SFCMP: More “American Reflections” Next Month

The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players in performance (from the City Box Office Web page) 

The first month of the New Year will conclude with the second program planned for the 2025–2026 Concert Season of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. The title of the season is American Reflections, and the title of this program will be Fire & Lightning. The featured offering on the program will be the West Coast premiere of Elliott Carter’s “Mosaic,” composed in 2004 for harp and ensemble. Harpist Amy Ahn will be the guest artist. There will also be West Coast premiere performances of “through depths and shadows,” composed by Justin Weiss in 2023 and Chen Yi’s “Fire,” completed in 2019. The opening selections on the program will be Elizabeth Ogonek’s “Lightenings” (2016) and “Electric Aroma” (2018) by Viet Cuong.

This performance will begin at 8 p.m. on Saturday, January 31. The performance will take place in the Taube Atrium Theater, located on the top (fourth) floor of the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue. Tickets may be purchased online through a City Box Office Web page, which will also include tickets for the Sound & Wine fundraising event. This will precede the performance, beginning of 5 p.m. in the Education Studio of the Wilsey Center, which is also in the Veterans Building.

Alchemist Quintet: From Mr. Tipple’s to CD

It is not often that I get a chance to write about listening to jazz performances taking place in San Francisco. Where previews are concerned, I do my best to keep up with announcements of Jazz Chez Hanny events (the next of which will take place tomorrow afternoon). I also try to attend to performances at Mr. Tipple’s Jazz Club that tend to go out on the “bleeding edge;” but I must confess that I have not visited that venue, which is a very short walk from where I live, since May of 2024.

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

Ironically, this morning I had the good fortune to listen to a new CD of music I had encountered at that visit performed by the Alchemist Quintet. The front line for that performance was, as I put it at that time, “somewhat unconventional,” since it was shared by Michele Walther on violin and saxophonist Doug Pet, playing both tenor and soprano. The rhythm section consisted of John Kiskaddon on piano, bassist Ted Burik, and Greg German on drums. The album title is Ghost Radio, which is also the title of the one track composed by German. (Every member of the quintet contributes at least one track on the album.) As of this writing, the album is available as a physical CD or an MP3 download through a Bandcamp Web page.

I have now listened to it several times. I found myself particularly drawn to how the performances by Walther and Pet were meticulously synchronized, just creating a sonority emerging from the superposition of bowed strings and blown reed. (Pet plays both soprano and tenor saxophones, whose sonorities are distinctively diverse.) Those that recall the performance at Mr. Tipple’s may recall that the performance included “Stella by Starlight;” but the Ghost Radio CD includes only works composed by the quintet players. I look forward to a better acquaintance with all ten of the album’s tracks.

San Francisco Chamber Orchestra’s “Revolution”

Last night the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra (SFCO) brought its second MainStage concert performance to Herbst Theatre. The title of the program was The Revolutionary Artist, and it would be fair to say that each of the three selections was revolutionary in its own way. The second half of the program was devoted entirely to Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 92 (seventh) symphony in A major. By the time Beethoven composed this piece in 1812, his departures from past conventions had become well-known to his audiences; but he still had a knack for pulling unconventional rabbits out of unexpected hats.

The first half of the program was unconventional simply for extracting single movements from multi-movement compositions. Mind you, taking on a single movement from a concerto by Niccolò Paganini is a major undertaking; and, since the soloist was fourteen-year old Lisa Saito (a student of Concertmaster Robin Sharp), jumping through all of the hoops of the Opus 6 violin concerto movement was challenge enough! Saito’s performance was consistently solid and just as consistently balanced in her engagement with the orchestra. Mind you, that single movement is a rather long-winded one; but conductor Jory Fankuchen knew how to maintain a pace that would fit in with Saito’s approach to interpretation.

The cover illustration of Louise Farrenc on her Erato album, recognizing the attention she deserved last night

This opening movement was preceded by a finale: the Allegro movement concluding the last of Louise Farrenc’s three symphonies, Opus 36 composed in the key of G minor. Some readers may recall that I came to know all three of these through an Erato release performed by the Insula orchestra conducted by Laurence Equilbey. However, I wrote about that listening experience in June of 2023; and, by last night, most of those thoughts had faded from memory. Nevertheless, G minor tends to be a good key for getting audience attention; and, once again, Fankuchen found the right way to engage the audience from the very beginning of the evening.

Not Quite an Orchestra

Cover of the album being discussed (courtesy of Braithwaite & Katz Communications)

This afternoon I found myself reminded of my favorite Ernie Kovacs joke. Its the one about the Great Wall of China: It is not that great, it is not a wall, and it is not even in China; it is in New York, where it is called the Triborough Bridge. I was reminded of the joke because I used this relatively quiet afternoon to revisit one of the many Satoko Fujii albums in my collection. The one I selected was Ninety-Nine Years, described on the album cover was a performance by the Satoko Fujii Orchestra Berlin.

In the spirit of Ernie Kovacs, it turns out that the group performing the music is not an orchestra. I made this clear when I wrote my article about this album:

The name of the group is a bit prankish; but then it would probably be just as prankish to describe it as a “small big band,” which is basically what it is. It consists of tenor saxophonists Matthias Schubert and Gebhard Ullmann, baritone saxophonist Paulina Owczarek, trumpeters Richard Koch, Lina Allemano, and Natsuki Tamura, trombonist Matthias Müller, bassist Jan Roder, and drummers Michael Griener and Peter Orins.

To be fair, the content for the album was recorded at zentri fuge in Berlin on April 2, 2017. However, it was far from the “finished product” that I listened to and the wrote about for my article.

The fact is that the album was not ready for release until the content was processed twice in New York. On October 25, 2017, Peter Orins collected all the recorded material from a generous collection of microphones and took care of all the balancing and mixing to provide an “integrated” sound. Those results were then transformed into the masters used to create the CDs themselves the following November 30. Max Ross was responsible for that final stage in the production process.

In other words, this album was a reminder of the fact that the listening experience is a far cry from what one might hear at a jazz club. Rather, it is a product of several stages of meticulous engineering; and, more often than not, the musicians themselves have little to say about how those stages proceed. In other words, whatever the musicians do in the interest of performance, this listening experience is the final result of how “the sausage is made” long after the performance has concluded!

Earplay Plans Season Inspired by Charles Ives

The piano trio of Earplay musicians Terrie Baune (violin), Thalia Moore (cello), and Keisuke Nakagoshi (piano) (courtesy of Earplay)

The beginning of the New Year will also see the beginning of Earplay’s 41st season. For those that do not yet know, Earplay is a chamber music ensemble founded in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1985; and they describe their repertoire as “lyrical and ferocious, modern and Romantic, finely honed and accessible.” The season will feature American composers in recognition of the sesquicentennial celebration of the Declaration of Independence. The overall title will be Answering The Unanswered Question, inspired by Charles Ives’ enigmatic orchestral composition, “The Unanswered Question.”

