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!