New Century Chamber Orchestra: 2024/25

As was the case last year, next month will see the beginning of the 2024/25 season of the New Century Orchestra and its Music Director Daniel Hope. Once again, there will be five concerts performed in San Francisco at four different venues. Of particular interest is that the ensemble will make its first appearance at the SFJAZZ Center in a partnership with harpist Brandee Younger, who is the current SFJAZZ Resident Artistic Director. Dates, times, and location specifics are as follows:

Saturday, November 16, 7:30 p.m., Herbst Theatre: The title of this program is Vivaldi: Recomposed, and it is taken from the title of the Deutsche Grammophon album Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi – The Four Seasons. Richter described his effort as “a personal salvage mission” to refresh attention to music suffering from overexposure. His music will be coupled with the United States premiere of “Lully Loops for Violin and String Orchestra,” composed by David Bruce as a synthesis of orchestral music from the Baroque period with contemporary digital interjections. The program will begin with the Allegro Moderato movement from Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s four-movement Novelletten, composed for string orchestra.

Sunday, January 19, 2 p.m., Presidio Theatre: The guest artist for this program will be pianist Inon Barnatan. The major work on the program will be Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 35, his first piano concerto in C minor, scored for piano, trumpet, and string orchestra. The other solo part Brandon Ridenour. Barnatan will also be the soloist in a performance of the H 420 keyboard concerto in D minor by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. The ensemble will conclude the program with a performance of the three-movement divertimento that Béla Bartók composed for Paul Sacher’s Basler Kammerorchester.

Thursday, March 6, Friday, March 7, and Saturday, March 8, 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, March 9, 7 p.m.,  Miner Auditorium: This will be a program prepared by Younger to honor the life and music of Alice Coltrane, who, like Younger, was a harpist. She was also influenced by another jazz harpist, Dorothy Ashby. Program details have not yet been announced; and, as is usually the case at the SFJAZZ Center, they probably will be announced from the stage.

Saturday, April 5, 2 p.m., St. Mark’s Lutheran Church: The title of this program is A Prayer for Peace, which is also the title of the composition by Jungyoon Wie, which will be receiving its West Coast Premiere. Wie is based in San Francisco, but the first performance was given in Boston by the A Far Cry Chamber Orchestra. The program will begin with the “Sonata da Chiesa,” scored for strings by African-American composer Adolphus Hailstork. The final selection will also be performed only by strings, but each of the 23 players will have a “solo” part. Many readers will probably have guessed by now that the selection will be the “Metamorphosen” by Richard Strauss.

Cover of Daniel Hope’s DANCE! album (from its Presto Music Web page)

Saturday, May 3, 2 p.m., Presidio Theatre: The program will conclude as it began with music from another Deutsche Grammophon album. This one is a two-CD collection entitled simply DANCE! I am tempted to call the tracks on this release a roller-coaster ride through music history with an anonymous “Saltarello” from the medieval period and one end and the “Escualo” by Astor Piazzolla at the other. I doubt that Hope will account of all of the selections in this album, and I am not about to second-guess how he will finalize the program before performing it!

Eric Wang’s “Mini” Video

Fortunately, today allowed me time to follow up on my preview of guitarist Eric Wang’s OMNI on-Location video only a few hours after its release on YouTube this morning at 10 a.m. I was not familiar with either of the selections; but, after about eighteen minutes of listening, I was glad to have encountered both of them. I was also left wondering if Wang had decided to select two pieces with titles that had reflected on the piano music of Frédéric Chopin!

Eric Wang playing the opening passage of Giulio Regondi’s “Nocturne ‘Rêverie’” (screen shot from the YouTube video of Wang’s recital)

The opening selection was “Nocturne ‘Rêverie,’” composed by Giulio Regondi. The composer was about ten years younger than Chopin; and he seems to have been inspired to pursue the nocturne genre after becoming aware of the nocturnes of John Field (whom Chopin met in 1832). I shall leave it to the musicologists to decide whether Regondi’s Opus 19, given the title “Nocturne ‘Rêverie,’” reflects the style of the earlier or later of those two composers (if either of them at all). (Personally, I think that any signs of influence would probably be accidental!)

On the other hand, I suspect it would be hard to believe that, when contemporary composer Ronaldo Miranda wrote his “Appassionata,” a little under eight minutes in duration, he did not have Ludwig van Beethoven in his mind, even if in the background rather than the foreground. It would be fair to say that, like Beethoven’s Opus 57, Miranda’s guitar solo could be appreciated as a study in mood swings. Those swings may have been a bit more subtle than Beethoven’s; but, to be fair, the guitar has a more limited dynamic range than the piano!

Taken as a whole, this “mini” concert could be appreciated as a study in contrasting dispositions; and those contrasts were clearly in play over the course of Wang’s performance of these two selections.

Omni to Present Latest “Mini” Video this Morning

Guitarist Eric Wang, the latest Midweek Melodies solo recitalist (photograph courtesy of the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts)

This morning will see the latest release of a new video in the Midweek Melodies series of performances produced by OMNI on-Location. For those that do not already know, these are relatively short recitals, which are usually around fifteen minutes in duration. Today’s guitarist will be Eric Wang, who is currently studying with Meng Su, a name likely to be familiar to those following performances by the Beijing Guitar Duo. His program will consist of two selections: Giulio Regondi’s “‘Nocturne’ Reverie” and “Appassionata” by Ronaldo Miranda. This video will become available at 10 a.m. this morning (Wednesday, October 30). The YouTube Web page has already been created.

Sony Bungles Significant Ives Anniversary

Charles Ives on the cover of the CD Ives plays Ives: The Complete Recordings of Charles Ives at the
Piano, a better account of the composer than can be found in the Sony Anniversary Edition (from its Amazon.com Web page)

I have to confess from the very beginning that I had no idea I would be so aggravated by the recent Sony Music release of music of Charles Ives entitled The Anniversary Edition. The only thing that Sony got right was that their five-CD collection was released almost exactly 150 years after Ives’ birth on October 20, 1874. Furthermore, the full title of the last CD is Charles Ives Remembered: Reminiscences of the Composer by Relatives, Friends and Associates.

To be fair, at least a few of the voices on that CD deserve more than passing attention. One of the contributors, John Kirkpatrick, is significantly important, since he was the first pianist to play the “Concord Sonata.” Sadly, in the Sony collection, one hears only excerpts from that most challenging composition, and those excerpts come from the recordings of Ives himself that appear on the fourth CD in the collection. Another major contributor was Nicolas Slonimsky, a leading champion of “new music” during the twentieth century. On the other hand I was more than a little perplexed to listen to comments by Elliott Carter. During my senior year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Carter was a Visiting Professor of Music. I attended all of his lectures and vividly remember his confession that he had no clue as to why Ives did what he did as a composer!

If The Anniversary Edition has any assets at all, they are do be found, for the most part, on the third of the five CDs. On that album Kirkpatrick accompanies soprano Helen Boatwright in a performance of 25 of the songs collected in the 114 Songs published by Peer International Publication under the auspices of The National Institute of Arts and Letters. The title of the fourth CD, on the other hand, is a pale shadow on an album released by New World Records entitled Ives plays Ives: The Complete Recordings of Charles Ives at the Piano. This includes a complete performance of the “The Alcotts” movement from the second (“Concord”) piano sonata, along with a diversity of more fragmented offerings. All other tracks in the new collection can be traced down to past Columbia releases involving performances that never quite caught the spirit that had inspired Ives to compose in the first place.

