Frank Dupree Explores the Kapustin Repertoire

If I am to believe my own archives, I first became aware of the (Soviet) Russian composer Nikolai Kapustin through pianist Yuja Wang. When she prepared her program for a Great Performers Series recital in Davies Symphony Hall, she included “Variations for piano,” which was Kapustin’s Opus 41. Since then, I have done my best to learn as much as possible about this composer’s repertoire.

Cover of the album being discussed

From that point of view, my recent encounter with a new Capriccio album with pianist Frank Dupree performing six Kapustin concertante compositions for piano and ensemble was a valuable experience. Notice that I did not write “piano and orchestra.” Only thee of the works are described as such: the Opus 14 (second) piano concerto, the Opus 16 nocturne, and the Opus 25 “Concert Rhapsody.” The other three selections were scored for piano and big band: the Opus 3 set of variations, the Opus 8 toccata, and the Opus 74 (sixth) piano concerto.

Kapustin composed all of these works as a citizen of the Soviet Union. Many might wonder how he got away with it; but, believe it or not, the Soviets did have jazz bands. Kapustin played with one led by Yury Saulsky and subsequently with an orchestra led by another Soviet jazz composer, Oleg Lundstrem. As one might guess, the repertoire did not venture into the bebop style (which had passed by the time Kapustin launched his career) or any of the challenging adventures of post-bop. (One has to wonder whether a copy of Ascension was ever smuggled into the Soviet Union!)

The advance material provided by the Amazon.com Web page for this album describes Kapustin as “this Soviet composer, whose music sounded more like an Oscar Peterson improvisation than anything else.” With all due respect, I have to wonder how familiar the author of that text was with any Peterson originals (or, for that matter, his take on standards). Presumably, Kapustin would have been more familiar with Dmitri Shostakovich’s first Suite for Jazz Orchestra, whose instrumentation included three saxophones and a nod to a drum kit. My guess is that Shostakovich was not so much an influence as an incentive to do better justice to sources from the United States, particularly during the “big band” era.

The six selections on this album, including the two concertos and the “Concert Rhapsody,” probably reflect the kind of music that Soviets would expect and enjoy from their “home-grown” jazz bands. When we listen to them, we can look back in both space and time. Personally, I never really perked up to take notice while listening to those six selections. On the other hand, I also had no trouble sustaining attention across each of them.

While none of those pieces were particularly memorable, they remind me of the old joke that “this is the sort of thing that people who like that sort of thing will like!”

The Bleeding Edge: 9/16/2024

This will be another very busy week. However, all but five of the events have already been taken into account in previous articles as follows:

• The remaining two Outsound Presents concerts of the month will take place on Wednesday, September 18 (LSG) and Sunday, September 22 (SIMM).
• The 23rd season of the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival will take place between Thursday, September 19 and Sunday, September 22.
• The Center for New Music will host its monthly G|O|D|W|A|F|F|L|E|N|O|I|S|E|P|A|N|C|A|K|E|S event on Saturday, September 21, followed by a two-set evening on Sunday, September 22.

The venues for the remaining offerings are likely to be familiar to many (most) readers as follows:

Tuesday, September 17, Make-Out Room, 7 p.m.: This will be the usual monthly Make-Out Room concert of cutting-edge jazz, free improvisation, and creative music. The month’s program will consist of two longer-than-usual sets. The first will be by a recently formed quartet called Vernaculars, which brings together several familiar names. Rhythm will be provided by Karl Evangelista on guitar, drummer Jordan Glenn, and Chris Trinidad on bass. Saxophonist Francis Wong will take the front line. For the other set, guitarist Nathan Clevenger, whom I have previously associated with a trio, will lead a sextet. He is joined in the rhythm section by Lisa Mezzacappa on bass and drummer Jon Arkin. The front line consists of three reed players, all of whom will alternate between instruments: Kasey Knudsen (alto and tenor saxophone), Beth Schenck (alto and soprano saxophone), and Randy McKean (B-flat and bass clarinets). As usual, the Make-Out Room is located in the Mission at 3225 22nd Street. Doors will open at 6 p.m. There is no cover charge, so donations will be accepted and appreciated.

Friday, September 20, 7 p.m., The Red Poppy Art House: Guitarist Will Bernard and Beth Custer, who will alternate between clarinet and vocals, will perform music from their recent SKY album. They will be joined by violinist Ellen Gronningen.Tickets will be $25 and $30 when purchased online. Admission at the door will similarly be $30 with a $25 rate for students and seniors. Seating will be first come, first served, meaning that having a ticket does not guarantee a seat. Nevertheless, a limited quantity of additional tickets will be available for purchase at the door unless otherwise noted on the Facebook event page that the show is sold out. As usual, doors will open at 7 p.m. The Poppy is located at 2698 Folsom Street, which is on the northwest corner of 23rd Street.

Friday, September 20, 7 p.m., Medicine for Nightmares Bookstore & Gallery: Once again reed player David Boyce will host his semi-regular Friday evening series entitled Other Dimensions in Sound. This week’s performance will offer two sets. The first set will couple duo B. (Mezzacappa joined this time by Jason Levis on drums) and Steve Adams on a diversity of woodwinds. The second set will see another performance by Glenn, this time as a soloist. As always, the venue is located in the Mission at 3036 24th Street, between Treat Avenue and Harrison Street. There is no charge for admission, presumably to encourage visitors to consider buying a book.

Poet Avotcja (from the Bird & Beckett Web page for her performance)

Saturday, September 21, 7:30 p.m., Bird & Beckett Books and Records: This will a two-hour evening of two sets of Afro-Latin jazz and poetry. The poet is Avotcja, who performs with Modúpe. For this particular occasion, the instrumentalists will consist of a front line with violinist Sandi Poindexter on violin and Wong on saxophone. Rhythm will be provided by pianist Rudi Mwongozi, Heshima Mark William on bass, and drummer Myron Cohen.

As regular readers probably know by now, Bird & Beckett is located at 653 Chenery Street, a short walk from the Glen Park station that serves both BART and Muni. Admission for this evening will be $30 or Venmo payable at the door. College and high school students will be admitted for $10, and anyone younger allowed late at night will be admitted for free. Given the limited space of the venue, reservations are necessary and can be made by calling 415-586-3733. The phone will be answered during regular store hours, which are between noon and 6 p.m. on Tuesday through Sunday.

Sunday, September 22, 1 p.m., The Prelinger Library: Tom Blum will lead another jam session. He will be joined again by the Atchleys: Kattt Sammon, (vocals and percussion) and Kenneth (computer-driven electronics). Blum will probably contribute by improvising on the “instrullation” that he has embedded in the library stacks. Playing will continue through 4 p.m. The library is located on the second floor of 301 8th Street, and admission is by getting attention through a callbox with a “Library” button available.

Stage Director Versus Verdi’s Librettist

Yesterday afternoon I returned to the War Memorial Opera House for a second encounter with the San Francisco Opera (SFO) production of Leo Muscato’s staging of Giuseppe Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera (a masked ball). Readers may recall that my previous account of this production observed that this staging “left much to be desired.” Yesterday afternoon I realized how much of an understatement this was; and, by the time of the conclusion, it was clear to me that Muscato’s poetic license needed to be revoked.

