PBO to Conclude Season with “Disruption”

Poster design for the conclusion of the PBO season

Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale (PBO) will conclude its season at the end of this month with a program of “disruptive” compositions from both the past and the present. The program even has a disruptive subtitle on its virtual poster (shown above): “baroque meets bluegrass.” The bluegrass will come in the first selection, the world premiere of “Appalachian Ayre” composed by Mason Bates, whose very title suggests a “collision of genres.”

The other break with convention will be the final selection on the program the “Missa in labore requies” (a Mass for rest from labor), composed by Georg Muffat. This is the composer’s only surviving religious work. It is scored for 24 parts, eight of which are taken by soloists. For this performance those soloists will be sopranos Maya Kherani and Nola Richardson, countertenors Siman Chung and Reginald Mobely, tenors Spencer Britten and James Reese, and bass-baritones Cody Quattlebaum and Jonathan Woody. They will be joined by the full forces of both the Chorale and the Orchestra. The conductor will be Richard Egarr.

These two disruptive works will be separated by two compositions that are not quite as extreme. The first of these will be the instrumental “Lamento sopra la morte di Ferdinando III” (lament on the death of Ferdinand III) by the Austrian composer Johann Heinrich Schmelzer. This will be followed by the third of the six instrumental partitas for one or two violins published by the Bohemian composer Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber under the title Mensa sonora.

The San Francisco performance of this program will take place in the Herbst Theatre, located on the first two floors of the Veterans Building on the southwest corner of Van Ness Avenue and McAllister Street. It will begin at 8 p.m. on Thursday, April 27. Tickets may be purchased online through a City Box Office event page. Ticket prices are $32, $53, $75, $108, and $130.