The Bleeding Edge: 7/31/2023

This will be another quiet week out on the bleeding edge. This time there will be two events, both at venues that should now be familiar to most readers. The first of these will involve multiple performances. Specifics are as follows:

Thursday–Saturday, August 3–5, 7:30 p.m., Audium: Once again there will be series of performances over the course of the new month involving the space at Audium. The title of the work is “Swells,” composed by Ven Voisey, the result of an investigation into how space is occupied by sounds. To this end Voisey collected “local” field recordings made both in the Audium building and in its surrounding neighborhood. This listening experience will include “creaking chairs, the hum of a breaker box, the phasing pulse of equipment cooling fans, door hinges, water pipes, and the wave-like, sub-audible sounds of traffic passing outside.” To prepare for the experience, audiences will encounter “an ensemble of 9-foot wooden towers topped with rotating horn speakers” when they enter the Audium lobby.

For those that have not yet visited the venue, Audium is located at 1616 Bush Street. Doors will open at 7 p.m. Performances will take place on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday through August 26. City Box Office has created a single Web page for purchasing tickets to all performances. General admission will be $30 with a $20 rate for students. A limited number of pay-what-you-can tickets will also be available.

Friday, August 4, 7 p.m., Medicine for Nightmares Bookstore & Gallery: Once again, curator David Boyce will give a multi-reed performance of his own music. He will share the performance with the Green Mitchell Trio, which has its own multi-reed player, Cory Wright. He will be joined by Lisa Mezzacappa on bass and drummer Jason Levis. They will perform a set of works written specifically for the group that straddle the boundary between chamber music and jazz. The venue is located in the Mission at 3036 24th Street, between Treat Avenue and Harrison Street. As always, there is no charge for admission, presumably to encourage visitors to consider buying a book.

Pocket Opera Concludes 2023 Season with Puccini

Yesterday afternoon in the Gunn Theatre of the Legion of Honor Museum, Pocket Opera wrapped up its 2023 season with its final performance of Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca. The opera was sung in English, using the text translated by Pocket Opera founder Donald Pippin. The leading vocalists were soprano Michelle Drever in the title role, baritone Spencer Dodd as the Baron Scarpia, and tenor Alex Boyer, this year’s Hurst Artist, singing the role of Mario Cavaradossi. The performance was staged by Elly Lichenstein.

Mary Chun conducted the Pocket Philharmonic, a reduced one-to-a-part ensemble of twelve musicians. Since the Gunn Theatre lacks an orchestra pit, the musicians were placed behind the staged action (as has been the case in this site’s account of the season’s earlier performance of Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring). Fortunately, between the front row of seats and the edge of the stage, there was a moderately-sized video monitor on the floor, large enough for the performers on stage to see the image of the conductor.

For the better part of his life (he died on July 7, 2021), Pippen published four volumes of English translations of opera librettos. When I first encountered him, he was giving regular performances of his translated versions in abbreviated versions. Sitting at the piano, he would accompany a few vocalists, that would perform his translations of the key musical episodes. The rest of the narrative would be accounted for through his narrations. This was, truly, a “pocket-sized” approach to grand opera! It has been only recently that these translations are given full-length performances with accompaniment by more than a piano.

Among the vocalists in yesterday’s performance, Dodd was the most familiar. Over a decade ago, I had come to know him through his work with Yefim Maizel’s Opera Academy of California. It would be fair to say that, yesterday afternoon, he delivered a convincing account of Scarpia’s character without magnifying it to a point of distortion; and his vocal work was consistently compelling. Boyer delivered an equally solid account of Cavaradossi through both his solid tenor voice and his acting chops.

Sadly, the only disappointment was to be found in the lead. Drever tended to overplay most of her postures and gestures, almost as if she had been performing for a silent movie. Similarly, her vocal work tended to go “over the top,” as if to follow up on her exaggerated stage activities. Fortunately, Lichenstein’s staging proceeded at a satisfying clip, which allowed those exaggerated moments to come and go without overburdening the narrative.

ABS Throws a Party with Antonio Vivaldi

Visual design for the ABS program book page for last night’s performance (from the American Bach Soloists Web page)

Last night American Bach Soloists (ABS) shifted to yet another venue, this time occupying the Green Room in the War Memorial Veterans Building. This was more of a social setting when compared with the first two concerts of the Summer Bach Festival, but the Green Room is such a massive space that socializing seemed to be limited to already-known friends and family. The only music to be performed was the well-known “Four Seasons” set of concertos by Antonio Vivaldi, and the social setting seemed to be organized around a bar serving four specialty cocktails, one for each of the seasons.

During the regular season I often walk by the Veterans Building on my way back from either the Opera House or Davies Symphony Hall. Every now and then, I hear raucous roars coming from the second floor. Last night I found myself right in the middle of those roars. The good news, however, was that, when the music began, everyone seemed focused on the performers.

The Vivaldi concertos were given one-to-a-part performances; but, even from my own relatively distant seating, there were no problems with audibility. Each concerto featured a solo performance by a different ABS violinist. In order of appearance these were as follows:

1. Spring: Tomà Iliev
2. Summer: Tatiana Chulochnikova
3. Autumn: Jacob Ashworth
4. Winter: YuEun Gemma Kim

Each of these soloists provided introductory remarks about the concerto to be played, often endowing each concerto with an engagingly witty context.

The setting may have been at odds with attentive listening; but each of last night’s soloists knew how to command attention, reminding even the most energetic party-goers that, at the end of the day, things are still “all about the music.”

Jazz Chez Hanny: Tim Lin NYC Quartet

Saxophonist Tim Lin on the cover of his latest album (from the Bandcamp Web page)

Yesterday afternoon Frank Hanny announced the first jazz house concert that he will host next month. The performance will feature music from the second CD to be released by saxophonist Tim Lin, entitled Empathy. The album was produced by his own Linsanity Music label; and the tracks include such “classics” as Kurt Weill’s “Speak Low,” Bill Evans’ “Waltz for Debby,” and Herbie Hancock’s “Dolphin Dance.” Lin leads a quartet, whose other members are Andy LaVerne on piano, Jay Anderson on bass, and Billy Drummond on drums; and LaVerne is also the composer of one of the tracks, “Fourth Right.”

When he brings these tracks to Chez Hanny, Lin will lead an entirely different quartet. The pianist will be Bay Area regular Charles Chen. In 2019 he won first place at the Jazz Search West competition. Over the past twenty years he as performed at venues such as Yoshi’s and Freight & Salvage, as well as the San Jose Jazz Festival.

The bassist will be Steve LaSpina, who has established a global presence for himself over the last 40 years. That includes appearing at the North Sea Jazz Festival and the Umbria Jazz Festival. During the last decade he has been traveling and recording with guitarist Jim Hall. Recordings under his own name include The Road Ahead and Distant Dreams, the latter featuring performances by Fred Hersch and Ben Monder.

The drummer will be Jeff Hirshfield, who, like Lin, is based in New York. He has also worked with pianist Hersch as a member of the Etc. trio, which also included Steve LaSpina. This is but one of the many combos to which he has contributed his percussion work. In addition he served as a percussionist in the orchestra for the Joffrey Ballet during its 1976–1977 season.

Following the usual case, the performance will begin at 4 p.m. on Sunday, August 13. The venue is Hanny’s house at 1300 Silver Avenue, with the performance taking place in the downstairs rumpus room. Those planning to attend should think about having cash for a donation of $25. All of that money will go to the musicians. There will be two sets separated by a potluck break. As a result, all who plan to attend are encouraged to bring food and/or drink to share. Seating is first come, first served; and the doors will open at 3:30 p.m. Reservations are preferred by sending electronic mail to jazz@chezhanny.com. Masks are optional, but attendees should be vaccinated. Vaccination will be based on the honor system. Finally, volunteer efforts for cleaning up after the show and moving furniture to accommodate both players and listeners are always appreciated.

Bach on the Nineteenth Century Piano

Piano soloist Oliver Moore (from the American Bach Soloists Web page for last night’s recital)

The title of the second of the four concerts prepared for this year’s annual San Francisco Bach Festival presented by American Bach Soloists was Explorations: Bach Beyond Baroque. This was a solo piano recital by guest artist Oliver Moore performed in the Barbro Osher Recital Hall of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. With the exception of the opening selection, the BWV 867 prelude-fugue coupling in B-flat minor from the first Book of Johann Sebastian Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier, all of the works on the program were composed during the nineteenth century.

