Primavera to Bring Holiday Sprit to the Cadillac

This year the Holiday Spirit will get under way at the Cadillac Hotel at the end of next week. However, an even more celebratory occasion is that this month will mark the anniversary of that meticulously restored 1884 Model D Steinway concert grand in the lobby, whose original soundboard is still intact. In fact, the Steinway Factory has a certificate that the piano was first put on sale in November of 1884. Mind you, the piano has been in that lobby only since 2007; but one can still celebrate the “vintage” of its origin!

Dave Casini playing his vibraphone at the Cadillac Hotel during a performance on August 19, 2022, joined by Al Standford (congas), John Watson (piano) and Paul Smith (bass) (from the YouTube video of the entire concert)

This occasion will be marked by the return of the Primavera Latin Jazz Band, which made its last appearance a little over a year ago in September of 2023. Once again the group will be led from that Patricia Walkup Memorial Piano in the lobby by Lena Johnson. Dave Casini will “respond” to the “call” of her chromatic keyboard work with his vibraphone performance. Rhythm will again be provided by Paul Smith on bass and Jeff McNish on guitar. Bob Blankenship will also return, performing on both congas and his drum kit.

As usual, this show will begin at 1 p.m. on Friday, November 22. The Cadillac Hotel is located at 380 Eddy Street, on the northeast corner of Leavenworth Street. All Concerts at the Cadillac events are presented without charge. The purpose of the series is to provide high-quality music to the residents of the hotel and the Tenderloin District; but all are invited to visit the venue that calls itself “The House of Welcome Since 1907.”

Trifonov Shifts Attention from Europe to Americas

Pianist Daniil Trifonov has been a regular visitor to San Francisco, both as concerto soloist and recitalist, over the course of several years. This coming February, he will return to Davies Symphony Hall as soloist in a performance of Sergei Prokofiev’s Opus 18 (second) piano concerto in G minor with the San Francisco Symphony. In addition, this site has tried to keep up with his Deutsche Grammophon recordings, the most recent of which was Bach: The Art of Life, a “family portrait” that juxtaposed works by Johann Sebastian Bach with selections by four of his sons.

Daniil Trifonov on the cover of his latest album (courtesy of Crossover Media)

Trifonov’s latest album takes him across the Atlantic Ocean, so to speak. It is the first of two releases both under the title My American Story. The subtitle for that first release is North, and it offers an impressively diverse account of music composed in the United States. Taken as a whole, it amounts to an engaging account of how music was being made during the twentieth century.

The breadth of that diversity can be oriented around the two concerto selections on the album, each reflecting a different perspective across the two centuries. The first of these is George Gershwin’s “Concerto in F” (originally given the title “New York Concerto”). Following the success of “Rhapsody in Blue,” the conductor Walter Damrosch commissioned Gershwin to compose a full-scale piano concerto for his New York Symphony Orchestra. “Rhapsody in Blue” has been composed for solo piano and jazz band, but it was subsequently prepared for orchestral performance by Ferde Grofé. The concerto, on the other hand, is entirely a product of Gershwin’s own efforts.

A little less than a century later, Mason Bates composed his first piano concerto. It was written for Trifonov and given its first performance in January of 2022. It was co-commissioned by Trifonov and the Philadelphia Orchestra, with whom he played the work’s debut. The recording of that concerto on North was made with that same ensemble led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who has been the ensemble’s music director since 2012.

I feel as if I have been following Bates’ work for almost as long as I have been writing on this site. Unless I am mistaken, that dates back to the spring of 2009, when Michael Tilson Thomas conducted Bates’ “The B-Sides” with the San Francisco Symphony. It took me a while to get used to him (which may be the same for any thoughts he may have had when reading what I wrote about him); but I came away from listening to his concerto with the sense that he had approached it with more security than Gershwin had brought to his “parallel” effort. Indeed, I can confess that my very first impression of Bates leaned towards “enfant terrible;” but the firm and secure hand he brought to composing for both piano and ensemble is a far cry from either of those words!

All the other selections on this first My American Story album are solo performances. I must confess that I was particularly taken with the tracks that involved arrangements of popular tunes by leading pianists from each half of the twentieth century. The earlier of these was one of the most influential musicians (who happened to play piano) of his time, Art Tatum. The second could be said the same for his time, the pianist being Bill Evans. In listening to these tracks, one can easily detect Trifonov’s appreciation of both of those jazz masters. That appreciation also extends to the final track on the album, which is “4’33”,” John Cage’s “silent” composition. On the other hand his approach to the more “serious” composers, such as Aaron Copland, John Adams, and John Corigliano, struck me as more dutiful than engaging; but that is probably just because I am not shy in voicing personal opinions!

SFCMP to Begin Season with Myths and Muses

Mezzo Kindra Schirach, guest artist for this month’s SFCMP concert (from the Web page for the event)

Readers may recall that the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players (SFCMP) and Artistic Director Eric Dudley announced the programs that will be presented during their 54th concert season this past July. That season will begin on the last Sunday of this month, November 24. The title of the program will be Myths & Muses, and the guest artist will be mezzo Kindra Schirach.

The world premiere selection will be “Mother Eve,” composed by Emma Logan on an SFCMP commission supported in part by a grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission. There will be one West Coast premiere, “Terpsichore’s Box of Dreams,” completed by Augusta Read Thomas last year. The remaining works on the program will be Bay Area premiers: “Moerae (The Fates),” composed by Mary Kouyoumdjian in 2010 and Laura Schwendinger’s “The Artist’s Muse,“ completed in 2017.

This performance will begin at 4 p.m. on Sunday, November 24 at the Brava Theater, which is located in the Mission at 2781 24th Street.

The Bleeding Edge: 11/11/2024

All previously reported events for this week will be taking place at The Lab on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday; specifics for the remaining events, which will take place on those same days of the week, are as follows:

Thursday, November 14, Gray Area Art and Technology, 7 p.m.: The program will be an evening of experimental electronic music produced by Lusine, Arms and Sleepers, and Yppah. For those that have not previously visited the venue, it is located at 2665 Mission Street, between 22nd Street and 23rd Street. Gray Area has created a Web page for advance ticket purchases for $29.68. Admission at the door will be $35.18.

Thursday, November 14, Peacock Lounge, 8 p.m.: This will be the usual three-hour show consisting of four sets. The opening (or possibly closing) set will be taken by James Goode, who makes his music through tape manipulation and electronics. Each of the remaining three sets is associated with one of the usual cryptic names: lucie R., Newcomer Can’t Swim, and Rot Diet.

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.

Friday, November 15, Medicine for Nightmares, 7 p.m.: Mystery School is the duo of saxophonists Phillip Greenlief and David Boyce, the latter being the host of the weekly Other Dimensions in Sound series on Friday evenings. 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.

