Sunday, March 20, 2022

David Russell to Return to SFP/OMNI Next Month

Guitarist David Russell (from the SFP event page)

Readers may recall that the 2021–2022 Guitar Series, presented by San Francisco Performances (SFP) in partnership with the OMNI Foundation for the Performing Arts, will get off to a belated start this coming Saturday with the debut recital of guitarist (and composer) Laura Snowden. Fortunately, with matters back on track, the following recital in the Series will take place exactly a week later. This will be the return of guitarist David Russell, who has become a welcome “regular” among those that follow guitar recitals.

Readers may recall that, in the midst of the pandemic, Russell was the first recitalist to provide a video for the SFP Front Row Travels series. All the videos in this series are still available for viewing, and the above hyperlink to the series home page is still active. Russell’s video presented a program of performances in three different twelfth-century churches, all of which are located along the Camino de Santiago, the path of pilgrimage to the shrine of the apostle Saint James the Great in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia.

Russell’s program for his SFP/OMNI recital will take on a much broader chronology, concluding with a sonatina dedicated to him by Jorge Morel. The program will also include Russell transcriptions for solo guitar of two keyboard sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti (K. 490 and K. 491) and two partitas (in A major and D major, respectively) by Johann Kuhnau, Johann Sebastian Bach’s predecessor in the position of Thomaskantor in Leipzig. There will also be transcriptions of compositions by Isaac Albéniz, but not by Russell. The original compositions for guitar will be Fernando Sor’s Opus 54a, entitled simply “Concert Piece,” and Bernhard Lackenbacher’s Opus 3, entitled “Variations Brillantes.”

This performance will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 2.  It will take place in Herbst Theatre, which is located on the first two floors of the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue, convenient to public transportation on both Van Ness Avenue and McAllister Street. Ticket prices will be $65 for premium seating on the Orchestra level and in the front of the Dress Circle, $55 for the Boxes, the remainder of the Orchestra, and the remainder of the center Dress Circle, and $45 for the Balcony and the remainder of the Dress Circle. Tickets may be purchased in advance online through an SFP event page. Conditions according to the Health and Safety Factsheet, which was updated on February 15, still prevail.

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