major; and the program will conclude with the second of Joannes Brahms’ two Opus 51 quartets in the key of A minor. Between these two selections, bass-baritone Davóne Tines will join the quartet in two compositions, Samuel Barber’s “Dover Beach” and Caroline Shaw’s “By and By.” This will be the first concert in the Shenson Chamber Series.

Thursday, November 11: That concert will be followed by the second program to be curated by the Catalyst Quartet of violinists Karla Donehew and Abi Fayette, violist Paul Laraia, and cellist Karlos Rodriguez. Like the first program, the emphasis will be on works from the African American tradition of chamber music; and there will again be a guest artist. That artist will be clarinetist Anthony McGill, joining the quartet to perform Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Opus 10 quintet in F-sharp minor. This will be the final selection, preceded by Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson’s first (“Calvary”) string quartet, and Florence Price’s Five Folksongs in Counterpoint.

Wednesday, November 17: The final string quartet recital of the month will be the second offering in the Shenson series. The Castalian Quartet consists of violinists Sini Simonen and Daniel Roberts, violist Ruth Gibson, and cellist Christopher Graves. Their program will consist of three quartets from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They will begin with Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 80 in F minor. This will be followed by György Ligeti’s first quartet, given the title “Métamorphoses nocturnes.” The final quartet also has a title, “Voces Intimae,” Jean Sibelius’ Opus 56 in D minor.

Tuesday, November 30: The concluding piano recital will mark the solo SFP debut of Joyce Yang, who has already performed in a concert by given by the Alexander String Quartet. On that occasion, in February of 2019, they presented the West Coast Premiere of “Quintet with Pillars,” recently completed by Samuel Adams and scored for string quartet and piano with digital resonance. Yang’s solo recital will focus on more familiar selections. She will begin with Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 816 (“French”) suite in G major. She will then complete the first half of her program with the ten preludes in Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Opus 23 collection. She will begin the second half with the “June” movement from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 37a suite The Seasons. She will then conclude with Franz Liszt’s B minor piano sonata.

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