Poster design of Joyce Todd McBride (left) with her Dream Kitchen colleagues (from the BayImproviser Web page for this performance)

Saturday, November 16, Bird & Beckett Books and Records, 8:30 p.m.: Dream Kitchen is a local jazz ensemble led by pianist and composer Joyce Todd McBride. This will be a quartet performance, whose other members will be saxophonist Jeff Kaszubinski, Todd Larson on bass, and drummer Jeff Pera. 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. 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. This performance will also be live-streamed through a hyperlink on the Bird & Beckett Web page while the show is in progress.

SFS Chamber Music: BWV 988 as String Trio

Yesterday afternoon in Davies Symphony Hall, the musicians of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) presented their first chamber music recital of the season. The most recent work on the program, with the intriguing title “Till Eulenspiegel einmal anders!” (Till Eulenspiegel, one more time!), had to be dropped (without explanation). However, there was more to enjoy in the early twentieth century of Maurice Ravel and the eighteenth-century “bookends” of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at the beginning and Johann Sebastian Bach concluding.

For me the high point came at the conclusion of the program with a performance of Bach’s BWV 988 set of keyboard variations usually known as the “Goldberg” variations. This was performed by the trio of violinist Melissa Kleinbart, violist Katarzyna Bryla (Joanne E. Harrington & Larry I. Lokey Second Century Chair at SFS), and cellist Amos Yang in an arrangement by Dmitry Sitkovetsky. I shall always remember when András Schiff included this in a series of recitals he brought to Davies in 2018, when he emphasized in his notes for the program book, “Always follow the bass line.” In that context, it stuck me that the “leadership” of this performance resided in Yang’s cello performance, rather than Kleinbart’s “melodic” offerings. Nevertheless, this realization of elaborate keyboard polyphony was decidedly an act of equal priorities for all three of the players. What mattered most was the diversity of “thematic voices” among those players, all guided by that “fundamental” bass line.

Photograph by Fred Ernst of Lavinia Meijer playing a harp on which colored strings identify the C and G pitches (from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license)

The most diverse sonorities came from the Ravel selection, his “Introduction and Allegro” composed in 1905. This featured a harp (Katherine Siochi) performing with two winds (Blair Francis Paponiu on flute and clarinetist Matthew Griffith) and a string quartet of violinists Jessie Fellows and Olivia Chen, Leonid Plashinov-Johnson on viola, and cellist Anne Richardson. I have long been familiar with this music through recordings; and I still remember my “close-up” encounter with the instrument when Meredith Clark played it with One Found Sound. However, even at the greater distance afforded by Davies, I could still appreciate the delicate polyphony woven by this diverse collection of instrumental sonorities.

The program began with a delightfully whimsical undertaking. The music was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 265 set of variations on “Ah vous dirai-je, Maman” (a theme better known in this country as both the “Alphabet Song” and “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”). Mozart composed this as a piano solo. However, violist Bryla arranged the music as a duo, which she performed with SFS Principal Viola Jonathan Vinocour. The two of them found just the right rhetorical stance to bring freshness to an all-too-familiar tune.

If yesterday’s program had to be abridged, it still emerged as a thoroughly engaging afternoon.

Sony Releases Feuermann Cello Anthology

A photograph of Emanuel Feuermann from the Thirties (from the book Forty years history NHK Symphony Orchestra, published in Tokyo in 1967, author unknown, from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

This month began will the latest “anthology” release by Sony Classics. Emanuel Feuermann – The Complete RCA Album Collection consists of only seven CDs. This is a relatively modest offering, particularly when compared with cellists such as Pablo Casals and  Gregor Piatigorsky. However, we must bear in mind that Feuermann was only 39 when he died on May 25, 1942, the victim of negligence during an operation.

As a result, the repertoire covered by this collection is seriously limited. Nevertheless, it accounts for performances by Feuermann with three major colleagues from the last century. As might be guessed, the first among those colleagues was Jascha Heifetz, who appears on five of the CDs, four of which account for chamber music performances that also include pianist Arthur Rubinstein. The other Heifetz collaboration is for Johannes Brahms’ Opus 102 “double” concerto in A minor with Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra. As might be guessed, the other significant partner is violist William Primrose, who joins Feuermann and Heifetz in a recording of Ernst von Dohnányi’s C major serenade, as well as accounting for the WoO 32 “Duet with 2 Obbligato Eyeglasses” by Ludwig van Beethoven and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 563 divertimento for violin, viola, and cello in E-flat major.

While the last of the seven CDs beings with Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 58 (second) sonata for piano and cello in D major, performed with Rudolf Serkin, the remaining tracks amount to “encore” selections.” Two of those offerings are Feuermann’s own arrangements. The first of these is a cello-piano account of the first two movements of George Frederick Handel’s HWV 291 organ concerto in G minor. The other, ironically, involves music originally composed for cello and piano, Frédéric Chopin’s Opus 3 “Introduction and Polonaise brillante” in C major.

As might be expected, the author(s) of Feuermann’s Wikipedia page could not avoid writing about Casals. I suspect that the primary “take-away” quotation from that page takes its source from Rubinstein:

He became for me the greatest cellist of all times, because I did hear Pablo Casals at his best. He (Casals) had everything in the world, but he never reached the musicianship of Feuermann. And this is a declaration.

I suspect that Rubinstein was not the only one to praise the cellist when both of them were alive. More telling, however, may be the account of Annette Morreau’s biography of Feuermann, which cites that, after Feuermann died, it took Heifetz seven years before returning to chamber music which he then performed with Piatigorsky.

NACUSAsf Returns to Sunset Music and Arts

Poster design for this year’s NACUSAsf concert (from its Eventbrite Web page)

To paraphrase the libretto for Porgy and Bess by DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin, news from Sunset Music and Arts seems to be “a sometime thing.” Nevertheless, there are signs that the annual concert of new works composed under the auspices of the San Francisco chapter of the National Association of Composers/USA (NACUSAsf) seems to have established a niche for itself in the calendar for programs presented by Sunset Music and Arts. The composers for this year’s program will present music for mixed ensembles of flute (Jessie Nucho), cello (Victoria Ehrlich), piano (Paul Dab), and soprano (Sarita Cannon). As of this writing, those composers will be Dinah Bianchi, Monica Chew, I’lana Cotton, Brian Field, Douglas Ovens, Alex Shapira, Allen Shearer, and Davide Verotta.

As was the case last year, this performance will take place in the Sunset district at the Episcopal Church of the Incarnation, located at 1750 29th Avenue, about halfway between Moraga Street and Noriega Street. It will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 23. Ticket prices are $25 for general admission with a $20 rate for students and seniors. Because the demand tends to be high, advance purchase is highly advised. Tickets may be purchased online through Eventbrite. Further information may be obtained by calling 415-564-2324.

SFCM New Music Ensemble: Armer and Milhaud

Elinor Armer began teaching composition at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) in 1975, which means that next year will mark her 50th anniversary in that capacity, when she is scheduled to retire. Last night the SFCM New Music Ensemble, led by Artistic Director Nicole Paiement, began its program with three of the movements in Armer’s A Book of Songs with mezzo Mariya Kaganskaya accompanied at the piano by Sam Zefreh. This was all one heard of her music over the course of the evening; but it was compensated by considerable attention to one of her memorable composition teachers, Darius Milhaud.