Those that do decide to acquire this collection may be surprised to see that many of the tracks are conducted by Leopold Stokowski. This did not raise my eyebrows, because I used to have the vinyl album of Stokowski conducting Ives’ fourth symphony, for which he required two (count them!, as the billboards would say) assistant conductors, David Katz and José Serebrier. The good news is that the recording of that performance is currently available through another Sony release. That album may offer far fewer examples of Ives’ compositions, but it does offer almost 70 minutes of recordings of Ives performances that are far more worthy of attentive listening.

Zambello to Return as SFO Stage Director

As an undergraduate I had a fellow student from New York that was passionate about the Metropolitan Opera. He once decided that the major operas aligned with the first three letters of the alphabet: Aida, La bohème, and Carmen! The last of those three operas has been selected by San Francisco Opera (SFO) to conclude its fall season. The production will be a revival of staging by Francesca Zambello, based on a production shared by the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and the Norwegian National Opera and shared in the United States with the Washington National Opera. To put my cards on the table, so to speak, I saw that production in the War Memorial Opera House twice in June of 2019. On that occasion I wrote of Zambello’s approach that “it was the angels, rather than the devils, that resided in the details.”

Benjamin Manis, who will conduct Carmen for his SFO debut (photograph by Natalie Gaynor, courtesy of SFO)

As might be expected, there will be a cast of “new faces.” The title role will be sung by mezzo Eve-Maud Hubeaux, who will be making her United States debut. Tenor Jonathan Tetelman will sing the role of Don José for the first time in all but one of the eight performances, the other tenor being Adler Fellow Thomas Kinch, who will also be singing the role for the first time. José’s “rival” (due to Carmen’s determination to avoid any serious commitment) is the toreador Escamillo, whose role will be sung by bass-baritone Christian van Horn. The conductor will be Benjamin Manis, making his SFO debut.

This revival production will be given eight performances, six beginning at 7:30 p.m. on November 13, 16, 19, 22, 26, and 29, with matinee performances beginning at 2 p.m. on November 24 and December 1. Ticket prices range from $32 to $438; and, depending on seating location, there is a facility fee of either $2 or $3 per ticket. All 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 Tuesday evening performance on November 19; the charge will be $27.50. Web pages are available both for tickets to the Opera House and for the livestream.

The Bleeding Edge: 10/28/2024

This week marks the transition from October to November. Therefore, it should not be a surprise that the Bleeding Edge events are taking place only at the beginning of next month. Less surprising is that those dates are Saturday and Sunday! Furthermore, one of the events will take place on both days; and it happens to be the first one on the list. Specifics are as follows:

Pianist Vijay Iyer with drummer Tyshawn Sorey (left) and bassist Linda May Han Oh (right) (from their SFJAZZ event page)

Saturday, November 2, 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, November 3, 7 p.m., SFJAZZ Center: Pianist Vijay Iyer will lead a trio, performing with Linda May Han Oh on bass and drummer Tyshawn Sorey. The trio will perform music from its latest ECM album, Compassion. The performance will take place in Miner Auditorium. For those that do not (yet?) know, the Center is located at 201 Franklin Street, on the northwest corner of Fell Street, where the main entrance doors are located. A single Web page has been created for purchasing tickets for all three dates.

Saturday, November 2, 7:30 p.m., Noe Valley Ministry: As was announced at the beginning of this month, the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble will celebrate Arnold Schoenberg’s 75th birthday with their Fall Cabaret: Pierrot Lunaire program.

Saturday, November 2, 7:30 p.m., Center for New Music: Judy Dunaway will present the performance version (as distinguished from any recordings) of “Balloon Tapestry with the Sound of Its Own Making.” She has discovered an impressive variety of sonorities that can emerge from amplified latex balloons. For her “Tapestry” performance, she will be joined by Kattt Atchley, Brenda Hutchinson, Cheryl Leonard, Brent Miller, and possibly more adventurous performers. She will prepare listeners for this experience by first performing solo free improvisations and different forms of latex balloons. There will be no charge for admission for this event. The Center is located at 55 Taylor Street, just north of the intersection with Market Street.

Saturday, November 2, 7:30 p.m., Little Mission Studio: Ninth Planet will celebrate the Day of the Dead with a whimsical program entitled Hauntings. This is a diverse chamber ensemble, whose members are Jessie Nucho (flutes), Sophie Huet (clarinets), Kevin Rogers (violin), Griffin Seuter (cello), Margaret Halbig (piano), percussionists Elizabeth Hall and Divesh Karamchandani, and Giacomo Fiore (electric guitar). They will be joined by vocalist Eda Er as guest artist. The program will premiere a new version of Ursula Kwong-Brown’s “Sunrise,” which will be performed with projected animations. The other selections will be Natasha Bogojevich’s “The Ephemeral Orphanage,” “Music for Body-Without Organs” by Nicole Lizée, and Eda Er’s “I took a train to mars.” The Little Mission Studio is located at 455 Hampshire Street. General admission will be $33.85 with a senior discount of $28.52, and a $17.85 rate for educators and students (at an institution or under eighteen). Tickets may be purchased through an Eventbrite Web page.

Sunday, November 3, 4 p.m., Old First Presbyterian Church: As was also announced at the beginning of this month, the first Old First Concerts program in November will be a recital by the Orphic Percussion quartet of Sean Clark, Michael Downing, Divesh Karamchandani (again), and Stuart Langsam.

Returning to Wagner at San Francisco Opera

Yesterday afternoon I returned to the War Memorial Opera House for a second encounter with Paul Curran’s staging of Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde with tenor Simon O’Neill and soprano Anja Kampe in the title roles. There is so much depth in not only the narrative itself but also the many was in which the composer deployed key motifs to advance that narrative. Indeed, that intimate relationship between the music and the drama is so critical that the “role” of conductor Eun Sun Kim was as critical to the narrative as any of the characters up on the stage itself. As a result, from yesterday’s vantage point, I had to make no end of judicious choices between the orchestra pit and the stage.

Thus, by the end of the afternoon, I felt that I had experienced a thoroughly engaging span of four and one-half hours. As is the case with most operas, the overall structure is a balance between action and reflection. For the most part, Wagner’s music provides the foundation for the reflective episodes. There is so much depth in that reflection that, while the action itself is critical to the narrative, the music charges it as if it were a bolt of lightning. It should therefore be no surprise that the last of the three acts of this opera should be structured around extended reflections with the action kept to a bare minimum.

Isolde (Anja Kampe) and Tristan (Simon O’Neill) feeling the first effects of her love potion (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO)

For the most part, those reflections unfold through the music. In that respect I feel it particularly significant to note the extent to which there was always an intimate conjunction of Kim’s judicious pacing of Wagner’s score with the unfolding of Curran’s actions, particularly during those critical moments at the end of the first act when the love potion beings to take effect. It is worth noting that Wagner wrote his book-length essay Opera and Drama in 1851, and Tristan und Isolde, which was first performed in 1886, makes it clear that he believed in turning theory into practice. (Another “fun fact” is that Tristan was composed at the same time that Wagner was working on his Der Ring des Nibelungen cycle.) Curran, in turn, realized Wagner’s “practice” through a consistently compelling account of the libretto’s narrative.

