Regular readers may recall that this past Sunday was the first “busy weekend” of the new season. Next month, however, will begin with a busier weekend that will span both Saturday and Sunday. As usual, this will involve a generous amount of diversity; so it is best to just “get down to business.” Specifics are as follows:
Saturday, November 4, 2 p.m., Davies Symphony Hall: As was the case last year, the annual celebration by the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) of the Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos) will take place on the first Saturday in November. The festivities will be organized around the usual Saturday afternoon concert supplemented by family-oriented activities in the Davies lobbies. The conductor this year will be Miguel Harth-Bedoya. The featured soloist will be vocalist Edna Vásquez, whose repertoire for this occasion will be three of her own songs. Other composers whose works will be included in the program will be Clarice Assad, Arturo Márquez, Alfonso Leng, Silvestre Revueltas, and Arturo Rodriguez. Once again, there will be dances performed by Casa Circulo Cultural throughout the concert and another guest appearance by Canción de Obsidiana.
As usual, doors will open at 1 p.m. to admit guests to the full range of family-friendly activities in the lobbies. Davies Symphony Hall is located at 201 Van Ness Avenue and fills an entire city block. The other boundaries are Grove Street (north), Hayes Street (south), and Franklin Street (west). The main entrance (which is also the entrance to the Box Office) is on Grove Street, roughly halfway down the block. Concert ticket prices start at $29.50. There is also limited availability for Fiesta Packages. These do not have any Web pages, but they may be purchased by calling 415-503-5351. They include pre-concert activities, premium tickets for the concert performance, and a post-concert Fiesta dinner. Those interested only in concert tickets can use the above hyperlink or call 415-864-6000. In addition, the Box Office in the Davies lobby is open for selling tickets. The concert is part of the California Festival: A Celebration of New Music.
Saturday, November 4, 7:30 p.m., St. Mark’s Lutheran Church: The next event in the 2023/2024 Dynamite Guitars series of concerts, presented by the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts, is entitled 50 Oak. Regular readers will probably know that this is the address of the main building of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, which has had an impressive Guitar Faculty for as long as I have been attending performances there. The contributing guitarists will be Sergio Assad, David Tanenbaum, Richard Savino, and Marc Teicholz; and the program will include solo selections, as well as groups in different combinations. The church is located at 1111 O’Farrell Street, just west of the intersection with Franklin Street. General admission is $60 for all seats; and, as usual, students K–12 will be admitted at no charge. Tickets may be purchased online through a City Box Office Web page.
Saturday, November 4, 7:30 p.m., Davies Symphony Hall: This will be the final performance of the SFS program conducted by Ludovic Morlot with violinist Augustin Hadelich returning as soloist for a performance of Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 53 violin concerto in A minor.
Saturday, November 4, 8 p.m., Lakeside Presbyterian Church: This will be the next showcase of new and recent works performed by the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra. Hussein Al-Nasrawi has composed a “tribute work” for the orchestra’s founding figure, Mark Alburger, entitled simply “Mark.” That composition will be coupled with Alburger’s own “Mikhail’s Navy.” “Open Ended” is a piece by Michael Cooke that evolves in real-time. Because the work brings composition together with improvisation, every performance is a world premiere unto itself. Other contributing composers will be Michael Orlinsky, Vance Maverick, Scott Sterling, and Davide Verotta. The church is located at 201 Eucalyptus Drive. General admission will be on a sliding scale with $25 as the recommended amount.
Saturday, November 4, 8 p.m., Noe Valley Ministry: This will be Volti’s contribution to the California Festival: A Celebration of New Music. The a cappella vocal ensemble performs under the motto “singing without a net.” The program will revive its 2010 commission from Yu-Hui Chang, who set two poems by Billy Collins, formerly the United States Poet Laureate. Resident composer Mark Winges will contribute settings of poems by Jane Hirshfield. New works will include “a carol called love” by LJ White, a graduate of Volti's young composer program and the Bay Area premiere of “Livro das Cores” (the book of colors) by Marcos Balter. The program will conclude with Emily Koh’s “Nanuniku,” memories of Teochew lullabies.
Sunday, November 5, 2 p.m., Davies Symphony Hall: This will be the first of the six chamber music recitals to be performed by SFS musicians in Davies. The second half of the program will be devoted entirely to the second of the two Opus 51 string quartets by Johannes Brahms, composed in the key of A minor. The first half of the program will be devoted to three living composers, one of whom, violinist Sarn Oliver, is in the First Violin section. He will give a solo performance entitled “Self Portrait.” The other contributing composers will be Samuel Adams and Reena Esmail. Because this is the first program in the series, the remaining five dates are as follows (all at 2 p.m. on a Sunday with hyperlinks to the event pages):
Sunday, November 5, 2 p.m., War Memorial Opera House: The fourth opera in the current San Francisco Opera (SFO) season will be the Bay Area premiere of Omar. The music was composed jointly by Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels, and Giddens also contributed the libretto. SFO co-commissioned this work, which was given its world premiere at the Spoleto Festival USA in 2022 and its West Coast premiere with the Los Angeles Opera the following October. Other institutions that contributed to the commission are Carolina Performing Arts, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Boston Lyric Opera, and the Detroit Opera. Here in San Francisco the production is being presented as part of the California Festival: A Celebration of New Music.