Bruce Bennett has composed an arrangement of Ives’ work specifically for the instrumentation provided by the Earplay musicians. Each of the three programs of the season will also feature a new composition serving as an “answer.” The three composers will be Emma Logan (January 19), Hyo-shin Na (March 12), and Aida Shirazi (May 25). The January 19 program will also include compositions by John Harbison and Roger Reynolds, but the Web page for those details is currently blank!

The January concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. As most readers probably know by now, the venue will be Noe Valley Ministry, which is located at 1021 Sanchez Street, between 23rd Street and Elizabeth Street. As usual, there will be a pre-concert talk at 6:45 p.m. General admission will be $32 with a $10 rate for students. They may be purchased online through a ThunderTix Web page. The concert will also be live-streamed through YouTube. Earplay has its own YouTube Web site, and a hyperlink will be made available shortly before the concert begins.

The Bleeding Edge: 12/29/2025

The New Year will get off to a relatively quiet start, literally as well as figuratively. The first three days of January will see the next round of performances of 1000 Whispers From Our Future at Audium, which was first announced on this site at the beginning of this month. On the fourth day of the month, the Thingamajigs Performance Group will welcome the new year in its own way at Artists’ Television Access (ATA).

This is a diverse ensemble, which brings together the expanded cinema apparatus of Keith Evans, percussion, Jurassic electronics, and projection by Suki O'Kane, glass, shō, hijiriki, and electric guitar by Edward Schocker, and voice and objects from Rae Diamond. Admission will be by donations, which may be paid in advance through an every.org Web page. The goal is to achieve $15,000; and, as of this writing, over $11,000 has been raised. Donors will be able to use their receipts to gain entry. However, payments at the door will also be accepted; and no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

The Artists’ Television Access venue in the Mission (from its every.org Web page)

The performance will begin at 7 p.m. on Sunday, January 4; and the venue is in the Mission at 992 Valencia Street.

Keeping Up with a Large Collection of Recordings

My history of maintaining a collection of recorded music goes all the way back to my secondary school days, when my parents still had some of their music on 78 RPM discs. When I entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a freshman, my primarily recreation time was spent at the campus radio station (whose call letters, at that time, were WTBS for Technology Broadcasting System). When I saw the breadth of music in the station’s collection, I was happier than a pig in you-know-what.

Since that time I have been growing my own library, which has followed me to all of my post-doctoral jobs, first in Israel and subsequently on the East and West Coasts, respectively. Over the decades I have had to expand space for my albums over several different cabinets, now in two different rooms in my current condominium unit. In order to maintain a viable framework of organization, I have relied on the Schwann Catalog, which provided a useful indexing system for the many different genres in my collection, primarily classical and jazz.

Sadly, Schwann went into bankruptcy in 2002. As a result, my primary index remains the Winter 1998–99 release of Schwann Opus for classical music and the Spring 1996 Schwann Spectrum for the rest. (I also have the 1995 “Master edition Number 2” of The Gramophone Classical Catalogue, but it has been quite a while since I consulted it.) There are, of course, any number of recent recordings that do not appear in any of those sources; but I have yet to have a problem with fitting them into the indexing system.

There is an old joke about the man who shows off his extensive library of books to anyone visiting him. The usual question put to him is, “Have you read them all?” I have no problem owning up to the fact that the unread books on my shelves outnumber those I have read. Nevertheless, whenever I encounter a new recording (usually by download these days), I make it a point to listen to it as soon as possible to make sure that there are no defects in any of the tracks. Where the downloads are concerned, I also make it a point to burn a physical copy for backup (along with the backup facility I have through my computer’s Time Machine software).

Gregor Piatigorsky (and his cello) on the cover of the booklet for the Sony box set of his recordings

While Schwann has provided me with the necessary framework, there are still times when search may be challenging. If the content is digital, I have no problems relying on Apple Music. The major problem is dealing with the physical, particularly box sets, such as the Sony release of all the RCA and Columbia albums of recordings made by cellist Gregor Piatigorsky. For the most part, I have been able to rely on Discogs to provide a Web page that indexes the contents of a box set. However, these tend to be abbreviated, meaning that specific details (such as titles of short pieces) are lacking. More often than not, however, I can usually find a way to feed a Google search to lead me in the right direction!

Inevitably, however, the “search space” will continue to grow; and all I can do is hope that my digital resources will allow me to keep up with it!

On the “Ten Best” Fixation

This is the time of the year when many, particularly journalists, like to reflect on what has happened since January 1, 2025. Those reflections often lead to “Ten Best” lists, written to reassure readers that, over the long run, this was a good year after all. The one thing I know about these lists is that, more often than not, they never seem to agree with my personal tastes and values!

It is in this context that I just finished reading an article by G. Allen Johnson in the “Datebook” section of today’s San Francisco Chronicle. The title of the article was “Year’s 10 best movies tackled politics, culture wars.” I shall not enumerate the selections; but it would be fair to say that each of them was more “tackled by” than “tackling.” Put another way, this seems to be a year in which breadth triumphed over depth; and, in the context of yesterday’s news about the Kennedy Center, this is a triumph that is running rampant, if not entirely out of control.

Hermann Göring during cross examination during the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg (official Army photograph by Raymond D’Addario, public domain)

The fact is that my only agreement with Johnson showed up in the “Honorable Mentions” list. That was Nuremberg. I went to see that film with initial skepticism, having watched and enjoyed several viewings of Stanley Kramer’s Judgment at Nuremberg. Nevertheless, I was impressed with the overall narrative flow in Nuremberg, even if Johnson seemed to think that the primary asset was the casting of Russell Crowe in the role of Hermann Göring.

To be fair, mine is the generation born right after the conclusion of World War II. We grew up on action movies reliving episodes from the battles in both Europe and the Pacific. That makes me a little less than 40 years older than James Vanderbilt, who wrote the script for Nuremberg (and also produced the film). Put another way, it is unlikely that Vanderbilt had any “immediate sources” to consult while working on the script. I suspect that the best he could have done would have been to read William L. Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, but a book of over 1200 pages can be pretty daunting!

To be fair to both Vanderbilt and Johnson, however, those of us with memories that reach back into the middle of the last century, will not be around to complain much longer; so, for the present at least, just bear with us!

Glad to be on the West Coast!

The better part of my life was spent along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean in a region that, for at least a time, was known as “Megalopolis.” This amounted to a span that began in the north in the greater Boston area and extended down to the District of Columbia. One of the things I appreciated was that I could get to performing arts events across the entirety of that span through a single rail service.