There are, of course, any number of jokes about the “extended durations” of Wagner operas; but Curran’s staging kept the viewer on the edge of his/her/their seat, rather than looking at one’s watch!

Steven Isserlis Plays and Directs Boccherini

It was during my undergraduate years that I first became a subscriber to the Musical Heritage Society (MHS). When I first started working at the campus radio station, I discovered that I was the first broadcaster to present a weekly program of music from the twentieth century (at least in the memory of my colleagues). Thus, while I stuck to my guns for my own program, I began to take a fair amount of interest in those of my colleagues who were suspicious of any music composed after 1750. (For those that do not already know, that was the year in which Johann Sebastian Bach died.)

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

One of my first MHS acquisitions was an album of three string quintets by Luigi Boccherini. It was through that album that I discovered that a very familiar theme I had known since childhood came from the minuet movement of a string quintet in E major, now listed as G 275 in the catalog complied by Yves Gérard. That theme has remained a favorite, but it was only at the beginning of this month that my interest in Boccherini was revived. This was when I learned that, at the beginning of next month, Hyperion would release its latest album of cellist Steven Isserlis, whose full title is Music of the Angels: Cello Concertos, Sonata & Quintets by Luigi Boccherini. It should go without saying that one of the quintets included is G 275! (It should also go without saying that Amazon.com has already created a Web page to process pre-orders.)

It was from those colleagues from my student days that I first encountered the epithet that Boccherini was the “wife of Haydn.” To some extent this probably reflected the tensions associated with the “rivalry” between Austria and Italy, better known through the relationship between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri. I have not encountered evidence of Salieri’s awareness of Boccherini’s music; but Boccherini’s brother Giovanni was a poet who wrote libretti for both Salieri and Haydn! Of greater relevance is that, in the recording industry, cellists such as Jacqueline du Pré have released albums that couple concertos by Boccherini and Haydn.

Nevertheless, there is much to enjoy in this new Isserlis release devoted entirely to Boccherini. If the quintet tracks are personal preferences, it is because it was through that genre that I first came to know Boccherini. On the other hand, according to his Wikipedia page, Boccherini composed twelve cello concertos (and one concertino); and I am not yet sure that I want to take a “deep dive” into the full extent of that repertoire!

Esmé Quartet: Another “Three Centuries” Program

Esmé Quartet players Yuna Ha, Dimitri Murrath, Yeeun Heo, and Wonhee Bae (courtesy of San Francisco Performances)

The Esmé Quartet made its debut with San Francisco Performances (SFP) in February of 2022, when it presented the second gift concert for the season. It was formed in 2016 by four Korean musicians studying at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln (in Cologne, Germany); and the members were Wonhee Bae (first violin), Yuna Ha (second violin), Jiwon Kim (viola), and Yeeun Heo (cello). Since that time Kim has left the ensemble and has been replaced by violist Dimitri Murrath, currently on the Faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM); and the quartet currently has a residency at SFCM.

As was the case in 2022, the quartet prepared a “three centuries” program. This time the opening eighteenth-century selection was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 575 quartet in D major (complementing the G major quartet that began the first program). Again the second half of the program was devoted to the nineteenth century, this time Franz Schubert’s D. 887 (final) string quartet in G major. The intermission was preceded by the twentieth-century selection, György Ligeti’s first string quartet, given the title “Métamorphoses Nocturnes.” Ironically, I have SFP to thank for my last (and probably first) encounter with this quartet, when I heard it performed by the Castalian Quartet in November of 2021.

On that occasion, I suggested that Ligeti’s quartet “could almost be taken for Béla Bartók’s seventh string quartet.” It was a relatively early undertaking, which I also described as “before Ligeti started sounding like Ligeti.” However, if he had not yet undertaken the thick one-to-a-part textures of “Atmosphères,” one can appreciate the give-and-take rhetoric as the score oscillates between the atonal themes and the thick textures of the full ensemble. In other words, it was through his composition of this quartet Ligeti “found his voice,” which would encourage him to explore those thick textures.

In that context, both the Mozart and Schubert quartets could not have been given better performances as models of transparency. In both of these cases, the counterpoint was so clear that I could easily keep my glance shifting from one instrumentalist to another. Both of these were (at least for me) familiar compositions. Nevertheless, the clarity of the delivery was so compelling that I almost felt as if I had encountered both of these pieces for the very first time.

On my way home from Herbst Theatre, I realized that the in-the-moment spontaneity of the players was chamber music as it should be, possibly even as it was “back in the day” when Mozart played viola in a quartet with violinists Joseph Haydn and Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf and cellist Johann Baptist Wanhal.

Ars Minerva Announces 2024 Production

Once again, Ars Minerva has announced plans to present the “modern world premiere” of an opera that has not been performed since the seventeenth century. This year that opera will be La Flora, composed jointly in 1681 by Antonio Sartorio and Marc’Antonio Ziani. This opera was first performed in Venice in that same year, 1681. It was apparently very well received; but, just as apparently, it has never been performed since then.

Soprano Alexa Anderson in the title role of La Flora (photograph by Valentina Sadiul, courtesy of Ars Minerva)

The title character of the opera, Flora, is the love interest of Pompey the Great (who, as some readers probably recall, was having a hard time of things at the very beginning of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar). Like many of the past Ars Minerva productions, the libretto involves a narrative that ranges from tragedy to farce. It also sidesteps Shakespeare with an earlier setting in Rome ruled by Sulla (bass Wayne Wong), the Roman general that ended the Republic by declaring himself emperor. Pompey (contralto Jasmine Johnson) sees his own path to power through marrying Sulla’s daughter Flora (soprano Alexa Andersen), in spite of the fact that she is already married. This tangled web of relationships recalls Anna Russell’s primary rule of all librettos: “You can do anything you want in opera as long as you sing it!”

As usual, Céline Ricci, Founder and Artistic Director of Ars Minerva, will stage the production. Also as in the past, Matthew Dirst will direct an ensemble of period instruments from the harpsichord. The other musicians will be violinists Cynthia Keiko Black and Gail Hernandez Rosa, Gretchen Claassen on cello, violist Daria D’Andrea, Richard Savino on theorbo, and trumpeter Dominic Favia. Again as in the past, Adam Cockerham has prepared the performing version of the score. 

As has been the case with previous productions, there will be three performances taking place at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, November 15, and Saturday, November 16, and at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, November 17. The venue will be the ODC Theater, located in the Mission at 3153 17th Street on the southwest corner of Shotwell Street. Ticket prices are $127 and $82. Students will be admitted for $27. Tickets may be purchased through the above hyperlinks for each of the performance dates. Reservations may also be placed by calling 415-863-9834.

Thomas Wilkins Brings Americana to SFS

Conductor Thomas Wilkins (photograph by Bill Sitzmann, courtesy of SFS)

Conductor Thomas Wilkins made his San Francisco Symphony (SFS) debut in December of 2019; and his last appearance took place at the beginning of May of last year, when the concert soloist was saxophonist Branford Marsalis. Last night he led an “all-American” program featuring two compositions by George Gershwin, both enabled through a “second party.” His “Rhapsody in Blue,” originally composed for jazz ensemble, was presented in its orchestration by Ferde Grofé (a composer in his own right best known for his Grand Canyon Suite). The music from his opera Porgy and Bess was presented as the “Symphonic Picture” arranged by Robert Russell Bennett.

