Music in the Mishkan Announces 27th Season

Poster design for the Music in the Mishkan season (from last year’s announcement of the 26th season)

Violinist Randall Weiss recently announced plans for the 27th season of Music in the Mishkan. He is a long-time member of The Bridge Players. The season will consist of only two performances, which will be performed by the same piano quartet. The pianist will be Amy Zanrosso, and Weiss will be joined by violist Natalia Vershilova and Victoria Ehrlich on cello. Both concerts will be Sunday afternoon events, beginning at 4 p.m. Dates and program selections will be as follows:

February 15: In 1999 Lera Auerbach composed three cycles of 24 preludes accounting for all major and minor keys. According to my records, the chronological order of these cycles accounts for piano, cello, and violin, the last two being duo performances with piano accompaniment. For the first Mishkan performance, Weiss will perform selections from the violin cycle and Ehrlich will do the same drawing upon the cello cycle. These selections will be preceded by a violin sonata in D minor composed by Leon Reinach, who was murdered in the Holocaust. The remainder of the program will offer more familiar selections: Gabriel Fauré’s Opus 120 piano trio in D minor and Robert Schumann’s Opus 47 piano quartet in E-flat major.

April 12: The second program will feature the world premiere of a piano trio by Alex Malinas. It will begin with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 478 piano quartet in G minor. The second half of the program will be devoted to Camille Saint-Saëns’ Opus 41 piano quartet in B-flat major.

As in the past, these performances will take place at the Sha’ar Zahav synagogue. It is located in the Mission at 290 Dolores Street. Ticket prices are $30 for members and $35 for others. All purchases are processed through a single Web page. There will be no physical tickets, but a list will be kept at the door.

Dave Stryker’s New Trio Album

Dave Stryker on the cover of his latest album

My last encounter with guitarist Dave Stryker took place almost exactly two years ago with the release of his Groove Street album. Early this month he released a new album, whose full title is Blue Fire: The Van Gelder Session. The subtitle refers to the fact that the nine tracks were recorded at the Van Gelder Recording Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, in a single day on July 14 of last year.

Once again, Stryker is leading a trio performing with Jared Gold on organ and McClenty Hunter on drums. He is responsible for composing four of the tracks: “Van Gelder’s Place,” “Blue Fire,” “Waiting for Ruby,” and “Summer Night.” Gold contributes an original of his own: “Back and Forth.” The other tracks are by Charlie Parker (“Dexterity”), Jerome Kern (“The Folks who Live on the Hill”), Paul McCartney (“The Fool on the Hill”), and the partnership of Harry Warren and Al Dubin (“Summer Night”).

Through my past experiences, I have come to enjoy listening to Stryker’s guitar work; and his solo riffs consistently deserve attention. That said, both Gold and Hunter have takes of their own to contribute to the album. The result is a consistent account of performances involving an engaging diversity of solos in a well-balanced trio context. Stryker strikes again!

Do We Need the UK to Keep Trump in Check?

United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer opposing Donald Trump’s plans for Greenland (photograph provided by the United Kingdom’s House of Commons)

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jan/21/starmer-criticises-trump-pressure-over-greenland

Fred Randolph Quintet Returning to Chez Hanny

Fred Randolph on bass guitar performing with Phil Thompson on saxophone and Marcos Silva on trumpet (from a YouTube video of a performance of the Hispanic song “Pelo Mar” at the California Jazz Conservatory)

Next month will begin with the return of the Fred Randolph Quintet to Chez Hanny. Bassist Randolph leads the group, which last visited Chez Hanny almost exactly two years ago. Three of the members of the group performed with Randolph on that occasion: Sheldon Brown, who plays a diversity of wind instruments and devotes the rest of his time to composition, trumpeter Erik Jekabson, and pianist Murray Low. The “newcomer” to the quintet is drummer Brian Fishler.

As usual, the performance will begin at Chez Hanny at 4 p.m. on Sunday, February 1. As always, the venue will be Hanny’s house at 1300 Silver Avenue, with the performance taking place in the downstairs rumpus room. Admission will be $25, payable by cash, a check to Jazz Chez Hanny, or the Zelle account at jazz@chezhanny.com. There will be two sets separated by a potluck break. As a result, all who plan to attend are encouraged to bring food and/or drink to share. Seating is first come, first served; and the doors will open at 3:30 p.m.

Can the EU Stand Up to Trump Successfully?