The renamed arts center in the District of Columbia (photograph by Brendan Smialowski, provided by AFP and Getty Images, from an article in The Guardian)

That included attending concerts at the Kennedy Center and still being able to catch a train home that night. As a result, this morning I found myself more than a little depressed over the fact that the venue had become a political football. This is because Chuck Redd, who had been scheduled to give a Christmas Eve performance at that venue chose to cancel. His reason was that the venue had been renamed to The Donald Trump and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

As might be expected, this did not go down well with the President of the Center, Richard Grenell. In a letter to Redd, he wrote:

Your decision to withdraw at the last moment – explicitly in response to the Center’s recent renaming, which honors President Trump’s extraordinary efforts to save this national treasure – is classic intolerance and very costly to a non-profit Arts institution.

Grenell continued that he would seek one million dollars in damages for a “political stunt.”

Personally, I feel that there is a great danger in politicization undermining the performing arts. It is one thing to reflect on episodes from the past through music, both vocal and instrumental; but taking on the “immediate present” is a delicate matter. Unless I am mistaken, my first encounter with this gambit came from a movie, rather than anything musical. Back in May of 2009, I wrote about the Adam Sandler movie You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, whose plot I summarized as follows:

We are on a (fictitious) street in New York that has been divided into an Israeli side and a Palestinian side, both represented by small, but at least moderately prosperous, businesses; and all of those businesses are being forced out by a (not-so-fictitious) character clearly modeled on Donald Trump.

This was long before Trump made his move into politics and had his television program The Apprentice; and, at the time, I found the humor pleasantly innocuous.

These days it feels as if nothing is innocuous any more. Every event, of course, has consequences. However, it seems as if the consequences tend to get more dire, suggesting that no event can be dismissed as casual any more. As a result, the risk of having to deal with a million dollars worth of legal damages no longer seems like an extreme outlier. For all I know, even writing this can have consequences, which is why I have tried to establish as neutral a position as I can manage!

As a result, I try to do my best to avoid politicization. Describing performances is a major undertaking in itself. Invoking opinion to reflect on those descriptions is often even more challenging. Nevertheless, I continue to enjoy acts of performance, whether they take place on the stages of venues only a few blocks from where I live or on the television screen. Most of those acts have nothing to do with politics, for which I am sincerely grateful!

VoM Celebrates Xmas with Generous Episode

Violinists Augusta McKay Lodge and Isabelle Seula Lee, soloists for the Vivaldi concerto with David Tayler providing continuo on archlute

Yesterday afternoon Voices of Music (VoM) decided to celebrate the season with the Happy Holidays release of Episode 46 from Season 5. This was a particularly generous offering, since it consisted of two separate programs. The first of these was a complete account of the Vespro di Natale (Christmas vespers) collected in the 1630 publication by Alessandro Grandi. The second was a more secular review of selections from eleven past concerts. Each selection accounted for a different composer as follows:

1. Isabella Leonarda: Sonata Duodecima in D Minor
2. Johann Christian Bach: Symphony Opus 6 Number 6 in G minor (W C12)
3. Arcangelo Corelli: the “Ciaccona” movement from the trio sonata in G major, Opus 2, Number 12
4. Andrea Falconieri: his setting of “Folia”
5. Antonio Vivaldi: the eighth concerto in the Opus 3 collection, L’estro armonico (the harmonic inspiration), composed in A minor with solo parts for two violins
6. Maurizio Cazzati: Ciaconna
7. Giovanni Battista Buonamente: the second composition in the sixth book in the collection entitled Sonate et canzoni a due, tre, quattro, cinque, et a sei voci, a sonata for three violins in D minor
8. Anthony Holborne: “Almaine: The Night Watch” from Pavans, Galliards, Almains and other short Aeirs, both grave and light, in five parts, for Viols, Violins, or other Musicall Winde Instruments
9. Johann Sebastian Bach: “Badinerie,” the final movement of the BWV 1067 (second) orchestral suite
10. Michael Praetorius: instrumental dances from the Terpsichore publication
11. Giuseppe Torelli: Trumpet Concerto in D major (G.9)

It goes without saying that this is a generous list. However, because each of the individual selections was relatively brief, the program as a whole proceeded at an engaging clip. Because each of the pieces was captured on video from a different concert, there was a generous amount of diversity among the contributing performers. However, there was a consistency, particularly in the presence of Hanneke van Proosdij. While most of her work took place behind a harpsichord, she also presented her solid command of the recorder.

The good news is that the YouTube Web page allows the attentive listener to either enjoy the overall “flow” of the selections or take “deep dives” into individual offerings. It has been a while since I heard the old cliché “The Internet changes everything.” Nevertheless, this is a case in which a single Web site serves up a generous wealth of different ways to approach the early music repertoire.

Ian Scarfe to Bring Spanish Music to Century Club

Poster for the event being described, showing the three performers (screenshot from the Groupmuse Web page)

Pianist Ian Scarfe will begin the new year with his next visit to the Century Club of California. Once again, he will be joined by a cellist, this time James Jaffe. The title of next month’s program will be An Afternoon in Spain – Classical Spanish Music and Flamenco. Each of the instrumentalists will begin with a solo selection.

Scarfe will open the program with Frédéric Chopin’s Opus 19, his “Boléro” in A minor. This will be followed by Jaffe’s performance of the three-movement suite for solo cello composed by Gaspar Cassadó in 1926. (Cassadó was taught by Pablo Casals and was probably influenced by his teacher’s performances of the solo cello suites by Johann Sebastian Bach.) Scarfe will then accompany mezzo Deborah Rosengaus in a performance of Siete canciones populares españolas, Manuel de Falla’s arrangements for soprano and piano of seven traditional Spanish songs.

The remainder of the program will be devoted to settings of Spanish dances. Scarfe will begin with Isaac Albéniz’s Opus 37, the six Danzas Españolas. This will be followed by the “Ritual Fire Dance,” an episode from the music composed Falla for the ballet El amor brujo (the bewitched love). The program will then conclude with the Spanish Dances collection by Enrique Granados.

For those that do not already know, the Century Club is located at 1355 Franklin Street, between Post Street and Sutter Street. However, all arrangements must be made through a Groupmuse Web page. Ticket prices begin at $25, with $5 to hold a reservation. As of this writing, 43 of 75 spots are still available. The performance will begin at 2 p.m. on Sunday, January 25. Doors will open at 1:30 p.m. Drinks will be provided at the intermission (both with and without alcohol). However, the club itself is not wheelchair accessible.

Christmas Eve with SF Gay Men’s Chorus

Photograph of the final bows at last year’s performance in Davies

Late yesterday afternoon, my wife and I attended the first of the two performances by the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus held in Davies Symphony Hall. Aside from a signed performance of “Silent Night” in an arrangement by Danny Sullivan and an arrangement by ASH of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” the entire repertoire was new to me. As in the past, the entire vocal ensemble filled the Davies stage to the brim, with only a little space at the front for the musicians. Danny Sullivan led from the piano, joined by Kenji Harada on synthesizer, drummer Juan Carreon, and acoustic and electric performances by Matt Wrobel on guitar and Aaron Shaul on bass.