The other selections on the program were the first SFS performance of William Grant Still’s Wood Notes suite, and the suite arranged by Charlie Harmon of music composed by Leonard Bernstein for the musical Candide. The soloist for “Rhapsody in Blue” was Michelle Cann; and her encore was Sergei Rachmaninoff’s prelude in C-sharp minor, the second of the five piano pieces in his Opus 3 collection entitled Morceaux de fantaisie. However, Cann did not “stick to the score” very long, serving up her own plate of jazzy embellishments, possibly inspired by Charlie Parker’s appropriation of the theme in his introduction to “All the Things You Are.”

Taken as a whole, the evening was not particularly stimulating. Cann brought a fair amount of expressiveness to her Gershwin interpretation, but her jazz take on Rachmaninoff never quite registered. Wilkins’ leadership, on the other hand, tended to come across as little more than routine; and there was absolutely no sense of spirit in his take on the Candide arrangement. (Mind you, the fault here was probably that of Harmon; but, if Wilkins wanted to lead off his program with energetic Bernstein, he could have made a much better choice.)

By all rights, the Still offering should have been the high point of the evening, since it was an SFS debut. However, Wilkins seems to have had his head only in the “notes” without bringing much expressiveness to the four different evocations of woodland settings. What could have been an engaging journey through musical reflections on a sequence of natural resources (Grand Canyon Suite, anyone?) emerged as little more than a slog through one movement after another. Since this was far from my first encounter with Still’s music, my only conclusion would be that he deserved a better conductor.

This was potentially a program with an engaging diversity of “American perspectives;” but there was nothing in Wilkins’ conducting to engage the attentive listener.

Naxos to Release another Ives Album with Sinclair

Cover of the album being discussed

Some readers may recall that I spent the early part of June in 2023 to “catch up” on Naxos recordings of orchestral works by Charles Ives conducted by James Sinclair. I have now learned that, one week from today, Naxos will release a new album in the series, entitled simply Orchestral Works. As many will probably expect, Amazon.com has already created a Web page for processing pre-orders.

I must confess that I find myself a bit perplexed over what plans there may be behind Sinclair’s releases serving as an “Ives project.” Whatever that project may be, this new release seems designed to provide an “appendix” to the overall structure. Indeed, the longest track is entitled “Set of Incomplete Works and Fragments.” There are eighteen of them, sequenced by Sinclair working with Kenneth Singleton, who also shared editing duties with Sinclair. Most of the other tracks were entirely unfamiliar to me, with the exception of “March: The Circus Band,” which most Ives listeners will recognize in its version as a song for vocalist and piano accompaniment. Most enigmatic is the longest of the tracks, a little over six and a half minutes in duration, with the perplexingly prankish title “Chromâtimelôdtune.”

If there are not enough surprises in the opening seventeen tracks of seldom-encountered orchestral Ives (the one possible exception being the four opening “Ragtime Dance” tracks), even more surprising are the final three tracks of piano music that Ives arranged for orchestral performance. All of these will be familiar to those that follow piano recitals. The first is the first (in the key of D major) in the Trois Marches militaires set, D. 733 in the catalogue of the works of Franz Schubert. This is followed by the fourth episode (“Valse noble”) in Robert Schumann’s Opus 9 Carnaval cycle. The album then concludes with a second Schubert orchestration, this time the first (in the key of C minor) of the four impromptus collected in D. 899.

Regardless of how perplexed I may be, the fact is that, whenever I learn about a new Ives recording, I am more than likely to seek it out and add it to my collection. Ives may have been an “amateur” composer. I am almost certain that he never received much (if any) compensation for his efforts, leading me to raise both eyebrows at the portion of his Wikipedia page with the header “Musical career!” Nevertheless, there is no questioning that he belongs in the canon of “serious” composers, whose music is performed by symphony orchestras and chamber music ensembles. However, interpreting those “serious” compositions can often be challenging; and I am happy to say that, regardless of repertoire, Sinclair has more than satisfied me with his skills in bringing expressive interpretations to the notations and imaginative creations, many of which have more than their share of perplexing passages!

Plans for the SFP 2024–25 Piano Series

Readers may recall that next month will see the beginning of the Robert and Ruth Dell Piano Series with a program that will couple Quinn Mason’s recently composed “Falling Slowly” with composers from the nineteenth (Frédéric Chopin) and twentieth (Sergei Prokofiev and Igor Stravinsky) centuries.  Since this is the first program in that series, tickets are still on sale for the entire series. For those interested in subscribing, here is the schedule for the remaining four performances, all of which will take place in Herbst Theatre at 7:30 p.m.

Pianist Sir Stephen Hough (from the Web page for his SFP recital)

Tuesday, February 4: Sir Stephen Hough has organized his program around sonatas by the two leading composers of piano music in the nineteenth century. He will devote the first half of the program to Franz Liszt’s sonata in B minor. This will be coupled in the second half by another sonata in B minor, this time Chopin’s Opus 58 (third) sonata in B minor. He will begin the program with a selection of six shorter pieces by a composer that bridged the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Cécile Chaminade.

Thursday, March 20: Jan Lisiecki has prepared an “all preludes” program. This will include an account of Chopin’s Opus 28, which covers all 24 of the major and minor keys. The other composers will include one of Chopin’s predecessors, Johann Sebastian Bach (of course), and four composers from the following century: Sergei Rachmaninoff, Henryk Górecki, Karol Szymanowski, and Olivier Messiaen.

Tuesday, March 25: Louis Lortie will present a program that will survey the diversity of piano compositions by Maurice Ravel.

Tuesday, April 1: Joyce Yang will conclude the series with selections from the nineteenth and twentieth century. Her program will be framed by the early nineteenth century, beginning with the third of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 31 sonatas, published in 1802, composed in the key of E-flat major and given the title “The Hunt.” Her concluding offering will be Robert Schumann’s Opus 16 cycle, Kreisleriana. Between these “bookends” she will select several of the preludes from Rachmaninoff’s Opus 32 collection.

Subscriptions are on sale for $380 for premium seating in the Orchestra, the Side Boxes, and the front and center of the Dress Circle, $330 for the center rear of the Dress Circle and the remainder of the Orchestra, and $280 for the remainder of the Dress Circle and the Balcony in Herbst Theatre. Subscriptions may be purchased online in advance through an SFP Web page. Orders may also be placed by calling the SFP subscriber hotline at 415-677-0325, which is open for receiving calls between 9:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. Single tickets may be purchased by visiting the specific event pages. The above dates provide hyperlinks to the appropriate Web pages.

SFCM Highlights: November, 2024

Readers probably know by now that the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) contributed to both days in the first weekend of next month, which is, as I observed, the first “busy weekend” of the new season. However, next month will be relatively busy at SFCM with three other major events worth considering. Here is a summary of all five events with the summaries for the first two hyperlinked above and event page hyperlinks from the remaining three:

Saturday, November 9, 7:30 p.m., Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall: This is the first performance of the season by the New Music Ensemble led by Nicole Paiement, featuring the music of Elinor Armer.

Sunday, November 10, 4 p.m., Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall: This is the performance by the Conservatory Chorus performing in partnership with the Chanticleer vocal ensemble.