Much of the evening was devoted to the first three of six compositions Milhaud entitled Symphonie de chambre: Opus 43, given the subtitle, “Le printemps” (the spring), Opus 49, “Pastorale,” and Opus 71, “Sérénade.” Each of these involved a one-to-a-part ensemble of moderate size, making for a thoroughly engaging experience of diverse sonorities. One might say that this made the evening “worth the price of admission;” but this was a free event, which I experienced through a livestream! In that latter capacity it is worth noting that, for the most part, the camera placement enhanced the ability of the viewer to appreciate Milhaud’s approaches to mixing sonorities.

Nicole Paiement conducting Elizabeth Gaitan, Sam Zefreh, Alina Kwon, Katie Rusalov, Zoe King, Kian Forgey, and Kyle Ko in the SFCM performance of David Garner’s “Viñetas Flamencas” (screen shot from the video of last night’s performance)

The other SFCM faculty member represented on the program was Armer’s colleague in the Composition Department, David Garner. The final selection was his “Viñetas Flamencas,” a six-movement suite for wind quintet, soprano, and piano. Zefreh was again the pianist, performing with the wind quintet of Alina Kwon (flute), Katie Rusalov (oboe), Zoe King (clarinet), Ian Forgey (bassoon), and Kyle Ko (horn). The soprano was Elizabeth Gaitan. This was as engaging as the chamber symphonies, and the only other work on the program that was particularly memorable.

The other selections on the program were also vocal. These were “Cosmic Love III” by Alexsandra Vrebalov and “It Disappears” from Dâryuš Makâni’s The Disappearance of Ava Morgan. Both of them are SFCM alumni who presumably had encountered Armer as a teacher. Sadly, neither of their offerings were particularly memorable.

Joe Fonda to Release New Quartet Album

Some readers may recall that I first became aware of bassist and composer Joe Fonda through my commitment to keep up with the albums released by the highly adventurous jazz pianist Satoko Fujii. Sadly, my most recent encounter dates all the way back to April of 2022, when Fujii and Fonda jointly released their Thread of Light album. However, this past September I learned that they would be releasing a new quartet album entitled Eyes on the Horizon on Long Song Records; and that album is now available for pre-ordering both the compact disc and digital download through a Bandcamp Web page. The release date will be this coming Friday, November 15.

Wadada Leo Smith, Joe Fonda, Satoko Fujii, and Tiziano Tononi (photograph by David Apuzzo, from the Bandcamp Web page for this album)

Fonda conceived this seven-track album as a tribute to trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith. Smith performs on this new Eyes on the Horizon album along with drummer Tiziano Tononi joining Fonda and Fujii. Fonda serves as leader of the quartet providing composed content that allows an abundance of opportunities of improvising. Nevertheless, there is frequently (but not always) a restrained rhetoric, which allows Fonda a fair amount of flexibility in his bass work. However, Smith tends to lead the way with his trumpet phrases; and Fujii tends to support Smith’s leadership with more keyboard restraint than I usually encounter!

Where jazz is concerned, I tend to associate the adjective “cerebral” with jazz artists such as Andrew Hill and those that sail under his flag. Nevertheless, there is an intense focus among Fonda and his quartet colleagues that comes across as just as cerebral as Hill’s approaches to improvisation and invention. Furthermore, there is a haunting sense of quietude that allows the attentive listener to appreciate the abundance of angels in all of the details. This is an album that is likely to reward over the course of many listening encounters.

Volti Plans Adventurous 46th Season

In a little over a week, the Volti vocal ensemble will present the first of the three concerts in its 46th season. Founding Artistic Director Robert Geary has described the season as “a bold exploration of the intersections between humanity, electronics, and the environment.” It will also be a season of collaboration, continuing its ongoing partnership with the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble. The dates of performances in San Francisco will be as follows, along with a summary of the currently available specifics for each program.

Poster design for the first concert in Volti’s 46th season (from the Season 46 Web page)

Monday, November 18, 7 p.m., Noe Valley Ministry: The title of the program is Electronics & New Music. The “new” will be the world premiere of Anne Hege’s “Becoming Within,” which was composed for a Volti commission. There will also be a world premiere performance of Victoria Fraser’s “Lux Aeterna.” Furthermore, there will be a “world premiere preview” of two movements from Mark Winges’ cantata Guardians of Yggdrasil, based on a libretto by Lisa Delan. The program will also include the “four seasons” cycle by Kaija Saariaho entitled Tag des Jahrs, and Angélica Negrón’s four-movement suite FONO. As most readers probably know by now, the venue is located in Noe Valley at 1021 Sanchez Street; and a Web page has been created for online ticket purchases.

Saturday, February 1, 7:30 p.m., Noe Valley Ministry: The performance of On The Threshold of Dreamland will be a collaboration with the instrumentalists of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble. Both ensembles jointly commissioned a new work by LJ White, whose title has not yet been announced but will be given its world premiere performance. There will also be a premiere performance of a new work by Todd Kitchen entitled “Soprasymmetry IV,” composed on a commission by the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University. Other contributing composers will be Huang Ruo (“Without Words”) and Laurie San Martin (“Witches”). The program will also include a selection of Benjamin Britten’s arrangements of folk songs. A Web page has again been created for online ticket purchases.

Sunday, June 8, 3 p.m.: Ticketing information has not yet been finalized, and that includes the venue. The title of the program is Environmentalism in Music. The major work on the program will be the completed version of Guardians of Yggdrasil. There will also be a reprise performance of Caroline Shaw’s “Ochre.”

E4TT at Old First Concerts

Poster design for last night’s E4TT performance (from the Old First Concerts event page)

Last night Ensemble for These Times (E4TT) pianist Margaret Halbig presented a program entitled In Motion at Old First Concerts. She performed with three guest artists: Laura Reynolds, alternating between oboe and English horn, violinist Lylia Guion, and Megan Chartier on cello. Each half of the program began with a selection from the twentieth century. Chartier and Halbig got things started with the “Moto perpetuo” movement from Benjamin Britten’s Opus 65, his only cello sonata. Halbig opened the second half with a solo performance, the “Moto perpetuo” movement from York Bowen’s Opus 39 Suite mignonne. All remaining works were composed between 2008 and the “immediate present,” including with the world premiere performance of “And I Made My Way, Deciphering That Fire” by Ursula Kwong-Brown.

While this was, at least on the surface, a promising program, the event itself left much to be desired. There was too much of a sense of one you-know-what thing after another. When I reviewed the notes I jotted on my program sheet last night, I was confronted with “too long,” “repetitive forms too hypnotic,” and “plodding.” In other words there was very little by way of effort from composers and/or performers to seize attention and then sustain it. Under such circumstances, it is hard to determine whether this was a problem of the contributing composers (other than Britten and Bowen), all living and active, or of the performers not “getting” what those composers had in mind.

