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.
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