Tuesday, November 12, 7:30 p.m., Barbro Osher Recital Hall: Next month’s Chamber Music Tuesday will feature tenor Nicholas Phan as guest artist. (He cannot be classified as a “visiting artist” since he is now based in San Francisco, having previously founded the Collaborative Artist Institute of Chicago.) He will perform a selection of songs by Rebecca Clarke followed by Gabriel Fauré’s Opus 61 song cycle, La Bonne Chanson. The program will begin with the world premiere performance of “Diār,” a string quartet composed by Shahab Paranj, winner of the SFCM Hoefer Prize.

Kalena Bovell, guest conductor for the SFCM Orchestra

Saturday, November 16, 7:30 p.m., Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall: Panamanian-American Kalena Bovell will visit as guest conductor of the SFCM Orchestra. The program will begin with another prize winner, the world premiere performance of “Hear Her Sing,” composed by Alex Malinas, the latest winner of the Highsmith Award. This will be followed by selections from Sergei Prokofiev’s score for the four-act ballet Romeo and Juliet, first choreographed by Ivo Váňa-Psota for the Kirov Ballet. The remainder of the program will be devoted to two of the three “Roman” tone poems by Ottorino Respighi, “Fountains of Rome” and “Pines of Rome.” (The latter will conclude the evening with no shortage of bombastic spectacle!)

Thursday, November 21, and Friday, November 22, 7:30 p.m., Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall: The Fall Opera for the season will be Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 588 Così fan tutte (women are like that). Staging will be directed by Heather Mathews, and each of the two performances will have a separate cast. As Is usually the case, the conductor will be Curt Pajer.

Reade Park Brings Rachmaninoff to Guitar

Screen shot of Reade Park playing the first movement of Antonio José’s guitar sonata in the Barbro Osher Recital Hall on the top floor of the new building of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music overlooking the dome of City Hall (screen shot from the video produced by Matthew Washburn)

Today saw the release of the latest video in the Midweek Melodies series of performances produced by OMNI on-Location. The guitarist was Reade Park, and his program was a little more than ten minutes in duration. He began with two movements, the first and third, from the “Sonata para guitarra” by Antonio José. This accounted for about half of the program; and the other half was devoted to an arrangement of one of the piano preludes of Sergei Rachmaninoff, the fifth, in the key of G minor, from the Opus 23 collection of ten preludes.

Only the second of these selections was familiar to me. It is one of Rachmaninoff’s most familiar compositions, and I have long appreciated the recording that Victor/RCA made of him playing it. In many ways one might say that it was Rachmaninoff at his most pianistic, but Park managed to provide a convincing account of the theme itself and the twists and turns through which Rachmaninoff embellished it.

The José sonata, on the other hand, was a “first contact” experience. Park played only the first and third movements, the latter being a particularly engaging “Pavane Triste.” It should go without saying that Park’s account was convincing enough to leave me hoping for an opportunity to listen to a performance of the sonata in its entirety. Granted, the entire program was presented as a Mini Guitar Concert; but it left me hoping that Park would return to present a full-length recital program (hopefully before an audience) in which he could give an account of José’s sonata in its entirety!

Visiting a “Vintage” Wagner Opera Album

Following up on the latest new production of Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, which began its series of five performances by San Francisco Opera this past Saturday, I was inevitably drawn to my collection of recordings. These included the recent addition of the Naxos box set in its Great Opera Recordings series. This consisted of three CDs, each accounting for one of the opera’s three acts. This attracted my attention because the conductor was Fritz Reiner. While Reiner was best known as the Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, he spent many years in the orchestra pit of the Metropolitan Opera from the mid-Forties to the early Sixties. (He died in November of 1963.)

Kirsten Flagstad on the cover of the album being discussed (from its Amazon.com Web page)

Reiner’s RCA albums included relatively few instrumental excerpts from Wagner operas, so I welcomed the opportunity to listen to his take on one of those operas in its entirety. The Naxos album involved an “amalgam” of two performances, which took place on May 18 and June 2, 1936. These were concert, rather than staged, occasions with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. The Chorus of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden sang with a full cast of soloists led by tenor Lauritz Melchior and soprano Kirsten Flagstad in the title roles.

The second half of this opera is where the “action” is at its most intense, and that intensity begins with the instrumental Prelude. Reiner captured the anxiety behind the opening scene in which Isolde is waiting (impatiently) for Tristan’s arrival. This amounts to a “slow burn” in which the fire finally emerges with full passion at the very beginning of the second scene. As might be guessed, the overall dynamic range of the recording of this episode is far more limited in what we encounter through more sophisticated audio technology. Nevertheless, the passion is in the vocal work; and there are no end of engaging nuances that the attentive listener encounters in the deliveries by both Flagstad and Melchior. (Ironically, last night I happened to be viewing a video of Melchior visiting Victor Borge, which was about as distant from the dramatics of Tristan as one might expect!)

To be fair, I tend to be forgiving about most of my encounters with recordings made during the first half of the twentieth century. I appreciate efforts to filter out as much “noise” as possible; but, at least with current technology, there is only so much one can do to enhance the signal! To the extent that one can listen “through” that noise, there is much to be gained from the dramatic qualities brought to this album by all of the contributing vocalists, not only Flagstad and Melchior but particularly bass Emanuel List as Marke, the King of Cornwall that was supposed to marry Isolde. Similarly, soprano Sabine Kalter as Brangäne conveys the frustration in her efforts to remind her mistress Isolde to “get real!”

Will I revisit this “historical” account of a recording that is almost a century old? I suppose the best answer would be, “Probably, but not frequently!” For the most part, I tend to be more interested in what today’s vocalists can do with their repertoire. Nevertheless, Flagstad and Melchior were the giants of their day. Given that I was born in 1946, they were firmly at their peak before then. However, I shall always be curious about major events that were “before my time;” and this Naxos release allows me to reflect on one of them!

Choices for November 9 and 10, 2024

Next month will see the first “busy weekend” of the new season. Readers probably already know that the Saturday will be the final day of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestral Series program featuring the debut of conductor Nicholas Collon with pianist Conrad Tao, performing Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 23 (first) concerto for piano and orchestra in B-flat minor. However, considering the alternatives for Saturday evening, readers may wish to plan for the Thursday or Friday performances! As is usually the case in these articles, specifics for the other events will be ordered according to when they begin as follows:

Saturday, November 9, 7 p.m., and Sunday, November 10, 4 p.m., Trinity + St. Peter’s Episcopal Church: The fall is usually a time of beginnings, but this program will mark the conclusion of the 35th anniversary season of the San Francisco Choral Society led by its Artistic Director Robert Geary. The title of the program is A Rose is All My Song: Music of Mary. It will begin with John Rutter’s setting of the Magnificat canticle and conclude with “Tota pulchra es, amica mea” by Heinrich Isaac. The “central” works will be limited to male and female voices. The first of these will be a TTBB setting of the “Hail Mary” (Ave Maria) prayer by Franz Biebl. The SSAA selections will be “Regina Angelorum” by Pekka Kostiainen and Giuseppe Verdi’s “Laudi alla Vergine Maria.”

Trinity + St. Peter’s Episcopal Church is located at 1650 Gough Street on the corner of Bush Street. Ticket prices range from $42 to $59. City Box Office has created Web pages for online purchase of tickets for both Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday, November 9, 7:30 p.m., San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM): This will be the first performance of the season by the New Music Ensemble led by Nicole Paiement. The program will present the music of Elinor Armer, celebrating her membership in the SFCM Composition Department for over fifty years. It will survey her repertoire of music of different genres scored for different ensembles.