As I had already observed, this opera had been given two settings. The narrative was about the assassination in 1792 of King Gustav III of Sweden, but the political tenor of the nineteenth century led Verdi’s librettist, Antonio Somma, to relocate the setting to Boston during the period prior to the American Revolution. This involved renaming the king to Riccardo; and his two primary aides, the Counts Ribbing and Horn, were given names associated with the Revolution, Samuel and Tom. Muscato decided to jumble up these two sets of names in his casting. He even tried to explain his motives in his note for the program book, but that text was as much of an incoherent muddle as was staging of the opera.

Amelia (soprano Lianna Haroutounian) singing about the gallows that are not there in Act II of Un ballo in maschera (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO)

The bottom line is that Muscato never missed an opportunity to make a radical departure from Somma’s libretto. This was most blatantly evident at the beginning of Act II, when the first words from Amelia (soprano Lianna Haroutounian) as she enters the stage call attention to the gallows. Clearly, this was Somma’s way of letting the audience know that this was where the narrative would begin to descend; and that descent would lead all the way up to Gustav’s assassination. Sadly, there was no gallows in sight. There was only a starkly bare stage on which the performers would sing to each other, doing their best to bring a modicum of urgency to the narrative.

To be fair, Muscato does not deserve all of the blame for dramatic shortcomings. There seems to be a tradition of prolonged death scenes in the opera repertoire. This goes back at least as far as the lengthy passacaglia for the last words of Queen Dido in Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. However, Gustav’s death makes the passing of Dido seem like a walk in the park. Every time it seems as if he has taken his last breath, it turns out that he has something more to sing! Tenor Michael Fabiano did his best to negotiate the absurdity of this situation, but he was fighting a losing battle.

So Un ballo in maschera was certainly not Verdi’s “finest hour” in the history of his repertoire. Nevertheless, as I previously observed, Jose Maria Condemi managed to give it a passingly credible account when he staged it for SFO in 2014. He went “by the book.” When Amelia sang about the gallows, you saw the gallows. Hopefully, I shall not have to put up with Muscato running roughshod over another opera libretto.

SFS: October 2024 Programming

Next month in Davies Symphony Hall will see three Orchestral Series Concerts presented by the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) and the first Great Performers Series recital of the new season; specifics are as follows:

Friday, October 4, and Saturday, October 5, 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, October 6, 2 p.m.: Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen will present a program limited to a concerto and a symphony. The concerto soloist will be violinist Sayaka Shoji making her Orchestral Series debut. She will perform Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 77 in A minor, the first of his two violin concertos. The symphony will be Johannes Brahms’ Opus 98 in E minor, his fourth.

Friday, October 18, and Saturday, October 19, 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, October 20, 2 p.m.: Rainer Eudeikis, who holds the Philip S. Boon Chair of Principal Cello, will be the concerto soloist. He will give the first SFS performances of the cello concerto that Salonen originally wrote for Yo-Yo Ma. The program will begin with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 68 (“Pastoral”) symphony in F major, his Opus 68. The program will conclude with Claude Debussy’s “La mer,” which the composer described as “three symphonic sketches for orchestra.”

Pianist Michelle Cann (photograph by Steven Mareazi Willis, courtesy of SFS)

Friday, October 25, and Saturday, October 26, 7:30 p.m.: The final Orchestral Series Concert of the month will be conducted by Thomas Wilkins. The soloist will be pianist Michelle Cann, who will be making her Orchestral Series debut, in a performance of George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.” The program will conclude with the “Symphonic Picture” that Gershwin composed, based on music from his Porgy and Bess opera. This will be preceded by the first SFS performances of William Grant Still’s “Wood Notes.” The “overture” for the program will be a suite that Leonard Bernstein composed based on selections from the musical Candide.

Sunday, October 27, 7:30: The first “Great Performer” will be pianist Emanuel Ax. He has organized the two parts of his program around Beethoven and Robert Schumann, respectively. The first half will present the two Opus 27 sonatas by Beethoven, each given its own subtitle, “Quasi una Fantasia” and “Moonlight,” respectively. The “Fantasia” sonata will be followed by John Corigliano’s “Fantasia on an Ostinato.” The Schumann selections in the second half will have consecutive opus numbers. The relatively brief “Arabeske” (Opus 18) will be followed by the lengthier Opus 17 fantasy. Both of these works are in the key of C major.

Each of the above hyperlinks can be used for purchasing tickets. Tickets are also on sale at the Davies Symphony Hall Box Office at 201 Van Ness Avenue, on the southwest corner of Grove Street. Purchases may also be made by calling 415-864-6000.

A New Satoko Fujii Quartet Album from Libra

Pianist Satoko Fujii and her husband, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, appear to be on a roll this summer. A little over a month ago, their ninth duo album, Aloft, was released; and it was followed at the beginning of this month by the latest Satoko Fujii Quartet album, Dog Days of Summer. Those that have followed this site, not to mention my past writing for Examiner.com, know that I have been following Fujii’s work for well over a decade; and many of the releases have been quartet albums. However, to the best of my knowledge, the name “Satoko Fujii Quartet” only applies when all four of the performers are Japanese (with the exception of Wadada Leo Smith, who plays trumpet on the Aspiration album).

The four musicians performing on Dog Days of Summer

On this new album Fujii and Tamura are joined by Hayakawa Takeharu on bass and drummer Tatsuya Yoshida. I previously wrote about Yoshida when Baikamo, his duo album with Fujii, was released in December of 2019. Dog Days of Summer provides my first encounter with Takeharu’s work.

In that context it is worth noting that Fujii and Tamura have no trouble yielding to extended solos by both Takeharu and Yoshida. Since I am a sucker for polyrhythms, I confess to being particularly drawn to Yoshida’s drum work! However, by the same account, I tend to subscribe to the precept that there is no such thing as a bass solo that goes on too long!

The new album consists of seven tracks over a duration slightly less than an hour. The longest track, “Circle Dance,” is about twenty seconds longer than eleven minutes. The two shortest tracks, “Not Together” and “A Parcel for You” are a quarter of a minute shy of six minutes. Unless I am mistaken, “Metropolitan Expressway” refers to an elevated highway I could see from my hotel room when I was on a business trip to Tokyo. (This was long before I had the foggiest idea of who Fujii was!)

Readers probably know by now that I usually set aside my “musicology hat” where jazz is involved, even when the jazz tends to spill over into the repertoire I am likely to encounter from the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. On Dog Days of Summer I am particularly drawn to the many eccentric rhythm patterns, the sort that keep the attentive listener guessing about what will happen next and when. I continue to treasure the size and diversity of my Fujii collection and take as many opportunities as I can for “paired listening” to present and past releases.

SFO Premieres Poul Ruders’ Take on Atwood

Last night the War Memorial Opera House saw the West Coast premiere of the second opera to be presented in the current San Francisco Opera (SFO) season. The opera was The Handmaid’s Tale, composed by Poul Ruders with a libretto by Paul Bentley based on the novel by Margaret Atwood of the same title. It was first performed by the Danish Royal Opera on March 6, 2000 in Copenhagen in a Danish translation of Bentley’s English text. The first performance of the libretto as it was written took place in the spring of 2003 over the course of seven performances by the English National Opera in London.