E4TT was just not up to the standards it had established in past performances.

Late Celebration of Major Schoenberg Birthday

Arnold Schoenberg was born on September 13, 1874. This means that, a little less than two months ago marked the 150th anniversary of his birth. Sadly, this passed, for the most part, with little (if any) notice. The only sign of attention seems to have come from Pentatone, which announced the “forthcoming” release of a commemorative (of sorts) album. “Forthcoming” means that the album is scheduled for one week from today. However, Amazon.com has already created a Web page which will accept pre-orders.

Conductor Rafael Payare on the cover of the album being discussed (from the Amazon.com Web page)

That album consisted of two performances by the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal led by its Music Director Rafael Payare. Considering the many stages in Schoenberg’s life in which he explored imaginatively different approaches to composition, this “commemorative” album confined itself to the first of the composer’s three principal explorations. This was the period in which Schoenberg took the sprawling expressionism of the symphonies of Gustav Mahler as a point of departure and decided to distill it into shorter (and, therefore, more intense) durations.

Payare selected two of those “distillations” for his album. The better known of them is the Opus 4 “Verklärte Nacht” (transfigured night), a tone poem composed in 1899, first conceived as a string sextet, which was then “extended” into a full string orchestra. The composition took its title from a poem of the same name by Richard Dehmel. This involves a man and woman in a dark forest lit only by the moon. She confesses that she is carrying the child of a previous lover; but her new companion is sympathetic, vowing to treat the child as his own. The nighttime setting is thus “transfigured” as is expressed in the final line of the poem, whose English translation is “Two people walk on through the high, bright night.”

I suspect that many listeners know Schoenberg only through this one composition. It was followed by the Opus 5 tone poem “Pelleas und Melisande,” whose narrative is based on the full-length play Pelléas and Mélisande by Maurice Maeterlinck. When Schoenberg began work on this piece in 1902, he was unaware that Debussy was composing an opera based on Maeterlinck’s play.

If the protagonists in “Verklärte Nacht” advance into a “high, bright night,” the “Pelleas” narrative is an unremitting descent into darkness that concludes with Melisande’s death. In Opus 5 Schoenberg departs from the usual path of a narrative with thematic progressions that “stray from the path” and wander into ambiguity. While the ambiguity of the narrative is resolved when Melisande dies, the “thematic defocusing” persists in the music.

My guess is that Opus 5 took a lot out of Schoenberg. I would further guess that many listeners come away from the experience with the same feeling. That may explain why, on this new Pentatone album, Payare decided to have Opus 5 precede Opus 4. Opus 5 is the more unsettling of the two, both in narrative and in the ambiguous harmonic progressions. Perhaps because it is more familiar to more listeners, Opus 4 is there to “smooth things out” after all that ambiguity in both music and narrative.

On the personal side, however, I think that, in spite of my interest in Schoenberg’s music from all of his periods, this was my first encounter with Opus 5. As a result, it provided what amounted to “a new light” on the composer’s earliest published efforts. I salute Payare for selecting his for this “anniversary” album; but I must confess to being more than a little disappointed that other albums have not emerged reflecting the other stages in Schoenberg’s journey as a composer.

Choices for November 17, 2024

Hopefully, readers will be aware by now that we are about to enter the first “busy weekend” of the new season. Where the following weekend is concerned, however, it appears that choices will be limited to Sunday. However, the only real choice will be the overlap of events at 4 p.m., which will be preceded earlier in the day with this month’s Third Sunday Series Mass Setting at the Church of the Advent of Christ the King. Specifics are as follows:

11 a.m., Church of the Advent of Christ the King: This month’s Mass setting at Church of the Advent will be the Opus 83 “Missa Brevis” by Josef Rheinberger, which will be led by Director of Music Dr. Paul Ellison. As is always the case at this venue, the movements of the composition will be interleaved with the prayers and readings that are part of the Sunday service. For those that do not yet know, the venue is located at 261 Fell Street, between Franklin Street and Gough Street. The entry is diagonally across the street from the SFJAZZ Center. This is an inclusive parish of the Episcopal Church in the Anglo-Catholic tradition. Those wishing further information may call 415-431-0454. For those planning to drive, free parking will be available in the gravel lot behind the church on Hickory Street.

4 p.m., Chez Hanny: The first Chez Hanny program of the month will be performed by GX3. This is the name of the trio led by Giulio Xavier Cetto, who plays both acoustic and electric bass. Cetto last performed at Chez Hanny a little less than a month ago, on October 13. For his return, he will play acoustic bass to lead a trio, whose other members will be pianist Morgan Harrison and Miles Turk on drums.

The “house” for this house concert is located at 1300 Silver Avenue. This is best reached by public transportation by taking the Muni 44 bus going east from Glen Park Station. For those thinking of driving, parking tends to be available on Silver Avenue, Silliman Street, one block south of Silver, and Holyoke Street, which connects Silver and Silliman.

Balourdet Quartet members Justin DeFilippis, Russell Houston, Angela Bae, and Benjamin Zannoni (from the Noe Music event page for this performance)

4 p.m., Noe Valley Ministry: Noe Music Mainstage will present the Balourdet Quartet, whose members are violinists Angela Bae and Justin DeFilippis, Benjamin Zannoni on viola, and cellist Russell Houston. This will be their San Francisco debut, following up on spending the week at Stanford University for the Emerging String Quartet Program. Program specifics have not yet been announced.

This event is expected to last about two hours. General admission will be $45 with a special $60 rate for reserved seating in the first few rows. Students will be admitted for $15. A Web page has been created for ordering tickets online.

Pianist Conrad Tao Returns to Davies

Last night conductor Nicholas Collon made his debut conducting the San Francisco Symphony, but San Francisco also saw the return of one of the more interesting pianists I have encountered over the course of my writing. That pianist is Conrad Tao, who made his SFS debut in February of 2008. I first came to know him through San Francisco Performances, both with the JACK Quartet and as part of the Junction Trio, performing with violinist Stefan Jackiw and cellist Jay Campbell. I also began following his recordings in February of 2012, although the most recent album I covered was American Rage, which dates back about five years.  Those past encounters all involved “bleeding edge” repertoire; so last night I was more than a little surprised that Tao’s concerto selection was Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 23 (first) piano concerto in B-flat minor (one of those warhorses that consistently “leads the pack”).

Personally, I was delighted to see that Tao was as comfortable playing Tchaikovsky as he has been with composers such as Frederic Rzewski. His chemistry with Collon could not have been better, and Associate Principal Anne Richardson’s cello solo in the Andantino semplice movement added to the freshness of the overall listening experience. Most important was that all of the performing musicians knew exactly how to capture the full richness of Tchaikovsky’s rhetoric without ever going over the top into bombast. This made for a refreshing listening experience, rather than a here-we-go-agin reaction.