This program will be performed in the Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall of the Ann Getty Center for Education, which is located at 50 Oak Street. There will be no charge for admission, but the Web page for the event includes a hyperlink for reserving seats. There is also a hyperlink for livestream viewing.

Sunday, November 10, 2 p.m., Davies Symphony Hall: As has already been announced on this site, this will be the first Chamber Music at Davies Symphony Hall program.

Sunday, November 10, 4 p.m., SFCM: The Chanticleer vocal ensemble will visit SFCM for its first official artistic collaboration with the Conservatory Chorus led by Eric Choate. Many readers probably know that the Chanticleer repertoire is rooted in the Renaissance; and the program will begin with selections by William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons, and Thomas Weelkes. However, it will also include Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 147 cantata Jesus bleibet meine Freude and Gabriel Fauré’s Opus 11 “Cantique de Jean Racine.” There will also be two twentieth-century selections, “Rest” by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Samuel Barber’s “Sure on this Shining Night.”

Like the Saturday program, this will be performed in the Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall of the Ann Getty Center for Education, which is located at 50 Oak Street. There will be no charge for admission, but the Web page for the event includes a hyperlink for reserving seats. There is again a hyperlink for livestream viewing.

Sunday, November 10, 7:30 p.m., Davies Symphony Hall: The Great Performers Series will begin with a program entitled Itzhak Perlman & Friends. The “friends” for this occasion will include two pianists, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Emanuel Ax, as well as the member of the Juilliard String Quartet. The full quartet will contribute to Ernest Chausson’s Opus 21 “Concert” for violin, piano, and string quartet in D major; and three of them will perform in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 493 piano quartet in E-flat major. For the opening selection, Perlman will join one of the Juilliard violinists in a performance of the E minor sonata for two violins, the fifth of the Opus 3 sonatas by Jean-Marie Leclair. The performance will take place in the same venue as the afternoon chamber music recital. Ticketing information will be available through the above hyperlink.

Guitarist Yamandu Costa (courtesy of the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts)

Sunday, November 10, 7:30 p.m., SFCM: The next Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts guitar recital will take place in the Conservatory. The guitarist will be Yamandu Costa, who plays a seven-string instrument. Some readers may recall his previous duo performance with Richard Scofano on bandoneon. This time he will give a solo recital.

Once again, the concert will be performed in the Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall of the Ann Getty Center for Education, which is located at 50 Oak Street. Admission will be $65 for all seating. Once again, they may be purchased through a City Box Office Web page.

Organist Gail Archer to Bring Recital to SF

My encounters with performances on a pipe organ have been few and far between. Most of the recent ones have taken place a short walk from where I live, at the Church of the Advent of Christ the King where Paul Ellison is Director of Music. Those are occasions when his Schola Adventus vocalists contribute to the service, and Ellison himself will then provide an organ postlude. Where recordings are concerned, my most recent encounter seems to have been at the end of last year, when ICA Classics released its fourth BBC Legends collection in which a CD of performances by Nadia Boulanger included Gabriel Fauré’s Opus 48 setting of the Requiem text and three selections of sacred music by Lili Boulanger.

Concert organist Gail Archer (photograph courtesy of AMT Public Relations)

At the beginning of next month, organist Gail Archer will visit San Francisco. I have not previously encountered her on any of my recordings, let alone in performance. However, she drew my attention when I learned that she was the first American woman to perform the complete works for organ composed by Olivier Messiaen. Sadly (at least for me), she has not included any of Messiaen’s music on her program.

However, as might be guessed, she will begin her program with Johann Sebastian Bach. Her opening selection will be the BWV 548 prelude and fugue in E minor. This will be followed by the BWV 653 setting of the “Leipzig” chorale, “An Wasserflüssen Babylon” (by the waters of Babylon). These selections will be “reflected” at the conclusion of the program with two compositions by Franz Liszt. The first of these will be the “Consolation” in D-flat major. The program will then finish up by reflecting on the beginning with the “Fantasy and Fugue on the Theme B-A-C-H.”

Archer seems to have prepared an “arch” structure (pun entirely accidental) for her program, whose “keystone” will consist of three short pieces composed by Nadia Boulanger in 1911. On either side of that “keystone” will be selections from the nineteenth, twentieth, and current centuries. The composers in the first half will be (in “order of appearance”) Fanny Mendelssohn, Johannes Brahms, Joan Tower, Mary Howe, and Grażyna Bacewicz. Those in the second half will be almost all Ukrainian: Viktor Goncharenko, Svitlana Ostrova, and Mykola Kolessa. They will be preceded by an instrumental “Te Deum” setting by French organist Jeanne Demessieux.

This performance will begin at 5 p.m. on Sunday, November 3. The venue will be the Trinity + St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, which is located at 1650 Gough Street on the corner of Bush Street. (For those that do not yet know, this is one of the buildings that survived the 1906 earthquake and fire.) There will be no charge for admission.

Recording of Steve Davis Sextet Coming Friday

This Friday will see the release of a new jazz sextet album led by trombonist Steve Davis. The seven tracks account for a live performance at the Smoke Jazz Club, located in Manhattan at the corner of 106th Street and Broadway (renamed as Duke Ellington Boulevard). The other members of the sextet are trumpeter Eddie Henderson, Ralph Moore on tenor saxophone, pianist Renee Rosnes, Essiet Essiet on bass, and drummer Lewis Nash. As is almost always the case, Amazon.com has already created a Web page for taking pre-orders.

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

The title of the album, produced by Smoke Sessions Records, is We See, which is a deliberate nod to Thelonious Monk. It should go without saying that this is one of the seven tracks. Other familiar tracks include “Milestones” (Miles Davis), “Up Jumped Spring” (Freddie Hubbard), “Star Eyes” (Gene de Paul and Don Raye), “Ask Me Now” (Monk again), and “All Blues” (Miles Davis again). However, the stand-out track is an homage to pianist Larry Willis with his “To Wisdom, The Prize.” Willis died in 2019, and he had been one of Davis’ closest collaborators. Thus, there is a strong personal context for the tracks that Davis prepared for this album.

These days I sometimes feel as if I am part of a dying breed that still grooves on straight-ahead jazz. Yes, I can appreciate musicians that boldly go where no improvisers have gone before; but my preferences still turn to those that can spin out inventive takes on past tropes. This is an album of tracks from the past; but the performances are, without a doubt, vividly in the immediate present!

The Bleeding Edge: 10/21/2024

This week there will be two previously reported events taking place at The Lab on Friday and Saturday (October 25 and 26), respectively. However, between Thursday and Sunday there will be an impressive diversity of events, all taking place at venues that will probably be familiar to most readers. Specifics are as follows:

Thursday, October 24, 8 p.m., Noisebridge hackerspace: This month Noisebridge, best known for its G|O|D|W|A|F|F|L|E|N|O|I|S|E|P|A|N|C|A|K|E|S events will be taking over hosting Resident. This is a monthly open mic event, which started in 2017, that provides a platform for electronic audiovisual performances. Those wishing to participate can sign up through hyperlinks on the Resident Electronic Music Web page for this event. Performers can set up their preparations beginning at 7 p.m. Noisebridge is located in the Mission at 272 Capp Street. The program will also be live-streamed through a YouTube Web site.