The narrative is set in the United States in the 22nd century. A right-wing faction has dissolved the constitutional government, creating a new theocracy given the new name of Gilead. The Handmaids are women who have violated the Bible-based laws of the new government and are subjected to monthly inseminations to provide babies for barren households. The title character is Offred, sung by American mezzo Irene Roberts. There are also flashbacks of a younger Offred, sung by mezzo Simone McIntosh, in her life prior to Gilead.

Offred (Irene Roberts) and her Commander (John Relyea) (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera)

Much of the narrative involves the relationship between Offred and her Commander, sung by bass John Relyea. Mezzo Lindsay Ammann sang the role of the Commander’s wife, who is barren. There are also reflections of Offred’s life prior to Gilead, in which she is sung by Simone McIntosh.

By way of disclaimer, I should make clear that I have never read Atwood’s novel. I hope it would not be simplistic to say that she provided a feminist take on oppressive fascist totalitarianism. This involves not only relations between women and men but also among women themselves. Such fiction could easily serve as a study in sexual politics, but I would conjecture that the very genre of “study” runs a heavy risk of shortcomings in the transition from didactic prose to operatic libretto.

Thus, where the attentive listener to opera is involved, the experience of the current production begins to run aground before the conclusion of the hour and fifteen minutes of the first act. The unfolding of the episodes begins to feel oppressive long before that first act has concluded, and there is so little evidence of motive that one has to wonder why this journey was undertaken in the first place. To be perfectly frank, the one element that sustained my attention was the imaginatively rich orchestration in Ruders’ score with an impressively diverse array of percussion sonorities.

That music may not have been a particularly useful guide to the narrative; but it did not need an explicit narrative framework (let alone a synopsized plot line) to engage listener attention!

Clark Terry with Thelonious Monk

Cover of the album being discussed (from the Amazon.com Web page for MP3 download)

The Riverside album In Orbit is distinguished by the fact that it is the only album of the label on which pianist Thelonious Monk appears as a sideman. In May of 1958, Trumpeter Clark Terry led a quartet, whose other members were Sam Jones on bass and drummer Philly Joe Jones, for two days of recording sessions. Mind you, Monk’s “secondary status” did not prevent the tracks from being included in The Complete Riverside Recordings anthology of his albums. Indeed, the accompanying Riverside booklet does not even credit Terry as the leader for those ten tracks (one of which, “Flugelin’ the Blues,” was not included on the original LP release)! To be fair, however, he is consistently cited as the composer for six of the tracks, the last of which is “Flugelin’ the Blues.”

This year, however, In Orbit was remastered. Amazon.com now has a Web page for downloading the nine tracks of the original release in this updated format. (Since it is the original release, “Flugelin’ the Blues” is not included.) The remastering was prepared by Craft Records as the latest addition to its Original Jazz Classic series. Nevertheless, many readers probably know by now that I do not obsess over fidelity. When I am listening to a jazz quartet, all that matters is that I can pay attention to all four performers. Thus, when Riverside reissued these tracks on CD for its Monk anthology, I just wanted to keep track of who was doing what as the performance progressed.

As a result, I cannot comment on the merits of the remastering process. More important is that the aforementioned Web site provides yet another opportunity for listeners to appreciate the inventiveness in “modern jazz” half a century ago. To be fair, I am willing to admit that I have a bit of an obsession for Monk; but that is because I was fortunate enough to listen to him in performance at the Village Vanguard during my student days. (Terry was not really on my radar in those days. I now regret that, but I have enough recordings to compensate!)

More importantly, I am glad to see that The Complete Riverside Recordings is still in circulation with a Web page that even includes an MP3 option for all fifteen CDs!

The Lab: After SFEMF

Readers probably know that the “main attraction” at The Lab this month will be the three performances of the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival (SFEMF). These will take place on the three-day weekend from September 20 (Friday) to September 22 (Sunday). However, it has now been announced that The Lab will host one more concert before the end of the month.

The Yellow Swans duo with their electronic gear (from their event page on the Web site for The Lab)

This will be a three-set evening beginning with Cheree, a four-piece “nois band,” which is based in Oakland. They will be followed by John Bischoff, one of the local pioneers in electronic music. The final set will see the revival of Yellow Swans, the duo of Gabriel Mindel Saloman and Pete Swanson, which was founded in 2001 and performed through 2008. They have now returned to recording and performing experimental music structured around the axis of noise, psychedelia, industrial, drone, and hardcore.

This performance will begin at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, September 28. Doors will open at 8 p.m. Admission will be $25 at the door, but tickets can be purchased in advance for $23 through a DICE Web page. For those that do not yet know, The Lab is located in the Mission at 2948 16th Street, a short walk from the corner of Mission Street. This latter location is particularly good for those using public transportation, since that corner provides bus stops for both north-south and east-west travel as well as a BART station.

JIVE Musicians to Celebrate Rosh Hashanah

Readers may recall the debut of the JIVE (Jewish Innovative Voices and Experiences) quartet at the Century Club of California this past April. Pianist Ronny Michael Greenberg is the de facto leader, joined by two vocalists, baritone Simon Barrad and countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, and his wife, violinist Elizabeth Castro Greenberg. The title of their first program was Dayenu: Celebrating Passover with plans to follow up for Rosh Hashanah, the celebration of the new year.

Poster design for the Golden New Year concert, showing Elizabeth Castro Greenberg, Ronny Michael Greenberg, Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, and Simon Barrad (from the Eventbrite Web page)

They will return to the Century Club later this month with a new name, Taste of Talent. The title of their second program will be A Golden New Year. Once again, the program will present a diversity of genres. On the classical side, Cohen and Barrad will join pianist Greenberg for a performance of Benjamin Britten’s second canticle, his Opus 51 entitled “Abraham and Isaac.” Barrad will contribute a new work to the program entitled “Shofar,” an evocation of the blowing of the shofar during the Rosh Hashanah service, which will include guest trumpeter Aaron Kahn. There will also be show tunes composed by George M. Cohan and Stephen Sondheim, as well as arrangements of traditional Yiddish songs. The performance will be followed by a dessert reception with traditional food provided by Saul’s Delicatessen, wine, spiced apple sangria, and honey cocktails.

The celebration of Rosh Hashanah will begin this year on the evening of October 2, but the performance of A Golden New Year will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, September 26. For those that do not yet know, The Century Club of California is located at 1355 Franklin Street, between Post Street and Sutter Street. General admission will be $100. Those aged 30 and under may purchase tickets for $65. Tickets may be purchased through an Eventbrite Web page.

Orfeo Releases New Gubaidulina Album

My interest in the music of composer Sofia Gubaidulina dates all the way back to when I was gearing up for my writing gig. This happened to coincide with when she had a residency with the San Francisco Symphony (SFS). I remember seeing her in the audience when one of her pieces was being performed on an SFS Chamber Music program. However, much of my knowledge of her music has come from a relatively modest collection of recordings, which continues to grow from time to time.

