Saturday, April 13, 2024

Choices for April 19–21, 2024

The next busy weekend will be the one following this current one. Two of the events will be taking place at the Center of New Music (C4NM), whose schedule for this month has already been posted. Saturday will be the busiest day, while Friday will be limited to a single previously unreported event (at least as of this writing). Specifics are as follows:

Friday, April 19, 7:30 p.m., C4NM: The first of those two events will be David Michalak’s program of silent films with “live” musical accompaniment.

Friday, April 19, 7:30 p.m., St. Mark’s Lutheran Church: Principal Conductor Jory Fankuchen will lead the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra (SFCO) in its fourth MainStage concert. The title of the program will be Resilience, and it has been updated since the season’s programs were first announced. It will begin with the world premiere of “Aqua,” composed by Trevor Weston as a reflection on problems of both too much and too little water. This will be followed by the third of the suites compiled by Ottorino Respighi under the title Ancient Airs and Dances. This final suite was the only one composed for string ensemble. The program will then conclude with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 550 symphony in G minor (the 40th). Most readers probably know by now that the church is located at 1111 O’Farrell Street, just west of the corner of Franklin Street and that there will be no charge for admission. However, the Web page for this event seems to have hyperlinks that will allow for streamed viewing through both Facebook and YouTube.

Saturday, April 20, noon, C4NM: This will be the latest monthly installment of G|O|D|W|A|F|F|L|E|N|O|I|S|E|P|A|N|C|A|K|E|S.

Saturday April 20, 7 p.m., and Sunday, April 21, 4 p.m., Calvary Presbyterian Church: The conclusion of the SFCO season will be followed by the opening of the 35th anniversary season of the San Francisco Choral Society. This will be an “American” program coupling compositions by Antonín Dvořák and Margaret Bonds. There will be an arrangement by Williams Arms Fisher and Andrew Steffan of “Goin’ Home,” a folk tune that Dvořák appropriated for the second movement of his Opus 95 (ninth) symphony in E minor. The selection will be preceded by his Opus 86 Mass setting in D major. The vocal soloists will be soprano Shawnette Sulker, mezzo Kindra Scharich, tenor Lee Steward, and bass-baritone Wilford Kelly. The second half of the program will present Margaret Bonds’ “Credo,” setting a civil rights poem by W. E. B. Du Bois. Artistic Director Robert Geary will conduct, and instrumental accompaniment will be provided by organist Benjamin Bachman and pianist Bryan Baker.

Calvary Presbyterian Church is located at 2515 Fillmore Street. General admission will be $37 with $43 for preferred seating and $53 for premier seating. City Box Office has created separate Web pages for purchasing tickets to both the Saturday and Sunday concerts. Tickets may also be purchased by calling 415-392-4400. There is also a Web page for a live stream of the Sunday performance for a free of $37. Seniors and students are entitled to a discounted for preferred and premiere seating.

Saturday, April 20, 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, April 21, 4 p.m., Taube Atrium Theater: San Francisco Contemporary Music Players will present a two-concert mini-festival entitled Pierrot RE:wind. The program was conceived for the sesquicentennial of the birth of Arnold Schoenberg, composer of the Pierrot Lunaire song cycle for voice and a chamber ensemble of flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano. This will be the highlight of the Sunday program, which will be performed with an accompanying video by Simona Fitcal. The program will also include the composer’s Cabaret Songs, as well as compositions by Joan Tower and Jesse Montgomery. The Saturday concert will present recent works by Kevin Day, Katherine Balch, Massimo Lauricella, Andrew Norman, and Mason Bates. All of these works will draw upon the instrumentation for Pierrot, in whole or in subsets. Both programs will be preceded by How Music is Made discussions beginning one hour before the performance.

