New Century Chamber Orchestra: 2025/26

As was the case last year, the 2025/26 season of the New Century Chamber Orchestra (NCCO) and its Music Director Daniel Hope will begin this coming November. This season there will be four concerts performed in San Francisco at three different venues. One of those performances will see the return of the ensemble to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM), which it last visited in January of 2024. SFCM students will participate in that concert. Dates, times, and location specifics are as follows:

Saturday, November 1, 7:30 p.m., Herbst Theatre: Last year began with a program entitled Vivaldi: Recomposed, based on a “recomposition” of The Four Seasons by Max Richter. This season will begin with Antonio Vivaldi’s “original version.” The program will also include Antonín Dvořák's Opus 22 “Serenade for Strings” in E major. The most recent work to be performed will be “Dawn,” composed by Dobrinka Tabakova in 2007.

Saturday, December 13, 2 p.m., St. Mark’s Lutheran Church: This year there will be a holiday program entitled In Winter’s Glow, performed in collaboration with the San Francisco Girls Chorus (SFGC). In addition to the groups performing together, there will be works for choir alone by Ola Gjeilo, William Billings, and Benjamin Britten and works for strings alone by John Rutter, Edward Elgar, and Antonio Vivaldi. Bay Area composers David Conte and Jake Heggie will also contribute to the program. In addition, Nico Muhly has arranged his “Whispered and Revealed” for performance by SFGC.

Saturday, January 24, 7:30 p.m., Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall, San Francisco Conservatory (SFCM) of Music: Violinist Simone Porter will visit SFCM to serve as guest leader of a collaboration between NCCO and SFCM. The title of the program will be Enlighten Me, and 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 Biber, Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Heitor Villa-Lobos.

Saturday, March 14, 2 p.m., Presidio Theatre: Luminaries will present the world premiere of a new work by Nathaniel Stookey, composed in honor of Gordon Getty. The program will begin with “Overture,” which Jake Heggie composed for NCCO’s 30th anniversary. The will be followed by the A major violin concerto composed by the Chevalier de Saint-Georges Joseph Bologne. The program will conclude with a full-ensemble performance of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 70, the D minor string sextet given the title “Souvenir de Florence.”

1971 photograph of Astor Piazzolla with his bandoneon (from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

Saturday, April 25, 2 p.m., Presidio Theatre: The title of the final program will be Radiance in Rhythm, and it will feature guitarist Pablo Sáinz-Villegas as guest artist. He will perform one of the best known guitar concertos, the “Concierto de Aranjuez” by Joaquín Rodrigo. He will also present a much more recent undertaking, “Bay of Pigs,” which Michael Daugherty composed in 2006. Another familiar Latin composer will be Astor Piazzolla, whose “Fuga y misterio” will be performed. The other Latin work on the program will be Primera Suite Argentina by Alberto Williams. The program will also present the world premiere of a new work by Henry Dorn commissioned by NCCO, whose title has not yet been announced.