Old First Concerts: August, 2022

August will be the busiest month of the summer for Old First Concerts. There will be six programs. Three of them will involve the annual visit to the Old First Presbyterian Church by performances in the San Francisco International Piano Festival (SFIPF), and the month will conclude with a special production provided by the Greek Chamber Music Project.

All of the offerings will continue to be “hybrid,” allowing both live streaming and seating in Old First at 1751 Sacramento Street on the southwest corner of Van Ness Avenue. All tickets will still be sold for $25 (no reduced rate for seniors or students). Hyperlinks to the event pages (which include hyperlinks for streaming) will be attached to the date and time of the performances as follows:

Friday, August 5, 8 p.m.: The month will begin with a duo performance by distinguished members of the young generation of North Indian Classical music in the tradition of the great maestros Ali Akbar Khan and Swapan Chaudhuri. Those performers will be Arjun K. Verma on sitar and Nilan Chaudhuri on tabla. Verma is well-versed in traditional practices, but he has been recognized for this fresh approach to repertoire.

Sunday, August 7, 4 p.m.: This contemporary approach to traditional Indian music will continue with a solo recital by Vishnu R on the navtar, a unique nine-string plucked instrument that he has invented and patented. His program will honor two South Indian composers of the past, Thyagarja and Purandara Dasa. However, Vishnu also performs contemporary works by jazzmen such as John McLaughlin and Al Di Meola. Finally, the program will include some of his own original compositions.

Sunday, August 21, 4 p.m.: The first SFIPF recitalist will be Rachel Breen. The major work on her program will be Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 111 sonata in C minor, which will be complemented with Robert Schumann’s Opus 18 arabeske. The program will begin with a fantasia by John Bull. The program will also include preludes selected from Alexander Scriabin’s Opus 11 and Opus 16 collections. The other sonata on the program will be Nikolai Medtner’s Opus 22 in G minor.

Friday, August 26, 8 p.m.: Jan Bartoš  will use SFIPF as a platform for his West Coast debut. Each half of his program will begin with a composition by Leoš Janáček. He will begin with the piano sonata whose title is a date “1.X.1905.” The second half of the program will begin with the four-part cycle entitled In the Mists. The Janáček sonata will be followed by eight preludes by Miloslav Kabeláč. The program will conclude with the six-movement suite Dreams by Bedřich Smetana.

Saturday, August 27, 8 p.m.: The final SFIPF recital at Old First will be an all-Schumann program prepared by Bobby Mitchell. The program will include the Opus 4 collection of intermezzi and the Opus 5 collection of impromptus. The program will conclude with the Opus 82 cycle entitled Waldszenen (forest scenes). It will begin with one of Schumann’s last compositions, the five-movement Opus 133 entitled “Gesänge der Frühe” (songs of the morning).

Sunday, August 28, 4 p.m.: The Greek Chamber Music Project will present a revival of the eight-movement suite entitled Talos Dreams. The music was composed by Costas Dafnis and named after a figure in Greek mythology that was probably the first imagined automaton. Working with Tom Nunn, Dafnis also invented an instrument for the performance of this composition. The ghostplate is an acoustic instrument that evokes sonorities that sound as if they came from electronic sources. Dafnis himself will play the ghostplate, joined by Ellie Falaris Ganelin on flute, Kyle Bruckmann on oboe, Ariel Wang on violin, and Lewis Patzner on cello. The program will also include excerpts from Medea: Rebirth and Destruction, given its premiere on the same program as Talos Dreams. Each of the movements of this suite was written by a different composition student at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. The remaining work on the program will be Greek Dances, composed by Thanos Ermilios to weave traditional folk melodies into the rich language of chamber music.