Front cover of the new Gubaidulina album recently released (courtesy of A440)

The latest “growth spurt” took place at the end of this past July with electronic mail from A440 announcing new releases for this current month. One of the releases that attracted my interest was an Orfeo album of two Gubaidulina compositions. The first of these was a triple concerto completed in 2017. The concerto soloists included violinist Baiba Skride and cellist Harriet Krijgh. However, rather than follow in the footsteps of Ludwig van Beethoven, the third instrument was a bayan played by Elsbeth Mayer. (The bayan is a Russian accordion with buttons for both the right and left hands.) They were accompanied by the NDR (Norddeutscher Rundfunk) Radiophilharmonie, conducted by Andrew Manze. The second selection is a five-movement sonata for violin and cello composed in 1981 and given the title “Freue Dich!” (rejoice).

According to my records, this is my first encounter with any concerto by Gubaidulina. Those familiar with her repertoire probably appreciate her talent for evoking unique sonorities from just about any source. Doing this with a bayan is somewhat limited, and it tends to serve as a “voice” that contrasts with not only the other two soloists but also the diverse orchestral sonorities. In that context I have to confess that I would be more interested in experiencing this music in a concert performance than in listening to a recorded account.

While the concerto covers an uninterrupted half hour, the sonata is structured with a moderately long movement in the center and shorter ones on either side. Each movement has a title, which is a sentence fragment involving joy. I must confess that I am not sure about the relationships between the texts and sonorities. Nevertheless, the performance pursues adventurous sonorities, many of which recall past experiences of listening to Gubaidulina’s music.

Since I am never shy about listening to an album multiple times, I suspect that further enlightenment will come of the course of those experiences … naturally (as John Cage would have put it)!

“All San Francisco Concert” Anniversary

Last night in Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco Symphony (SFS) marked the 45th anniversary of its All San Francisco Concert. This is the annual event that has more to do with the citizens of San Francisco (many of whom are not necessarily fans of classical music) than with the more “elite” concert-goers. As I previously observed, it was conceived for those “who work tirelessly to make the Bay Area a more just and equitable place.” Those working for Bay Area nonprofit, social services, and grassroots organizations are offered admission for only $12.

The program itself presented works by four composers whose names were likely familiar to most (if not all) of the audience. The first half coupled Jean Sibelius and Edvard Grieg, each represented by a suite extracted from a longer composition. The second half was devoted to “concert music” by two twentieth-century French composers, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. Esa-Pekka Salonen conducted what amounted to full SFS resources, including harpist Katherine Siochi serving as soloist in the Debussy selection.

The chromatic harp built by Henry Greenway on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (photograph donated to Wikimedia Commons as part of a project by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication)

The full title of that piece was “Danses pour harpe chromatique avec accompagnement d'orchestre d'instruments à cordes” (dances for chromatic harp with string orchestra accompaniment). My only encounter with a chromatic harp has been in a museum. The most familiar design can be seen in the above photograph. The instrument consists of two planes, corresponding to the white and black keys of a piano, respectively; and Debussy probably conceived his score with regard to how a pair of hands could deal with such a structure.

These days the music is almost always performed on the usual pedal harp. I have to confess that I really appreciated the view afforded by my seat last night. Since I am relatively familiar with the music, I was able to coordinate Siochi’s fingerwork with the sonorities I was expecting. She was accompanied only by the string section, and Salonen knew exactly how to capture the dance-like qualities of the score. This is music that deserves far more attention than it tends to get. The last SFS performance took place in May of 2006, around the end of my Silicon Valley days, when then SFS harpist Douglas Rioth played it with Edward Outwater conducting.

By way of contrast, the second of the two suites that Maurice Ravel extracted from his score for “Daphnis et Chloé,” the “symphonie chorégraphique” choreographed by Michel Fokine for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, can definitely claim warhorse status. It was taken from a one-act ballet in three sections and basically accounts for the final section. Ravel, of course, had a prodigious command of the wide spectrum of sonorities that he could summon from an orchestral ensemble; and there is no shortage of those sonorities in this particular suite. This was one of those occasions when it was clear that both the conductor and his ensemble were having a good time, and the final cadence erupted with enthusiastic approval from the audience.

The program began with a suite that was not as structured around a narrative. Jean Sibelius’ Opus 11, Karelia Suite consists of three movements extracted from his Karelia Music. As Lyle Watson observed in his Musical Quarterly article, the collection was conceived as a reflection on the folk music of Karelia without necessarily appropriating it. The suite is relative short in duration (usually clocking in at less that a quarter of an hour); but each of the three movements explores is own unique reflections on folk styles.

This suite was followed by another, more familiar, one: the first of the two suites that Edvard Grieg extracted from the music he wrote for a performance of Henrik Ibsen’s five-act play Peer Gynt. All four of the movements are familiar to most concert-goers; and the last of them, “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” is an unabashed roof-raiser. Salonen knew exactly how to built up the intensity of that movement, making for roaring approval from the audience at the final cadence.

Last night was the first performance of the new season, even though the “Opening Gala” is still a week and a half in the future! As a result, this was my first encounter with All San Francisco; and I think it would be fair to say that the chemistry between audience and orchestra involved more attention to the latter than I have seen in past Gala occasions. Last night’s audience clearly appreciated that the occasion was all about the music, and their enthusiastic response made it clear just how significant this ensemble is to our city.

Alon Nechushtan at Chez Hanny: an Annual Visit?

In reviewing my archives this afternoon, I discovered that I first wrote about the jazz salon Jazz Chez Hanny in March of 2017. At that time, however, my accounts of the Sunday afternoon jazz gigs in Frank Hanny’s basement were sporadic at best. More consistent efforts did not surface until June of last year; and, now that I receive regular announcements through electronic mail, I am hoping that my attention will be more consistent.

Alon Nechushtan playing “Muppet Shock” at the Cornelia Street Cafe in New York, performing with drummer Howard Owen and Michael Bates on bass (from a YouTube video of the performance)

In that context the new Jazz Chez Hanny season got under way this past Sunday, September 8, with a return visit by the Marina Albero Trio. The second concert of the month is scheduled for a week from this coming Sunday on September 22. This will see the return of pianist and composer Alon Nechushtan, whose last appearance took place almost exactly a year ago. On that occasion he led a quintet, joined by four local musicians. (Nechushtan himself is a New Yorker.)

Only one of those local musicians will join him for his return visit: bassist Matt Montgomery. This time the performance will be by a quartet, with Sheldon Brown, who plays an impressive variety of wind instruments, on the front line. In the rhythm section, Nechushtan and Montgomery will be joined by drummer Grey Wyser-Pratte.

Following the usual plan, the performance will begin at 4 p.m. The venue is Hanny’s house at 1300 Silver Avenue, with the performance taking place in the downstairs rumpus room. Those planning to attend should think about having cash for a donation of $25. All of that money will go to the musicians; and, because Jazz Chez Hanny now has 501(c)(3) public charity status, all donations are tax-deductible.

There will be two sets separated by a potluck break. As a result, all who plan to attend are encouraged to bring food and/or drink to share. Seating is first come, first served; and the doors will open at 3:30 p.m. Reservations are preferred by sending electronic mail to jazz@chezhanny.com. Masks are optional, but attendees should be vaccinated. Vaccination will be based on the honor system. Finally, volunteer efforts for cleaning up after the show and moving furniture to accommodate both players and listeners are always appreciated.