Led by Artistic Director Jake Stensberg, the performance was as satisfying as ever. The visual hi-jinx left no bad-jokes stone unturned, but the choral delivery was as polished as ever. The full title of the program was Holiday Spectacular: Home for the Holidays, and the spectacle sustained over the course of about 90 minutes. I suppose what counted most was the impressive diversity of dispositions unfolding over the course of the program. “Spectacle” may have been the order of the day; but this was an engaging journey through diversity with all of the finer qualities of the poetic “well wrought urn.”

New Century Chamber Orchestra in January

Having pretty much accounted for the “seasonal holiday” events, this site can begin to prepare readers for performances next month. Currently, the only performances that have come to my attention will not take place until late in January. Fortunately, they will be worth the wait!

Violinist Simone Porter (from her Opus3 Artists Web page)

The first of these will be the third of the four performances in San Francisco by the New Century Chamber Orchestra (NCCO) with its Music Director Daniel Hope. American violinist Simone Porter will serve as guest leader of a program entitled Enlighten Me, and the ensemble will be joined by students of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. The repertoire will span music history from the twelfth century (with Hildegard von Bingen’s setting of the antiphon “O virtus sapientiae”) to “Cathedral of Light” by the contemporary composer Juhi Bansai. Other composers on the program will be Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Heitor Villa-Lobos. Porter will also be the soloist in the performance of Bach’s BWV 1042 violin concerto in E major.

The San Francisco performance of this program will take place on Saturday, January 24, beginning at 7:30 p.m. The venue will be the Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, which is located 50 Oak Street, a short walk from the underground Muni station. Tickets may be purchased through a City Box Office Web page with prices between $35 and $80.

SFS Announces Rescheduling of Brass Concert

Readers may recall that the annual Holiday Brass concert, scheduled for this past Saturday evening, December 20, was cancelled due to a citywide power outage. Fortunately, the ensemble did not waste any time in rescheduling the event, which will now take place on Sunday, January 11, at 7:30 p.m. As usual, those who have purchased tickets will be able to use them on this occasion; and, if the date and time are inconvenient, they can contact the Box Office (415-864-6000 or patronservices@sfsymphony.org) to arrange for ticket exchange, donation, gift certificate, or refund. Those who have not previously purchased tickets may do so through a Web page or by visiting the Box Office.

The SFS Trumpet section (courtesy of SFS)

The program will not change, beginning with the two arrangements by SFS Principal Trumpet Mark Inouye of movements selected from Handel’s HWV 351 suite Music for the Royal Fireworks and “Bist du bei mir,” an aria from Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel's opera Diomedes. There will also be the two major departures from the holiday spirit, the four-movement Suite from Maria de Buenos Aires, compiled by Steven Verhelst from the score of Astor Piazzolla’s opera Maria de Buenos Aires, and Enrique Crespo’s “Bruckner Etude.” Brad Hogarth will replace Edwin Outwater, who had originally been scheduled to conduct.

The Bleeding Edge: 12/23/2025

It should probably go without saying that The Bleeding Edge is a secular undertaking. As a result, things tend to go quiet around this time of year. Indeed, they are so quiet that there is only one event this week that is not  influenced by the “holiday spirit.”

David Boyce performing at the Golden Gate Valley Branch of the San Francisco Public Library this past June (from the YouTube video of his performance)

As some readers might guess, that event is the weekly Other Dimensions in Sound performance curated by reed player David Boyce. He will host a performance by Funkonya. As of this writing, I have no idea whether this is a combo or a solo performance. All I do know is that the music will provide “an extra funky dose of groovalicousness.”

As usual, the performance will take place at Medicine for Nightmares on Friday, December 26. The venue is the bookstore 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. Music will begin at 7 p.m., and there will probably be two sets.

Complete Works of Louis Couperin on Erato

Cover image (presumably of keyboardist Jean Rondeau) of the album being discussed (from its Amazon.com Web page)

Some readers may recall my writing this past July about how I begin every day with a brief session with my Yamaha Clavinova. For the past months, I have been working my way through the first of the two Dover volumes of the Complete Keyboard Works of François Couperin. Ironically, as I approach this landmark, I have recent acquired an Erato box set of ten CDs and one DVD accounting for the complete works of Louis Couperin, François’ uncle.The Wikipedia page for this elder Couperin provides only the year of his birth, 1626, meaning that, even if we do not know the exact date, next year will mark his 400th anniversary. According to the Amazon.com Web page, this collection will be released this coming Friday; and, as most readers will expect, that Web page can be used to process pre-orders.

The keyboardist is Jean Rondeau. His performances alternate among three harpsichords and two church organs. Much of the catalog consists of solo suites, however there are also a generous number of selections involving both vocalists and additional instrumentalists. There are also “guest appearances,” compositions by Couperin’s contemporaries, some of whom, like Marin Marais, are likely to be familiar, while others such as Ennemond Gaultier, who pre-dated Couperin by roughly half a century, have not yet found a place for recordings on Amazon.com! (My only “fun fact” about Gaultier is that he composed a courante given the title “La Belle Homicide!”)

While I have listened to all of the CDs and found them engaging, I have to confess that learning any background about this music is no easy matter. It is only on page 140 of the booklet that the editorial notes (presumably by Rondeau himself) “spill the beans.” The first sentence is as follows: “Given that no manuscripts in Louis Couperin’s own hand have survived and that multiple sources exists, my editorial approach has been to produce a sort of personal edition, making decisions based on these varied sources.” Unfortunately, this means that there is no way to correlate the content with the List of compositions by Louis Couperin Wikipedia page; nor will the curious listener find any assistance on the IMSLP “Compositions by” Web page. For that matter, while the booklet provides the necessary details for the track listings, there is no index to consult to guide the curious listener to a particular selection.

I suppose the problem is that there is no agreed-upon “standard” for organizing this repertoire and then cataloging it. Were the music itself to be familiar, this would not necessarily be a significant issue. However, I suspect that this new release will be purchased by music lovers with little, if any, knowledge of either the composer or his music. If my own “informed background” was frustrated by the “packaging,” I can only wonder how more “casual” listeners are likely to feel about this offering!

Flutist Baibikov to Give Groupmuse Recital

Flutist Rustam Baibikov (screenshot from his Groupmuse Web page)

As of this writing, it appears that I am now ready to account for the first Groupmuse recital of the New Year. The recitalist will be flutist Rustam Baibikov, born in Ukraine but educated in Moscow. He has performed with both symphony orchestras and chamber ensembles, in addition to leading his own Tatar folk band. His accompanist will be pianist David Manley, whose background is equally diverse.