Reuters photograph of Donald Trump by Elizabeth Frantz (from an Al Jazeera Web page) 

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/20/trump-undermines-key-allies-uk-and-france-ahead-of-davos-visit

Earplay: Answering the Unanswered

Yesterday evening saw the beginning of Earplay’s 41st season, entitled Answering The Unanswered Question. The season was inspired by Charles Ives’ enigmatic orchestral composition, “The Unanswered Question” with the intention that each of the three programs of the season would also feature a new composition serving as an “answer.” Last night’s “response” was provided by Emma Logan, whose “What Lies at Dream’s End” was performed immediately after Bruce Bennetts’s arrangement of “The Unanswered Question” scored for flute (Tod Brody), clarinet (Peter Josheff), violin (Terrie Baune), viola (Ellen Ruth Rose), cello (Thalia Moore), and piano (Keisuke Nakagoshi).

In Ives’ original score, the “question” was posed by a solo instrument. Ives’ preference was a trumpet using a mute “unless playing in a very large room, or with a larger string orchestra.” The “response” was provided by a woodwind quartet, preferably four flutes but with possible substitutions of oboe and clarinet. Last night the exchange was performed by Josheff posing the question and Nakagoshi taking on attempts to answer.

My acquaintance with Ives’ music goes back to high school days. Unless I am mistaken, Eugene Ormandy introduced his second symphony to the Philadelphia Orchestra with a broad variety of responses from the audience. My work at the campus radio station of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology gave me the opportunity to get to know many of that composer’s works. I discovered that most of my professors (including Elliott Carter during a term as Visiting Professor) did not know what to make of him; but I had no trouble taking his raucous rhetoric at face value!

“The Unanswered Question” is far from raucous, but it still mystified just about anyone that tried to explain it. Personally, I have no trouble just taking the question-response structure at face value. If the question is never answered, I can still enjoy the music itself.

I would not be surprised if Logan adopted the same attitude. “What Lies at Dream’s End” is a trio for flute, viola, and piano. I came away with the impression that her music amounted to personal reflections after her encounter with Ives. Her music did not necessarily reflect Ives, but “The Unanswered Question” probably triggered her own personal thoughts. Personally, I cannot think of a better approach to “answering” Ives!

Terri Baune, Thalia Moore, Keisuke Nakagoshi, Peter Josheff, and Tod Brody playing John Harbison’s “Prelude-Variations” (screen shot from last night’s YouTube’s feed of the Earplay recital)

The first half of the program concluded with “Prelude–Variations,” composed by John Harbison in 2024. Given its West Coast premiere, this music was scored for flute, clarinet (doubling on bass clarinet), violin, cello, and piano. Unless I am mistaken, Harbison arrived at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shortly before I left with my doctoral degree in hand. My encounters with him were brief, and our differences in opinion were immediately obvious! Earplay provided a solid account of this piece, but it had little impact on me.

The second half of the program was devoted entirely to Roger Reynolds’ “Shadowed Narrative.” Unfortunately, the audio on my live YouTube feed mysteriously vanished. Fortunately, I still have his For a Reason album in my collection!

The Bleeding Edge: 1/19/2026

This will be a moderately busy week on the Bleeding Edge. Nevertheless, all of the events will take place between today and Friday! The earliest of these has already been announced: the beginning of Earplay’s 41st season this evening at the Noe Valley Ministry. The remaining events of the week will be as follows:

Monday, January 19, 7:30 p.m., Dead End Vintage: This venue seems to have changed its name, since it was reported as DEAD NOISE STATION last year. However, if the name has changed, the venue will still be presenting a four-set evening, which will involve a few visitors. Cecyl Ruehlen is based in Tucson, Arizona; and his performance will involve creating and working with “chimeric instruments.” The other visitors will be the String Thing duo of Fae Ordaz and Penina Biddle-Gottesman, who live in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Isabelle Waldner Kalb seems to have last visited San Francisco as one of the performers in an “acoustic string show” this past October. The final set will be a trio performance. Aine Nakamura presented her hands on tape installation at The Lab this past July. She will again perform with percussionist Jacob Felix Heule, and they will be joined by another percussionist, Kevin Corcoran. The address for the venue is still 3370 19th Street, located in the Mission, between Mission Street and Capp Street.

Tuesday, January 20, 7 p.m., Make-Out Room: This month’s Jazz at the Make-Out Room will present several sets opening with three familiar faces. The trio of Tom Djll on electronics, guitarist Karl Evangelista, and Suki O’Kane on percussion will begin the evening. They will be followed by a solo set with Sean Keenan working with a diversity of electronic gear. Electronics will be set aside in the final set, performed by the quartet of Bruce Ackley on a diversity of wind instruments, cellist Ben Davis, Darren Johnston on trumpet, and David Michalak dividing his attention among a lap steel guitar, a skatchbox, and a phantom harp. For those unfamiliar with the venue, it is located in the Mission at 3225 22nd Street.

