PBO to Launch 2023–24 Season with Handel++

Poster design for first program of the new PBO season

Yesterday many of us probably received an electronic mail dispatch from the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale (PBO) announcing the first program in the 2023/24 season. The title of the dispatch was Handel, Handel…and more Handel…, which struck me as a bit unfair to the overall structure of the program. Mind you, it is true that the soloist for the program will be countertenor Tim Mead. It is also true that he will sing four vocal excerpts from works by George Frideric Handel, two at the beginning and two at the conclusion. Each of those selections will be “labeled” with a suitable adjective. In addition there will be two performances of concerti grossi from the Opus 6 collection. The first will follow the opening two arias (“Heroic” and “Hideous”); and the second will precede the closing two (“Sacred” and “Secular”).

What the dispatch failed to include was the “keystone” of this arch-formation program. That will be the West Coast premiere performance of Ancestor. This consists of two movements, each of which can be “paired” with the opening and closing Handel selections. Furthermore, each movement has a different composer. Thus, the opening “Handel set” will be followed by “The Forms,” composed by Errollyn Wallen CBE (Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire). The second “Handel set” will be preceded by “The Golden Measure,” composed by Tarik O’Regan, currently the PBO Composer-in-Residence. As a result, it would seem suitable to describe this as a program of “symmetry with a vengeance,” possibly dedicating the occasion to the mathematician Hermann Weyl, who literally wrote the book on symmetry!

The San Francisco performance of this program, whose overall title is Garden of Good and Evil, will take place in the Herbst Theatre, located on the first two floors of the Veterans Building on the southwest corner of Van Ness Avenue and McAllister Street. It will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 19. Tickets may be purchased online through a City Box Office event page. Ticket prices are $30, $50, $75, $108, and $100.