Two of those selections were Bach arrangements by Camille Saint-Saëns and Ferruccio Busoni, respectively. The first of these was the opening Sinfonia for the BWV 29 cantata Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir (we thank you God, we thank you). This was followed by the Chaconne movement that concludes the BWV 1004 solo violin partita in D minor. These constituted the first half of Moore’s program. The second half was devoted to major piano compositions by Johannes Brahms, his Opus 24 “Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel,” and Franz Liszt, the “Fantasy and Fugue on the Theme B-A-C-H.” Moore concluded with an encore selection, Busoni’s transcription of the BWV 734 organ chorale on Martin Luther’s hymn “Nun freut euch, lieben Christen g’mein” (dear Christians, one and all, rejoice).

Taken as a whole, this was an impressively prodigious program of nineteenth-century piano technique at its richest. All of the works demanded the highest of keyboard skills, and it would not surprise me if Busoni had mastered all four of them for his recital performances. In that respect one could almost imagine that Moore was channeling Busoni’s spirit. His intensity definitely did justice to nineteenth century keyboard techniques at their most flamboyant. The Liszt selection was originally composed for organ, but the composer clearly could not resist adding it to the repertoire of his piano recitals.

Nevertheless, I came away from the second half of the program with the feeling that neither Liszt nor the relatively young Brahms were willing to honor the enough-is-enough injunction. Brahms’ Opus 24 clocks in with 25 variations. Each of these is a masterpiece of brevity, but the attentive listener can be forgiven for looking at his watch by the time a dozen of those variations have punched the clock. By the time the fugue takes over, one would be forgiven for wondering just what it was that Brahms wanted to prove. Liszt, on the other hand, saw both the fantasy and the fugue as invitations to go as wild as possible, leaving the listener with the impression that, while he may have been long-winded, Brahms had the clearer account of structure, if not showy-execution.

By the time Moore had concluded his encore, my guess is that most of the audience welcomed the conclusion of the marathon. Nevertheless, he brought a refreshing contrast to the Baroque rhetoric that dominated Thursday night’s program. Artistic Director Jeffrey Thomas clearly appreciated that too much of anything has its limits. Thus, one could come away from the two successive programs with the sense of an imaginative approach to contrasting styles.

Tickets on Sale for Other Minds Festival 27

I saw my first notification of this year’s Other Minds (OM) Festival about a month and a half ago, at which time tickets had not yet gone on sale. Now that City Box Office has created a Web page for both a Festival Pass to all four of the concerts and ticket sales for individual concerts, the time seems right to get out the word about the Festival itself. Most important is that, following up on the performance of OM Festival 26 at the Great Star Theater in Chinatown, the Festival will return to the Civic Center.

This year’s venue will be the Taube Atrium Theater. Furthermore, while Festival 26 consisted of three performances on consecutive evenings, Festival 27 will present four performances on Wednesday through Saturday, November 15, 16, 17, and 18. As in the past, all concerts will begin at 8 p.m. preceded by a panel discussion at 7 p.m. The Wednesday and Thursday programs will both present two sets, while the remaining two “weekend” programs will have three sets. Current information about the performances is as follows: [added 9/29, 4 p.m.: two programs have been added to the Festival, making it begin one day earlier and conclude one day later; the first program of the Festival is now as follows:

Tuesday, November 14: This will not be a performance. Instead, the Festival will begin with a screening of the “official bio-documentary” of composer Morton Subotnick. The film was directed by Robert Fantinatto. The screening will be followed by a discussion, which will include Subotnick and Other Minds Executive and Aritstic Director Charles Amirkhanian.˘]

Wednesday, November 15: The first set will be a duo performance by Swedish sound artist and composer Ellen Arkbro and Australian drummer Will Guthrie. They will present the United States premiere of a work scored for electronics, gongs, and tam-tams. The second set will be an improvisation by American pianist and composer Craig Taborn.

Thursday: November 16: For the first set Canadian-American composer Linda Bouchard will bring the international Ensemble TriOcular+ to San Francisco to perform music from her Live Structures project. The pieces themselves use real-time graphics to explore different ways of interpreting data into music notation. Electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick will then present his composition “As I Live and Breathe.” The performance will involve a live interaction with a hybrid Buchla 200e/Ableton synthesizer combined with electronic patches and analog recordings. He will be joined by German video artist Lillevan, who will provide live video animation. 

Friday, November 17: Mary Kouyoumdjian will present the first live performance of “They Will Take My Island.” She will collaborate with Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan to present a musical documentary hybrid based on themes of family and immigration. The second set will be taken by the debut of Artur Avanesov, who is the leading composer of his generation in Armenia. He will present the world premiere of his solo piano composition “Tezeta,” followed by the American premiere of his piano quintet “Quasi Harena Maris.” The final set will be a performance of works by American composer Carl Stone. He will perform some of these, while others will be presented by Sarah Cahill, Paul Dresher, and Ned Rothenberg.

Saturday, November 18: The first set will be a performance of Neil Rolnick's monumental “Lockdown Fantasies,” a work for piano and electronics performed by Geoffrey Burleson. Bora Yoon will perform “( (( PHONATION )) ),” a multimedia set for live electronics, voice, and violin, with visual collaborator Joshue Ott. The Friction Quartet of violinists Otis Harriel and Kevin Rogers (sharing first chair), violist Mitso Floor, and cellist Doug Machiz will take the final set. They will present the world premiere of a newly commissioned work by Norwegian composer Eivind Buene, along with another of his compositions, “Grid.” [added 9/29. 4:05 p.m.:

Sunday, November 19: This will be the world premiere performance of Re:gendo, an evening-length multimedia work by Carl Stone. The music involves both computer-based electronics and field recordings of the urban soundscape in Tokyo. The performance will include the Japanese singer Akaihirume.]

The prices for single tickets will be $50, $30, and $15. The prices for the Festival Pass will be $160, $100, and $50. The run time for each of the concerts is expected to be two and one-half hours. Seating will be general admission within the constraints of the specific ticket prices. All tickets may be purchased through the aforementioned City Box Office Web page. For those unfamiliar with the venue, it occupies the top floor of the Veterans Building, which is located on the southwest corner of Van Ness Avenue and McAllister Street. This makes the venue convenient for both north-south and east-west Muni bus stations.

ABS Begins Festival with “Usual Suspects”

Last night Herbst Theatre provided the venue for the first of the four concerts to be performed in this year’s annual San Francisco Bach Festival held by American Bach Soloists (ABS). The title of the program was Baroque Old & New; and, as might be expected, it featured three of the “usual suspects” of composers from the Baroque period: Johann Sebastian Bach himself, his colleague Georg Philipp Telemann, and Antonio Vivaldi, whom he admired so much that he transcribed some of that composer’s concertos. The program began with a four-voice chaconne in G major by John Blow; and, for “something completely different,” the second half of the program featured Spring in San Francisco, a four-movement suite composed by José Daniel Vargas a third-year bachelor’s student in Composition at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, studying under David Conte.

As is usually the case, this made for a full evening, which tended to be more than even the most avid mind could maintain. However, Bach was definitely given his due with selections on either side of the intermission. The first half of the program concluded with BWV 1050, the fifth of the so-called “Brandenburg” concertos. This is the only one of the six in which the harpsichord is a leading solo instrument. It includes a full-scale cadenza towards the end of the first movement, which was given a thoroughly engaging account by Cory Jamason. The other soloists were Sandra Miller on flute and Elizabeth Blumenstock on violin, and the entire performance was thoroughly engaging from beginning to end.

If the first half of the program concluded with the secular, the second half began with the sacred, the BWV 170 cantata Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust (delightful rest, beloved pleasure of the soul). The vocalist was mezzo Sarah Coit, and instrumental solos by flutist Bethanne Walker and Debra Nagy on oboe d’amore were featured. Jamason played the obligato organ part. This was the only Bach selection that Artistic Director Jeffrey Thomas conducted, while BWV 1050 was given “chamber music treatment.” Nevertheless, both performances provided refreshing reminders of why Bach provides the namesake for this annual festival.