As expected, Tao followed up on his concerto performance with an encore. This one was just as familiar as the concerto (if not more so). He played Harold Arlen’s “Over the Rainbow.” Familiar as this was, his approach could not have been more virtuosic. He took his interpretation from a 1958 recording made by Art Tatum. I often wonder whether or not, during his time in Los Angeles, Tatum had any encounters with Rachmaninoff; but I suspect that the latter tended to keep his distance from the jazz world! Nevertheless, Tatum’s capacity for embellishment was just as rich, and Tao delivered a solid account of that richness in every phrase of the Arlen tune.

Photograph of Edward Elgar, probably taken not long after the completion of “Enigma Variations” (unknown photographer, from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

The second half of the program, usually allotted to a symphony, was devoted entirely to Edward Elgar’’s Opus 36, best known under the title “Enigma Variations.” Elgar dedicated this composition “to my friends pictured within.” Each of the variations is a character sketch with a cryptic title. As is usually the case, the program book “decoded” all of those titles. (Frederic Ashton did one better by bringing them to life as characters in his ballet “Enigma Variations (My Friends Pictured Within).”) The performance involved another engaging solo turn, this time by Principal Viola Jonathan Vinocour in the “Dorabella” variation. Collon’s command of the overall journey through the fourteen variations could not have been more engaging.

The only disappointment of the evening came at the beginning. Three-piece Suite consists of three excerpts from Thomas Adès opera Powder Her Face rearranged for large ensemble. I have been writing about Adès on this site since 2009. He has an intellectual side that challenges the mind, but that does not necessary result in an engaging listening experience. Since the opera is based on a sex scandal, one would have expected some degree of shock value in its realization through music; but last night’s excerpts never rose about the level of trivially ludicrous. Over the past decades, Adès may have been viewed by many as the “composer of the future;” but, as the old joke goes, that time has passed.

Next Clerestory Program Inspired by Bridges

The western section of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge photographed by a DJI Mavic Air 2 Drone (photograph by InvadingInvader, from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license)

Most readers do not need to be reminded that bridges play a major role in the San Francisco Bay Area. Indeed, I still remember that, on my first visit to San Francisco (with my parents because my father was attending a conference), we took our rented car on the “circuit” that consisted of the Golden Gate Bridge, the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, and the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge. In should therefore be no surprise that the Clerestory vocal chamber ensemble should organize their first performance of the season around a program given the full title Bridges: Music Connecting Places & Times.

As of this writing, full program details have not yet been announced. Nevertheless, contributing composers have already been identified. These include those from the early period of music history, such as Josquin des Prez, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell, the twentieth century (Sergei Rachmaninoff and Arvo Pärt), and living composers, such as Steven Stucky. Lesser-known composers will include, from the past, Sigismondo d’India (a contemporary of Claudio Monteverdi) and Tiburtio Massaino (a Roman friar), and, from the present, Jung Jai-Il (who has provided the music for video games) and Abbie Betinis.

The San Francisco performance of this program will take place and the end of next week on Saturday, November 16, beginning at 8 p.m. The venue will be the Noe Valley Ministry, which is located at 1021 Sanchez Street, between 23rd Street and Elizabeth Street. Tickets may be purchased through an Eventbrite Web page with prices of $35 for general admission, $25 for seniors, and $5 for students.

Dynamite Guitars Offering 2nd November Recital

Russian guitarist Artyom Dervoed (courtesy of the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts)

Readers probably know by now that the next guitar recital to be presented by the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts will see the return of Yamandu Costa, who plays a seven-string instrument, this coming Sunday. However, they may need to be reminded that the next DYNAMITE GUITARS offering will take place less than a week later. The following Saturday, November 16, will see the San Francisco debut of Russian virtuoso Artyom Dervoed, previously cited at the “Paganini of the guitar.”

The program for this recital has now been finalized. The major work on the program will be the fourteen-movement suite Castillos de España by Federico Moreno Torroba. As might be guessed, each of those movements reflects impressions on a different Spanish castle. This suite will conclude the first half of the program, and the second half will be concluded by the second guitar sonata composed by Nikita Koshkin in three movements. The program will begin with the “Elogio de la Danza” by Leo Brouwer. The second half of the program will open with a virtuosic undertaking by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, his “Capriccio Diabolico,” composed as an homage to the violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini. This will be followed by a solo guitar arrangement of one of Maurice Ravel’s best-known piano compositions, his “Pavane pour une infante défunte.”

As usual, this recital will begin at 7:30 p.m., taking place on Saturday, November 16. The venue will be St. Mark’s Lutheran Church at 1111 O’Farrell Street, which is just west of the corner of Franklin Street. General admission will be $60, and all tickets may be purchased through a City Box Office Web page.

Reviving a Major Andrew Hill Album (+ Bonus)

It was during my time in Palo Alto in the late Nineties that I began to put serious effort into building up a collection of jazz recordings. Much of the effort was due to the limited-edition box sets released by Mosaic Records. Sadly, I no longer remember the chronology of my acquisitions of those albums. My guess is that I began with the two boxes of Roulette recordings of Count Basie, one in studio and the other “live.”

When it came to “adventurous discovery,” however, the collection that really drew my attention was The Complete Blue Note Andrew Hill Sessions (1963–66). There were cerebral qualities about the tracks he recorded for Blue Note; but they also disclosed visceral qualities that had been pathetically lacking in the “third stream” efforts of composers such as Gunther Schuller, Milton Babbitt, and Harold Shapero. Hill continued to record with Blue Note on and off into the Nineties, with a release in 1991 entitled But Not Farewell. After about a decade, he released two albums on Palmetto, Dusk and A Beautiful Day.

Cover of the album being discussed

Recently, Palmetto released a “revival” of A Beautiful Day entitled A Beautiful Day, Revisited. What impressed me was that all of the musicians on the new release had contributed to the recording of the original version. All eight of the original tracks have been dutifully “revisited;” and a ninth track has been added “for good measure,” a “second look” at the “A Beautiful Day” track entitled “A Beautiful Day (Thursday).” If I can believe the dates in the accompanying booklet, “A Beautiful Day (Thursday)” is the only “new” track, while all of the eight originals were re-mixed by Matt Balitsaris in October of last year.

This new release reminded me of how absorbed I could get in the tracks of the Mosaic collection. I used to joke about telling the difference between jazz as “chamber music by other means” and chamber music as “jazz by other means.” Those of us that know about Venn diagrams know that they were conceived to illustrate how different collections would overlap. Suffice it to say that Hill occupied securely an area that shared the best qualities of both chamber music and jazz. I expect that I shall spend many future hours exploring the different regions of A Beautiful Day, Revisited; and it would not surprise me if Hill took up more of my time than Arnold Schoenberg.

