December has traditionally been a busy month in the Old First Concerts (O1C) offerings at Old First Presbyterian Church. This usually involves a generous supply of “seasonal” concerts. However, this year the month will begin with more “secular” chamber music, to be followed by five “holiday-related” offerings. As of this writing, over 100 tickets have already been sold for these concerts.
As we continue to recover from the COVID pandemic, all of the offerings will remain “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. General admission tickets will be sold for $25 with reduced rates for seniors ($20) and students ($5). However, as will be seen from the Web pages, the Ragazzi Boys Chorus and Kitka have special ticket pricing to cover additional expenses that arose over the course of this year. The suggested donation for those viewing the live stream is $20. Hyperlinks to the event pages (which include hyperlinks for streaming) will be attached to the date and time of the performances as follows:
Friday, December 2, 8 p.m.: The “secular” offering will be the O1C debut performance by the Sierra Quartet, whose members are violinists Elbert Tsai and Rochelle Nguyen, violist Christina Simpson, and cellist James Jaffe. Their “traditional” offering will be Béla Bartók’s fourth string quartet at the conclusion, complemented at the beginning with a string quartet by Joseph Haydn, whose selection has not yet been finalized. Between these two offerings will be a performance of Eleanor Alberga’s second string quartet, which she completed in 1994.
Friday, December 9, 8 p.m.: This will be the return of the Young Women’s Chorus of San Francisco, which will present its annual Carols by Candlelight program. They will be led by Interim Artistic Director Martín Benvenuto. “Young” means that the vocalists are between the ages of twelve and eighteen years old. In addition to the traditional selections, the program will include original seasonal works by Eric Tuan. There will also be selected movements from Shawn Kirchner’s The Light of Hope Returning, which he calls an “American Folk Oratorio.” Accompaniment for those movements will include violin, cello, and alto saxophone.
Saturday, December 10, 8 p.m.: The next returning ensemble will be Musae, an adult woman’s vocal ensemble, which is also based in San Francisco. All of the selections will be by living composers, including another selection by Tuan. The other contributing composers will be Tonia Ko, Daniel McDavitt, Ysaye Bamwell, Imogen Heap, Gwyneth Walker, Rosephanye Powell, Carly Simon, and Meredith Monk. Joel Chapman will serve as Interim Artistic Director.
Sunday, December 11, 4 p.m.: As was the case last year, the women of Musae will be complemented by the Ragazzi Boys Chorus. The performance will be again be shared by three divisions of Ragazzi, the Ragazzi Young Men’s Ensemble, the Concert Group, and the Choral Scholars. The first of these will be led by led by Travis Rogers, assisted by Nancy Whitecar. The other two are led by Artistic and Executive Director Kent Jue. Accompaniment will be provided by Collaborative Pianist Yongyu Gao, with several pieces requiring the appearance of a guest string quartet. The program will include another composition by Powell, along with selections by Franz Biebl and John Rutter. There will also be a generous number of carols, one of which is Nigerian in origin.
Sunday, December 18, 4 p.m.: After a departure from last year’s lineup, Kitka will return under the co-direction of Shira Cion, Janet Kutulas, and Juliana Graffagna to present their traditional Wintersongs program. This year’s programming will be presented under the theme “Shchedry Vechir,” which is Ukrainian for “a generous evening.” (The phrase appears in traditional Ukrainian holiday carols.) This will also be a fundraising performance for the benefit of a variety of organizations addressing the current humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.
Friday, December 23, 8 p.m.: The final holiday offering will feature another season regular, Golden Bough. The performers are Margie Butler, Paul Espinoza, and Kathy Sierra. In addition to providing vocals, they are all instrumentalists backing themselves on an array of rare and more common acoustic instruments including: Celtic harp, penny-whistle, violin, octave-mandolin, mandolin, accordion, guitar, harmonica, recorder and bodhrán. Like their previous performances, their program will specialize in Celtic songs of winter; but they also offer their unique take on better known Christmas carols.
No comments:
Post a Comment