The only other composer to be represented by two compositions was Vivaldi. During the first half of the program, Miller joined forces with fellow flutist Bethanne Walker in a performance of the RV 533 two-flute concerto in C major. More familiar, however, was the final work on the program, the tenth concerto in the key of B minor in the Opus 3 collection entitled L’estro armonico (the harmonic inspiration). This is the last of the four concertos in the collection composed for four solo violins, performed by YuEun Gemma Kim, Tomà Iliev, Tatiana Chulochnikova, and Jacob Ashworth. (This is one of the concertos that Bach transcribed, changing the instrumentation to four solo harpsichords.) This made for a lively conclusion to the “business as usual” program that Thomas had prepared.

Spring in San Francisco was, of course, the “outlier.” Each of the four movements served as a reflection on the title. There was much to engage the attentive listener; but, as is almost always the case, any brand-new composition deserves more than one listening experience. While I found Vargas’ skills engaging, I was more than a little concerned that he was being overwhelmed by that crew of leading composers from the Baroque period!

Sunset Music and Arts: November, 2023

By now most readers will be aware that November will be a busy month for the different recitals series for San Francisco Performances (SFP). It is therefore worth reporting that the programs prepared by Sunset Music and Arts for that month will not conflict with any of the SFP offerings. There will be only two of those events, which will take place at 7:30 p.m. on the first two Saturdays of the month. Specifics are as follows:

November 4: The first program will be a recital performed by violinist Basma Edrees and pianist Ava Nazar, who first met when both of them were pursuing Masters degrees at the Juilliard School. However, while both of them are well-educated in classical music with roots in Europe, they grew up learning Eastern musical traditions from their respective countries, Egypt and Iran; and Edrees currently teaches Arabic music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Their programs often include both arrangements and improvisations, but specifics for their Sunset recital have not yet been finalized.

November 10: In the past, showcase performances of new works composed under the auspices of the San Francisco chapter of the National Association of Composers/USA (NACUSAsf) have been hosted by the Center for New Music (appropriately enough). However, to the best of my knowledge, there has not been such a showcase program at that venue since November of 2021. In any event, Sunset will host one of these programs for its second November offering. Once again, program specifics have not yet been announced.

As usual, these performances will take place in the Sunset district at the Episcopal Church of the Incarnation, located at 1750 29th Avenue, about halfway between Moraga Street and Noriega Street. Ticket prices are $25 for general admission with a $20 rate for students and seniors. Because the demand tends to be high, advance purchase is highly advised. Tickets may be purchased online through Eventbrite. Each of the hyperlinks on the above dates leads to the event page for single ticket purchases. Further information may be obtained by calling 415-564-2324.

The Latest Televised Wagner on PBS

Piotr Beczała and Tamara Wilson (from the video clip from the Great Performances at the Met: Lohengrin Web page for KQED)

This month began with the latest installment in the Great Performances at the Met programs broadcast on PBS. This Metropolitan Opera production was a staging of Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin, which was one of the productions scheduled for the Live in HD series for the 2022–23 season. Staging was by François Girard with conducting by Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The title role was sung by tenor Piotr Beczała. The role of Elsa was sung by soprano Tamara Wilson, the sorceress Ortrud was sung by soprano Christine Goerke, her husband Telramund was sung by bass-baritone Evgeny Nikitin, and bass Günther Groissböck sang the role of King Heinrich. Baritone Brian Mulligan, familiar to San Francisco audiences, sang the role of the Herald.

In many ways Girard’s staging suggested a setting similar to a dramatic performance of one of the Passion settings by Johann Sebastian Bach. One might almost say that the entire narrative took place in a vast cathedral whose roof opened up on the heavens. This abstracted the Lohengrin story to such an extent that the title character’s arrival on a swan consists of little more than seeing a wing through that open roof. Such abstractions can often be counterproductive. However, given how little action is specified in the libretto, this “bare-bones” approach to staging was convincingly effective.

Much more important than the setting was the approach to the characters themselves (which is also the case for the Passion texts that Bach set). Telramund is the guardian of the child-Duke Gottfried of Brabant, who has disappeared. In an appeal to King Heinrich, Telramund accuses the Duke’s older sister, Elsa. It is decided that the dispute will be settled through ordeal by combat. However, Elsa identifies her champion only as vision in a dream. However, when a champion is summoned, a strange knight appears, who will fight for Elsa only on the condition that she never asks his name.

The knight prevails in combat, concluding the first act of the opera. In the second act Telramund seeks revenge by consulting Ortrud, while Elsa accepts the stranger’s request for marriage. This leads up to the most famous wedding march in the classical music repertoire at the beginning of the third and final act. However, after the marriage, Elsa became more insistent about knowing her husband’s name. When it is finally revealed, he must return to the other Knights of the Grail; but, with his departure, the young Gottfried reappears, restoring stabilities to the uncertainties of Heinrich’s kingdom.

Because the “action” in his narrative is so limited, Girard’s “oratorio setting” proved to be more conducive than many would have expected. Ritual permeated both the “deep structure” and the “surface structure” of the narrative; and, if Girard’s staging tends toward the minimal, the plot development could not have been more engaging. In that context the video account, supervised by Mia Bongiovanni, knew exactly how to track that development, giving due attention to the traits of the individual characters while also providing a clear account of how the plot unfolds. The result could not be a better “cast study” in how video can provide as convincing experience as that of occupying a first-class seat in the opera house itself.

The SFP Great Artists and Ensembles Series

The final San Francisco Performances (SFP) subscription series to begin before the end of the year will be the Great Artists and Ensembles series. For the coming season there will be four programs, all of which will be duo recitals. One of them will involve a cellist accompanied by a pianist. The other three will be violin recitals, all with piano accompaniment.

As usual, all of the concerts will be held in Herbst Theatre, beginning at 7:30 p.m. in the evening. The entrance to Herbst is the main entrance to the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue, located on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. The venue is excellent for public transportation, since that corner has Muni bus stops for both north-south and east-west travel. The specific dates and their related performers are as follows:

Thursday, November 2: This will be the first recital for violin and piano. Both of the instrumentalists will be making their respective Bay Area debuts. Violinist Miranda Cuckson is no stranger to California, having performed at both the 2021 Ojai Festival and the virtual Tenth Anniversary of Philip Glass’ Days and Nights Festival earlier in that same year. However, this will probably be the first time that her accompanist at the piano, Blair McMillen, will be performing in San Francisco. As of this writing, the contributing composers have been named; but the specific selections have not yet been announced. Those composers will be (presumably in “order of appearance”) Leoš Janáček, Ludwig van Beethoven, Sergei Prokofiev, and Ross Lee Finney, one of the leading American composers of the twentieth century.

Wednesday, November 8: Cellist Jay Campbell is no stranger to SFP audiences. Indeed, as was announced this past Saturday, his duo recital with pianist Conor Hanick will be preceded by his performance with the JACK Quartet, which will take place about two weeks earlier at the end of October in this season’s Shenson Chamber Series. The second half of his recital will be devoted to Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Opus 19 sonata for cello and piano in G minor. The program will begin with “Gretchen am Spinnrade” by Eric Wubbels; and I am tempted to award a prize to anyone capable of detecting any resemblance to Franz Schubert’s D. 118 song of the same title. These two compositions frame works composed for the piano. “Real” Schubert will be found in two of his D. 899 impromptus, the third in G-flat major and the first in F minor. This will be followed by three of the études by György Ligeti, “Fanfares,” “Arc-en-ciel” (rainbow), and “L'escalier du diable” (the Devil’s staircase), the first two from his first book and the last from the second. Whether these selections will be arranged for cello and piano or performed as solos by Hanick remains to be seen.

Saturday, February 24: Violinist Leila Josefowicz is no stranger to Herbst Theatre, nor is her accompanist John Novacek. However, according to my records, this will be their first return to that venue since November of 2017, when they presented a program of adventurous twentieth-century music. She also has a strong connection to conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, having performed his violin concerto with the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) in February of 2020 when he was the ensemble’s Music Director Designate. More recently, she returned to perform Igor Stravinsky’s violin concerto with Salonen and SFS in March of 2022. Stravinsky will be included in the program she has prepared for her return to Herbst, which will conclude with the divertimento of music from the score for the one-act ballet “Le baiser de la fée” (the fairy’s kiss). The program will begin with Claude Debussy’s only violin sonata. This will be followed Karol Szymanowski’s Opus 30, a three-movement suite entitled Myths. The Stravinsky selection will be preceded by “Conversio,” a duo for violin and piano composed in 1994 by Erkki-Sven Tüür.