Thursday, January 22, Friday, January 23, and Saturday, January 24, 7 p.m., Black Cat Jazz Supper Club: Trumpeter Etienne Charles will lead a trio performance. Rhythm will be provided by Mikailo Kasha on bass and drummer Miles Turk. Admission will be $30. The address for the venue is 400 Eddy Street.

Poster design for Resident Electronic Music!

Thursday, January 22, 8 p.m., Noisebridge Hackerspace: Noisebridge will host its next monthly open mic event, Resident Electronic Music! As has already been reported, this takes place on the fourth Thursday of the month. Set duration is limited to twenty minutes. The hosts for this month will again be Franck Martin, TanukiSpiderCat, and Jah’s Tin. As in the past, the full account of performers has not yet been finalized. Performers can set up their preparations beginning at 7 p.m., and the BayImproviser Web page includes the necessary requirements for participants. There is also a Web page where they can sign up for participation. The performance will be free, but donations are suggested! Noisebridge is located in the Mission at 272 Capp Street.

Friday, January 23, 7 p.m.,  Medicine for Nightmares: This week’s Other Dimensions in Sound program will be devoted entirely to “an entity of instrumetal noise rock known as Wall of Fog.” 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.

Davies Hosts Bay Area Youth Orchestra Festival

Once again, the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra (SFSYO), led by Radu Paponiu, hosted the annual Bay Area Youth Orchestra Festival in Davies Symphony Hall. They shared the stage with four other Bay Area ensembles:

1. Marin Symphony Youth Orchestra with Music Director Jim Stopher
2. Santa Rosa Symphony Youth Orchestra with Music Director Jaco Wong
3. Young People’s Symphony Orchestra with Music Director David Ramadanoff
4. California Youth Symphony with Music Director Leo Eylar

Newscaster Wendy Tokuda served as Master of Ceremonies.

Marin began the program with the overture to Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Nabucco. This could not have been a better opening, putting the full ensemble to good use. Stopher conducted without a score, keeping his full attention focused on all of the performers.

Wong took a smooth segue from Gabriela Lena Frank (the “Pinkillo Serrano” movement from Apu: Tone Poem for Orchestra) to Sergei Prokofiev, his Opus 100 (fifth) symphony in B-flat major. The latter was limited to its last (Allegro giocoso) movement. This involved a fair amount of cello work, which came across as weak. This may have been just as well since there were major problems with the overall balance of the ensemble. Far more confident was the SFSYO approach to Johannes Brahms’ Opus 80, his “Academic Festival” overture with an “encore” of Martin Schmeling’s orchestration of the fifth of the Brahms “Hungarian Dance” compositions.

Antonín Dvořák’s summer residence, where he composed his Opus 88 (photographer not identified, from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license)

The second half of the program began with David Ramadanoff leading the Young People’s Symphony Orchestra in the first movement of Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 88 (eighth) symphony in G major. Sadly, the conductor did not appear to be particularly connected to his score, but the ensemble seemed quite capable of maintaining the necessary inertia. More problematic was Leo Eylar’s approach to Paul Dukas’ “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” which never seemed to find the right balance across the composer’s engaging instrumental diversity. The program then concluded with an “all hands on deck” performance of the final movement of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 93 (tenth) symphony in E minor.

Since I made my move to the Bay Area, I have tried to keep up with this annual gathering of youth orchestras. I like to think of them as forecasting what to expect in future concert performances. As can be seen from the above account, this year’s forecast was a mixed one. On the other hand, forecasts can only be speculative; so all I can do is wait to see if I ever encounter any of yesterday afternoon’s performers in the future!

Old First Concerts: February, 2026

Having accounted for the three performances to be presented by Old First Concerts this month shortly before Christmas, it is now time to look forward to next month’s offerings. There will be only two of them, both piano trio performances. However, content will be significantly different, as most readers will be quick to observe. 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 live streaming and ticket purchasing) will be attached to the date and time of the performances as follows:

Friday, February 13, 8 p.m. and Sunday, February 15, 4 p.m.: The first program will be performed by the Sixth Station Trio. Some readers may recall that this ensemble is a piano trio, all of whose members have had experiences with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM). The pianist is Katelyn Tan, who received her Masters degree from SFCM in 2020 and now serves as a staff accompanist there. That same year, violinist Anju Goto completed his SFCM undergraduate degree. Finally, cellist Federico Strand Ramirez holds both a Bachelor of Music and an Advanced Certificate degree from SFCM. They have prepared their own arrangement of the music that Joe Hisaishi composed for the Japanese animated fantasy film Howl’s Moving Castle. The narrative for this film is a romantic one, making it appropriate for the weekend of Valentine’s Day!