SFO: New Verdi Production Misses the Mark

Now that the annual opening season festivities of the San Francisco Opera (SFO) have concluded, the War Memorial Opera House can “get down to business” with this season’s round of productions. Things began last night with Giuseppe Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera (a masked ball), which was given its first performance this past Friday in conjunction with (appropriately enough) the opening-night Opera Ball. Staging was directed by Leo Muscato, his first production in the United Stated reviving a version that originated in Sweden ten years ago.

I fear that Muscato’s approach for this occasion was a muddled one, with the first warning signs to be found in the program book. Those familiar with the opera know that it is about the assassination in 1792 of King Gustav III of Sweden (Gustavo in the libretto), who was, indeed, fatally shot during a masked ball. Sadly, this story did not go down well with censors in both Naples and Rome, leading Verdi to “transplant” the venue to Boston during the period prior to the American Revolution. This involved changing the names of most of the main characters.

This often leads to a cast listing which, for the principal characters, coupled the name from one version with a parenthesized account of the name from the other. This was the case in the program for the current production. However, in the cast listing, some of the names in parentheses are Swedish, while others are English. My initial thought was that this was a blundered misprint; but, when I read Muscato’s essay in the program book, I came away with the impression that this was intentional. Sadly, the note never explained the reason for this jumble. Little did I know that this would be a sign of things to come during the performance!

SFO last performed this opera in 2014, when it was staged by Jose Maria Condemi. This was back in my days with Examiner.com, and I was so enthusiastic about the production that I wrote two articles about two different performances! Last night, on the other hand, felt like an interminable slog. The entire affair was as muddled as Muscato’s essay, even with a cast of vocalists that tried as nobly as possible to give it their all.

Tom (Jongwon Han), Samuel (Adam Lau), and Renato (Amartuvshin Enkhbat) plotting the assassination of Gustavo (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO)

At the head of that list was tenor Michael Fabiano, doing his best to deliver a multidimensional account of Gustavo’s character. The same could be said for the return of soprano Lianna Haroutounian as Amelia, Gustavo’s latest love interest. Amelia, of course, was married to Renato, sung by baritone Amartuvshin Enkhbat in his SFO debut. He is the one to assassinate the king after having joined forces with the rebels Samuel (bass Adam Lau) and Tom (bass-baritone Jongwon Han), the latter an Adler Fellow. The other returning vocalist was mezzo Judit Kutasi in the role of the sorceress Ulrica.

Listening to all of these voices was consistently a pleasure, but watching them negotiate the pitfalls in Muscato’s staging left much to be desired. Fortunately, the musicians in the orchestra pit, led by Music Director Eun Sun Kim, gave Verdi’s score all of the attention it deserved. That included Evan Kahn, leader of the cello section, who delivered a rapturous solo accompaniment to Amelia’s aria at the beginning of the final act.

Stratigou’s 3rd Album of Farrenc’s Piano Works

courtesy of Naxos of America

Towards the end of last month, as a result of some idle browsing through Amazon.com, I happened to learn, entirely by accident, that the third volume in pianist Maria Stratigou’s project to record the complete piano works of nineteenth-century composer Louise Farrenc would be released this Friday, September 13. Obviously, I learned this only because Amazon.com had already created the Web page. I had originally learned about the project through Naxos of America, which manages distributions of the Grand Piano label; but, in the wake of the pandemic, such news from Naxos has become a sometime thing.

Those that have followed this site for some time may recall that Stratigou’s project was launched in the fall of 2022 with a two-CD release of all of the 87 études that Farrenc had composed. This was followed a little less than a year later by the second volume, which was entitled Theme and Variations – Part I. Rather than continuing with this genre, the title of the new volume is simply Rondeaux.

The album consists of sixteen pieces in rondo form, which were published between 1827 and 1838. The tracks are ordered chronologically, based, for the most part, on publication dates. Many of the pieces draw upon themes by familiar composers, such as Vincenzo Bellini, Carl Maria von Weber, and Gioachino Rossini. However, the last set of four rondos (Opus 21) begins with one based on a theme from Zampa, an opera composed by Ferdinand Hérold, whose overture used to be a pops favorite.

Most readers probably know that a rondo is based on a repeated theme with the repetitions alternating with a second (or even third) “alternative” theme. Thus, this new release is sort of a “cousin” of the variations-on-a-theme genre. My guess is that most of the “appropriated” themes will not be any more familiar to most listers than are the original ones. The opera source that is probably most likely to be familiar to many listeners will be Carl Maria von Weber’s Euryanthe. However, this is best known for its overture, which gets only a passing (and rapid) reference prior to the themes incorporated into the rondo.

In other words, most listeners are unlikely to encounter very much familiarity. Nevertheless, as was the case with the variations album, what matters most is Farrenc’s command of embellishment. This makes for no end of challenging keyboard work, but Stratigou consistently rises to those challenges. Once again, however, I find I must return to the issue of the “sit back and listen” experience.

Every rondo on this album has its own virtues. Listening to all of them, one after the other, will inevitably lead to fatigue, if not exasperation. As was the case with the Theme and Variations album, each selection has its own virtues. These are best appreciated when they are isolated from the other selections! Thus, like its predecessors, this new release is not meant for a “sit back and listen” experience; and current technology should facilitate the efforts of the curious listener to appreciate the virtues of each of the tracks.

Mr. Tipple’s: Week of September 11, 2024

Last month I wrote a preview article the accounted for one week of performances at Mr. Tipple’s Jazz Club. Then, yesterday’s Bleeding Edge column accounted for tonight’s performance at that venue. While I was working on that article, my Inbox received electronic mail for Mr. Tipple’s accounting for the entire week! I am hoping that these will continue to arrive on a regular basis, allowing me to provide a preview of activities that is both consistent and thorough!

For those that may have missed any of the previous articles, Mr. Tipple’s is located at 39 Fell Street, on the south side of the street between Van Ness Avenue and Polk Street. The Fat Cat provides dim sum food, which includes hot dumplings and Hong Kong waffles. Drinks are available from a full bar. Both food and drink may be purchased separately from the admission fee. Here is the full account of the current week with separate hyperlinks to the Web pages from which tickets for admission may be purchased.

Wednesday, September 11, 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.: These are the performances accounted for yesterday.

Saxophonist James Mahone (from the Mr. Tipple’s Calendar Web site)

Thursday, September 12, 7 p.m., and 8:30 p.m.: Tenor saxophonist James Mahone will lead a quartet, whose other members will be pianist Matt Clark, Brian Juarez on bass, and drummer James Gallagher.

Friday, September 13, 6 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.: Following her performance with Beth Schenck’s quartet this evening, bassist Lisa Mezzacappa will lead her own quartet with tenor saxophonist Aaron Bennett on the front line and guitarist John Schott and Eric Garland on drums joining her in the rhythm section.

Friday, September 13, 9 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.: This will be a solo performance by pianist Kev Choice, whose repertoire blends a variety of significantly different styles, including hip-hop, jazz, classical, rhythm and blues, and soul.

Saturday, September 14, 6 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.: This program will involve a somewhat unconventional duo of percussionist Ami Molinelli with flautist Rebecca Kleinmann, who will be accompanied by pianist Kerry Politzer and Tomoko Funaki on bass.

