SFCMP: Plans for 53rd Season

SFCMP Artistic Director Eric Dudley (courtesy of SFCMP)

This morning the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players (SFCMP) and Artistic Director Eric Dudley announced the programs that will be presented during their 53rd concert season. There will be five programs beginning on Saturday, November 11, and running through Thursday, May 30, of next year. The repertoire will include an “unadulterated” celebration of the sesquicentennial anniversary of Arnold Schoenberg’s birth and the slightly belated 100th anniversary of the U.S. premiere of Pierrot Lunaire, a composition that inspired students at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music to form their Nonsemble 6 chamber music group. There will also be three concerts of works performed by emerging composers, presented in conjunction with the ARTZenter Institute, which will also host the annual fundraising party and celebration.

One hour before each of the five concert programs, Dudley will host a How Music is Made discussion with one or more guest artists. Here is a summary of those programs with date, times, venue, and content for each:

Saturday, November 11, 8 p.m., Grace Cathedral: The venue for the first program, entitled RE:voicing, was selected to mark the beginning of the season with “Apparition de l’Église Éternelle,” one of the works composed by Olivier Messiaen during his tenure as organist at the Église de la Sainte-Trinité in Paris. A much more recent composition in a similar vein will be the Bay Area premiere of Raven Chacon’s “Voiceless Mass,” which he completed in 2021. These two compositions will be separated by Chinary Ung’s “Luminous Spirals,” completed in 1997. The second half of the program will be devoted entirely to Ancient Voices of Children, which composer George Crumb described as “A Cycle of Songs on Texts by Federico García Lorca.” The vocalist for this selection will be guest artist mezzo Tonia d’Amelio. Grace Cathedral is located at the top of Nob Hill at 1100 California Street, between Taylor Street and Jones Street.

Saturday, January 27, 8 p.m, San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM): The title of the second program will be RE:visitations. The first half will feature two works by SFCM composers in the Technology & Applied Composition Program. These will be preceded by Missy Mazzoli’s “Tooth and Nail” and followed by Louis Andriessen’s “Life.” The latter composition will be performed with a film by Marijke van Warmerdam. The second half of the program will be devoted to three adventurous composers from the preceding century: Steve Mackey (“San Francisco”), Pierre Boulez (“Dérive 1”), and Frank Zappa (“The Perfect Stranger”). The performance will take place in the Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall, which is located at 50 Oak Street, between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street, a short walk from the Van Ness Muni Station.

The next two programs will be a “MINI-FESTIVAL” given the title Pierrot RE:WIND:

Saturday, April 20, 8 p.m., Taube Atrium Theater: The title of the first program will be Pierrot RE:imagined. It was conceived to provide a platform for works that, for the most part, were composed over a century after Arnold Schoenberg’s song cycle Pierrot Lunaire. In the first half of the program, those compositions will be “un(ravel)ed” by Kevin Day and “Musica Spolia” by Katherine Balch. The composers in the second half will be Andrew Norman (“Mine Mime Meme”) and Mason Bates (“Difficult Bamboo”). The earliest work on the program will be “E Piove in Petto una Dolcezza Inquieta,” composed by Massimo Lauricella in 1996. The Taube Atrium Theater is located in the fourth floor of the Veterans Building, which is located at 401 Van Ness Avenue, on the southwest corner of McAllister Street.

Sunday, April 21, 3 p.m., Taube Atrium Theatre: The title of the second program will be Pierrot RE:encountered. The “encounter” will take place during the second half of the program, which will consist entirely of a performance of Pierrot Lunaire. The vocalist will be mezzo Rachel Calloway. The first half of the program will present selections from Schoenberg’s Cabaret Songs collection. They will be preceded by Joan Tower’s “Petroushskates.” The Cabaret Songs will be followed by the West Coast premiere of the first and third of Jessie Montgomery’s Lunar Songs.

Thursday, May 30, 8 p.m., SFCM: The title of the final program will be RE:voicing 2 - Worlds Apart. This program has not yet been finalized, but it will include at least two premiere performances. One of these will be the world premiere of “World Apart,” which Richard Festinger completed in 2020. The guest artists will include the members of the Volti choral ensemble, joined by both soprano and baritone soloists. The other will be the Bay Area premiere of “Asko Concerto,” which Elliott Carter composed in 2000. This performance will also take place in the Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall.

There are a variety of subscription options for these concert programs, all of which may be implemented through a single Web page on the SFCMP Web site. In addition to full subscriptions, there is also an option for selecting only three of the concerts. The Web page for single tickets has not yet been launched. In all likelihood, it will be the Web page that currently lists the individual program from the 52nd concert season. Readers are invited to check that Web page to see when its content has been updated for the new season.

The three concerts devoted to works by emerging composers will all take place in Herbst Theatre, whose entrance is on the ground floor of the Veterans Building. All three performances will begin at 7:30 p.m. Two of the programs will present world premiere performances of three works for chamber orchestra. These will take place on Thursday, September 21 and Friday, March 15. The remaining performance, which will take place on Friday, January 5, will present “open readings” of six works for chamber orchestra.

Finally, the annual fundraising party will take place at 3 p.m. on Sunday, February 25; and further details will be announced at a later date.