Ensemble Les Six members Ihang Lin, Katie Youn, and Catalina Barraza (from the Web page for their Old First Concerts recital)

Friday, February 20, 8 p.m.: Ensemble Les Six was founded in March of 2022 by pianist Ihang Lin. The group, named after the six composers that joined forces in France during World War I, consists of ten professional musicians, many associated with local universities, as well as the San Francisco Symphony and the San Francisco Opera Guild. Three of these musicians will visit Old First, including Lin along with Catalina Barraza on violin and cellist Katie Youn. All three of them will perform Claude Debussy’s only piano trio, composed in 1880 but only discovered in 1982. This will be the final work on the program, which will begin with Lin performing études selected from Frédéric Chopin’s Opus 10 collection. This will be followed by two duo performances for violin and cello. The more familiar of these will be Johan Halvorsen’s arrangement of the passacaglia movement from George Frideric Handel’s HWV 432 harpsichord suite in G minor. This will be preceded by the more recent duo for violin and cello composed by Jessie Montgomery.

DSO Streams Beethoven and Mendelssohn

Screen shot of Jonathan Biss at the keyboard performing with Delyana Lazarova conducting the DSO

Early yesterday evening my wife and I once again enjoyed our dinner while watching a live-stream of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO). Conductor Delyana Lazarova prepared a straightforward overture-concerto-symphony program, with an intermission prior to the symphony. That symphony was Felix Mendelssohn’s Op. Posth. 90, his fourth symphony given the title “Italian.” The concerto soloist was Jonathan Biss, performing Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 19 (second) piano concerto, composed in the key of B-flat major. The program began with the overture that Carl Maria von Weber composed for this three-act opera Oberon.

Biss used to make regular appearances in San Francisco. One of my earliest articles on this site was written in March of 2007, when I wrote about a recital he performed with particular attention to Robert Schumann’s “Kreisleriana.” That selection was preceded by compositions by both Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven; and I was struck by how Biss made one of the Mozart selections, movements from the K. 533 piano sonata in F major, sound as if they has been composed by Schumann!

I am happy to report that, yesterday evening, Biss made Beethoven sound like Beethoven. Opus 19 is an early work, and Beethoven composed it in high spirits. Biss found just the right sensitivity in his touch to convey those spirits without overplaying them. This often involved cheerful interjections of comments from the ensemble, and Lazarova knew just how to play her side of the dialogue. As might be expected, Biss responded to the audience applause with an encore. Sure enough, he selected more Beethoven: the Adagio cantabile (second) movement from one of the composer’s early piano sonatas, Opus 13 in C minor, given the title “Sonata Pathétique.”

Lazarova’s approaches to the instrumental selections were as spirited in rhetoric as the sonata was. Weber’s opera took a French medieval tale and seems to have examined it through the lens of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream. These days, the opera (when it is performed at all) is more likely to be presented in concert, rather than in a staged version. Nevertheless, the overture stands well on its own and tends to be popular among most concert lovers. That includes the audience for last night’s DSO performance!

In introducing her program, Lazarova declared Mendelssohn to be “the only composer to make a minor key seem heavy.” I assume she had in mind the tarantella movement that concludes the “Italian” symphony. She clearly enjoyed conducting this music; and, for the most part, the DSO musicians seemed to enjoy her enjoyment! I must confess that this is one of those compositions that I feel I have encountered too many times, but the freshness of Lazarova’s interpretation definitely got the better of me!

This is a conductor I would be happy to encounter again under other circumstances (in case anyone in Davies Symphony Hall happens to be reading this)!

Quartett Rheinsaiten Releases New Video

Quartett Rheinsaiten has been releasing videos of their performances to YouTube for the better part of this current decade. The current members are Miguel Mandelli, Daniel März, Ema Kapor, and Yucen Du, who live on different sides of the Rhein river in Cologne, Düsseldorf, and Jüchen. They gather to rehearse in regions in and around Cologne.

This morning saw the release of their fourth YouTube video. The selection is “A furiosa” by Paulo Bellinati, which clocks in at a little less than four minutes. Nevertheless, as the title suggests, the performance unleashes a generous flow of energy. Both audio and video were produced by Chichio Productions, with capture taking place in the Kulturhalle in the German city of Dormagen. Content was recorded almost a year ago in February of 2025.

Quartett Rheinsaiten performing “A furiosa” (screen shot from the YouTube video being discussed)

As readers might expect, “furiosa” depicts an outburst of energy. Bellinati’s music rises to that bait, so to speak. Watching the video, however, it is easy to acknowledge that just as much energy went into capturing the video content. Each of the instruments had its own microphone, facilitating clarity in the overall audio balance. On the other hand, the video work presents not only the ensemble as a whole (as can be seen above) but also more “intimate visits” to each of the performers.

