Center for New Music: February, 2023

As of this writing there are three events in this month’s schedule for the Center for New Music (C4NM). For those that do not yet know, C4NM is located at 55 Taylor Street, half a block north of the Golden Gate Theater, which is where Golden Gate Avenue meets Market Street. Tickets may be processed in advance through the Events page on the C4NM Web site. Masks are still required for all in attendance, and those in the audience are required to be fully vaccinated. Furthermore, since those pandemic conditions still prevail, the audience capacity will be reduced; so purchasing tickets early is desirable. Schedule specifics are as follows with hyperlinks for the respective event pages, each of which has a “Buy Tickets Online” hyperlink to the appropriate Eventbrite event page:

Saturday, February 11, 8 p.m.: The next showcase of new works written by members of the Bay Area Chapter of the NACUSA (National Association of the Composers of the United States of America), usually referred to as NACUSAsf, will be entitled Music as Winter Fades.  The first selection will be the only one involving computer-based sound synthesis. The program as a whole will present both instrumental and vocal chamber music as follows:

• Douglas Ovens, “Improvisation 10 or Why the Beatles Stopped Touring,” performed by the composer on vibraphone and computer
• Monica Chew, “Glances,” performed by the composer at the piano with Alisa Rose on violin
• Amy Stephens, “Childhood Excursions: Are We There Yet?!,” performed by the composer at the piano
• Sheli Nan, “Black and Blue Times Two,” performed by Charles Ryan on trumpet and Frank Johnson on piano
• Mary Fineman, two songs entitled, respectively, “Love Song” and “Pass This Way,” sung by the composer accompanying herself at the piano
• Allan Crossman, the first movement of the Florébius suite entitled “Romance,” performed at the composer at the piano with Monika Gruber on violin
• Monica Chew, “Pitter, Patter,” performed by the composer at the piano
• John Bilotta, “Cantus XX,” performed by Monika Gruber on violin
• Karl Schmidt, “Caly Quartet No. 1,” performed by the Caly Quartet of clarinetists, Laurie Ho (E-flat), Ann Miyada and Yvonne Liu (B-flat), and Chris Farrell (bass).

Saturday, February 18, 7:30 p.m.: This will be a two-set program. Zachary James Watkins will open with his synthesis gear. He will be followed by the Oort Smog duo of Patrick Shiroishi on saxophone and Mark Kimbrell on drums. Their influences include John Coltrane, Rashied Ali, Anthony Braxton, and Andrew Cyrille. They will perform a long-form composition drawing upon free improvisation and provoking (some of?) the audience with a deliberately provocative title.

Friday, February, 24, 8 p.m.: Liz Ruvalcaba is a singer and multi-instrumentalist born and raised in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. C4NM will host her latest visit to the Bay Area. She will give a solo performance of electronically-augmented voice.