Old First Concerts: September, 2022

September marks the beginning of a new season, and that beginning usually takes place during Labor Day Weekend. While there will be only three recitals presented by Old First Concerts during that month, the first of those involves a tradition that was sustained even under pandemic conditions. For this particular month, all of the performances will take place on a Sunday afternoon at 4 p.m.

All of the offerings will continue to be “hybrid,” allowing both live streaming and seating in the Old First Presbyterian Church 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:

September 4: The Labor Day tradition will continue with the return of jazz pianist Mike Greensill. This year he will lead a trio, whose other members will be Ruth Davies on bass and Brad Buethe on guitar. The title of the program will be High Standards – Swinging the Great American Songbook. As usual, the Songbook will provide the “bread and butter” of the program; but Greensill inevitably adds a hefty dose of his own original compositions.

September 18: Pianist Lynn Schugren is a fervent promoter of new music. The title of her program will be Treasures from the Mother Lode, and it will focus entirely on composers from the Sierra Nevada. There will be three world premiere performance, a nocturne by Mark Vance, “Elements” by Dennis Lauderdale, and a piano sonata by Durwynne Hsieh. She will also play the seventh book in Terry Riley’s The Heaven Ladder collection. (Riley composed this music before he moved to Japan. Schugren will be playing from the score he personally autographed to her.)

September 25: Regular readers probably know by now that the Ives Collective is a “pickup” chamber music group managed by cellist Stephen Harrison and Susan Freier, who plays both violin and viola. They then recruit other musicians based on the selections planned for the program. For this program they will be joined by violinist Hrabba Atladottir, violist Clio Tilton, and pianist Gwendolyn Mok. The selections will all be by female composers from the current and preceding centuries. The most recent of these will be Missy Mazzoli’s string trio entitled “Lies You Can Believe,” which was completed in 2006. The twentieth-century compositions will be Germaine Tailleferre’s piano trio and Amy Beach’s Opus 67 piano quintet in F-sharp minor.