Bellinati is, himself a guitarist. However, he is not only a composer but also a musicologist. His major achievement on that front was his compilation of the works by the Brazilian guitarist-composer Anibal Augusto Sardinha, best know by the name “Garoto.” The result was two substantial volumes of content, for which he has received international critical acclaim and recognition.

Second OFS Concert will be “Supernatural”

OFS violinists on the banner for the Web page for the One Found Sound Supernatural program

Early next month will see the second of the four concerts to be presented during the thirteenth season of One Found Sound (OFS). Many (most?) readers know that this ensemble calls itself the “conductorless, collaborative, chamber orchestra,” which has cultivated a consistently engaging repertoire that spans from the Baroque period of Johann Sebastian Bach to the “immediate present.” The title of next month’s program will be Supernatural, presenting “an evening of sound inspired by the natural world and what lies just beyond it.”

The span of this particular program will not go all the way “back to Bach.” Rather, the “time line” will begin in the nineteenth century with Felix Mendelssohn’s Op. Posth. 90, his fourth symphony in A major, known as his “Italian” symphony. The program will begin with a twentieth-century selection, Igor Stravinsky’s Concerto in E-flat for chamber orchestra, given a subtitle named after the Dumbarton Oaks estate building in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Two “natural” compositions will be situated between these “bookends.” One of them will be Missy Mazzoli’s “Violent, Violent Sea;” and the other will be “Wings,” composed by Darian Donovan Thomas for electronics along with the instrumentation.

This concert will begin at 8 p.m. on Saturday, February 7. The venue will be familiar to those who have attended past OFS concerts, Heron Arts in SoMa, located at 7 Heron Street on the block between 7th Street and 8th Street, All tickets are being sold for $30. They may be purchased online through a Ticket Tailor event page.

SFP to Anticipate Anniversary Milestone

Those that know their mathematics will probably know by now that this is the year of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. There are likely to be an abundance of events celebrating this coming Fourth of July, but it appears that San Francisco Performances (SFP) will be “first out of the gate.” The beginning of next month will see a program entitled What is Your Hand in This, which will ask audiences to confront the complexity of the founding of our country while reflecting on their own respective roles in an ongoing story.

Davóne Tines and the members of the Ruckus ensemble (from the SFP Web page for the performance being discussed)

Compositions associated with the middle of the eighteenth century will be performed by Ruckus, which specializes in music from that period. They will be joined by bass-baritone Davóne Tines. The program will reflect on the impact of music composed during the time of the American Revolution. However, many of the selections will capture the contemporary reflections of composer Douglas Adam August Balliett. Balliett will also contribute arrangements of several of the selections, one of those arrangements composed in partnership with Tines.

This program will be performed shortly after the conclusion of the PIVOT Festival. It will take place on the following Saturday, February 7, beginning at 7:30 p.m. The performance will take place in Herbst Theatre, on the ground floor of the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue, on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. A Web page has been created to provide further details about the production, as well as a hyperlink for purchasing tickets. Ticket prices will be $65, $55, and $45. They can also be purchased by calling 415-392-2545. In addition, single tickets will be available for purchase at the door with a 50% discount for student rush tickets and 20% off for seniors.

Making America (or San Francisco) Sick Again

Yesterday Madilynne Medina filed her latest article for SFGATE, the Web site for the San Francisco Chronicle. The headline title for that article was: “San Francisco's pharmacy crisis deepens with another store closure.” The store was a CVS pharmacy located at 701 Van Ness Avenue. This happens to be right across the street from where I live in Opera Plaza. When I first moved to that place, I could walk one block to the north to a Walgreens. I cannot remember when it went out of business, but it was probably more than a decade ago, making CVS the “alternative of choice” whether I liked it or not.

The good news was that I could engage with just about anyone working there. All encounters with the pharmacy went smoothly; and, for the most part, I could get along with the staff managing the rest of the shop. Probably the greatest frustration came from the need to have a staff member present to unlock any door to provided access to the item I needed. This was the “solution” to dealing with shoplifters. I remember a time when the floor had a security guard, but that is now in a distant past.

The most important sentence in the the Chronicle article is the following:

CVS did not cite an exact reason for the closure, but the company said some of the factors it considers are “market dynamics, population shifts and a community’s store density.”

My guess is that those at the level of management that decided on this closure did not realize that those factors were little more than what George Orwell call “newspeak.” In Orwell’s context, this amounts to providing for a reason to go through with an undertaking without first considering the resulting assets and/or liabilities.