Friday, October 25, 7 p.m., Medicine for Nightmares: Once again reed player David Boyce will host his semi-regular Friday evening series entitled Other Dimensions in Sound. This week he will serve as the “D” in a trio called MCD. The other two performers are Matias Arizmendi on guitar and drummer Cy Thompson. 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, October 25, 8:30 p.m., Bird & Beckett Books and Records: Pianist Brett Carson will return with his Substandard Quartet. The other members of this group are still Cory Wright on an assortment of reed instruments, drummer Jason Levis, and Safa Shokrai on bass. For those that do not already know, Bird & Beckett is located at 653 Chenery Street, a short walk from the Glen Park station that serves both BART and Muni. The information provided by the venue is more limited than usual, but the price of admission will probably be $20 in cash for the cover charge. Given that only a limited number of people will be admitted, 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.

Saturday, October 26, 7:30 p.m., Center for New Music: As was reported at the beginning of this month, this will be the Opus 5 installment in the Opus Project.

Lisa Mezzacappa with her bass (from the BayImproviser event page for her Sunday performance)

Sunday, October 27, 5 p.m. and 7 p.m., Keys Jazz Bistro: Beyond Words is an arts collective that centers on the visceral nature of poetry by accompanying prolific poets live on stage with highly sensitive improvising musicians. Keys Jazz Bistro will host an evening of two sets led jointly by poet Amos White and drummer Dillon Vado. Contributing poets will be Tureeda Mikeil and Tongo Eisen-Martin, and the musicians will be guitarist Ryan Pate and Lisa Mezzacappa on bass. For those that do not yet know, the venue is located in North Beach at 498 Broadway.

SFBC Surveys Eight Bach Composers

A portion of the Wikipedia page of the Bach family tree

Yesterday afternoon at Calvary Presbyterian Church, the San Francisco Bach Choir (SFBC), led by Artistic Director Magen Solomon, launched its new season. The title of the program was Fruit from the Bach Family Tree, and it presented works by eight different members of that family, the earliest being Johannes Bach (born in 1604) and the latest being Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach (died in 1795). What struck me about the overall listening experience was the sense that, at least where sacred choral music was concerned, there seemed to be a basic “Bach style” that cut across the generations.

By way of disclaimer, I should confess that the only choral selection that was even remotely familiar was the final one, Sebastian’s BWV 230 motet “Lobet den Herrn, alle Heiden” (praise ye the Lord, all ye nations). As a result, my listening skills were only beginning to attune themselves to the other members of the Bach family (even Emanuel, whom I have come to know better through his instrumental music). Taken as a whole, the program was a throughly engaging journey of discovery; but I still must confess that the diversity of the composers themselves was more than a little daunting. Nevertheless, if Solomon’s intent was to demonstrate that there was far more to the Bach family than Sebastian and his sons Emanuel and Friedemann, she definitely made the case with her generous choice of selections.

Fortunately, those selections were interleaved with instrumental performances of Sebastian’s music. These were performed by William Skeen on cello and organist Arthurs Omura. For the most part, these were familiar “turf;” and I was particularly engaged with Omura’s account of six of the partitas from the BWV 767 collection of what were basically variations on the chorale “O Gott, du frommer Gott.” Skeen (of course) visited two of the solo cello movements, the Allemande from the BWV 1007 suite in G major and the Sarabande from the BWV 1012 suite in D major, both of which were welcome islands of familiarity!

Nevertheless, what mattered most was how Solomon conceived this program as a journey of discovery. The fact is that there is more to the Bach family than any of us will ever come to know over the course of our brief lifetime. The good news was that Solomon provided a series of representative offerings that allowed the attentive listening to appreciate just how abundant were those “fruits” from the family tree!

Outsound Presents: November, 2024

Information about next month’s three performances offered by Outsound Presents is now available. As usual, there will be two LSG (Luggage Store Gallery) New Music Series events on Wednesday evenings; and between them will be the monthly SIMM (Static Illusion Methodical Madness) Series program on a Sunday evening. As regular readers probably know by now, LSG is located at 1007 Market Street, just off the corner of Sixth Street and across from the corner of Golden Gate Avenue and Taylor Street. Admission is on a sliding scale between $10 and $20. The SIMM Series concerts take place at the Musicians Union, located in SoMa at 116 9th Street. Admission is again on a sliding scale, this time between $10 and $25. Program specifics are as follows:

Wednesday, November 6, 8 p.m.: The opening set will be a solo performance by Bryan Day entitled Inventions. He has prepared an electro-acoustic piece, which will feature two of his newer instruments. The Dirtie Gertie is simply a rubber band, which is played with an oversized extension spring. The Rotary Xylophone is basically a chain of wooden beads under MIDI control. Tales from The Secret Opera! is a joint project of vocalist and dancer Bob Marsh (who sometimes performs as Grum) and David Michalak, who alternates among lap steel guitar, electric harp, and a skatchbox invented by the late Tom Nunn. For this performance they will be joined by Kersti Abrams playing alto saxophone and mbira.

Sunday, November 17, 7:30 p.m.: This will be a two-set program, but only one of the sets has been finalized as of this writing. That will be Noertker’s Moxie, which is led by bassist Bill Noertker. The other members of the trio are wind player Annelise Zamula and drummer Eli Knowles. The trio recently made its debut in Antwerp, and they will perform original music from that concert.[added 11/3, 7 a.m.: The second set will being at 8:30 p.m. and will be taken by the Life's Blood Trio of Rent Romus on saxophones, pianist Brett Carson, and Elihu Knowles on drums. They will performing music from their Truth Teller album.]

Bull Fahe on synthesizer performing with the trio of Ed Lloyd (bass), Eli McDonald (drums), and Ross Hoyt (electric guitar) (from a YouTube video of an LSG performance on December 20, 2023)

Wednesday, November 20, 8 p.m.: The second LSG concert will consist of three sets with a solo flanked on either side by two trios. The soloist will be saxophonist Josh Allen. He will be followed by the Evidence Trio. This will see a second appearance by Abrams, this time playing flute along with her saxophone. She will be joined by Andrew Joron on theremin and bassist Michael Wilcox. The opening trio will consist of Ross Hoyt (electric guitar), Ed Lloyd (bass violin), and Eli McDonald (drums).

SFO’s Compelling Account of Richard Wagner

Last night the War Memorial Opera House saw the first of five San Francisco Opera (SFO) performances of Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. This opera has not been performed here since the 2006–07 season, when the production directed by Thor Steingraber was conducted by then Music Director Donald Runnicles with tenor Thomas Moser and soprano Christine Brewer in the title roles. This new production was first staged at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice under the direction of Paul Curran. In bringing this staging to San Francisco, Curran made his SFO debut.

This occasion provided him with many opportunities to work with those that had become familiar with SFO. Indeed, the role of Tristan was sung by tenor Simon O’Neill, whose connection to SFO goes all the way back to his performances in the Merola Opera Program. Soprano Anja Kampe, on the other hand, was last seen here when she sang the role of Sieglinde in a performance of Wagner’s Die Walküre. At the other end of the time-line, so to speak, two Adler Fellows contributed to two of the lesser roles, tenor Thomas Kinch as Melot and baritone Samuel Kidd as a steersman.

