Catalyst Quartet to Curate SFP PIVOT Series

Catalyst Quartet members Abi Fayette, Paul Laraia, Karla Donehew Perez, and Karlos Rodriguez (courtesy of SFP)

Readers may recall that, last season, San Francisco Performances (SFP) launched a new series, which was entitled Uncovered. The series was curated by the Catalyst Quartet, a string quartet whose members are violinists Karla Donehew Perez and Abi Fayette, violist Paul Laraia, and cellist Karlos Rodriguez. Four programs were presented, each of which featured the work of composers whom history has overlooked due to their race or gender. Each program also included a guest artist; and bass-baritone Dashon Burton contributed to some (but not all) of the programs serving as an interlocutor.

The title of the series was taken from Catalyst’s UNCOVERED recording project with Azica Records. Each release was planned to focus on a single “uncovered” composer. The first two albums presented compositions by Samuel-Coleridge Taylor and Florence Price, respectively; and the album content contributed to the four SFP recitals.

The Uncovered series will return to SFP this coming season but in a slightly different guise. Last season presented four programs, two in the fall and two in the spring. In the coming season the series will be folded into the annual PIVOT Festival. Instead of four programs, each presenting its own distinctive approach to making music, the 2023 PIVOT Festival will consist of three consecutive evenings of performances by Catalyst.

All of the programs will begin with string quartets having the same composer, Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges. Saint-Georges composed three collections of six string quartets, which were published in 1773, 1779, and 1785, respectively. As of this writing, all that is known is that the first PIVOT program will begin with two of those quartet, followed by a single quartet beginning the second program, and three quartets opening the third. The remainder of each program will present a unique “uncovering” of different composers as follows:

1. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Miguel Bernal Jiménez, Rebecca Clarke, Amy Beach
2. Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, Teresa Carreño, Ethel Smyth
3. Germaine Tailleferre, Antônio Carlos Gomes, Fanny Mendelssohn

The performances will take place on Tuesday, February 21, Wednesday, February 22, and Thursday, February 23, all beginning at 7:30 p.m. The venue will be Herbst Theatre, whose entrance is the main entrance to the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue, located on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. The venue is excellent for public transportation, since that corner has Muni bus stops for both north-south and east-west travel.

Subscriptions are now on sale for $180 for premium seating in the Orchestra and the front and center of the Dress Circle, $150 for the Side Boxes, the center rear of the Dress Circle, and the remainder of the Orchestra, and $120 for the remainder of the Dress Circle and the Balcony. Subscriptions may be purchased online in advance through an SFP Web page. Orders may be placed by calling the SFP subscriber hotline at 415-677-0325, which is open for receiving calls between 9:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. Single tickets are also now on sale. The ticket prices will be $65, $55, and $45. All single tickets may be purchased by visiting the specific event pages. The above dates provide hyperlinks to the appropriate Web pages.