The irony is that CVS became the only “pharmacy of choice” for my neighborhood after which it had abruptly eliminated Walgreen’s from the neighborhood. Now, the only “choice” that customers will have will be to start using the CVS at 1059 Hyde Street, which is about a mile to the west of the shop being closed. Of course, I have never had trouble walking the distance of a mile, but only as long as I did not have to contend with bad weather in the process. Given how many things seem to be going wrong in this situation, Murphy’s Law would add that any such walk will inevitably involve bad weather!

San Francisco City Hall (photograph by Mike Hofmann, from the National Register of Historical Places in San Francisco, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license)

For my generation, the usual reaction to this situation is: “There Oughta Be a Law!” This was a comic strip that took on (as the Wikipedia page puts it) “minor absurdities, frustrations, hypocrisies, ironies and misfortunes of everyday life.” I think about that every time I look at the City Hall dome as I walk down Van Ness Avenue. Sadly, I once responded to an invitation to see our City Council in session. I came away thinking about those absurdities and frustrations, wondering whether, as in thermodynamics, governance is entropic, meaning (in simpler words) that disorder will always prevail over order!

Gardner Returns to SFS with English Offerings

Conductor Edward Gardner (photograph by Benjamin Ealovega, courtesy of SFS)

Conductor Edward Gardner made his debut with the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) in March of 2018. I described that program as “Anglo-American,” since he coupled instrumental excerpts from Michael Tippett’s opera The Midsummer Marriage with George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.” Last night Gardner returned to Davies Symphony Hall, this time with a stronger emphasis on the “Anglo” side.

He began the program with the overture from incidental music that Ralph Vaughan William had composed for a performance of Aristophanes’ play The Wasps in 1909. The final selection was composed less than a decade later, Gustav Holst’s Opus 32 suite, The Planets. The concerto soloist was violinist Randall Goosby, who departed from British traditions with a performance of Max Bruch’s Opus 26 (first) violin concerto. He then selected an American encore, “Louisiana Blues Strut: A Cakewalk,” composed for solo violin by Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson. Bruch was thus the “outlier” in another Anglo-American offering.

Mind you, there was nothing “secondary” about Goosby’s approach to the concerto. This has become a warhorse for both violinists and those seeking out violin performances. Nevertheless, Goosby gave a throughly engaging account, bringing freshness to the familiar; and his chemistry with Gardner’s leadership could not have been better. Of course his encore was the same one he had performed when he made his SFS debut with Esa-Pekka Salonen in September of 2022, but I enjoyed the music as much as I did on “first contact.”

Both of the British selections were products of richly imaginative approaches to instrumentation. It is therefore significant that Gardner consistently maintained a solid command of instrumental balance, which was probably the key asset in his chemistry with the ensemble. Holst’s suite is particularly challenging when it comes to endowing each of the movements of the seven planets with its own distinctive approach to tempo. This brings the necessary sense of flow to Opus 32, without which the attentive listener is besieged by little more than “one thing after another.” Similarly, at the more “microscopic” level, Gardner knew exactly how to make each phrase count, endowing each planet with its own identity, as well as the Aristophanic identity of Vaughan Williams’ overture.

Omni to Present Second Recital this Month

Guitarist Leonela Alejandro, whose solo recital will be this month’s second Omni offering

Some readers may recall the announcement this past Sunday of back-to-back solo guitar performances by Julia Trintschuk and Joaquín Clerch for the first performance of the year to be presented by the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts. It turns out that this will be the first of two recitals that Omni will present this month. The second will be a solo recital by Leonela Alejandro.

Alejandro is the winner of the Rose Augustine Grand Prize at the 2024 Guitar Foundation of America Competition. She was born in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico but now lives in Columbus, Georgia. She has appeared as a concerto soloist with the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, performing works such as Antonio Vivaldi’s RV 93 lute concerto, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s first guitar concerto in D major, and the premiere of the concertino for guitar, percussion, and strings by Atanas Ourkouzounov.

Like the first offering of this month, the performance will take place in St. Mark’s Lutheran Church. It will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, January 31; and, according to the Humanitix Web page, the performance will last about two and a half hours. Most readers probably know by now that the church is located at 1111 O’Farrell Street, just west of the corner of Franklin Street. This will be Omni’s 45th anniversary; and, as a result, general admission for all seating will be $45. As was the case for this month’s first offering, all children from kindergarten to the twelfth grade can attend for free. Tickets may be purchased through another Humanitix Web page.

