Wednesday, March 9, 2022

Two Familiar Vocalists to Return to SFP

With the cancellation of the recital by tenor Ilker Arcayürek, which had been scheduled for April 1, the San Francisco Performances (SFP) 2021–2022 Art of Song Series will continue with consecutive performances by frequent visitors. However, both of these programs will involve pianists that are not usually known for serving as accompanists. Furthermore, both of the vocalists have prepared programs that will offer engaging departures from “business as usual.”

The first of the recitalists will be tenor Mark Padmore. He has prepared a program that will interleave performances of art song with recitations of poetry. Thus, in addition to being accompanied at the piano by Ethan Iverson, known for dividing his interests between jazz and classical music, Padmore’s vocal selections will be interleaved with readings of poetry by Velina Brown and Keiko Carreiro, longtime members of the San Francisco Mime Troupe. As a result, while the musical performances will present many of the “usual suspects,” such as Franz Schubert, Gustav Mahler, Robert Schumann, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Charles Ives, the readers will give life to texts by poets including Billy Collins, Philip Larkin, William Wordsworth, Seamus Heaney, and Rainer Maria Rilke.

This performance will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 16.  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 $70 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.

Baritone Matthias Goerne and pianist Seong-Jin Cho (courtesy of SFP)

The second recitalist will be baritone Matthias Goerne. He tends to favor German texts, and the program he has prepared will not be an exception to that rule. The major work on the program will be the so-called Wesendonck Lieder, settings of five poems written by Mathilde Wesendonck. These will be followed by a selection of songs by Richard Strauss.

The first half of the program, on the other hand, will probably be less familiar to most of the audience. It will be devoted entirely to songs composed by Hans Pfitzner. Those that follow this site regularly may recall that last month marked the conclusion of Naxos’ program to record all of the songs that Pfitzner composed. Since I know this repertoire only through those recordings, I am looking forward to listening to some of that music in performance! Goerne’s accompanist will be pianist Seong-Jin Cho, who made his SFP debut giving a solo recital for the 2018–2019 Piano Series.

This performance will also begin at 7:30 p.m., this time on Saturday, April 9.  It will again take place in Herbst Theatre. Ticket prices will be $85 for premium seating on the Orchestra level and in the front of the Dress Circle, $70 for the Boxes, the remainder of the Orchestra, and the remainder of the center Dress Circle, and $50 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 still prevail.

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