Friday, May 3: The final duo will bring violinist Pekka Kuusisto together with pianist Gabriel Kahane. They will present the world premiere of a collaboratively written song cycle. A title has not yet been assigned, but the two composers created it to explore the joys and griefs of life in the current century. The program will also include compositions by both Johann Sebastian Bach and Nico Muhly, along with Kuusisto’s selections of Scandinavian folk music and Kahane drawing upon his personal catalog. Further specifics will be forthcoming.

Subscriptions are now on sale for $265 for premium seating in the Orchestra, the Side Boxes, and the front and center of the Dress Circle, $225 for the center rear of the Dress Circle and the remainder of the Orchestra, and $185 for the remainder of the Dress Circle and the Balcony. Subscriptions may be purchased online in advance through an SFP Web page. Orders may also be placed by calling the SFP subscriber hotline at 415-677-0325, which is open for receiving calls between 9:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. When single tickets go on sale, they may be purchased by visiting the specific event pages. The above dates provide hyperlinks to the appropriate Web pages.

New Discovery of Coltrane and Dolphy

About a week and a half ago, Impulse! Records released a new album whose full title is Evenings at the Village Gate: John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy. I have no idea how much of an impact either of those names has on the current community of jazz players and jazz listeners. However, the five tracks on the album were recorded in the summer of 1961. For those of us still around to remember the Sixties, that was as turbulent an era for jazz as it was for the pop scene. It was also a poignant period, since Dolphy would die on June 29, 1964 (which means, among other more selfish reasons, that I was never able to listen to him in performance). Coltrane would die on July 17, 1967, which would have been not too long after I heard him bring his quartet to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Both Coltrane and Dolphy were associated with the saxophone. Here is a photograph showing Coltrane on tenor saxophone and Dolphy on alto:

John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy (photograph by Herb Snitzer, courtesy of Crossover Media)

However, each of them ventured into other instruments. Coltrane was known for his solo command of the soprano saxophone, an instrument that tended to be obstreperous for mere mortals. Dolphy took off in the opposite direction, bringing the bass clarinet out of the symphony orchestra (where it has resided for at least a century) and subjecting it to over-the-top improvisations. He would also explore the higher register with his flute.

As the album title indicates, the five tracks of the new album were recorded at the Village Gate in New York in the summer of 1961. Coltrane played there for the better part of a month with Dolphy joining the Coltrane quartet, whose other members were pianist McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman on bass, and Elvin Jones on percussion. This was a time when we would talk about “straight-ahead” jazz. This quintet took the “straight-ahead” style and ran it at a breakneck pace.

The album consists of only five tracks:

1. My Favorite Things
2. When Lights Are Low
3. Impressions
4. Greensleeves
5. Africa

All five of them can be found on other Coltrane albums. However, the improvisations for each selection tend to run at a longer-than-usual pace. The shortest of the tracks was Coltrane’s own “Impressions,” whose underlying chord sequence is identical to Miles Davis’ “So What,” which he had played as a member of what is now known as the “first” Davis quintet. However, it was after Coltrane left that quintet that he began to work with his soprano instrument, which positively soars on this particular take, after which it could not be better complemented by anything other than Dolphy’s bass clarinet solo.

Where the rest of the quintet is concerned, Tyner tends to come up with the most engaging “responses” to the “calls” of both Coltrane and Dolphy. As Coltrane moved into more and more adventurous terrains, Tyner would often respond with full-handed chord progressions. However, back in 1961 he was still weaving rapid-fire accounts of a single melodic line, which would go on for some time before any of those progressions would emerge.

The longest of the tracks is Coltrane’s “Africa,” which runs just short of 23 minutes in duration. For this one track the bass is taken by Art Davis, rather than Workman. This performance is longer than either of the two studio recordings, made with a large wind/brass ensemble, in a single session that preceded by Village Gate residence by a month (if not less). It would not be difficult to label this new track as epic, taking “one step beyond” (for those that remember television from the Fifties and Sixties) the expansive rhetoric of the studio setting.

In other words, while, as observed, all five of the tracks had previous recordings, there is no shortage of fresh inventiveness anywhere on this new release.

SFCMP to Premiere Three Emerging Composers

When, at the beginning of this month, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players (SFCMP) announced the programs to be presented during its 53rd concert season, it was also announced that there would be three “supplementary” concerts, presented in conjunction with the ARTZenter Institute, to showcase works by emerging composers. Plans for the first of those concerts have now been announced. This will be a program of three world premieres.

The composers have been selected from the six finalists that had been determined last month. They are, along with their compositions, Bobby Ge (“The Floating World”), Patrick Holcomb (“This City was Once an Ocean”), and Julie Zhu (“unanimous”). SFCMP Artistic Director Eric Dudley will conduct these premiere performances. In addition, each of the composers will receive a $3000 grant from the ARTZenter Institute, along with expenses for travel and accommodations in San Francisco.

The performance will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, September 21. The venue will be Herbst Theatre, whose entrance is on the ground floor of the Veterans Building, which is located at 401 Van Ness Avenue, on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. The remaining three finalists will have their compositions performed next year on Friday, March 15. There will also be a program of “open readings” of six works for chamber orchestra, which will take place on Friday, January 5.

The Bleeding Edge: 7/24/2023

This month began with “one of the quietest [weeks] out on the bleeding edge.” Now that “Audium V” has run its course, the month will conclude with an even quieter week. As readers may expect, this week will offer another performance at the Medicine for Nightmares Bookstore & Gallery. As usual, it will begin at 7 p.m. on Friday, July 28; and it will be curated by David Boyce, who usually appears with his collection of wind instruments. For this week’s gig he will be joined by the Matis Arizmendi Duo.For those that do not already know, the venue is located in the Mission at 3036 24th Street, between Treat Avenue and Harrison Street. As always, there is no charge for admission, presumably to encourage visitors to consider buying a book.

Le Due Muse Goes Latin

Yesterday afternoon, Le Due Muse, whose members are cellist Sarah Hong and pianist Makiko Ooka, returned to the Old First Presbyterian Church. According to my records, this was their first Old First Concerts recital since June of 2019, when they prepared a full evening of music by Franz Schubert. Once again, they presented a program based on an overall theme, this time featuring four Latin American composers.

The first half of the program was devoted entirely to music by Mexican composer Manuel Ponce. The duo began with what is probably his most familiar composition, “Estrellita,” originally written for solo piano. Some readers may recall that, this past May, this was the encore selection taken by cellist Oliver Herbert and pianist Carlos Ágreda, joined by soprano Esther Rayo. Hong and Ooka played the duo version transcribed by the Spanish cellist Gaspar Cassadó. This served as an “overture” for Ponce’s four-movement cello sonata.

I have to confess that, until yesterday afternoon, I tended to associate Ponce with short selections, more likely to be encountered as encores. While his catalog of chamber music is relatively limited when compared with other genres, it is clear that he was no stranger to working with longer durations. In that context the cello sonata is a highly spirited composition, and Hong definitely knew how to accommodate the full scope of those spirits. By the time I had reached the final movement (Allegro burlesco), I found myself curious as to why such an impressive undertaking should be overlooked by so many cellists.

The second half of the program was framed by the Brazilian Heitor Villa-Lobos and the Argentine Astor Piazzolla. The duo began with “O canto do cisne negro” (the song of the black swan), which had also been performed by Herbert and Ágreda this past May. The same was true of the first (“Ária”) movement of the fifth of that composer’s nine Bachianas Brasileiras compositions. However, while the May recital involved a trio, Le Due Muse played a transcription by cellist Seymour Barab. Piazzolla closed out the program with “Le Grand Tango,” which he had composed for Mstislav Rostropovich. This was preceded by Kyoko Yamamoto’s arrangement of Piazzolla’s “Oblivion.” Villa-Lobos and Piazzolla were separated by Alberto Ginastera’s Opus 21, the second of his “Pampeana” compositions.

