Old First Concerts: February, 2025

Readers may recall that Old First Concerts will get the new year off to a relatively modest start with only two events. Fortunately, things will pick up in February with more than twice as many offerings. So now is as good a time as any to check the calendar to prepare for them!

As now seems consistently to be the case, the events will remain “hybrid,” allowing both live streaming and seating in the Old First Presbyterian Church at 1751 Sacramento Street on the southwest corner of Van Ness Avenue. Each of the event pages (which include hyperlinks for streaming) provides specific price information. The following dates and times provide hyperlinks to those event pages as follows:

Violinist Andrew Finn Magill (from his Old First Concerts Web page)

Sunday, February 2, 4 p.m.: The emergence of the groundhog will be celebrated with a program of original Brazilian choro and samba music. The performance will be by a trio called Canta, Violino! American violinist Andrew Finn Magill will perform with two Brazilians, percussionist Clarice Cast and Edinho Berber of seven-string guitar. Selections will be announced during the course of the performance.

Friday, February 14, 8 p.m.: The celebration of Groundhog Day will be followed by a performance on Valentine’s Day. It will be presented by the Shoreline Piano Trio, whose members are violinist Sui-mi Shin, cellist Katie Youn, and pianist Menghua Lin. The full title of their program will be Explorations of Love and Art: A Valentine’s Concert. All of the composers on this program will be women. The earliest of these will be Maria Theresia von Paradis, a contemporary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who may have written his K. 456 B-flat major piano concerto for her. The nineteenth century will be represented at one end by Clara Schumann’s Opus 17 piano trio in G minor and at the other by Amy Beach’s Opus 34 violin sonata. The other selections will be by contemporary composers Caroline Shaw, Jessie Montgomery, and Jennifer Higdon.

Sunday, February 16, 4 p.m.: LIEDER ALIVE! will return for the third program in its thirteenth annual Liederabend Series. The pianist will be Peter Grünberg, accompanying soprano Charlotte Kelso. Program details have not yet been finalized; but the selections will be by Franz Schubert, Richard Wagner, Gustave Mahler, and Karl Marx (not to be confused with the philosopher).

Friday, February 21, 8 p.m.: This will be another vocal recital, this time by French-Israeli mezzo Naama Liany, who will be accompanied at the piano by Kevin Korth. She has prepared a program entitled Daydream, possibly inspired by the “keystone” at the center of the program, the cycle of five songs by Federico Mompou entitled Combat del somni. This will be preceded by two works by American composers, Samuel Barber’s Opus 41 cycle of five songs, Despite and still, and Leonard Bernstein’s “cycle of five kid songs” entitled I Hate Music. The final two selections on the program will be Das blaue Klavier, a cycle of three songs by Albena Petrovic-Vratchanska, which she called a “Rundfunkoper,” and Francis Poulenc’s FP107 settings of five poems by Guillaume Apollinaire entitled Banalités.