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.
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