Saturday, September 14, 9 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.: Vocalist Christelle Durandy will be accompanied by a quartet of bassist Steve Hogan, Julio de la Cruz on piano, drummer Emilio Davalos, and Carlitos Medrano on other percussion instruments.

The Bleeding Edge: 9/10/2024

This week promises to be busier than the last. Only two venues have events that have already been reported as follows:

1. There will be two performances at the Center for New Music: a pair of single sets by Theresa Wong (cello and voice) and Austin Larkin (violin) on Thursday, September 12, and pianist Thomas Schultz’ “musical tour” of works by Hyo-shin No on Saturday, September 14.
2. Audium will continue its performances of ouroboros on Thursday, September 12, Friday, September 13, and Saturday, September 14.

There will also be two other venues, each of which will host two performances as follows:

1. Mr. Tipple’s Jazz Club, which is located at 39 Fell Street, on the south side of the street between Van Ness Avenue and Polk Street, provides the Civic Center with a diverse share of jazz performances. This week the venue will host two particularly adventurous quintet gigs. Beth Schenk, who plays alto saxophone, led a quintet there this past March 15. This time she will lead a quartet, whose other members had appeared with her in March: Matt Wrobel on guitar, drummer Jordan Glenn, and Lisa Mezzacappa on bass. This time they will perform on Wednesday, September 11, with sets at 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.
2. This week will also see the annual Flower Piano event at the San Francisco Botanical Garden. The event consistently involves an abundance of piano music performed over a wide variety of spatial venues. Two of those events deserve “Bleeding Edge” attention. The first of these has the title World Music and Sun Ra Music and it will be performed by Kash Killion & Killion’s Trillions beginning at 1 p.m. on Saturday, September 14. The second will be the annual four-hand piano performance by Sarah Cahill and Regina Myers, which will begin at 11 a.m. on Sunday, September 15. The selections for this program have not yet been finalized. [added 9/10, 4:20 p.m.: The program information has now been announced: “Double Portrait” by David Borden, “My First Homage” by Gavin Bryars, “VAN” by Hanna Kulenty, and Colin McPhee’s arrangement of Balinese ceremonial music.]
   

The remaining events of the week will involve both familiar and unfamiliar venues as follows:

Keys of the original Chromelodeon created by Harry Partch, with each key specifying its pitch as an integer ratio (photograph by Seth Tisue, from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license)

Thursday September 12, 8 p.m., Peacock Lounge: This will be the usual three-hour show consisting of four sets. There will be two parts for the set by Blevin Blectum, beginning with an album release party for her latest solo release, Anti-Venom. This will be followed by a duo performance with Kristin Erickson. Chris Brown will present the San Francisco premiere of “rhythmiChrome,” an electronic composition based on the Chromelodeon, a reed-organ with 43 tones to the octave invented by Harry Partch. Lori Goldston will play a processed cello in a duo performance with guitarist Zachary James Watkins. The remaining set will be Earth Jerks, which involves an emo-surf-drone performance by Christian Dixon, unfolding at a “glacial” tempo.

The Peacock Lounge is located in the Lower Haight at 552 Haight Street. Doors will open at 7:45 p.m. to enable the first set to begin at 8 p.m. sharp. Admission will be between $5 and $15, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Nevertheless, for the sake of health, all are encouraged to rapid-test for COVID on the day of the show!

Friday, September 13, Catharine Clark Gallery, 6 p.m.: Prior to Flower Piano, Sarah Cahill will perform a program of music prepared in response to Listening Chamber, a solo exhibition of works by Amy Trachtenberg. As is the case for Flower Piano, the selections have not yet been finalized. The venue is located at 248 Utah Street, which is one block east of Potrero Avenue. That block of Utah Street is between 15th Street and 16th Street. [added 9/10, 4:15 p.m.: I have been informed that this event is now sold out.]

Friday, September 13, Medicine for Nightmares, 7 p.m.: Once again reed player David Boyce will host his semi-regular Friday evening series entitled Other Dimensions in Sound. This week the performance will be a solo performance by saxophonist Francis Wong. As always, the venue is located in the Mission at 3036 24th Street, between Treat Avenue and Harrison Street. There is no charge for admission, presumably to encourage visitors to consider buying a book.

Friday, September 13, and Saturday, September 14, 9 p.m., Gray Area Art and Technology: These are the second and third days of Gray Area Festival 10, and the first day seems not to have “made the cut!” What I do know is that the space allows for “immersive audiovisual performances.” The Friday sets will be taken by Portrait XO, MSHR, and Douglas McCausland. On Saturday there will be four sets, each of which will involve a pairing, described on the Web page for this performance as follows:  DJ_Dave and Char Stiles, Meuko! Meuko! and NONEYE, Rick Farin with Actual Objects, and haute.rod + Idea Unsound from AV Club. Both that Web page and the Web page for Friday have hyperlinks for purchasing tickets. For those unfamiliar with the venue, it is located at 2665 Mission Street, between 22nd Street and 23rd Street.

Saturday, September 14, Bird & Beckett Books and Records, 7:30 p.m.: This will be the more familiar two-hour evening of two sets of adventurous jazz. Reed player Matt Renzi will lead his quartet, whose other members are Dahveed Behroozi on piano, drummer Tim Bulkley, and Josh Thurston-Milgrom on bass. (Some readers may recall that Thurston-Milgrom played with trumpeter Darren Johnson this past Saturday.)

As regular readers probably know by now, Bird & Beckett is located at 653 Chenery Street, a short walk from the Glen Park station that serves both BART and Muni. Admission will be the usual $20 cover charge, payable by Venmo or in cash. Teens and students will be admitted for between $5 and $10, and anyone younger allowed late at night will be admitted for free. Given the limited space of the venue, reservations are necessary and can be made by calling 415-586-3733. The phone will be answered during regular store hours, which are between noon and 6 p.m. on Tuesday through Sunday.

Gino Amato’s Latin Arrangements Disappoint

Cover of the album being discussed (from its Amazon.com Web page)

Towards the end of last month, pianist and arranger Gino Amato made his debut on the Ovation label with an album entitled Latin Crossroads. As of this writing, Amazon.com has created a Web page for it, but only for MP3 downloads, which do not include any supplemental text files. Latin jazz may not be my favorite genre; but, over the years, I have had enough encounters with it to cultivate what I would call an “informed taste.” The advance material that I received stated that Amato’s goal “was to present Latin music in an accessible format.”

I am not quite sure what he meant by this. I have always found the rhythms of Latin music to be readily accessible, particularly when they involve polyrhythms across both percussion and “front line” instruments. By the same count, I have been impressed when a Latin band appropriates another genre, which could be classical, Broadway show tunes, or even pop. Amato’s band covers all of these bases, along with support from six vocalists; but none of the tracks do justice to any of these approaches. Indeed, where the classical genre is concerned, the “Aranjuez” track is likely to remind the informed listener of just how much imaginative effort Gil Evans brought to his arrangement for Miles Davis’ Sketches of Spain album.