The theater is located on the top floor of the San Francisco War Memorial & Performing Arts Center at 401 Van Ness Avenue. This is on the northwest corner of McAllister Street with convenient north-south and east-west bus transportation. Festival Passes will be sold for $60 for general admission with a VIP rate of $70. City Box Office has created a Web page for purchasing those passes. Web pages have also been created for single ticket purchases for both Saturday and Sunday with respective prices of $35 and $40. Student tickets will be available at the door for $15.

Saturday, April 20, 8 p.m., New Mission Yoga: Psychobotanikon is a new concert series conceived by Rent Romus. The performance will be preceded by a tea service. This will be followed by four sets of performances by the following artists, respectively:

  1. Mitch Stahlmann, whose work focuses on flutes and electronics
  2. Rent Romus, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist, who should be familiar to most readers of this site
  3. Eli Knowles, another multi-instrumentalist and creator of a long-form jazz composition, Aaron Space Cosmic Orchestra
  4. Paul Sakai and Matias EA, also working with long-form improvisation

As the name suggests, New Mission Yoga is located in the Mission at 2415 Mission Street, which is on the southeast corner of 20th Street. Admission will be $30. A Web page has been created for ticket purchases.

Sunday, April 21, 2 p.m., Davies Symphony Hall: The San Francisco Symphony will present its next Chamber Music Concert. This promises to be a particularly adventurous program. The opening selection will be “Danzas de Panama” by William Grant Still. That Latin context will then be followed by selections from Astor Piazzolla’s collection, Histoire du Tango. The concluding selection will be a trio for trumpet, violin, and piano by Eric Ewazen. Davies is located on MTT Way (formerly Grove Street) between Franklin Street and Van Ness Avenue. All tickets are being sold for $40, but they are limited to the Orchestra, Boxes, and Terraces. [added 4/18, 11:50 a.m.:

Sunday, April 21, 3 p.m., San Francisco State University (SFSU): The Morrison Chamber Music Center, supported by the College of Liberal & Creative Arts and the May Treat Morrison Chamber Music Foundation will present the latest event in the Jane H. Galante Concert Series. The performing ensemble will be Ensemble Dal Niente, which is based in Chicago. Their focus is on experimental chamber music; and, in that regard, they have prepared a program to present recent compositions by Joji Yuasa, Andile Khumalo, Wang Lu, Sarah Nemtsov, and Sandra Lemus-Hernandez. The program will then conclude with a more familiar selection (at least for for some of us), “Rain Spell,”which was composed by Toru Takemitsu in 1982. The performance will take place at Knuth Hall, which is in the Creative Arts Building on the SFSU campus. There will be no charge for admission. However, tickets are recommended, and a Web page has been created for acquiring them.]

Sunday, April 21, 4 p.m., Sha’ar Zahav: Music in the Mishkan will present the last concert of its 25th season. Violinist Randall Weiss, who runs the series, will perform with Natalia Vershilova on viola and cellist Victoria Ehrlich. They have prepared a diverse program of works by Alexander Borodin, Jean Sibelius, Hans Krasa, and Mark O’Connor, as well as a divertimento (not yet specified) by Mozart. [added 4/16, 5:55 a.m.: The divertimento will be K. 563, a string trio in E-flat major.] The venue is located in the Mission at 290 Dolores Street. Ticket prices are $20 for members and $25 for others. Tickets are processed through a Web page. There will be no physical tickets, but a list will be kept at the door. In addition, a link will be available for viewing through Zoom. [added 4/16, 8 a.m.:

Sunday, April 21, 4 p.m., live-stream from Albany: Pianist Ting Luo’s next solo recital will take place in Albany (California); but those interested in following her adventurous approach to repertoire will be able to view a live-stream through a YouTube Web page. She has prepared a richly diverse program, which will include a selection of John Cage’s compositions for prepared piano. She will also showcase selections from last year’s New Arts Collaboration season by Xuesi Xu, Dylan Findley, and Cole Reyes. Other recent composers to be featured will include Philip Glass, Terry Riley, and Ingrid Stölzel. The earlier selections on the program will be by Johann Sebastian Bach and Franz Schubert.]

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