The most recent work on the program will be the “Fantasie Brillante on Themes from Bizet's Carmen,” composed by François Borne, the French flautist who taught at the Conservatoire de Musique de Toulouse during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This selection will be followed by music by the French violinist Benjamin Godard. According to his Wikipedia page, Godard was prolific enough to compose “eight operas, five symphonies, two piano and two violin concertos, string quartets, sonatas for violin and piano, piano pieces and etudes, and more than a hundred songs.” (He only lived to the age of 45, having died of tuberculosis.) Baibikov will play his Opus 116, Suite de trois morceaux.

The first half of the program will draw upon more familiar composers from the  Baroque period. It will begin with Antonio Vivaldi’s RV 52 sonata in F major for flute and continuo. This will be followed by two movements from Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 1067 (second) orchestral suite, which highlights the flute. Those movements will probably be familiar to many (most?) readers: the Menuet and the Badinerie (which concludes the suite).

The Groupmuse event page has a hyperlink for making reservations in advance for $5. (The audience size will be limited to 30; and, as of this writing, twelve of those spots are still available.) The venue is not wheelchair accessible, and those allergic to pets should be warned that both dogs and cats live there! Both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks will be provided, but guests are also invited to bring their own libations. The exact address, which is in Noe Valley, will be sent by electronic mail once the reservation has been finalized; and visitors can arrive as early as 6:30 p.m. The performance will begin at 7 p.m. on Saturday, January 24.

Old First Concerts: January, 2026

As we near this afternoon’s annual Wintersongs program performed by Kitka (which will be livestreamed) it is time to start making plans for the coming year. As of this writing, there will be three performances next month, all towards the end of that month. Two of them will begin at 8 p.m., and the next LIEDER ALIVE! offering will be at 4 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon. As usual, all of 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. Hyperlinks to the event pages (which include hyperlinks for streaming) will be attached to the date and time of the performances as follows:

Sarah Cahill (photograph by Kristen Wrzesniewski, from the Old First Concerts Web page for her solo recital)

Friday, January 23, 8 p.m.: Pianist Sarah Cahill describes her next program as “a new project combining classical and new compositions on the theme of homage and loss.” The title of the program is No Ordinary Light, taken from Jawaharalal Nehru’s eulogy after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi: “The light has gone out, I said, and yet I was wrong. For the light that shone in this country was no ordinary light.”

The performance will begin with the oldest work on the program, Maurice Ravel’s suite Le Tombeau de Couperin. There will be four other “retrospective” compositions: “Homage a Fauré” by Robert Helps, Zenobia Powell Perry’s “Homage to William Dawson,” and two Lou Harrison works, “Fugue to David Tudor” and  “Homage à Milhaud.” The contemporary offerings will be by Samuel Adams (“Prelude: Hammer the Sky Bright”), Maggie Payne (“Holding Pattern”), and Danny Clay (“Circle Songs”).

Sunday, January 25, 4 p.m.: The next installment in LIEDER ALIVE!’s fourteenth annual Liederabend Series will be a solo recital by mezzo Kindra Scharich. The first half of the program will be devoted to an account of Robert Schumann’s Opus 39 song cycle, Liederkreis, in its entirety. The second half will then present selected solo vocal compositions by Johannes Brahms, who had been mentored by Schumann. The program will celebrate the 75th birthday of LIEDER ALIVE! founder and director, Maxine Bernstein.

Saturday, January 31, 8 p.m.: It seems as if the Circadian String Quartet makes a visit to Old First every other year during the winter season. Membership consists of violinists Monika Gruber and David Ryther, Ed Wharton on viola, and cellist David Wishnia. Their program, Footprints in the Snow, will consist entirely of twentieth-century compositions. They will begin with selections (not yet identified) by Austrian composer Hugo Kauder. More familiar will be arrangements of three of Claude Debussy’s piano preludes, “Ondine,” “Des pas sur la neige,” and “La danse de Puck.” The final selection will be Philip Glass’ fifth string quartet.

Music to Return to The Lab Next Month

According to material I recently received earlier this week, The Lab is still in the process of expanding. Nevertheless, it has announced its first full-length concert for the New Year. This will be a two-set program of solo performances, both of which are likely to present “bleeding edge” content.

Theresa Wong with her cello and microphone for her vocals (photograph by E. Roe Yovino Smith, from the event page for her performance)

The first set will be a solo performance by Theresa Wong, who is both cellist and vocalist. Some readers may recall that, this past October, the Del Sol String Quartet performed music she had composed associated with the Chinese diaspora. For her visit to The Lab, she will exploit the full extent of its open space, working with quadraphonic surround sound audio technology. In the second set, Kara-Lis Coverdale will perform tracks from her recent album, A Series of Actions in a Sphere of Forever. She works with both acoustic and electronic media “to create works that transcend reality” (her words).

Tickets are now available for advance purchase through the Web page for this event at the price of $23. The fee for those paying at the door will be $25. The performance will take place on Saturday, January 17. Doors will open at 7 p.m., and the performance will begin at 8 p.m. For those that do not yet know, the venue is located in the Mission at 2948 16th Street, a short walk from the 16th Street Muni station.

Better late than never!

Samsung may like calling this a “smart refrigerator;” but has more to do with sales than with knowledge! (photograph by Ajay Kumar from the CNET article cited below)

Some readers may recall that I took on the distorted semantics of “artificial intelligence” this past August:

https://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/2025/08/has-artificial-intelligence-gone.html

Apparently, it took CNET almost half a year to catch up:

https://www.cnet.com/home/smart-home/so-many-brands-are-calling-their-basic-tech-ai-now-heres-why-im-worried/

Author Tyler Lacoma may have been late for the party, but at least he finally made an appearance! 

Keith Jarrett will Ring in Chez Hanny New Year

Keith Jarrett at the piano for a soundcheck prior to a performance on July 17, 2003 at the Jazz à Juan festival in Juan-les-Pins, Antibes, France (photograph by Olivier Bruchez, from a Wikimedia Commons Web page, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license)

Once again Jazz Chez Hanny will present a program to celebrate the New Year. The title of the program will be Mandala – The Music of Keith Jarrett. The repertoire will be taken from works that pianist Jarrett composed for the two quartets he led in the Seventies. The first of these was the “American” quartet with saxophonist Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden on bass, and percussionist Paul Motian. The other was the quartet formed in Europe with Jan Garbarek on saxophone, bassist Palle Danielsson, and Jon Christensen on drum kit. Mandala is the name of the quartet that will visit Chez Hanny for the celebratory occasion.

Instrumentation departs somewhat from Jarrett’s. Saxophonist Sheldon Brown will lead, possibly commanding a diversity of wind instruments. Matt Clark will accompany at the piano with Michael Wilcox playing a six-string electric bass and Bryan Bowman on drums.

