Old First Concerts: August, 2023

Readers probably know by now that, as of today, only two recitals in the Old First Concerts (O1C) series will take place next month. However, August is the month of the San Francisco International Piano Festival (SFIPF). This year four of the Festival performances will take place in the Old First Presbyterian Church, including both the opening night on Friday, August 18, and the Festival Finale on August, 26. As in the past, there will be a separate article devoted to SFIPF concerts taking place in San Francisco, but this article will account for not only those four SFIPF recitals but also the two concerts that will precede the Festival.

All of the offerings will continue to be “hybrid,” allowing both live streaming and seating in Old First at 1751 Sacramento Street on the southwest corner of Van Ness Avenue. All tickets will still be sold for $25 (no reduced rate for seniors or students). Hyperlinks to the event pages (which include hyperlinks for streaming) will be attached to the date and time of the performances as follows:

Friday, August 11, 8 p.m.: The Bridge Music Collective will present a program entitled Prokofiev: Explored. The ensemble is a quintet consisting of Jessica Folson on violin, Sarah Hooton on viola, Carlos Valdez on bass, T. Colton Potter on oboe, and Caleb Rose on clarinet. They perform as a group and in different combinations. Thus, one of the selections will be a duo for clarinet and viola by Rebecca Clarke, while Clarice Assad’s “Jazz Montmartre” explores different ways in which the instruments converse. Ironically, the Web page for this program says nothing about Sergei Prokofiev!

Sunday, August 13, 4 p.m.: The title of this program will be Unfretted: Indian Strings in Conversation. The performance will be by a trio, two of whose instruments are fretless. These are a violin with carnatic tuning, played by Sruti Sarathy, and the chitravina, a rare Indian fretless lute, played by Vishaal Sapruram. The remaining member of the trio is Akshay Anantapadmanabhan, playing mridangam for percussion. No program details have been announced.

Friday, August 18, 8 p.m.: SFIPF will begin with a solo recital by pianist Tanya Gabrielian. The first half of her program will be devoted to Alexander Siloti, who created transcriptions for solo piano of works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Franz Schubert, Franz Liszt, and Sergei Rachmaninoff. The second half will begin with a solo work by Aaron Copland composed in 1921 and given the title Three Moods. This will be followed by Leopold Godowsky’s “Meditation,” written to be performed by the left hand alone. The program will then conclude with Carl Maria von Weber’s Opus 39, a sonata in D minor.

Sunday, August 20, 4 p.m.: The second SFIPF solo recital will be performed by Founder and Artistic Director Jeffrey LaDeur. This will be his first O1C solo performance since 2014. He has not yet finalized his program; but he plans to account for compositions by Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, and Frédéric Chopin, as well as offering more Schubert.

Friday, August 25, 8 p.m.: The third SFIPF solo recital will be performed by Parker Van Ostrand, recipient of the inaugural fellowship provided by the American Liszt Society. It should therefore be no surprise that the second half of his program will be devoted entirely to Franz Liszt’s B minor piano sonata. He will begin with Joseph Haydn’s Hoboken XI/52 sonata in E-flat major. This will be followed by a selection of Claude Debussy’s solo piano preludes. The first half will then conclude with Chopin’s Opus 23 ballade in G minor.

Saturday, August 26, 8 p.m.: The title of this year’s Festival Finale will be A Night at the Cinema. The Southern California theme of the program will include a reflection on Rachmaninoff’s friendship with the pianist Vladimir Horowitz, who championed the composer’s Opus 36 piano sonata in B-flat minor by creating his own performing edition, which combined the original 1913 score with the composer’s 1931 revisions. There will also be a “Hollywood connection” in the form of a piano quintet composed by pianist Stephen Prutsman. He will perform this piece with the members of the Telegraph Quartet, violinists Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violist Pei-Ling Lin, and cellist Jeremiah Shaw. Prutsman composed this quintet to serve as the “soundtrack” for Buster Keaton’s silent film short “College.” Van Ostrand will return to perform other Rachmaninoff compositions.