Readers may recall that, this past Saturday, I assessed a new release as filling “a well-needed gap.” Well, in the Latin genre, that gap is even more well-needed where Latin Crossroads is concerned. Too many of the vocals are too cringe-inducing in their attempts at riffs, while there is little sense of engaging punctuation on the instrumental side.

Salonen and SFS on Deutsche Grammophon

Cover of the album being discussed (from its Deutsche Grammophon Web page)

The end of last month saw an album release that involved a series of “firsts.” Unless I am mistaken, it was the first time that Deutsche Grammophon released a recording of a performance by the San Francisco Symphony (SFS). It was also the first recording of SFS conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. Finally, the content itself was taken from the first SFS performances in Davies Symphony Hall of Kaija Saariaho’s two-act opera Adriana Mater. Saariaho had died the week before those performances took place. I do not know whether or not this the first time that Amazon created a Web page for a full-length opera only for digital download. Sadly, that download does not include a libretto; but Saariaho’s Web site includes a Web page with hyperlinks for both the libretto and background material.

Some readers may recall that I documented the opening night performance in Davies. It was one of those ill-fated partnerships of Salonen with Peter Sellars. Sellars used the pre-concert talk to describe the overall plot, which involved a generous share of maudlin acting chops. Nevertheless, that was pretty much all the acting that took place, since the performance by the vocalists involved little more than a lot of coming and going.

When I wrote my account, I refrained from declaring this to be the worst production of the SFS season. That was only because this was not the final production! Now I can definitely declare it to be the nadir. There was nothing in the narrative to establish and maintain attention, and the music had nothing to offer to improve those circumstances. Indeed, I felt that the participating vocalists did so little to establish their respective characters that it would be almost an affront to identify them by name. (At least one of them can be credited with far better qualities in previous performances with SFS.)

There is a Zen proverb that states that, if you find something boring, you should do it again. If it is still boring, you should continue to repeat. After a while, what was originally boring will gradually become interesting! In that spirit, I took the opportunity to listen to this recording several times. It has yet to strike me as interesting.

SFO: From Gustav III to Margaret Atwood

Now that San Francisco Opera (SFO) has launched its 102nd season with Giuseppe Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera (a masked ball), it is time to move on to the only new work in the season. This will be The Handmaid’s Tale, based on a novel with the same title by Margaret Atwood. Paul Bentley prepared a libretto based on the novel, which was set to music by Danish composer Poul Ruders.

The chorus of handmaids in The Handmaid’s Tale (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO)

Atwood’s narrative can be classified as representative of the “bleak futurist” genre. It is set in 2030, when previously democratic America has transmogrified into a theocracy under the new name of Gilead. The “handmaids” are women taken from their respective families and forced into reproductive servitude. The basic plot involves the title character trying to escape from her lot in search of a better life. It probably goes without saying that Atwood’s novel was not a particularly optimistic one.

Ruders (born in 1949 and still alive) has cultivated a catalog that explores imaginative approaches to instrumentation. The score for The Handmaid’s Tale requires a large orchestra, along with organ, digital piano, and a sampler keyboard for a diverse repertoire of sonorities. It also requires five percussionists whose instruments include bass drum, wood block, glockenspiel, crotales, thunder sheet, sizzle strip, xylophone, anvil, tubular bells, vibraphone, snare drum, Bali gong, mark tree, rototom, tam-tam, metal chain, Chinese cymbal, guiro, hi-hat and Basel drum.

On the vocal side the title character, Offred, will be sung by American mezzo Irene Roberts. Bass John Relyea will take the role of Offred’s Commander. The narrative also includes flashbacks, in which mezzo Simone McIntosh portrays Offred prior to the rise of Gilead. The Commander’s wife, who is barren, will be taken by mezzo Lindsay Ammann. The conductor will be Karen Kamensek, who made her SFO debut during the company’s first performance of Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah during the opening weekend of the 2014–2015 season.

This opera is a co-production of SFO and The Royal Danish Opera. John Fulljames will make his SFO debut in bringing the staging here. The world premiere performance of that staging took place in Copenhagen on March 6, 2000. The current performances will be the West Coast premiere, meaning that all of the vocalists will be making their respective role debuts!

Omni Video Showcases Alicante Guitar Students

While the videos released by the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts usually serve as a platform for “seasoned professionals,” every now and then there is a release that looks to the future based on students headed for a promising career. The most extreme example of this latter case probably took place back in November of 2023, with the release of the final movement of Leo Brouwer’s first guitar sonata played by Xinyan Sun, a nine-year old guitar prodigy. The title of today’s new video is Emerging Stars of the Guitar. It was filmed at the Palau del Portalet in Alicante, Spain and featured three recipients of scholarships that were awarded by the D'Addario Foundation and the Fundación Alhambra Guitarras. Those scholarships supported their matriculating in the Master in Classical Guitar Performance program at the University of Alicante.

Title frame for the video being discussed showing photographs of Lucrezia Bonasia, Filippos Manoloudis, and Eduardo Sueiro (from the video’s YouTube Web page)

Over the course of about 35 minutes, each of the students performed two selections. The program began with Lucrezia Bonasia playing one of the best-known compositions by Agustín Barrios, his three-movement suite La Catedral. This was followed by Dionisio Aguado’s Opus 16, another three-movement composition entitled “Le Fandango.” Filippos Manoloudis began his set with “Les Graces” has own arrangement of music for harpsichord by Jacques Duphly. (Duphly published four volumes of harpsichord music during the middle of the eighteenth century.) He then played the second movement of Eduardo López-Chavarri’s second guitar sonata, composed in the key of D minor. The final guitarist, Ederaldo Sueiro, began with another suite, The Black Widow in three movements composed by Jaime Zenamon. He then concluded the video with the seventh of the twelve études that Heitor Villa-Lobos composed in 1928.

Taken as a whole, this could not be a better way to spend half an hour. The selections were impressive not only for their diversity but also for the breadth of the time-line in which they were situated. There should be much to expect from the future of these three students that will be supported by their scholarships!

Center for New Music: September, 2024

The new season at the Center for New Music (C4NM) will be off to a “superb” (using the word from this month’s announcement) start. There will be five performances as well as the usual monthly pancake event. As most readers probably know by now, the venue is located at 55 Taylor Street, half a block north of the Golden Gate Theater, which is where Golden Gate Avenue meets Market Street. As usual dates below are hyperlinked to an Eventbrite event page through which tickets may be purchased as follows:

Poster design for Teresa Wong and Austin Larkin (from the Web page for their performance)

Thursday, September 12, 8 p.m.: I have been following the work of cellist and vocalist Theresa Wong for almost as long as I have been writing. Her first appearance in my archives appears to have been on January 24, 2010, when I wrote about an sfSoundGroup program entitled Small Packages, which included a performance of “casting,” which she had scored for English horn, alto saxophone, and piano. It took over a decade for her to make her debut in the Latitudes series at C4NM; and she will share this program with violinist Austin Larkin, who will be visiting from New Haven.

Saturday, September 14, 2:30 p.m.: Similarly, I have been following performances by pianist Thomas Shultz for about as long as I have been following Wong. On most of those occasions, he has appeared along with composer Hyo-shin Na. He has performed Na’s music in Berlin, Paris, Vienna, Ghent, Amsterdam, Seoul, Taipei, Kyoto, San Francisco, New York City, and Los Angeles. This program will serve as a musical tour through the 40 years of their collaboration.

