Anna Presler and Leighton Fong at SFIAF (again)

Once again violinist Anna Presler and cellist Leighton Fong, founders of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, will be contributing to the San Francisco International Arts Festival (SFIAF). Last season, when the Festival took place in the fall of 2021, they shared a one-hour slot with the Chamber Music Society of San Francisco; and their contribution was Zoltán Kodály’s Opus 7 duo for violin and cello. This season the Festival will be taking place during the middle of next month, and this time Presler and Fong will have the one-hour slot all to themselves.

Their program will consist entirely of the collection of 24 duos for violin and cello, which Jörg Widmann composed in 2008. He is no stranger to San Francisco. At the beginning of this year, violinist Alina Ibragimova presented the San Francisco Symphony premiere of his violin concerto, conducted by Robin Ticciati. Widmann has also been familiar to San Francisco Performances audiences, not only as a composer but also as a clarinetist. In addition, he has recorded the two Opus 120 clarinet sonatas by Johannes Brahms for ECM, performing with pianist András Schiff.

In September of 2019, Delos released an album of duos performed by violinist Ilya Gringolts and cellist Dmitry Kouzov, which included a complete account of Widmann’s 24 duos. The background material for that album provided by Presto Classical Limited observed that listeners could confuse Widmann’s score for a string quartet. The composer, on the other hand, sees the cycle as reflecting a complex relationship between the two performers: “They attract each other, reject each other, love and hate each other.”

The performance by Presler and Fong will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 8. The venue will be the Brava Studio, which is located in the Mission at 2781 24th Street, between York Street and Hampshire Street, just west of Potrero Avenue. General Admission will be $25 with a $2.38 handling fee. Tickets may be purchased online through a SimpleTix Web page. Tickets will also be sold at the door prior to the performance for $28.