Taken as a whole, this program was as engaging as it was imaginative. Hong may have been “front and center;” but there was no ignoring Ooka’s keyboard skills and her consistent sense of balance with Hong. The duo also deserves credit for venturing into a repertoire that seems to be rising in attention and deservedly so.

The SFP 2023–24 Art of Song Series

The last of the San Francisco Performances (SFP) subscription series to begin this coming October will be the Art of Song series. As was the case last season, the series will consist of four performances, each presenting a vocal soloist. Perhaps as a reflection on the “Three Tenors,” that flourished back in the Nineties and would join forces as a “supergroup,” three of the recitalists will be tenors. The one female vocalist will be a mezzo. Last season there was a diversity in the instrumental accompaniment for the vocalists. This season will see a “return to normal” with each vocalist performing with a pianist.  Once again, all of the events will take place at 7:30 p.m. on different days of the week, two on a Saturday and the other two on a Thursday.

All of the recitals will be held in Herbst Theatre, on the ground floor of the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. All performances will begin at 7:30 p.m. The summary of dates and performers is as follows:

Saturday, October 21: Tenor Ian Bostridge was last seen here in San Francisco in Davies Symphony Hall this past May, when he sang the tenor part for Benjamin Britten’s Opus 66 War Requiem with the San Francisco Symphony conducted by Philippe Jordan. My last encounter with him in Herbst was in May of 2016, when he concluded this series (then known as the Vocal Series) with a survey of songs by Franz Schubert that explored the variety of poets whose texts were set by that composer. His accompanist for that program was the Canadian pianist Wenwen Du, making her SFP debut. Bostridge’s return to Herbst will also be a return to Schubert, this time with the D. 911 Winterreise (winter journey) song cycle setting 24 poems by Wilhelm Müller. It would be fair to call Bostridge an expert in this music, since he wrote a book about it. Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession was given the Cooper Prize after it was published. Du will return to Herbst to accompany Bostridge.

Saturday, January 27: Mezzo Raehann Bryce-Davis is a 2015 Merola alumna. During the pandemic, the Merola Opera Program presented a Virtual Recital Series of streamed performances. One of those performances was entitled An Autumn Afternoon with Raehann Bryce-Davis, and she was accompanied at the piano by Jeanne-Minette Cilliers. The program included the world premiere of “I Am Not an Angry Black Woman,” composed by Maria Thompson Corley, as well as “The Crescent Moon,” Florence Price’s setting of a text by Louise Charlotte Wright. This was be followed by Margaret Bond’s setting of Langston Hughes’ “Birth.” Bryce-Davis will revisit all of these pieces for her SFP recital, along with songs by Amy Beach and Melissa Dunphy. She will also perform the five songs by Richard Wagner that are commonly known as the Wesendonck Lieder. The program will conclude with selections from Peter Ashbourne’s song cycle Fi Mi Love Have Lion Heart. Her accompanist has not yet been named, meaning that Cilliers would be little more than an educated guess.

Thursday, February 29: Tenor Lawrence Brownlee’s last SFP recital was the last in the four programs entitled Summer Music Sessions 2021, which took place in July of that year. He had made his SFP debut in March of 2018, and in 2016 he made his San Francisco Opera debut in Gaetano Donizetti’s Don Pasquale. The title of this season’s recital will be RISING. This will be a second opportunity to listen to the music of Margaret Bonds with the performance of her cycle Songs of the Seasons. Other composers to be included on the program will be (in order of appearance) Robert Owens, Jeremiah Evans, Carlos Simon, Damien Sneed, Shawn Okpebholo, and Joel Thompson. Brownlee will be accompanied at the piano by Kevin Miller.

Thursday, March 21: Turkish-born Austrian tenor Ilker Arcayürek made his San Francisco debut in February of 2019 as one of the featured artists in the SFP Discovery Series. He had been scheduled to return with an Art of Song recital on April 1, 2022. Unfortunately, Arcayürek and his accompanist, pianist Simon Lepper, were not able to visit the United States due to visa issues. Presumably, those issues have now been resolved. Program details have not yet been finalized. However, the composers are expected to include Ludwig van Beethoven, Robert Schumann, Reynaldo Hahn, Felix Mendelssohn, Richard Strauss, Johannes Brahms, and Gabriel Fauré.

Subscriptions are now on sale for $260 for premium seating in the Orchestra, the Side Boxes, and the front and center of the Dress Circle, $220 for the center rear of the Dress Circle and the remainder of the Orchestra, and $180 for the remainder of the Dress Circle and the Balcony. Subscriptions may be purchased online in advance through an SFP Web page. Orders may also be placed by calling the SFP subscriber hotline at 415-677-0325, which is open for receiving calls between 9:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. When single tickets go on sale, they may be purchased by visiting the specific event pages. The above dates provide hyperlinks to the appropriate Web pages.

A Nigerian Take on the Great American Songbook

Douyé on the cover of her new album (courtesy of DL Media)

A little less than two weeks ago, Rhombus Records released The Golden Sèkèrè, the fifth album by Nigerian-born jazz vocalist Douyé, who is now based in Los Angeles. The title refers to a beaded percussion instrument that differentiates indigenous Nigerian music from other sources on the African continent. However, the fourteen tracks on this album are all drawn from the Great American Songbook.

One way to approach The Golden Sèkèrè is as a study in context. Douyé’s delivery of the songs is based on a consistently clear account of both the text and the tunes, and the winds, brass, and piano consistently provide straightforward accompaniment. What makes the album interesting, however, is when a familiar foreground is embellished with African percussion instruments, such as the sèkèrè.

That instrument, performed by Najite Agindotan, establishes a decidedly unique context for “My Funny Valentine;” and Douyé herself plays the instrument to enhance Lionel Louke’s arrangement of “Fly Me to the Moon.” Other percussionists appear on other tracks with Fola Abiala being particularly interesting on his talking drum. Furthermore, several of the tracks introduce a Latin rhetoric. This is most engaging when Raul Ramirez takes over the percussion for “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” while both Abiala and Agindotan contribute to the mix.

It would probably be fair to say that this is one of those albums in which the angels are in the details. Douyé delivers consistently solid accounts of tunes likely to be familiar to most, if not all, listeners. However, each track has its own domain of subtle approaches to accompaniment. I have found that, over the course of several listenings, I keep discovering new instances of those subtleties; and that goes right to the heart of the sort of “serious listening” that I relish!

An Imaginative Rethinking of the Cinderella Tale

This morning Opera San José (OSJ) made available an opera it had premiered in 2017 for free viewing through YouTube with separate videos for the first and second parts of the production. The opera is a new approach to the Cinderella narrative, whose music was composed by Alma Deutscher, who was thirteen years old at the time. Deutscher returned to OSJ five years later to revive their production and to serve as conductor.

It would be fair to say that Deutscher is firmly confident in her abilities as both composer and conductor. She probably even relishes the efforts of the video production team to superimpose occasionally her conducting on top of the image of the staging of the opera itself:

I suspect that there has been more than a little bit of skepticism over her capabilities. Nevertheless, I appreciated her contemporary take on the narrative and her ability to keep the narrative moving without ever lingering on any particular episode for too long. In addition, she brought an arch wit to reflecting on operas of the past, even when they did not involve the Cinderella narrative.

As a result, it was not entirely surprising that one of the episodes included a lapse into the travails of Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata, even if that action took place only in the orchestra pit. There was also an amusing moment when the stepsisters lapsed into “Beckmesser mode” with a nod to Richard Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Finally, it struck me that the way in which Cinderella (soprano Natalia Santaliz) and the Prince (tenor Joey Hammond-Leppek) encounter each other reminded me of Pamina and Tamino in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The Magic Flute.

For all of those cross-references, there was still more than enough originality to go around in the text of the libretto; and I came away from watching today’s video with thoughts that I might revisit the work in the not-too-distant future.

The SFP 2023–24 Shenson Chamber Series

As was the case last season, each of the programs in the 2023–24 season of the San Francisco Performances (SFP) Shenson Chamber Series will feature a string quartet. However, three of the five programs will include “guest artists;” and one of the quartets will lead two of those programs. All of these events will take place at 7:30 p.m. on different days of the week.