As many readers probably know by now, Chez Hanny is located at 1300 Silver Avenue; and the performance takes place in the downstairs rumpus room. It will begin at 4 p.m. on Thursday, January 1. Admission will be $25, payable by Zelle sent to jazz@chezhanny.com, check to Jazz Chez Hanny, or cash. Because Jazz Chez Hanny is now a 501(c)(3) public charity, donations, which are tax deductible, will also be welcomed. It is also worth noting that Frank Hanny, who provides the venue and for whom the event is named, has been presenting these jazz performances for 25 years in San Francisco.

There will be two sets separated by a potluck break. As a result, all who plan to attend should bring food and/or drink to share. Seating is first come, first served, meaning that reservations are strongly recommended. They may be placed through an electronic mail address: jazz@chezhanny.com. Mail messages received after noon on the day of a performance are unlikely to be seen until after the show is over, and cancellations should be given at least 24 hours advance notice. Finally, volunteer efforts for cleaning up after the show and moving furniture to accommodate both players and listeners are always appreciated.

Friction Quartet Plays Garner’s “Musical Journey”

Friction Quartet musicians Kevin Rogers, Mitso Floor, Doug Machiz, and Jessica Folson (guest artist) recording “The Knight’s Tour” at Skywalker Sound

Early this afternoon I had an opportunity to listen to the Friction Quartet through a YouTube video released late yesterday afternoon. The performance consisted of a single-movement composition by David Garner a little over ten minutes’ duration entitled “The Knight’s Tour.” The music was named after a chess problem: Put a knight on a chess board; then, using only knight moves (two forward and one to the side), visit every square on the board exactly once. (This sometimes appeals to mathematicians more than chess players!)

I am not sure that the music itself has much to say about chess, but it definitely has a rhythmic flow with intimations of a journey. One might even say that the music that Garner composed for Marcus Finnie, playing a drum kit, establishes a sense of forward motion, which then “drives” the string players in the ensemble. They are the members of the Friction Quartet: violinist Kevin Rogers, Mitso Floor on viola, and cellist Doug Machiz, joined by guest violinist Jessica Folson. Scott Pingel’s joins them on bass with jazzy rhythms. It would be fair to say that Friction provides a steady sense of flow, which is driven forward by both the bass and the drum kit.

On first encounter, I did not know what to expect. However, I enjoyed the rhetorical framework of that sense of flow driven by the quartet musicians, who, in turn, are driven by the “rhythm section” of both bass and drums. The brevity of the composition allows the user to enjoy the overall flow without the least sense of tedium. Hopefully, I shall have an opportunity to listen to a “live” performance during a Friction recital.

SFS Programs for January, 2026

For the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) the new year will get off to a rather busy start. In addition to the usual weekly Orchestral Series concerts, the annual Shenson Spotlight Series of recitals will begin next month; and there will be three “off-site” chamber music concerts. As in the past, I prefer to deal with the individual events in chronological order. Most of them will take place in Davies Symphony Hall; and, as in the past, each of the dates will be provided with a hyperlink to facilitate ticket purchases. Tickets may also be purchased at the Box Office, which is at the entrance to Davies on the south side of Grove Street, between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street.

Tuesday, January 13, 5:30 p.m., San Francisco Public Library Bernal Heights Branch: That said, the month will begin with the first Community Chamber Concert. The program has not yet been finalized. However, the performers will be a violinist (Jessie Fellows), a violist (Katie Kadarauch), and a cellist (Anne Richardson); and they may perform in different combinations over the course of the performance. Following the performance, the audience will be encouraged to remain for a Q&A with the musicians.

Thursday, January 15, Friday, January 16, and Saturday, January 17, 7:30 p.m.: Edward Gardner will return to the Davies podium as the first conductor in the new year, and violinist Randall Goosby will return as the first concerto soloist of the new year. His selection will be Max Bruch’s Opus 26 (first) violin concerto in G minor. Director Jenny Wong will prepare the SFS Chorus for the conclusion of the final selection on the program, Gustav Holst’s suite The Planets. The program will begin with music by a fellow Englishman, Ralph Vaughan Williams. The overture he composed for a production of Aristophanes’ The Wasps will receive its first SFS performance.

Sunday, January 18, 2 p.m., Legion of Honor: This will be the first chamber music recital curated by Concertmaster Alexander Barantschik, performing on the 1742 Guarneri del Gesù violin. He will be joined by Peter Wyrick on cello and pianist Anton Nel. The second half of the program will be devoted entirely to Johannes Brahms’ first piano trio, his Opus 8 in B major. The trio will begin with Franz Schubert’s D. 897 “Notturno” in E-flat major. Barantschik will then play Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 378 violin sonata in B-flat major, accompanied by Nel.

Sunday, January 18, 3 p.m.: The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra will host the Bay Area Youth Orchestra Festival. The other participating ensembles will be the California Youth Symphony, the Marin Symphony Youth Orchestra, the Santa Rosa Symphony Youth Orchestra, and the Young People’s Symphony Orchestra. In this annual concert, each participating ensemble will perform a selection, after which they will all join forces to conclude the program. Selections will include overtures by Giuseppe Verdi (Nabuco) and Johannes Brahms (“Academic Festival”) and movements selected from three symphonies by, respectively, Antonín Dvořák (Opus 88, the eighth in G major), Sergei Prokofiev (Opus 100, the fifth, in B-flat major), and Dmitri Shostakovich (Opus 93, the tenth in E minor). There will also be two single-movement selections, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” by Paul Dukas and the “Pinkillo Serrano” movement from Gabriela Lena Frank’s “Apu: Tone Poem for Orchestra.”

Wednesday, January 21, 7:30 p.m.: The Shenson Spotlight Series will begin with a solo piano recital by Jaeden Izik-Dzurko. He has framed his program with two Russian composers, who will appear in chronological order. He will begin with Alexander Scriabin’s Opus 28 “Fantasy,” composed in the key of B minor. He will conclude with Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Opus 23 collection of ten preludes. The “keystone” for the program will be César Franck’s “Prélude, Choral et Fugue.”

Thursday, January 22, Friday, January 23, and Saturday, January 24, 7:30 p.m.: Finnish conductor John Storgårds will make his debut in the SFS Orchestral Series. The “overture” for the program will be by a “fellow Finn.” “The Rapids of Life,” composed by Outi Tarkiainen, will receive its United States premiere. It will be followed by a more familiar piano concerto, Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 35, scored for piano, trumpet, and string orchestra. The piano soloist will be Seong-Jin Cho, and the trumpet part will be performed by SFS Principal Trumpet Mark Inouye. The intermission will be followed by an even more familiar symphony: Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 67 in C minor, often known just as “the fifth.”