SFJAZZ: November, 2024

Readers probably know by now that, where the SFJAZZ Center is concerned, I have found that the Joe Henderson Lab is the only venue that is conducive to attentive listening. Between that constraint and the constraints of my other activities, there has been a significant attrition in my attendance. Nevertheless, I feel that the performers of Henderson concerts deserve attention, particularly for those readers that have adventurous tastes. 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. Performance dates, times, and hyperlinks for purchasing tickets are as follows:

Thursday, November 7, 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.: This week there will be a series of concerts entitled Traditions in Transition. Presumably, this involves a contemporary take on different aspects of jazz history. The first program in this series will be performed by bassist and vocalist Mali Obomsawin, who is an Abenaki from Odanak First Nation. Her college education took place at Dartmouth College, where she studied with Taylor Ho Bynam. For those that to not know (or have forgotten) their American History, Dartmouth was one of nine colonial colleges chartered prior to the American Revolution. Its campus now includes the Hopkins Center for the Arts, which is a major creative and performing arts facility. Obomsawin’s latest album is entitled Sweet Tooth, and it will be the source of the selections performed. Any other contributing performers have not yet been announced.

Friday, November 8, 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.: The next Traditions in Transition performer will be Stephanie Chou, another vocalist that is also an instrumentalist. Her approach to performing involves combining traditional Chinese music and classical influences with traditional jazz and pop sources. Her selections will also be taken from a recently-released album, Asymptote. On that album she was accompanied by David Binney on saxophone(s), keyboardist John Escreet, and Kenny Wollensen on drums. Presumably, they will be joining her for these performances, which will mark her SFJAZZ debut.

Saturday, November 9, 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.: Mark de Clive-Lowe will give a solo performance on piano, electronics, and other keyboards. His style has been described as a blend of “cutting-edge electronics, classic funk, and percussion-heavy global influences.” However, those interested in exploring that style should be notified in advance that this will be a “dance floor” show, meaning that it will be standing (or dancing) room only.

Sunday, November 10, 3 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.: The Alaya Project began as a trio of saxophonist Prasant Radhakrishnan, Rohan Krishnamurthy on percussion, and keyboardist Colin Hogan. Like Chou, they take an approach of synthesis, this time interleaving Carnatic Indian music with jazz and funk riffs. For these performances, they will be joined by vocalist Roopa Mahadevan, along with Cory Combs on bass.

Thursday, November 14, 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.: The following week will be devoted to a series of four different programs led by pianist Adam Shulman, the first of which will be an intimate duo performance with saxophonist Noel Jewkes, who was one of Shulman’s mentors.

Friday, November 15, 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.: For his second program Shulman will lead a sextet with two saxophonists, Jesse Levit on alto and Patrick Wolff on tenor, trumpeter Mike Olmos,  and rhythm provided by Eric Markowitz on bass and drummer James Gallagher.

Saturday, November 16, 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.: Shulman will shift over to a Hammond B3 organ for his third program, in which he will lead a trio of Jack “Tone” Riordan on guitar and drummer Mark Ferber. [added 11/12, 9:20 a.m.:

Sunday, November 17, 6 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.: Shulman will conclude the week performing with his Standards Trio, whose other members are John Wiitala on bass and drummer Smith Dobson.]

Thursday, November 21, 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.: The title of this week’s programs is Sing, Sing, Sing II. meaning that each of the three programs will feature a different vocalist. (Unless I am mistaken, the “first installment” of an all-vocal week took place this past February.) The first vocalist will be Marina Crouse, who performed a sold-out salute to Eydie Gormé during that February series. This time she will honor Ernestine Anderson with selections from that vocalist’s 1980 Concord Jazz album Never Make Your Move Too Soon.

Friday, November 22, 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.: Singer and songwriter Jimmie Herrod probably garnered the most attention for his appearance on America’s Got Talent, as well as the AGT All-Stars follow-up. He has also performed with the San Francisco Symphony, probably in conjunction with one of the visiting performances to a pops concert by Pink Martini. He has not yet released further information about his visit to Henderson.

Vocalist Stella Heath (from the SFJAZZ event page for her performances this month)

Saturday, November 23, 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., and Sunday, November 24, 6 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.: The final Sing, Sing, Sing II vocalist will be Stella Heath. She will lead a sextet in a program entitled From Billie Holiday To Edith Piaf. Accordionist Rob Reich will establish just the right French flavors, while the arrangements, as a whole, will reflect the style of Django Reinhardt.

The Bleeding Edge: 11/4/2024

This week’s schedule of seven events on the Bleeding Edge is somewhat interesting. Four of them have already been reported, and the remaining three account for all of the events taking place this month at the same venue. The previously reported events are as follows:

• Wednesday, November 6, 8 p.m.: The first LSG (Luggage Store Gallery) New Music Series event of this month.
• Friday, November 8, 8 p.m.: The performance by Ensemble for These Times presented by Old First Concerts.
• Friday, November 8, 8 p.m.: The performance by Croatian Amor at The Lab.
• Sunday, November 10, 4 p.m.: The Voice of the Piano performed by Lynn Schugren for Old First Concerts.

The venue for the remaining events will be the Center for New Music (C4NM). For those that do not yet know. The Center is located at 55 Taylor Street, just north of the intersection with Market Street. Specifics are as follows:

Poster for Secret Opera (from the BayImproviser event page for this performance)

• Thursday, November 7, 7:30 p.m.: Dr. Bob (Bob Marsh) will return with Tales from The Secret Opera. Secret Opera was conceived by Marsh and David Michalak with Marsh providing the vocals and Michalak alternating among lap steel guitar, a Skatchbox, and an electric harp. They will be joined by Kersti Abrams alternating between alto saxophone and mbira, Scott Looney on piano and electronics, and clarinetist Bruce Ackley. Many readers probably already known that Ackley is also a Rova  saxophonist, and he will begin the evening with a solo improvisation.
• Friday, November 8, 7:30 p.m.: The two members of the Bent Frequency Duo Project are saxophonist Jan Berry Baker and Stuart Gerber on percussion. This will be their C4NM debut. Composers who have contributed to their repertoire include Amy Williams, Emily Koh, Robert Lemay, Judith Shatin, and George Lewis. They will also perform works by Karlheinz Stockhausen and Anne LeBaron.
• Saturday, November 9, noon: The contributing performers for the next G|O|D|W|A|F|F|L|E|N|O|I|S|E|P|A|N|C|A|K|E|S will have the usual enigmatic names: Eurostache, Liver Cancer, 4 Foot Owl, Mission Hypnotic, and Shuttered.

Specifics for admission and hyperlinks for online purchases will be found on the event pages attached to the above hyperlinks.

Chicago Deserves Better than the Burnell Duo

Anne and Mark Burnell (from the Web page for their new album)

It has been a very long time (decades) since I last visited Chicago; so I can probably be forgiven for knowing nothing about jazz vocalist Anne Burnell and her husband, pianist-vocalist Mark Burnell. The press release accompanying their latest album, This Could Be the Start of Something Big, introduces them has having “long been Chicago jazz treasures.” If that is the case, then I fear that, in my neglect of the Chicago jazz scene, I have not been missing very much.