As usual, all of the concerts will take place in Herbst Theatre. The entrance to Herbst is the main entrance to the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue, located on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. The venue is excellent for public transportation, since that corner has Muni bus stops for both north-south and east-west travel. The specific dates and their related performers are as follows:

Tuesday, October 10: The Calder Quartet, whose members are violinists Benjamin Jacobson and Tereza Stanislav, violist Jonathan Moerschel, and cellist Eric Byers, will return to Herbst, giving their first SFP recital since April of 2017. This will also be the first opportunity to listen to the group’s new second violinist. They have prepared a program that will provide “sonic contrast and context” to the music of Franz Schubert. The “core” of the program will consist of that composer’s D. 804 quartet in A minor, often known as the “Rosamunde” quartet, since the music originally composed for the third entr’acte of Rosamunde (D. 797) resurfaces as the theme of the second (Andante) movement. This will be preceded by a new piano quintet composed for Calder by pianist Timo Andres. The program will begin with Andres’ short three-movement string quartet entitled “Machine, Learning.” D. 804 will be followed by Ann Southam’s “Remembering Schubert,” composed for solo piano and performed by Andres.

Thursday, October 26: The JACK Quartet last “appeared” in April of 2021 for the final program of the SFP PIVOT series. Due to COVID, all three of the programs in this series were streamed. The quartet members are violinists Christopher Otto and Austin Wulliman, violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Jay Campbell. For their return to Herbst, they have prepared a program consisting entirely of the music of John Luther Adams. This will include the “Rising” movement from his Untouched suite, along with “Lives Made by Walking” and “The Wind in High Places.” This program will be performed without an intermission.

Wednesday, November 15: The Castalian Quartet of violinists Sini Simonen and Daniel Roberts, violist Ruth Gibson, and cellist Christopher Graves had been scheduled to make its debut in the spring of 2020. Fortunately, it was possible for them to reschedule after lockdown conditions had eased; and their debut took place in November of 2021. They have organized their program around Leoš Janáček’s first string quartet, given the title “Kreutzer Sonata,” based on Leo Tolstoy’s novella of the same name. The composer completed his revisions of the score on November 7, 1923, meaning that this performance will be a “centennial celebration.” The quartet commissioned Mark-Anthony Turnage to compose a new work to honor the occasion. The result was “Awake,” which will be performed immediately after the Janáček quartet. The second half of the program will be devoted entirely to Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 80 quartet in F minor.

Saturday, March 16: The Calder Quartet will return with a second program entitled The Mind’s Ear: Motion Beyond Silence. This time the ensemble will be joined by choreographer and dancer Antoine Hunter, who has made himself an advocate for the deaf community by expressing his experience in a hearing world through dance. He will be joined by dancer Zahna Simon. The core of the program will be a performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 130 string quartet in B flat major with the Opus 133 “Große Fuge” (grand fugue) as the final movement. The other composers to be represented in the program will be John Cage (“Quartet in 4 Parts”), Jessie Montgomery (“Strum”), Caroline Shaw (“Entr’acte”), and Julius Eastman (“Joy Boy”).

Thursday, April 25: Like the Castalian Quartet, the Dover Quartet of violinists Joel Link and Bryan Lee, violist Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, and cellist Camden Shaw last visited Herbst in November of 2021. In their case, however, this was their third visit to SFP; and, since that visit, Julianne Lee has become the new violist. This time they will be joined by pianist Leif Ove Andsnes in performance of both Johannes Brahms’ Opus 34 piano quintet in F minor and the Opus 26 piano quintet by Ernst von Dohnányi. The program will begin with “La oración del torero,” Joaquín Turina’s Opus 34.

Subscriptions are now on sale for $335 for premium seating in the Orchestra, the Side Boxes, and the front and center of the Dress Circle, $285 for the center rear of the Dress Circle and the remainder of the Orchestra, and $235 for the remainder of the Dress Circle and the Balcony. Subscriptions may be purchased online in advance through an SFP Web page. Orders may also be placed by calling the SFP subscriber hotline at 415-677-0325, which is open for receiving calls between 9:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. When single tickets go on sale, they may be purchased by visiting the specific event pages. The above dates provide hyperlinks to the appropriate Web pages.

Sony Classical Reissues Chávez Recordings

Carl Van Vechten’s 1937 portrait photograph of Carlos Chávez (from the United States Library of Congress Prints and Photographs division, from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

A little over two weeks ago Sony Classical released a seven-CD box set entitled Carlos Chávez: The Complete Columbia Album Collection. Anyone consulting the Wikipedia Web page that lists Chávez’ compositions will quickly realize that this is an account of the Chávez canon that is far less than modest, particularly after discovering that not all of the tracks are Chávez compositions. On the other hand Chávez served as conductor for the entire content. All but the last of the CDs were recorded in Mexico City. On the last CD Chávez conducts the London Symphony Orchestra at the Abbey Road studios in London.

I first became aware of Chávez when I was in secondary school, most likely as a result of one of Leonard Bernstein’s television programs. For the better part of my life, I was aware of little more than the second of Chávez’ six symphonies, given the title “Sinfonía india,” the latter word picking up on Christopher Columbus, rather than Asia. However, my only opportunity to write about the performance of his music took place in April of 2018, when violinist Luosha Fang and pianist Allegra Chapman performed his 1924 sonatina as part of the Bard Music West festival entitled The World of Henry Cowell. Where recordings are concerned, during my tenure with Examiner.com, I wrote about the reissue of Eduardo Mata’s recordings of all six of the symphonies and the Cedille recording of Chávez’ piano concerto with Jorge Federico Osorio as soloist with the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México conducted by Carlos Miguel Prieto. In the new box set, that ensemble accounts for the six symphonies and the violin concerto, performed with soloist Henryk Szeryng.

The tracks that are not composed by Chávez are all traditional Mexican tunes. The most familiar of these is “La paloma azul” (the blue dove), which Chávez arranged for chorus and orchestra. Any listener familiar with Aaron Copland’s “El Salón México” will probably recognize the theme before the first measure has elapsed.

On the other hand it would be fair to say that any Columbia recording of Copland comes across as far more polished than any of the recordings made in Mexico City. There are any number of reasons why this might be the case. I shall not enumerate them, nor shall I make any conjectures. Suffice it to say that the London Symphony Orchestra accounts for the most disciplined performances, all of which will be found on the final CD.

The second most disciplined performances are to be found on the penultimate CD. This accounts for three of the four compositions given the title “Soli.” The first of these is scored for oboe, clarinet, and trumpet. This is followed by the fourth, performed by horn, trumpet, and trombone. The CD then concludes with the second, scored for the “usual” wind quintet (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn). (The third is the only one that requires a full orchestra with concertante parts.) These were given some very informative background by the composer, printed on the back side of the original album. Sadly, those notes were omitted from the accompanying booklet; but they can be read with a magnifying glass on the sleeve that reproduces both sides of the Odyssey release.

From a production point of view, this is certainly not the most satisfying account of Chávez’ music. On the other hand the complete catalog of performances by Chávez himself is limited, to say the least. This is one of those situations in which those wishing to know more about the composer’s works are obliged to take what they can get. Thus, the quantity of the new Sony release is a welcome one, even if many of the recordings do not rise to usual expectations.

The SFP 2023–24 Guitar Series

As in the past, the San Francisco Performances (SFP) Guitar Series for the 2023–24 season will be presented in partnership with the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts. Specifics for the full Omni series were summarized this past April. As in the past, SFP will host five of the concerts with the venue alternating between two sites: St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, which is located at 1111 O’Farrell Street, and Herbst Theatre, on the ground floor of the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. All performances will begin at 7:30 p.m. The summary of dates, performers, and venues, along with a more specific account of program content, is as follows:

Saturday, October 7, St. Mark’s Lutheran Church: Australian guitarist Stephanie Jones will make her SFP debut. She has prepared an impressively diverse program, which will include an entire account of Ástor Piazzolla’s Estaciones Porteñas, known in English as The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, since the four collected compositions are associated with summer, winter, spring, and autumn. Like many guitar recitalists, she will begin with music by Johann Sebastian Bach, with arrangements of the “Gavotte” and “Gigue” movements from the BWV 1006 partita for solo violin in E major. She will then present works by five composers who, presumably, came to her attention in Australia: Richard Charlton, Ross Edwards, Jakob Schmidt, Quique Sinesi, and Rostislav Golubov. Following her Piazzolla performance, she will conclude her program with Roland Dyens’ arrangement of Antônio Carlos Jobim’s “A felicidade.”