Sunday, January 25, 2 p.m., San Francisco Public Library Western Addition Branch: The program has not yet been finalized for the second Community Chamber Concert of the month; but it will be a trio performance involving two violinists (Yvette Kraft and Kingston Ho) and a violist (Leonid Plashinov-Johnson).

Pianist Emanuel Ax (photograph by Nigel Parry, courtesy of SFS)

Thursday, January 29, Friday, January 30, Saturday, January 31, 7:30 p.m.: Pianist Emanuel Ax will return to Davies as concerto soloist. He will perform Mozart’s K. 503 (25th) piano concerto in C major under the baton of Jaap van Zweden. The intermission will be followed by Anton Bruckner’s WAB 107, his seventh symphony in E major.

Joachim to Bring her Haiti Project to Noe Music

Nathalie Joachim, creator of the Fanm d’Ayiti event (from the Noe Music Web page for purchasing tickets)

Next month Noe Music will host Fanm d’Ayiti (women of Haiti), created by Nathalie Joachim. Her objective in creating this program was to honor stories about Haitian women from both the past and the present. She has prepared a program of vocal compositions, traditional songs, and chamber music. In the latter category, she will be joined by a string quartet from Decoda, based in Carnegie Hall but co-founded by Owen Dalby and Meena Bhasin, who currently run Noe Music. Program specifics have not yet been provided, but the entire performance will last one hour.

Most readers probably know by now that the venue is located in Noe Valley at 1021 Sanchez Street. The performance will begin at 8 p.m. on Saturday, January 10. As usual, tickets will be available online through the Web page for the event. Reserved seating will be $60, and general admission tickets are available from $15 to $45 on a first-come first-served basis.

The Bleeding Edge: 12/16/2025

Once again, the week can be described as “relatively busy.” This week there will be two events that have already been reported. As at least some readers will expect, one of them is the ongoing event reported at the beginning of this month: 1000 Whispers From Our Future, which will be taking place at Audium this week on Thursday, December 18, Friday, December 19, and Saturday, December 20, beginning at 8 p.m. The other will be pianist Sarah Cahill’s visit to the Main Branch of the San Francisco Public Library on Sunday, 2 p.m. to celebrate composer Terry Riley’s 90th birthday. The venues for the remaining events will probably be familiar to regular readers; and, as usual, the options are impressively diverse. Details are as follows:

Tuesday, December 16, 6 p.m., Medicine for Nightmares: The title of the program will be Bridging Musical Traditions. Saxophonist Francis Wong will be on one side of the bridge, so to speak. The other will be shared by Jinji Sayson and Conrad Benedicto, both of whom specialize in Asian percussion instruments: the kulintang, an idiophone of metal gong kettles, and the dabakan Philippine drum. As always, the venue is the bookstore 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.

The Gibson Les Paul Custom guitar that Sonny Sharrock played on his Guitar album

Tuesday, December 16, 7 p.m., Make-Out Room: This month’s Jazz at the Make-Out Room will consist of only two sets, each a little short of an hour in duration. The opening set will be a non-standard trio, the Myles Boisen String Trio. Guitarist Boisen will be joined by Fred Longberg-Holm on cello. Rhythms will be provided by a bassist not yet announced. Guitarist Karl Evangelista will take the second set at 8 p.m. He will perform Guitar, which will be a tribute to the six tracks on Sonny Sharrock’s album of the same title (the last of which is the four-movement “Princess Sonata”). For those unfamiliar with the venue, it is located in the Mission at 3225 22nd Street.

Wednesday, December 17, 6 p.m., San Francisco Public Library (SFPL), Golden Gate Valley Branch: This will be an outdoor event described as a “participatory neighborhood promenade with shimmering ambient music.” All attendees will be required only to share the same instructions: “Each participant simultaneously plays one of four pre-recorded tracks from a mobile device that amplifies music as we walk together on a pre-determined 45 minute route that will take us to the nearby Marina branch library and back to the Golden Gate Valley branch.” Those familiar with the area should be reassured that no steep hills will be involved, but the performance will not be “canceled on account of rain!” For those that do not already know, the “library of origin” is located at 1801 Green Street, between Laguna Street and Octavia Street.

Friday, December 19, 6 p.m., Bird & Beckett Books and Records: The only available information is that this will be a duo performance by saxophonist David Boyce accompanied by Scott Foster on guitar. Admission will be $20. Those wishing to make reservations can call 415-586-3733.

Friday, December 19, 7 p.m., Medicine for Nightmares: This time the venue will host the next Other Dimensions in Sound performance curated by reed player David Boyce. This week Boyce will host Subterranean Fire. Again, there will be no charge for admission.

Flutist Yubeen Kim’s SFCM Faculty Recital

Readers that have previously encountered Yubeen Kim’s name probably know that he is Principal Flute with the San Francisco Symphony (SFS), a position he assumed in January of 2024. However, he is also on the faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM); and last night he performed a Faculty Artist Series recital in the Recital Hall of the 50 Oak Street building. Most of his selection required piano accompaniment, provided by Yu-Hsin Galaxy Su. (She is also a clarinetist, also performing with SFS.) Kim also performed duo work with another flutist, Julin Cheung, Assistant Principal Flute and Piccolo of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.

Flutists Yubeen Kim and Julin Cheung performing with Yu-Hsin Galaxy Su at the piano (screenshot from the livestream of last night’s performance)

Due to the small number of performers, a relatively small area of stage space was occupied. As a result, camera work was limited to making sure that all performers were in the frame. Those limited numbers eliminated any risk of the camera looking in the wrong place! The only major activity on the stage involved replacing the piano with a harpsichord for Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s H 569 trio sonata in D minor (after which the piano returned to its proper place for the remainder of the program). Kim also performed an encore with Su, an arrangement of the “Méditation” intermezzo from Jules Massenet’s opera Thaïs, possibly performing from the vocal score.

Once again, the greatest shortcoming with the livestream was the audio. Once again I had to crank up the volume to eleven, as they say. However, because the Recital Hall is significantly smaller than the Concert Hall, the listening experience was not as frustrating as it had previously been; and Kim’s repertoire could not have been more engaging!

New Year to Begin with New ARTZenter Works

An example of a three-dimensional Lichtenberg Figure (from its Wikimedia Commons Web page)

The first full week of next month will see the next performance by the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players (SFCMP), led by Artistic Director & Conductor Eric Dudley, presenting the next round of world premiere performances made possible by the Emerging Composer Grant Program enabled by the ARTZenter Institute. The program will present works by four beneficiaries of that program, chosen from a group of six finalists from the June 2025 submission deadline. Those composers and their respective works will be as follows:

1. Anak Baiharn (Eastman School of Music): Forever, Until/Until, Forever
2. SiHyun Uhm (University of California, Los Angeles): Pulse
3. Brady Wolff (Indiana University): Lichtenberg Figures
4. Trevor Zavac (University of Southern California): Composition No. 0136

This performance will begin at 7:30 p.m., on Tuesday, January 6. It will take place in Herbst Theatre, whose entrance is on the ground floor of the Veterans Building. located on the southwest corner of Van Ness Avenue and McAllister Street. Each of the composers has received a $3000 grant to cover travel to San Francisco and accommodations. The performance will be presented free of admission, and no reservations will be required.