Getting the News from Al Jazeera

I would like to believe that I am not the only citizen of the United States of America that recognizes Al Jazeera as a valid news source. Indeed, this past Sunday I cited Al Jazeera (which in turn, cited PolitiFact) for its article about the killing of Renee Nicole Good at a rally in Minneapolis. This was facilitated through my xfinity television service. Mind you, this was not a simple matter; but it was not that difficult.

All that was necessary was engaging YouTube, which is one of the applications that xfinity supports. YouTube has a Web page for Al Jazeera English, which includes both a live feed and hyperlinks to individual previous reports. Usually, I can watch half an hour of world news at 11 a.m. and appreciate both the diversity and how informative each report is. Furthermore, news about the United States is provided by reporters living in our country, most of whom are broadcasting from the District of Columbia.

Mind you, xfinity also provides a BBC News America channel, which tends to serve as a useful complement to CNN. What is important, however, is that I do not want limit myself to news from a single source. Some time ago there was a channel that liked to boast that it knew how to distinguish fact from opinion, but it never bothered to let viewers know how it managed that balance! To be fair, however, no one really knows how to manage it! However, the least I can do is respond to any report by asking myself, “Can I find another point of view?”

SFS Programs for February, 2026

It is almost halfway through the first month of the year, and plans are already in place for the second month in Davies Symphony Hall. There will, of course, be the usual weekly Orchestral Series performed by the San Francisco Symphony (SFS), as well as recitals and chamber music. As in the past, I prefer to deal with the individual events in chronological order all taking place in Davies Symphony Hall. 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.

Sunday, February 1, 2 p.m.: The month will begin with the first Chamber Music recital of the year. June Choi Oh will be the pianist for Arthur Foote’s Opus 23 piano quartet in C major. All the other performers will be from the string section: violinists Dan Carlson, Jane Cho, Olivia Chen, Jessie Fellows, In Sun Jang, Jeein Kim, and Kelly Leon-Pearce, violists Katarzyna Bryla, Gina Cooper, and Katie Kadarauch, cellists Sarah Chong, David Goldblatt, Anne Richardson, and Amos Yang, and Charles Chandler on bass. The other works on the program will be Luigi Boccherini’s Opus 37 string quintet in D major and the string octet in C major by George Enescu.

Sunday, February 1, 7:30 p.m.: The first recitalist of the month will be Nicola Benedetti, but it will not be the usual recital program. Rather than performing with a piano accompanist, she will be joined by guitarist Plínio Fernandes on guitar, accordionist Hanzhi Wang, and Adrian Daurov on cello. As might be guessed, most of the program will consist of arrangements of both composed works and folk music. However, Benedetti will also give solo performances of the first and last of the 24 Caprices by Niccolò Paganini, as well as his “Cantabile” in D major.

Thursday, February 5, Friday, February 6, and Saturday, February 7, 7:30 p.m.: Harry Bicket will return to Davies as the first SFS conductor of the month. He has prepared a program devoted entirely to works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. This will include two symphonies, K. 338 in C major and K. 504 (“Prague”) in D major; and the program will begin with the K. 239 serenade, given the title “Serenata notturna.” The guest artists will be soprano Golda Schultz and tenor Samuel White, performing excerpts from the three operas that Mozart composed for librettos by Lorenzo Da Ponte. In “order of appearance” these will be The Marriage of Figaro (K. 492), Così fan tutte (K. 588), and Don Giovanni (K. 527).

Sunday, February 8, 7:30 p.m.: Pianist Yefim Bronfman will perform his latest recital program. The second half will be devoted entirely to Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 57 sonata, best known as the “Appassionata.” The first half of the program will be a “chronological post-Beethoven journey.” The recital will begin with Robert Schumann’s Opus 18, his C major “Arabesque.” This will be followed by the third of Johannes Brahms’ piano sonatas, his Opus 5 in F minor. The journey will then conclude with Claude Debussy’s second set of Images compositions.

Thursday, February 19, Friday, February 20, and Saturday, February 21, 7:30 p.m.: For his return to Davies, Dutch conductor Jaap van Zweden has prepared a program of two Beethoven symphonies. These will be presented in “chronological order.” The first half will offer Opus 36, Beethoven’s D major second symphony, which he completed in 1802. The second half will conclude the program with one of his best-known symphonies, Opus 92, the seventh, composed in the key of A major.

Wednesday, February 25, 7:30 p.m.: The next recitalist will be pianist Mao Fujita, whose program has not yet been announced.

Conductor Manfred Honeck (from the Web page for the concerts he will be conducting)

Thursday, February 26, and Friday February 27, 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, March 1, 2 p.m.: Conductor Manfred Honeck has conceived and will present a setting of Mozart’s K. 626 Requiem as a “dramatic production.” This will include narration by Adrian Roberts. The vocal soloists will be soprano Ying Fang, mezzo Sasha Cooke, tenor David Portillo, and bass Stephano Park. The program will begin with Beethoven’s Opus 62, his “Coriolan Overture.” This will be followed by Joseph Haydn’s Hoboken I/93, the first of his “London” symphonies, composed in the key of D major.

