April will be the last month of highlighted events for the spring semester at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM). Once that month has concluded, just about all of the performances will be end-of-term recitals. Nevertheless, there will be four events during the month of April, each of which will reflect on a different genre of music-making. As usual, each event will have its own Performance Calendar Web page attached to the date of the performance. Each Web page will include a hyperlink for making free-of-charge reservations and a hyperlink for live-stream viewing. Further specifics are as follows:
The members of the Jupiter String Quartet: Meg Freivogel, Daniel McDonough, Nelson Lee, and Liz Freivogel (from the ensemble’s home page)
Tuesday, April 2, 7:30 p.m., Barbro Osher Recital Hall, 200 Van Ness Avenue: As is often the case, the month will begin with Chamber Music Tuesday. Once again, SFCM students will benefit from side-by-side performances with visiting artists. For this final program of the season, those artists will be the members of the Jupiter String Quartet: violinists Nelson Lee and Meg Freivogel, Liz Freivogel on viola, and cellist Daniel McDonough. The program will begin with Anton Arensky’s Opus 35 (second) string quartet in A minor, which was scored for violin, viola, and two cellos. Arensky dedicated this piece to the memory of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who had died the previous year; and its second movement is a set of variations on a Tchaikovsky theme. (That movement was subsequently arranged as a “stand-alone” composition for string orchestra, the Opus 35a “Variations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky.”) The first half of the program will conclude with Nathan Shields’ “Medusa.” The second half of the program will consist entirely of the string octet in B-flat major composed by Max Bruch in the year of his death, 1920. The work was not published until 1996.
Saturday, April 6, 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, April 7, 2 p.m., Barbro Osher Recital Hall, 200 Van Ness Avenue: The Historical Performance program will present two performances of George Frideric Handel’s last opera, Serse (HWV 40). Students from the Voice program, led by Marcie Stapp, will be accompanied by the Baroque Ensemble, led jointly by Corey Jamason (who will conduct) and Elisabeth Reed. The opera will be sung in Italian.
Thursday, April 25, 7:30 p.m., Barbro Osher Recital Hall, 200 Van Ness Avenue: This will be the end-of-term concert by the Roots, Jazz, and American Music (RJAM) ensemble, which will be led by the Executive Director of RJAM program, Jason Hainsworth. Program details have not yet been announced. However, students in the winds and strings programs will join the ensemble for a collaborative performance.
Saturday, April 27, 7:30 p.m., Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall, 50 Oak Street: Edwin Outwater will lead the final program of the season to be presented by the SFCM Orchestra. The program will feature two SFCM alumni, beginning with the world premiere performance of “Acequia” by Nicolás Lell Benavides, who graduated in 2014. This will be followed by Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs cycle, which will be sung by 2013 graduate mezzo Nikola Printz. The second half of the program will present two compositions by Maurice Ravel. The first of these will be the Rapsodie espagnole suite, followed by “La valse,” which had been planned for performance by Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes but was never choreographed. As might be guessed, the relationship between Diaghilev and Ravel quickly deteriorated and (at least according to Harold C. Schonberg) Diaghilev challenged Ravel to a duel!
No comments:
Post a Comment