Friday, November 10, Herbst Theatre: The Dublin Guitar Quartet of Brian Bolger, Pat Brunnock, Chien Buggle, and Tomas O’Durcain had been scheduled to perform in February of 2022. This will be their rescheduled appearance. Much of the program will be devoted to arrangements of compositions by Philip Glass. This will include two of his string quartets, the second (“Company”) and the third (“Mishima”). They will also perform arrangements of four of the piano études (2, 9, 16, and 20). They will conclude the program with an arrangement of Arvo Pärt’s “Summa.” There will also be original compositions by Wojciech Kilar (“Orawa”) and Rachel Grimes (“Book of Leaves”), as well as a new arrangement by Marc Mellits, whose content has not yet been announced.

Saturday, December 2, St. Mark’s Lutheran Church: Prior to the pandemic, the Beijing Guitar Duo of Meng Su and Yameng Wang were relatively frequent and always welcome visitors. (I still have fond memories of the Salon performance that SFP arranged at the Hotel Rex.) They are particularly adept at reconceiving works that were originally composed for solo piano. It should therefore be no surprise that most of the composers on the program are represented by arrangements of piano works. In alphabetical order these are Isaac Albéniz, Claude Debussy, Gabriel Fauré, César Franck, and Enrique Granados. The one selection for guitar duo will be the final work on the program, Piazzolla’s Tango Suite, which was originally composed for the duo of Sergio and Odair Assad.

Saturday, February 10, Herbst Theatre: Another welcome returning artist will be Pepe Romero. He will present a solo recital program to celebrate his 80th birthday. Specifics have not yet been announced, perhaps with the intention of offering his audience a few (if not more) surprises.

Tuesday, April 16, Herbst Theatre: Some readers may recall the jaw-dropping impact of the performance by George Hinchliffe’s Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain that took place in March of 2022. My guess is that anyone in attendance at that concert has been hoping for more. Those hopes will be satisfied by the final Guitar Series concert of the season. All of the selections will be announced from the stage for the sake of holding the audience in suspense.

Subscriptions are now on sale for $220 for premium seating in the Orchestra, the Side Boxes, and the front and center of the Dress Circle, $185 for the center rear of the Dress Circle and the remainder of the Orchestra, and $150 for the remainder of the Dress Circle and the Balcony. Subscriptions may be purchased online in advance through an SFP Web page. Orders may also be placed by calling the SFP subscriber hotline at 415-677-0325, which is open for receiving calls between 9:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. When single tickets go on sale, they may be purchased by visiting the specific event pages. The above dates provide hyperlinks to the appropriate Web pages.

Brian Byrnes Band Returning to Cadillac

Members of the Brian Byrnes Band identified (from the poster for this week’s performance at the Cadillac Hotel)

This month’s Concerts at the Cadillac gig will see the return of the Brian Byrnes Band. My records do not show when they last appeared; but, apparently, those that attend the Cadillac gigs regularly have been asking when they would return. The instrumentation of the group departs from the usual expectations. Byrnes himself leads with both guitar and harmonica, along with vocals following his guitar work. The other “front line” player is saxophonist Jules Broussard. Lee Bloom is the pianist; and, instead of a bass, the quartet rounds out with cellist Joseph Hebert.

As usual, this show will begin at 1 p.m. this coming Friday, July 21. The Cadillac Hotel is located at 380 Eddy Street, on the northeast corner of Leavenworth Street. All Concerts at the Cadillac events are presented without charge. The purpose of the series is to provide high-quality music to the residents of the hotel and the Tenderloin District; but all are invited to visit the venue that calls itself “The House of Welcome Since 1907.”

Tobin Mueller’s “Best?”

Readers may recall that my first encounter with Tobin Mueller involved original jazz that he composed for a staged version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, released as the album What Survives. That encounter took place in October of 2020, after which my awareness of Mueller’s work gradually faded from memory. However, earlier this month that awareness reawakened when I listened to “Prog Fusion,” the third of five volumes in a Best of Tobin Mueller series.

Cover of the first volume of the Best of Tobin Mueller collection (courtesy of Powderfinger Promotions)

I wrote about this album with the caveat that the genres encountered on this album were far from favorites in my usual jazz listening practices. Fortunately the first two volumes were far closer to my comfort zone. These were titled, respectively, “Jazz Originals” and “Jazz Arrangements.” As I might have guessed, the arrangements accounted for several imaginative approaches to Thelonious Monk. However, that inventiveness was applied to predecessors, such as W. C. Handy and Hoagy Carmichael, as well as a diversity of successors that included James Taylor, Bob Dylan, and Stevie Wonder. The originals included “Frankenfanny” from the What Survives album along with nineteen other tracks. Diversity of instrumentation went a long way towards maintaining attention across the breadth of those tracks.

The remaining two volumes in the collection were titled “Vocals” and “Chill.” Readers may recall that the vocals I had encountered on “Prog Fusion” “never really register with me as jazz and do little more than reinforce why I tend to steer away from the progressive.” In that context the “Vocals” volume amounted to “more of the same,” as did most (but not all) of the vocals on “Chill.” The instrumentals, on the other hand, cover a diverse breadth of originals and arrangements, the latter continuing the spirit behind the “Jazz Arrangements” volume.

Given the number of albums that come to my attention, leading to providing written accounts that try to balance structural specifics against personal preferences, my impressions often come down to whether or not any given album will benefit from repeated listening experiences. Where the Mueller albums now in my collection are concerned, the jury has not yet decided when and how subsequent “visits” will unfold. Suffice it to say that Mueller has secured a firm place in my collection, and I anticipate that memories will be triggered sooner or later!

Omni Video Premiere: Giovanni Masi

This afternoon the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts released the latest video to be added to its Omni On Location series. The location for this video is Solofra, an Italian town in the province of Avellino. As might be expected, the performer is an Italian guitarist, Giovanni Masi. The music was the final movement of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Opus 77 sonata, given the subtitle “Omaggio a Boccherini.” This was one of several works inspired by the composer having met the guitarist Andres Segovia.

Guitarist Giovanni Masi (screen shot from the video being discussed, courtesy of the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts)

Since only that one movement was performed, the video is relative brief, less than four and one-half minutes in duration. From a personal point of view, my knowledge of the composer comes primarily from the Opus 143 quintet for guitar and strings that he composed in 1950, after his move to the United States. Nevertheless, it would be fair to say that Castelnuovo-Tedesco managed to cram a rich brew of thematic material and technical challenges into this relatively brief movement, leaving some (at least myself included) hoping to get to know the three preceding movements. For now, however, that single movement has its own YouTube Web page.

Sunset Music and Arts: October, 2023

As this site begins to account for subscription series dates worth bearing in mind, it turns out that Sunset Music and Arts will be presenting only one concert during the coming month of October. That will be a solo piano recital, for which Leah Kang has prepared a strikingly imaginative program. The “core” of that program will showcase two significant female composers from two different countries.

The first of those composers will be the American Florence Price. Kang will perform Snapshots, a suite of three “visual impressions,” each associated with a specific date: October 13, 1952, July 17, 1949, and January 14, 1949. This will be coupled with the Trois pièces romantiques by the French composer (and conductor) Marguerite Canal. These two compositions will be preceded by the fifth of nine collections by Takashi Yoshimatsu given the title Pleiades Dances, each consisting of seven movements organized around a common subject matter. For the fifth collection (Opus 51, composed in 1992), that subject matter is the time of day.

Leah Kang performing Alexander Scriabin’s Opus 19 “Sonata-Fantasy” at the Hamel Music Center in Madison, Wisconsin (screen shot from the YouTube video of her performance)

The second half of the program involves a coupling of Maurice Ravel and Alexander Scriabin. The former will be represented by another collection, Valses nobles et sentimentales. It will be followed by Scriabin’s Opus 19, his second piano sonata composed in the key of G-sharp minor. This coupling reminded me that, about ten years ago, I had encountered two albums released around the same time, both of which involved albums with overall “programs” that were devoted entirely to works by Ravel and Scriabin.