The thirteen tracks on this recording include four Burnell originals, involving both of them. There are three tracks drawing upon songs from past musicals, one by Irving Berlin (“Isn’t This a Lovely Day” from Top Hat) and two by Frederick Loewe for My Fair Lady (“I Could Have Danced All Night”) and Camelot (“The Lusty Month of May”). For those more inclined to “straight ahead jazz,” one of the tracks serves up Clifford Brown’s “Joy Spring” with the lyrics added by Jon Hendricks. Other composers contributing to the tracks are (in order of appearance) Steve Allen, Neil Diamond, Stevie Wonder, and Dave Frishberg.

Sadly, the prevailing rhetoric across this wide diversity of compositions amounts to little more than blandness. On the positive side, both Burnells have (for the most part) a basic sense of pitch. What is missing, however, is a corresponding sense of shape in the delivery of each of these tunes. It has been a very long while since I have eaten in a restaurant that felt a need to add piped-in music; but, if places like that still exist, most of the tracks on this album would be good candidates for the piping! However, when it comes to bringing any portion of this album to the foreground, I am afraid that I was consistently disappointed.

Orphic Percussion Comes to Old First Concerts

Yesterday afternoon Old First Concerts hosted a performance by the Orphic Percussion quartet. All four of the percussionists, Sean Clark, Michael Downing, Divesh Karamchandani, and Stuart Langsam, are based in the Bay Area. Much of their repertoire is consists of commissions, and five of the seven works on the program were taken from those commissions.

The Orphic Percussion quartet playing Alexis’ Alrich’s “Muse of Fire” (screen shot from the YouTube video of yesterday’s performance)

The beneficiaries of the commissions and the titles of their works, in “order of appearance” on the program, are as follows

1. Alexis Alrich, Muse of Fire
2. Gary Heaton Smith, Rendezvous I
3. Alejandro Vinao, Stress and Flow
4. Shaun Tilburg, Series of Accidents
5. Kenneth Froelich, Stuck in Loops

The other selections on the program were “Gravity” by Marc Mellits and David Skidmore’s “Donner.” By all rights, this should have been a showcase of diversity; but, in spite of the many different instruments and variations in styles, I must confess that I found it difficult to avoid settling into an overall sense of sameness across the two-hour event.

Mind you, there was no arguing the skills of the four performers, not only in the command of their respective instruments but also their impeccable techniques of interplay where complex polyrhythms were involved. Furthermore, it would be fair to say that each of the seven contributing composers brought a unique voice to the overall program. Nevertheless, regardless of that diversity in the skills of execution, the overall journey was never quite as engaging as I had expected it to be. This may have had something to do with the “overload” of that diversity, leading to a creeping sense of “enough is enough” long before the program concluded. Yes, every selection on the program had its own merits worthy of attention; but I fear that my attention began to lag before all those merits had run their course.

Grand Piano to Launch Tcherepnin Project

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

This coming Friday the Grand Piano label will release the first of two volumes to account for the complete works for violin and piano by Nikolay Tcherepnin and his son Alexander. During my high school days, I was vaguely aware of Alexander, probably because his orchestral Opus 80 “Symphonic March” had been rearranged for band. However, I do not think I have encountered any of his music (let alone that of his father) once I began my undergraduate years or at any time thereafter. Nevertheless, during the second half of the twentieth century, Alexander’s music received a generous amount of attention in the United States with Rafael Kubelik conducting his second symphony (Opus 77) with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Fritz Reiner conducting that same ensemble in a performance of the Opus 90 “Divertimento,” and Charles Munch conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra in his fourth symphony (Opus 91). More recently, the complete cycle of his four symphonies was recorded by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra conducted by Lan Shui.

The performances on this new album are by violinist Klaidi Sahatci and pianist Giorgio Koukl. They are joined by cellist Johann Sebastian Paetsch for Alexander’s Opus 34 piano trio and Opus 47 “Trio Concertante,” but all the other selections are duos. Three of the four works by Alexander (including both trios) have been recorded for the first time, and the same can be said for all four of the compositions by Nikolay. It is also worth noting that Koukl prepared the performing edition of a violin sonata in C minor, which appears to pre-date the published Opus 14 sonata, completed in 1922.

By all rights this album should have been greeted as a “journey of discovery.” Unfortunately, there is an underlying rhetoric of blandness, which seems to have been passed down from father to son. The fact is that the entire project (which is scheduled to involve two albums) is due to support from the Tcherepnin Society of New York. Alexander was prodigiously productive after World War II, when he moved to the United States and eventually acquired citizenship; and, as can be seen above, his music was welcomed by American orchestras. However, in the current century, the inventiveness of both father and son have turned out to be, as the old joke goes about the monorail, “ideas of the future whose time has passed!”

SFO to Present Two Concerts This Month

As was announced a little less than a week ago, San Francisco Opera (SFO) will begin performances of the final opera in its fall season, Georges Bizet’s Carmen, on Wednesday, November 13. Those events will be interleaved with two concert performances, both of which will take place in the Veterans Building, which is adjacent to the War Memorial Opera House at 401 Van Ness Avenue. The first of these will be the annual The Future Is Now concert, which showcases the rising talents of the current Adler Fellows. The second will be a concert performance by the SFO Chorus. Specifics are as follows:

Friday, November 15, 7:30 p.m., Herbst Theatre: As of this writing, the selections for the The Future is Now program have not yet been finalized. However, the participating Adler vocalists will be sopranos Georgiana Adams, Caroline Corrales, Arianna Rodriguez, and Olivia Smith, mezzo-soprano Nikola Printz, tenor Thomas Kinch, baritone Samuel Kidd, and bass-baritones Jongwon Han and James McCarthy. They will perform with the SFO Orchestra conducted by Benjamin Manis. There will most likely be familiar selections by George Frideric Handel, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Giuseppe Verdi. There will also be a more contemporary offering of an excerpt from the opera The Hours by Kevin Puts. Ticket prices are between $20 and $69. Tickets may be purchased in advance online through an SFO event page or by calling the SFO Box Office at 415-864-3330.

Fabrizio Corona and John Keene (photograph by Matthew Washburn, courtesy of SFO)

Sunday, November 17, 2 p.m., Dianne and Tad Taube Atrium Theater: The second program will be San Francisco Opera Chorus in Concert. SFO Chorus Director John Keene will conduct; and, when necessary, keyboard accompaniment will be provided by SFO Associate Chorus Master Fabrizio Corona. The program will include both opera excerpts and selections of both sacred and secular choral compositions. This will be a 75-minute program without an intermission. The program has not yet been finalized, but both Handel and Verdi selections will again be included. Other contributors will be Charles Gounod, Johannes Brahms, and the more contemporary Reena Esmail and Gwyneth Van Anden Walker. Unfortunately, as of this writing, wheelchair seating is not available. All seating will be general admission for $42, and tickets may again be purchased in advance online through an SFO event page or by calling the SFO Box Office.