As is often the case in opera, the narrative is one of convoluted confusions. Isolde is an Irish princess obliged to marry King Marke of Cornwall for political purposes. She is being brought to Cornwall by Marke’s knight Tristan. Her “baggage” includes a collection of potions; and, during her voyage to Cornwall, she decides that death would be better than marrying against her will. She shares a potion of atonement with Tristan, knowing that it will be fatal for both of them. However, what they drink is actually a love potion, which they experience just as their ship arrives in Cornwall.

Isolde (Anja Kampe) and Tristan (Simon O’Neill) in one of their more ecstatic moments (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO)

In the second act they are now spellbound by the potion; and the entire act is, for the most part, an extended love scene. I say “for the most part” because it concludes when the knight Melot catches them “in the act.” Both he and Tristan draw swords, and Tristan is mortally wounded. (If this seems like an abbreviated account, rest assured that Wagner provided a generous account of some of his most passionate music for that “extended love scene!”)

The final act takes place in Tristan’s castle in Brittany, where he is slowly dying, tended by his servant Kurwenal. He is visited by both Marke and Isolde’s maid Brangäne, who had explained the power of the potion to Marke. Marke forgives Isolde, who focuses only on Tristan’s death. She then takes her own death potion; and, after her extended love-death aria, she is united with Tristan in the afterlife.

While there are no ends of twists and turns in this plot, Curran knew exactly how to keep things moving from one episode to the next with at least a minimally sufficient foundation of logic. Most important, however, was how the vocal work rose above all of that complexity. Under Curran’s direction all of the vocalists delivered credible (and usually compelling) accounts of each phase of the narrative. Thus, while the entire experience came close to five hours in duration, there was never a moment in which attention would lapse.

This was an account of Wagner’s commitment to “opera as drama” that would have done the master proud.

Alternative Jazz: Once is Too Much!

This morning I had my “first contact” with the alternative jazz genre. Prior to that encounter, I had been unaware of it; and I think I felt the better for that absence. Nevertheless, Best of Alternative Jazz Album is one of the GRAMMY categories; so I figured that, at the very least, I should try to be better informed about what distinguishes it from other approaches to jazz. As a result, I turned to Google to learn that alternative jazz is “a genre that blends jazz with other genres, often using contemporary production techniques and instrumentation.”

That definition reminds me of one of the jokes coined by Beyond the Fringe. For those unaware of that group, it consisted of four Oxford students, who cultivated a repertoire of humorous skits. Their efforts were so successful that they were able to take their act to Broadway. Naturally, one of those skits was about differences between the United States and England. One of them described the President as being like ”the King and the Prime Minister all rolled up into one,” which gave rise to the question, “One what?”

In other words, that blending process of alternative jazz involves collecting a variety of sources and “rolling them up into one.” One what? I’ll be darned if I can answer that question! I suppose the politest response I could give would be: “One muddle.”

Laird Jackson on the cover of her Life album (courtesy of Crossover Media)

So it is that I have found a context in which to write about my first contact with an alternative jazz album, Laird Jackson’s Life. The best that I can say is that there was no shortage of data for me to consider. The entire album is almost 75 minutes in duration, accounting for fifteen tracks (ten of which are Jackson originals); and all I can say is that those 75 minutes felt like forever!

One of my favorite jokes in Amadeus is when Mozart offers to play one of Salieri’s compositions. Salieri was, of course, delighted that Mozart would pay so much attention to his efforts. However, after Mozart had played a few opening phrases, he stops and says, “It’s all the same after that, isn’t it?” So began Salieri’s aversion to Mozart!

Nevertheless, this is the way things are on Life. Perhaps it is even more severe. Once one has encountered a few phrases from the opening track, “it’s all the same after that!” I would not even describe the tracks as “background music,” because it does not even set a context for any serious foreground (or even a frivolous one).

If there is ever a “revised edition” of Monty Python’s Complete Waste of Time, I hope the editors include a page about alternative jazz!

Choices for November 8, 2024

Those readers that follow the programs presented by Old First Concerts probably know by now that Friday, November 8, will see the return of Ensemble for These Times to Old First Presbyterian Church. However, as that date draws nearer, it turns out that there will be some competition for attention that evening. It therefore seems appropriate to present that concert in the context of its alternatives, which involve an impressive diversity of genres. Here are the specifics according to venue and time:

Golden Gate Bandshell, 4:30 p.m. and 6 p.m.: A week ago from yesterday (October 11), Christie Aida gave a Concerts at the Cadillac performance at the Cadillac Hotel (of course). She was accompanied by the Free Press quartet, consisting of Alex Spoto, alternating between violin and guitar, Dave Michael on percussion, bassist Fernando Rodriguez, and Billy White on a variety of keyboards. Next month they will take their act to Golden Gate Park, giving two sets of free performances.

Grace Cathedral, 7:30 p.m.: Vox Humana SF will present the first of is two planned concerts for the season. The major work on the program will be Sergei Rachmaninoff’s a cappella All-Night Vigil, a setting of the Vespers service, performed in its entirety This will be preceded by three settings of liturgical texts by Dmitry Bortniansky. Two of these are taken from a series of vocal composition he identified as “concertos,” the fifteenth "Priiditje, vospoim, ljudije" (come, let’s sing, oh people) and the eighteenth “Blago jest ispovjedatsja” (Psalm 92: “It is Good to Praise the Lord”). Between these two pieces will be a performance of the seventh (and last) piece in the Kjeruvimskije pjesni (cherubic hymns) collection, entitled “Izhe Kheruvimi.”

For those that do not already know, Grace Cathedral is located at the top of Nob Hill at 1100 California Street. Tickets are available at prices between $30 and $81. They may be purchased online through a City Box Office Web page. As was announced this past August, the second concert of the season, entitled Voyages, will take place on Saturday, February 15, beginning at 7:30 p.m.

The Lab, 8 p.m.: Croatian Amor is the solo alias of Loke Rahbek, who will be visiting from Copenhagen. He will present a live ambient electronic set. This will be preceded by two sets by local performers affiliated with the Internet radio station HydeFM, Optia and Notes of Moss. For those that do not already know, The Lab is located in the Mission at 2948 16th Street. This is particularly convenient for those using public transportation, since it is a short walk to the corner of 16th Street and Mission Street. Busses stop at that corner for both north-south and east-west travel, and downstairs there is a station for the BART line running under Mission Street. Doors will open half an hour in advance. Other programs planned for the month of November, all beginning at 8 p.m., are as follows:

Natacha Diels (from her Web page for The Lab)

• November 14: “Somewhere Beautiful,” an audiovisual composition by Natacha Diels; avant-jazz solo trumpet augmented by sensory electronics, performed by Steph Richards; amplified oboe set by Kyle Bruckmann
• November 15: [added 10/23, 3:25 p.m.: Clarissa Bitar will present a night of Palestinian and Arab electronic music, playing oud alongside multi-instrumentalist Peter Mansour and vocalist Lara Aburamandan; the opening set will be taken by vocalist Lalin St. Juste.]
  
• November 16: Music for a Bellowing Room, a collaborative durational work by musician Sarah Davachi and filmmaker Dicky Bahto
• November 20: the first duo performance by Lynn Avery and Cole Pulice, which will straddle acoustic and digital spaces; Wendy Eisenberg’s program of song forms and improvised excursions taken from her newest album Viewfinder