As usual, this recital will take place in the Sunset district at the Episcopal Church of the Incarnation, located at 1750 29th Avenue, about halfway between Moraga Street and Noriega Street. It will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, October 7. Ticket prices are $25 for general admission with a $20 rate for students and seniors. Because the demand tends to be high, advance purchase is highly advised. Tickets may be purchased online through Eventbrite. Further information may be obtained by calling 415-564-2324.

The Bleeding Edge: 7/18/2023

This week will see the final iteration of three “Audium V” performances. In addition, there will be two other events that have already been noted on this site. The first of these will be the second of the two LSG (Luggage Store Gallery) Creative Music Series events taking place on Wednesday evenings. The other will be the previously announced Latitudes 19 performance, which will be presented by Other Minds. That leaves two remaining events for the week, one of which is an unexpected surprise.

Tuesday, July 18, 7 p.m., Make-Out Room: Tonight the Make-Out Room will present its monthly concert of adventurous jazz, following the usual three-set structure. The first set will begin at 7 p.m.with a performance by the Ghost Dub quartet. The name was probably taken by leader David Michalak, who used to play in the Ghost in the House quartet, which he co-led with the late Tom Nunn, performing with oboist Kyle Bruckmann and percussionist Karen Stackpole. Ghost Dub is “wind biased,” with two saxophonists, Kerstie Abrams and Bruce Ackley, and Polly Springhorn on bass flute. Michalak will be playing a lap steel guitar, a phantom harp, and any junk objects that satisfy his quests for new sounds. At 7:45 p.m., Nathan Bickart and Marshall Williams will perform a duo set. The final set will begin at 8:30 p.m. This will be the Tumble trio led by Randy McKean on clarinets and tenor saxophone. He will be joined by guitarist Sean Kerrigan and Robert Heirendt on mbira.The Make-Out Room is located in the Mission at 3225 22nd Street. Doors will open at 6 p.m. There is no cover charge, so donations will be accepted and appreciated.

Saturday, July 22, 12:01 p.m., Center for New Music (C4NM): According to my records, this will be the first in-person G|O|D|W|A|F|F|L|E|N|O|I|S|E|P|A|N|C|A|K|E|S since the May of 2020 performance which, unless I am mistaken, combined the physical with the virtual. The current plan is for five sets presented by James Twig Harper, Eurostache, Amphibious Gestures, Cruel Work, and Blood of Chhinnamastika. (In other words, things are back to business as usual.) General admission will be $8 with a $6 rate for members and students, and vegan pancakes will be included with the price of admission. 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.

The SFP 2023–24 Piano Series

This year the first series to launch the 2023–24 San Francisco Performances (SFP) season will be the Piano Series. While there were five events during the last season, this season there will be only four. Unless I am mistaken, all four will be return visits by leading pianists.

All four of these events will take place at 7:30 p.m. on different days of the week. As usual, all of the concerts will take place in Herbst Theatre. The entrance to Herbst is the main entrance to the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue, located on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. The venue is excellent for public transportation, since that corner has Muni bus stops for both north-south and east-west travel. The specific dates and their related performers are as follows:

Friday, October 6: Isata Kanneh-Mason made her solo debut in Herbst on March 8, 2022. She had already made her Bay Area debut in December of 2019 in a duo performance with her brother, cellist Sheku, in a Cal Performances recital in Berkeley. The duo then went on to make their San Francisco debut in Davies Symphony Hall in April of 2022. Her return visit will begin with an imaginative coupling of centuries. Joseph Haydn’s Hoboken XVI/50 sonata in C major will be followed by the “Easter Sonata,” composed by Fanny Mendelssohn. The second half of the program will remain in the nineteenth century, pairing Robert Schumann’s Opus 15 Kinderszenen with Frédéric Chopin’s Opus 58 (third) piano sonata in B minor.

Thursday, November 14: Stephen Hough has been presenting recitals for SFP for over three decades. I have not kept up with his repertoire over that period, but it would not surprise me to learn that this program will be the first time he presents one of this own compositions, a multi-movement work entitled simply Partita. (“Truth in advertising” always deserves credit.) This piece will be coupled to a series of compositions by Franz Liszt that conclude the second (Italian) “year” in his Années de pèlerinage collection. Those pieces will be settings for three sonnets by Petrarch (47, 104, and 123) and his “Fantasia Quasi Sonata,” given the title “Après une lecture de Dante” (after reading Dante). The first half of the program will examine three much more recent compositions, each with its own distinctive style. The first of these will be the Cants màgics (magic songs) collection by Federico Mompou. This will be followed by Alexander Scriabin’s Opus 53 (fifth) piano sonata, the first to consist of a single movement of contrasting episodes without any key specification in the title. (The work was published with a quatrain from the text of his Poem of Ecstasy preceding the opening measures.) The first half will then conclude with Debussy’s Estampes (prints) suite of three movements, each evoking a different geographical setting.

Wednesday, February 7: The last planned visit by Javier Perianes had to be cancelled due to the COVID pandemic. That means that his last appearance in Herbst was in May of 2017. The first half of that program was devoted entirely to Franz Schubert, while the second half surveyed works by Manuel de Falla, Claude Debussy, and Isaac Albéniz. For his return visit, he will play only one Spanish composition, Enrique Granados’ Opus 11 suite entitled Goyescas. The first three works on the program all have Germanic roots. Perianes will begin with Clara Schumann’s Opus 20 set of variations based on a theme by Robert Schumann. This will be followed by Robert’s variations on a theme by Clara, which served as the third movement of his Opus 14 piano sonata in F minor. The third work will then be another set of variations on one of Robert’s themes, which became Johannes Brahms’ Opus 9.

Tuesday, February 27, 7:30 p.m.: The final recitalist in this series will be Pierre-Laurent Aimard, who has not yet announced his program.

Subscriptions are now on sale for $280 for premium seating in the Orchestra, the Side Boxes, and the front and center of the Dress Circle, $240 for the center rear of the Dress Circle and the remainder of the Orchestra, and $200 for the remainder of the Dress Circle and the Balcony. Subscriptions may be purchased online in advance through an SFP Web page. Orders may also be placed by calling the SFP subscriber hotline at 415-677-0325, which is open for receiving calls between 9:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. When single tickets go on sale, they may be purchased by visiting the specific event pages. The above dates provide hyperlinks to the appropriate Web pages.

Ingram Marshall’s Soundtracks

This afternoon the San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) presented a video screening of two photography slideshows created by American photographer Jim Bengston. Both of these were created in 2013; and both were given soundtracks by American composer Ingram Marshall, who died at end of May last year. The title of the first video was “Alcatraz,” which was thirty minutes in duration. This was followed by “Eberbach,” whose duration was only eighteen minutes. Introductory remarks were provided by librarian John Smalley.

Cover of the New Albion recording of Ingram Marshall’s music for “Alcatraz” (from the Amazon.com Web page for this album)

“Alcatraz” is probably better known to readers, since Marshall’s music was recorded and released as a New Albion Records CD. While the eight movements basically aligned with the duration of Bengston’s slideshow, the CD included both “Prelude” and “Postlude” movements. Nevertheless, writing as one familiar with the CD, I was struck by how the music often served to reinforce the haunting imagery of the ruins of the prison as the structure now stands. “Eberbach,” on the other hand, took its title from a Cistercian monastery; and, as Smalley observed in his remarks, one can appreciate a dispiriting parallel between imprisonment and the isolation of monastic life. Indeed, the dark rhetoric of the “Eberbach” slideshow was distinguished by mournful saxophone scales, reflecting on a distant past with sonorities of the immediate present.

Taken as a whole, this made for a rather disquieting experience. Most of Marshall’s contributions amounted to a rich diversity of tape music techniques. As a result, there was almost a bit of “shock value” when he injected an elaborate piano arpeggio passage, which may well have been a sly nod to his colleague John Adams, who included that technique in his “Grand Pianola Music.”

Ironically, SFPL had previously presented this screening at the Richmond Branch on the same day that San Francisco Performances presented its tribute program for Marshall. I, for one, was glad to see that this benefit provided to the Richmond Branch finally found its way to the Main Library! However, it is worth noting that these screenings were made possible with permission from Starkland, a label that has received a generous amount of attention on this site!