Making a Wagner Opera: a KQED Documentary

Last night KQED aired a program entitled “A Journey into Lohengrin,” which I recorded in order to approach the content with as fresh a mind as could be prepared for any experience of the music of Richard Wagner. This was basically a documentary in the “making of” genre involving a production of Wagner’s Lohengrin, which was performed by the San Francisco Opera (SFO) in the fall of 2023. The performance of any Wagner opera is a major undertaking, as much for the musicians as for the vocalists.

Eun Sun Kim conducting a rehearsal of Lohengrin with Kristinn Sigmundsson as King Heinrich der Vogler (left) confronting Brian Mulligan as Friedrich of Telramund (right)

Nevertheless, in many respects Lohengrin is a special case. When I wrote about it on this site after its opening performance, I began the task of description by observing that the plot was “a convoluted account of conflicting factions at the court of King Heinrich der Vogler.” What I did not appreciate at the time was that the demands on the musicians were just as convoluted as the motivations behind each of the characters in the cast. This was particularly the case for the trumpet players, who literally surrounded the audience with fanfares coming from every imaginable direction. Sitting in the audience (even with as clear a view of the orchestra pit as of the stage), I was often more than a little perplexed by what was happening where and why.

As a result of this documentary, I think it would be fair for me to say that I now have at least a plausible conjecture of the “why.” Wagner composed long instrumental passages in the middle of at least one of his acts, rather than settling only for introducing the acts with preludes. That is because there is a major transition in the narrative during the final act, requiring “music without action” for an extended period. The music thus provides action of its own with that distribution of the brass players interjecting their fanfares.

Where the documentary is concerned, the focus is not so much on Wagner as it is on Music Director Eun Sun Kim. While the film captures many of her personal thoughts about preparing the musical side of the production, what is more engaging are the episodes that capture her exchanges with the individual vocalists, as well as her ensemble. I came away with the impression that she wanted to be as well-informed about every detail of the narrative as she was about the marks on the paper of the score that she was preparing to conduct. We thus learn about how the different vocalists established their character parts as much from their own observations as from their interactions with Kim. The viewing experience left me more than a little in awe of a documentary that was capable of delivering so much engagement over the course of only one hour.

The SFO Web page for this documentary includes a hyperlink for online viewing through both the SFO Web site and YouTube. The video was directed by Elena Park, and she knew exactly how much time to allocate to each of the episodes. The interviews included not only the opera singers but also individual members of the orchestra offering their own respective takes on the almost telepathic techniques required to keep conductor, musicians, and vocalists all focused on the goal of bringing music and staging to life.

Avi Avital to Return to Philharmonia Baroque

Mandolinist Avi Avital

Next week will see the one Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra concert of the season that will not be auditioning a Music Director candidate. Instead, the ensemble will be led by mandolinist Avi Avital. The program will consist almost entirely of compositions by Antonio Vivaldi in celebration of the 400th anniversary publication of The Four Seasons. As might be expected, the principal violin solo parts will be played by Avital on his mandolin. The four concertos in that collection will be preceded by a “warmup” concerto for the string ensemble, RV 156 in G minor.

The second half of the program will feature soprano Estelí Gomez. She will sing the aria “Le seguitai felice” from the RV 725 “dramma per musica” L’Olimpiade. This opera was first performed in 1734, using a libretto by Pietro Metastasio, which had been used the previous year for an opera with the same title by Antonio Caldara. Indeed, over 50 composers created operas from this libretto, the best known of whom would have been Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, whose opera was performed in 1735! In the spirit of Vivaldi’s Venetian reputation, Gomez will conclude the program with a selection of popular gondola songs.

The San Francisco performance of this program will take place this coming Thursday, November 7, beginning at 7:30 p.m. As usual, the venue will be Herbst Theatre, located at 401 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. Ticket prices range from $40 to $132. City Box Office has created a Web page, which includes a diagram showing where seats are currently available.

Neuma Releases Drew Whiting’s Second Album

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

All In is the title of the second album of performances by saxophonist Drew Whiting, released by Neuma Records. Whiting has a strong and secure command of saxophones of all sizes; and, over the course of the five selections on this album, he plays soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone. Two of the selections are solo performances, Whiting’s own “They are obviously sounds; that why they are shadows,” completed last year and played on tenor; and Yaz Lancaster’s two-movement suite among Verticals, composed for alto. An “almost solo” composition is Pamela Z’s Four Movements, which she scored for cello and delays. Whiting performs the cello part on baritone saxophone. One of the selections is a three-movement sonata for alto saxophone and piano by John Mayrose, for which Whiting is accompanied at the piano by Kirstin Ihde. The album begins with the two of them joined by clarinetist Laura McLaughlin in a performance of Ed Martin’s “Shadow Dance,” completed in 2015. Whiting plays a soprano instrument for this selection.

The great asset of this album is the diversity of those selections. This is not just a matter of having drawn upon the efforts of five decidedly different composers. Because each size of saxophone has its own unique affordances, the variations in sonority are as rich as the unique perspectives of each composition. Indeed, taken as a whole, the contents of the album could almost stand just as well as a recital performance by “Whiting and Friends.”

I do not think I have played a saxophone of any size since my days in high school. The alto was my primary instrument in the jazz band, but I enjoyed the opportunity to explore the sonorities of the baritone instrument. It goes without saying that those experiences as a performer were a far cry from the technical challenges that Whiting had to confront in making the recordings for this album. There was much to engage in exploring each of the individual selections, and I have to confess that I was glad to encounter another instance of Z’s music played by someone other than Z! (My last encounter was with pianist Adam Tendler this past July.)

TLES to Revive Collaboration with Post:ballet

Towards the middle of this month, The Living Earth Show (TLES), the duo of guitarist Travis Andrews and drummer Andy Meyerson, will again join forces with the dancers of Robert Dekkers’ Post:ballet. The performance will be a revival of the full-evening composition Lyra, 65 minutes in duration with no intermission. The performance will take place at the Roar Shack, which has been the new “home base” for TLES since the venue opened this past September 20.

Travis Andrews and Andy Meyerson performing the music for the “Hades and Persephone” episode in Lyra (from the YouTube video of this performance)

For those that missed the world premiere performance of Lyra, it is an extended dance interpretation of the myth of Hades’ abduction of Persephone into the Underworld, choreographed by Vanessa Thiessen. The choreography was created and executed in the outdoor settings of the arid landscapes of Eastern California, where it was captured on video by filmmaker Benjamin Tarquin. As a result, the performance synthesizes the coordination of TLES playing in “real time” with the “documented” actions in the video. The music was composed by Samuel Carl Adams, and the choreography was created by Dekkers.

The Roar Shack is located in the heart of the Mid-Market district at 34 Seventh Street. There will be two performances on Thursday, November 14, and Friday, November 15. Doors will open for drinks at 6:30 p.m., and the performance itself will begin at 7:30 p.m. Those attending can then enjoy a “Postshow Hang” with the performers after Lyra has concluded, and the evening will conclude at 9:30 p.m. Admission will be a “Pay What You Can” amount between $1 and $100. Eventbrite has created separate Web pages for advance payment on Thursday and Friday.