Sunday, December 19, 2021

SFCM Highlights: February, 2022

Highlighted concerts at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) will resume this coming February. That month will include the return of the SFCM Chamber Music Tuesday concerts held in the Barbro Osher Recital Hall on the top floor of the Ute and William K. Bowes Jr. Center for the Performing Arts. This will be one of the five unique genres taking place during the month. As in the past, all the events enumerated below will be identified by date, time, and venue, all of which will be hyperlinked to the appropriate Web page in the online Performance Calendar. Those events will continue to be live-streamed through a link provided on that Web page, which will also indicate whether or not tickets will be required for attendance. Specifics for this month’s events are as follows:

Tuesday, February 8, 7:30 p.m., Barbro Osher Recital Hall, 200 Van Ness Avenue: This program will be framed by two “first” piano quartets, both in minor keys. The opening selection will be Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 478 in G minor, and the program will conclude with Gabriel Fauré’s Opus 15 in C minor. Between these two quartets will be Mieczysław Weinberg’s Opus 48 string trio. Faculty members Simon James, Ian Swensen, Dimitri Murrath, Jennifer Culp, and Jean-Michel Fonteneau will perform with Chamber Music students.

Saturday, February 12, 7:30 p.m., Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall, 50 Oak Street: Conductor Edwin Outwater will return to lead the next concert to be given by the SFCM Orchestra. This will be the program that highlights the world premiere of the winning composition from the 2020 Highsmith Competition. “Romancero gitano: Preciosa y el aire” was written by alumnus composer Juan María Prieto Iborra. This piece will begin the second half of the program and will be followed by the work of another living composer, Gabriela Lena Frank’s concerto for orchestra entitled “Walkabout.” The first half of the program will be devoted entirely to Maurice Ravel, beginning with the orchestral version of “Alborada del Gracioso,” followed by the second of the two suites extracted from the score for the one-act ballet “Daphnis et Chloé.” The opening selection will be led by student conductor Jaco Wong (class of ’22).

Sunday, February 13, 2 p.m., Barbro Osher Recital Hall, 200 Van Ness Avenue: SFCM Baroque Orchestra Directors Elisabeth Reed and Corey Jamason will present the winners of the Baroque Ensemble Concerto Competition. Rocío López Sánchez will begin the program with Luigi Boccherini’s G 480 cello concerto in G major. This will be followed by what is probably the most familiar work to be presented, Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 1041 violin concerto in A minor, with violin soloist Annemarie Schubert. Kyle Stachnik will then conclude with a cello concerto in D minor by Antonio Vivaldi. Since the sources I have accumulated through both listening and reviewing account for three D minor concertos (RV 405, 406, and 407), I am not prepared to guess which of these will be played! Both soloists and ensemble members will be playing historically-informed instruments.

Thursday, February 17, and Friday, February 18, 7:30 p.m., Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall, 50 Oak Street: Michael Mohammed, Director of the Musical Theatre Workshop, will stage The Apple Tree, a series of three one-acts with music by Jerry Bock and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, better known for the full-length musical Fiddler on the Roof. Bock and Harnick also contributed to the book, working with Jerome Coopersmith. Each act draws upon a different literary source: Mark Twain’s The Diaries of Adam and Eve, Frank R. Stockton’s enigmatic short story “The Lady, or the Tiger?,” and Jules Feiffer’s story “Passionella.” The Music Director will be Michael Horsley.

Saturday, February 19, 7:30 p.m., Sol Joseph Recital Hall: The New Music Ensemble will give its next performance, led by its Director Nicole Paiement, who will share conducting duties with Wong. The program will be devoted to living composers with one notable exception: the concluding selection will be Tōru Takemitsu’s “Tree Line.” The opening selection will also reflect on the past. “In Memoriam Muhal Richard Abrams” was composed by Tyshawn Sorey. Abrams was one of the four founders of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians in Chicago and served as its first president in 1965. The other composers on Paiement’s program will be Anna S. Þorvaldsdóttir, Ian Dicke, and Linda Buckley.

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