The title of the opera refers to Omar ibn Said, a nineteenth-century Islamic scholar, who was taken from his home in West Africa in 1807, forcibly brought to the United States through the Middle Passage, and sold into slavery in South Carolina. This narrative provided the composers with a wide variety of musical sources to incorporate. These included the West African kora, bluegrass, spirituals, folk songs, and jazz.
The title role will be sung by Jamez McCorkle, making his SFO debut. Mezzo Taylor Raven, a Merola alumna, will make her role debut as Omar’s mother Fatima; and the role of Omar’s brother Abdul will be sung by baritone Norman Garrett, making his SFO debut. This is an opera with a decidedly large cast, which will perform with an equally large chorus. The chorus will be directed by John Keene and John Kennedy (another SFO debut) will conduct. Kaneza Schaal will direct the staging, working with choreographer Kiara Benn, making for two more SFO debuts.
This will be the first of six performances. It will be followed by five performances, all beginning at 7 p.m., on November 7, 11, 15, 17, and 21. Ticket prices range from $26 to $426; and a single Web page has been created for all six of the dates. Tickets may be purchased in the outer lobby of the War Memorial Opera House at 301 Van Ness Avenue or by calling the Box Office at 415-864-3330. Box Office hours are 10 a.m.–5 p.m. on Monday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesday through Saturday. In addition, there will be a livestream beginning at 7:30 p.m. on November 11. The charge will be $27.50, and it may be purchased through a separate Web page.
Sunday, November 5, 4 p.m., Old First Presbyterian Church: Old First Concerts (O1C) will present a solo piano recital by Kevin Lee Sun. He will perform the West Coast premiere of Hyo-shin Na’s “Song So Old,” which he will couple with Na’s third piano study. The first half of the program will begin with a selection of the variations in Frederic Rzewski’s “The People United Will Never Be Defeated!,” followed by Hanns Eisler’s third piano sonata.
O1C offerings will continue to be “hybrid,” allowing both live streaming and seating in Old First at 1751 Sacramento Street on the southeast corner of Van Ness Avenue. All tickets will still be sold for $25 (no reduced rate for seniors or students). Hyperlinks to the event pages (which include hyperlinks for streaming) continue be attached to the date and time of the performances, as above. The remaining offerings for November are as follows:
- Friday, November 10, 8 p.m.: Matthew Bengtson will present a solo piano recital, which will include the world premiere of Roberto Sierra’s thirteenth sonata.
- Sunday, November 12, 4 p.m.: Canadian-born violinist Nato will present a program of solo violin works by four twentieth-century composers (in order of appearance): Béla Bartók, Grażyna Bacewicz, Sergei Prokofiev, and Eugène Ysaÿe.
- Monday, November 20, 7 p.m.: Sarah Cahill’s Backstage Pass will be a series of programs presented by Amateur Music Network. The overall objective will be to break down the barriers of genre and style, communicating the physical, auditory, collaborative, and imaginative creation of a musical performance. Audience participation will be encouraged both in person and on Zoom. For the opening of the series, Cahill will moderate questions and comments with experimental bassist Lisa Mezzacappa.
Sunday, November 5, 4 p.m., San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM): The San Francisco Girls Chorus will begin its 2023–2024 season with a program entitled This is What It Means. Prepared for the California Festival: A Celebration of New Music, the Premiere Ensemble will present a concert “centering” on music by California Women. The program will interleave vocal and instrumental works, the latter being provided by the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble (LCCE). All of the contributing women will receive a “guest appearance” by Hildegard of Bingen. Ticketing is being handled through an LCCE Web page. Prices range from $15 to $35. Dates for the remainder of the season are as follows:
- Monday, December 11, 7 p.m., Davies Symphony Hall: This year’s annual seasonal concert will be a program of folk songs with music provided by Sam Reider on accordion.
- Saturday, March 9, 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, March 10, 2 p.m.: Céline Ricci will direct a staging of Antonio Vivaldi’s oratorio Juditha Triumphans.
- Sunday, May 19, 3 p.m., SFCM: The season will conclude with the Premiere Ensemble performing with percussionists and composer Haruka Fujii.
Sunday, November 5, 4 p.m., St. Mark’s Lutheran Church: American Bach Soloists will present a vocal recital by countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen. He will sing two solo cantatas, BWV 82 (Ich habe genug) and BWV 54 (Widerstehe doch der Sünde). Instrumental soloists will be oboist Stephen Hammer and violinists Tomà Iliev and YuEun Gemma Kim. The program will also include BWV 1060R, the C minor concerto for oboe and violin and instrumental compositions by Johann Heinrich Schmelzer and Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber. A Web page has been created will all ticketing information.
Sunday, November 5, 5 p.m., Noe Valley Ministry: LIEDER ALIVE! will begin with a recital by Simon Barrad accompanied at the piano by his wife Kseniia Polstiankina Barrad. The program will include art songs by Robert Schumann and Hugo Wolf, along with an Odyssey of Ukrainian songs. The Noe Valley Ministry is located at 1021 Sanchez Street, between 23rd Street and Elizabeth Street. Single tickets for all concerts are $80 for reserved seating, $40 for general admission and a $25 discounted rate for students, seniors, and working artists. These may also be purchased in advance through Eventbrite.
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