Voices of Music Focuses on Arcangelo Corelli

The Voices of Music ensemble playing the D major (fourth) concerto grosso from Arcangelo Corelli’s Opus 6

This afternoon I returned to YouTube for the latest Sundays at Ten Web site, compiled by Voices of Music (VoM) in a collection of selections from past performances. The title of the program was Corelli in Rome, Episode 45 from Season 5. It was framed by two of the concerti grossi in Arcangelo Corelli’s Opus 6 collection, the second in F major and  the fourth in D major. The “core” of the program consisted of two Adagio movements from his Opus 5 sonatas. The first of these was from the third sonata in C major for violin, followed by the fourth sonata in F major for recorder. That latter was given a publication by John Walsh with rich ornamentations, and that version was performed by Hanneke van Proosdij. The violin sonata was performed with Augusta McKay Lodge, accompanied at the harpsichord by Paolo Zanzu. The remaining work on the program was the Ciaconna movement from the final (twelfth) sonata da camera in the Opus 2 collection.

Taken as a whole, the selections proceeded at an engaging clip. The Opus 6 performances both lasted about ten minutes, while all of the single-movement offerings were less than four minutes in duration. As usual, the camera work provided a useful guide to following how the thematic material would migrate from one instrumental voice to another. While the video was a collection of performances taking place on different programs, the sequencing of the individual selections made for a coherent account conceived to survey Corelli’s achievements. By all rights, this would have stood up perfectly well as a “live” recital program!

VoM to Celebrate the Season with Vivaldi

The Voices of Music ensemble led by Hanneke van Proosdij at the harpsichord (from the Web page for the program being discussed)

This coming Saturday Voices of Music (VoM) will present its annual end-of-year festive offering. The title of this year’s program is Vivaldi Lights Up the Holidays; and, as might be expected, all the selections on the program will be works composed by Antonio Vivaldi. Because this is a seasonal offering, the major work on the program will be the first four violin concertos in Antonio Vivaldi’s Opus 8 collection, Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione (the contest between harmony and invention). Those four concertos, of course, have a title of their own, Le quattro stagioni (the four seasons). The program will also include RV 580, the last of the concertos for four violins in the Opus 3 L'estro armonico (the harmonic inspiration) collection. The program will also include the RV 419 cello concerto in A minor and the one concerto not for a string instrument, the RV 444 recorder concerto in C major.

This concert will take place in the Caroline C. Hume Concert Hall of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, located at 50 Oak Street, just west of Van Ness Avenue. The performance will begin at 7:30 p.m. this coming Saturday, December 20. Ticket prices range from $10 to $63. The VoM Web site has created a Web page for online ticket purchases.

NCCO: The Coming of the Winter Season

SFGC in 2023 (photograph by Carlin Ma)

This afternoon in St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, the New Century Chamber Orchestra presented its latest program, entitled In Winter’s Glow. Music Director Daniel Hope led as Concertmaster, sharing the program with the San Francisco Girls Chorus (SFGC) prepared by Artistic Director Valérie Sainte-Agathe. In fact, compositions by William Billings, Benjamin Britten, and Ola Gjeilo, along with arrangements of “Deck the Halls” and “Silent Night” in arrangements by John Rutter, were performed only by SFGC.

Hope led performances of two multi-movement compositions. The first of these was a concerto for four violins in B minor, the tenth selection in the twelve concertos that Antonio Vivaldi collected in his Opus 3, given the title L'estro armonico (the harmonic inspiration). The other instrumental selection was Edward Elgar’s three-movement “Serenade for Strings.” The program concluded with a joint presentation of Nico Muhly’s “Whispered and Revealed.” There were also two joint presentations dedicated explicitly to the Christmas holiday. The first of these was two of the movements from Gordon Getty’s Four Christmas Carols followed by “I Wonder as I Wander” and “Christmas Time of Year” from Jake Heggie’s On the Road to Christmas. The encore selection was “Balulalow,” a Scottish cradle song, often associated with the Nativity.

This was an undertaking as diverse as it was generous. Nevertheless, it all fit neatly into a 90-minute program; and, at least from my vantage point, the audience seemed fixated to the performance from start to finish. Ironically, the only problems with diction seemed to arise in Rutter’s arrangements; but all the other SFGC performances were as clear as crystal.

I suspect that one of the reasons why this program was, for the most part, consistently engaging is that Hope and Sainte-Agathe had no trouble in working with each other. Each selection was greeted with sincere applause, but it was the overall journey through an impressive variety of dispositions that sustained attention. Hope and Sainte-Agathe may have alternated in leadership, but it was clear that they shared the vision of that overall journey. Listening to the final round of applause, it was clear that the audience could not have been more satisfied with that vision.

Next Week with The Living Earth Show

Andy Meyerson, Travis Andrews, and Mark Applebaum, presumably preparing for next week’s performances (from the Eventbrite Web page for Classic Bucket List)

At the end of next week, the duo of guitarist Travis Andrews and drummer Andy Meyerson, known to regular readers as The Living Earth Show (TLES), will join forces and share percussion resources with composer Mark Applebaum. The trio calls itself Bucket List, and they will present two different programs on two consecutive evenings. Both performances will last about 90 uninterrupted minutes beginning at 7:30 p.m. They will take place at the TLES “home base,” the Roar Shack, which is located in the heart of the Mid-Market district at 34 Seventh Street. Tickets are available through Eventbrite Web pages, whose hyperlinks are attached to the specific dates as follows:

Thursday, December 18: The title of this program will be Classic Bucket List.  In the words of the performers, the concert will showcase their “dedication to the deadly serious but playfully ludic execution of carefully planned explosions of absurdity, whimsy, gravity, and levity: funk and rock grooves; subtle jazz improvisations; minimalist phasing accompanied by choreography; mercurial, gritty new complexity chamber music; performance art with office supplies and doodads; grocery store time-lapse video; incompetent but vociferously executed vocalizations made whilst trapped in a purple, three-person pope costume; and the reckless administration of mustard to a series of hotdogs.” (It goes without saying that the trio is also dedicated to run-on sentences!)

Friday, December 19: This will be a performance of a single continuous 50-minute piece. It will be realized through cross-fading thirteen distinct musical modules, created by The Achievement Institute, the alter ego of Bucket List. This will be a performance in the round. Some traditional seating will be available; but, again in the words of the trio, “listeners are also encouraged to take in the soothing tones on their own yoga mat and pillow.”