Wonhee Bae Visits San Francisco Conservatory

Violinist Wonhee Bae, pianist Helen Wu, and cellist William Laney (screen shot from last night’s streamed performance)

Last night in the Barbro Osher Recital Hall, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) presented the first Chamber Music Tuesday program of the spring term. The program was primarily a platform for guest artist Wonhee Bae, first violinist of the Esmé Quartet, who performed in three of the four selections on the program. The above photograph shows her performing Bedřich Smetana’s Opus 15 (first) piano trio with students Helen Wu at the piano and cellist William Laney. This was the only performance on the second half of the program.

The beginning of the first half saw her performing with two other students, violinist Daniel Dastoor and cellist Constantine Janello. They were joined by Viola Faculty member Dimitri Murrath in a performance of the last of Ludwig van Beethoven’s six Opus 18 string quartets, composed in the key of B-flat major. For her other selection she performed Franz Schubert’s D. 934 fantasy in C minor, accompanied by Piano Faculty member Julio Elizalde. This composition includes a set of variations on Franz Schubert’s D. 741 song, “Sei mir gegrüßt.” Thus, by way of introduction, baritone Faculty member Matthew Worth performed the song, also accompanied by Elizalde.

This was my latest encounter with a live stream from SFCM. It has been a while since my last experience; and, for the most part, most of the “speed bumps” have been resolved. Indeed, since the acoustics of the Osher space leave much to be desired, the “capture crew” did well in providing an excellent audio account, balanced by a judicious and informative sequence of camera cues. The pioneer of this video technique, Jordan Whitelaw, would call his cues while following a full score; and I came away from last night’s production feeling that he would have been more than satisfied with the SFCM production. Indeed, the video provided a visual appreciation for the talents of all the performers that might have been overlooked by those in the “physical” audience.

On the other hand, that audience had one advantage over those of us in cyberspace. They were provided with program books, which, presumably, provided useful background material about all of the works on the program (and probably the text of D. 741). Sadly, the “video audience” was not provided with a hyperlink to a PDF file (which, presumably, was used to print the program book).