Saturday, September 21, noon: 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. This offers the usual opportunity to enjoy vegan pancakes while listening to “bleeding edge” music. As usual, general admission will be $10 with a $6 rate for members and students. Music programming is scheduled to conclude by 2 p.m. Gourmet vegan pancakes will be served without any charge other than admission. The contributing performers and composers will be (ruidobello), Angst Hase Pfeffer Nase, Thom Blum, and Fowl Fingers.

Sunday, September 22, 8 p.m.: This will be another two-set program. The Usufruct duo of Polly Moller Springhorn (flute and vocalizing) and Tim Walters (computer music) launched the Outsound Presents series almost exactly a year ago. This year they will contribute to the opening month at C4NM with a program entitled Electon Wind. The other set will be taken by Charles Celeste Hutchins, who will be visiting from London and may well be the only performing musician to improvise on a serpent. He will also bring his laptop to contribute to his performance.

Thursday, September 26, 7:30 p.m.: It is a bit difficult to tell from the description for this event whether the performance will be by a trio or consist of three solo improvisations. ILIOS is a Greek sound artist, based in Athens, who will be making his first Bay Area appearance in twenty years. He will share the program with experimental and industrial noise artist R. Jencks and composer and feedback artist Michael Gendreau.

Friday, September 27, 8 p.m.: The month will conclude with an Improvisation Summit program. Violinist Teorema Bertoli and Tom Lane on synthesizer will be visiting from Vienna to offer a duo performance. They will also improvise with two local electronic musicians, John Bischoff and Chris Brown.

An Ongoing Appreciation of Nadine Sierra

Those that have been following my work for some time may know that I find it hard to resist writing articles about soprano Nadine Sierra. The fact is that this preference was launched back in my Examiner.com days, when I wrote about her performance in the San Francisco Performances Salon Series in November of 2011. At that time she was an Adler Fellow with the San Francisco Opera (SFO) and had recently made her mark with an extended solo in the world premiere of Christopher Theofanidis’ Heart of a Soldier.

Now she is in New York making regular performances at the Metropolitan Opera. The last time I wrote about one of her performances was in November of 2022, when Great Performances at the Met broadcast Simon Stone’s imaginative staging of Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. Since that time, she has also served as hostess for at least one Great Performances production.

This morning I had an opportunity to catch up on saved videos by watching a recent Met telecast of Charles Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette from last season. This was a production staged by Bartlett Sher with Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting. To be fair, I have never been particularly enthusiastic about Gounod; but, by the same count, I have seldom (if ever) been disappointed by a Sher production.

Screen shot from the YouTube video of Nadine Sierra singing “Je veux vivre”

As a result, the viewing experience easily held my attention. Nevertheless, I have to confess that I was not prepared for Sierra’s appearance, even though I had previously seen her in that role in an SFO video. To say that she nailed her Met performance as Juliette would border on understatement. Her delivery of “Je veux vivre” was so compelling that I put my recording on hold to write this article! (For the record, I first heard her sing this at her Salon recital.) Apparently, the Met agrees with me, since they have uploaded a version of it to YouTube!

Mind you, I am not sure that my enthusiasm will sustain throughout the entire production. Some of the liberties that librettists Jules Barbier and Michel Carré took with William Shakespeare border on cringe-inducing (if not crossing the line). This is particularly the case in their extended embellishment of Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech, which (no surprise) was turned into an aria. The text has been given augmentations that many (myself included) would find grotesque; but Will Liverman’s delivery did its best to smooth over the rougher edges.

Still, having been blown away by Sierra’s talents, I should be able to pull myself back together to watch the rest of the Met video!

Wood and Fitzgibbon Persist … Unfortunately!

Cover of the album being discussed (from the Jazz Hang Records Web site)

Back in my student days, I seem to recall a Zen koan that seemed consistent with my struggles:

Hard work succeeds … naturally!

I was reminded of that koan by the persistence of vocalist Jack Wood and Australian jazz singer Nichaud Fitzgibbon to crank out albums for Jazz Hang Records. Unfortunately, no matter how much effort is expended, persistence does not always lead to success.

The full title of their latest album is Movie Magic: Great Songs From the Movies. What is interesting is the number songs that were appropriated for movies, rather than composed for them. In one case, the movie was actually named after the song, Carl Reiner’s That Old Feeling. (This one was Reiner’s last film, and the general consensus is that it is also best forgotten!)

Song titles aside, both Fitzgibbon and Wood are consistently inconsistent where pitch is concerned. This is most evident when both of them sing at the same time. However, even their give-and-take exchanges leave much to be desired. I suppose the best summary can also be traced back to my youth: Movie Magic is an album that “fills a well-needed gap!”

SCFMP: Third Round of Competition Begins

This past July, when the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players (SFCMP) announced plans for its 54th concert season, that season included the launch of the third round of competition programs produced with support from the ARTZenter Institute. This consisted of three performances: two semi-final recitals, each presenting six newly completed works for chamber orchestra, and a final recital of the top six of the semi-finalists. This past Wednesday, ARTZenter announced the selections to be performed at the first semi-final recital as follows:

1. Laura Cetilia, “Unless”
2. Sofia Ouyang, “Burst”
3. Luca Robadey, “Stained Glass”
4. Ethan Soledad, “Cages of Jade”
5. Chawin Temsittichok, “Infinite Swipe”
6. Max Vinetz, “Scenes from Interior Life”

As was the case last year, the performance will take place in Herbst Theatre, whose entrance is on the ground floor 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, September 12. There will be no charge for admission, and seating will be open.

SFO: The Annual Free Concert for the New Season

Once again, the opening weekend for San Francisco Opera (SFO) will be a festive one. As was reported last week, those festivities begin tonight in the War Memorial Opera House with first of the seven performances planned for Giuseppe Verdi’s three-act Un ballo in maschera (a masked ball). This will be followed on Sunday afternoon by the annual performance of San Francisco Chronicle Presents Opera in the Park. Following up on opening night, Eun Sun Kim will again be the conductor. The SFO Orchestra will provide the music for a program that will feature arias and duets performed by vocalists that will be starring in fall season SFO performances.

The earliest works on the program will both be selections from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 620 opera The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte), the duet “Bei Männern welche Liebe fühle” (in men, who feel love), sung by Pamina and Papageno, and the instrumental “March of the Priests,” which begins the second half of the opera. At the other end of the time-line, the program will begin with the two most recent compositions, both by Leonard Bernstein. As might be expected, the first of these will be an overture, the one Bernstein composed for his Candide musical. This will be followed by one of the most familiar vocal selections, “Maria” from West Side Story.

The setting in Golden Gate Park for Opera in the Park (photograph by Devlin Shane for Drew Alitzer Photography, courtesy of SFO)

This event was included in the article cited above in the second sentence, which provided the specifics for the venue in Robin Williams Meadow of Golden Gate Park. However, the beginning of the performance has been updated to 1:30 p.m. Many of those attending like to treat this event as an opportunity for a picnic. However, food and beverages will also be for sale. In addition, attendees are encouraged to bring refillable water bottles and make use of the available water stations.