SFP Shenson Great Artists and Ensembles

Regular readers probably know that, in the coming 2025–26 season, the Shenson Foundation will continue to support the Spotlight Series of recitals presented by the San Francisco Symphony. In the past, it has also supported the San Francisco Performances (SFP) Chamber Series. However, in the second, third, and fourth months of next year, SFP will present The Shenson Great Artists and Ensembles Series. This will consist of three duo performances and one by a string quartet augmented with double bass.

As usual, all of the concerts will take place in Herbst Theatre, beginning on Friday evenings at 7:30 p.m. The entrance to Herbst is the main entrance to the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue, located on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. The venue is excellent for public transportation, since that corner has Muni bus stops for both north-south and east-west travel. The specific dates and their related performers are as follows:

February 20: Violinist Jennifer Koh is a favorite of Bay Area audiences. During the pandemic she commissioned 39 short compositions (each less than six minutes in duration), each from a different composer, recording them all on the Cedille Records album Alone Together. For her return to SFP, she will present a new work by Tania Léon (one of the contributors to Alone Together). The other recent work will be “Tocar” by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, who died a little over two years ago. Each of these selections will be followed by a sonata by a more “traditional” French composer. The first half of the program will conclude with Maurice Ravel’s second violin and piano sonata, whose second movement was given the title “Blues.” The final work on the program will be Gabriel Fauré’s Opus 13, his first violin sonata in the key of A major. Koh will be accompanied at the piano by Thomas Sauer.

March 20: Violinist Augustin Hadelich has made several visits to Davies Symphony Hall, but this will be his SFP debut. His accompanist will be Francesco Piemontesi, who has prepared arrangements of two pre-classical compositions. One of these is “La Boucon” (the button), a keyboard composition by Jean-Philippe Rameau. The other is “Recit du Chant,” composed by the seventeenth-century French organist Nicolas de Grigny. The most recent work on the program will be György Kurtág’s Tre Pezzi (three pieces). Those pieces will be complemented by three duo sonatas by (in order of appearance) Claude Debussy, Francis Poulenc, and César Franck.

March 27: The Dover Quartet, whose members are violinists Joel Link and Bryan Lee, violist Julianne Lee, and cellist Camden Shaw, last performed for SFP when the group launched the 2021–2022 season with the first concert in that season’s Shenson Chamber Series. For their return visit, they will be joined by double bass virtuoso and composer Edgar Meyer. They will perform a quintet composed by Meyer. The remainder of the program has not yet been announced.

Anthony McGill with his clarinet (from the SFP Web page for his coming recital)

April 3: Clarinetist Anthony McGill’s last SFP appearance took place at the end of last year, when he performed with the Pacifica Quartet. This time he will give a duo recital, accompanied at the piano by Gloria Chien. Program specifics have not yet been announced.

Subscriptions are now on sale for $310 for premium seating in the Orchestra and the front and center of the Dress Circle, $270 for the Side Boxes, the center rear of the Dress Circle, and the remainder of the Orchestra, and $230 for the remainder of the Dress Circle and the Balcony. Subscriptions may be purchased online in advance through an SFP Web page. Orders may also be placed by calling the SFP subscriber hotline at 415-677-0325, which is open for receiving calls between 9:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. When single tickets go on sale, they may be purchased by visiting the specific event pages. The above dates provide hyperlinks to the appropriate Web pages.