Saturday, February 28, 5 p.m.: This will be the annual Lunar New Year concert celebrating the Year of the Horse. The program will include solo performances by clarinetist Yuhsin Galaxy Su and George Gao on erhu. Once again, the conductor will be Mei-Ann Chen.

Plans for SFP PIVOT Festival

Some readers may recall that one of the highlights planned for the 2025–2026 season of San Francisco Performances (SFP) is the annual PIVOT Festival. This will be the Festival’s eleventh performance, suggesting that its adventurous offerings have staying power! The curator for this season will be Andy Meyerson, who will probably be known to many readers as the percussionist of The Living Earth Show, playing with his partner, guitarist Travis Andrews. The Festival will present three performances, all taking place in the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue, on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. The first two will be in Herbst Theatre on the ground floor followed by last on the top floor in the Taube Atrium Theatre. Specifics for each of the programs are as follows:

Vocalist Tanner Porter with musicians Travis Andrews and Andy Meyerson (from the Web page for the first PIVOT Festival performance)

Friday, January 30, 7:30 p.m.: Legacies will survey works by two generations of composers in the Sleeping Giant collective. The first generation will be represented by Timo Andres, Christopher Cerrone, Jacob Cooper, Ted Hearne, Robert Honstein, and Andrew Norman. Both Meyerson and Andrews are protégés of those founders, along with vocalist Tanner Porter, who will join them in presenting this offering.

Saturday, January 31, 7:30 p.m.: The Satellite program will be divided across three diverse bands with both Meyerson and Andrews performing in all of them. The first of these is the Bucket List trio, whose third member is composer and percussionist Mark Applebaum. The second is Koollooꓘ, which some readers may recognize as the title of a one-act performance that will be taking place at The Roar Shack at the end of this month at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, January 28. Meyerson and Andrews will be joined by dance artist Babatunji and composer and instrument designer Dennis Aman.

Sunday, February 1, 7 p.m.: For the final program, Parallel Play, Meyerson will collaborate with San Francisco Ballet soloist and choreographer Myles Thatcher. Thatcher will perform “Child of Tree,” choreographed by Merce Cunningham for music composed by John Cage. This will be followed by “The Filthy 15,” composed by Nicole Lizée for choreography by Rex Wheeler (aka Lady Camden). There will also be a world premiere of Thatcher’s choreography set to music by Johann Sebastian Bach.

A Web page has been created for purchasing tickets for the entire series with options for the different areas in Herbst Theatre. The hyperlinks attached to the individual dates above can be used for purchasing single tickets. Tickets can also be purchased by calling 415-392-2545. In addition, single tickets will be available for purchase at the door with a 50% discount for student rush tickets and 20% off for seniors.

The Bleeding Edge: 1/12/2026

The usual bizarre poster design for pancakes at the Center for New Music (from the Web page for the event)

As was the case last week, there will be a generous amount of activity on the Bleeding Edge. That will include two events that have already been reported:

1. The monthly G|O|D|W|A|F|F|L|E|N|O|I|S|E|P|A|N|C|A|K|E|S offering at the Center for New Music at noon on Saturday, January 17.
2. The beginning of Earplay’s 41st season on January 19 at the Noe Valley Ministry.

As is usually the case, there will be a generous amount of diversity among the remaining events of the week as follows:

Thursday, January 15, 8 p.m., Peacock Lounge: In another usual event, the Peacock will present an evening of four adventurous sets. Flatways is the name for the trio of percussionists Jordan Glenn, Sudhu Tewari and Matt Robidoux. Toussaint St. Negritude will be visiting San Francisco (where he was born) as part of his Fabulous Fugitive Freedom Tour. Julia Mazawa describes herself as “an improviser, illustrator, sculptor and recordist who lives life with play and record buttons both mashed flat, raising timbres from etched slabs, laying and delaying their path from tonearm to circuit to soundspace.” Sung Kim is a ceramicist and sculptor who improvises music by improvising the creation of instruments.

As most readers probably know by now, the Peacock Lounge is located in the Lower Haight (sometimes known as Haight-Fillmore) at 552 Haight Street, between Fillmore Street and Steiner Street. Doors will open at 7:30 p.m. to enable the first set to begin at 8 p.m. sharp. Admission will be on a sliding scale between $5 and $15. As in the past, no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Friday, January 16, 7 p.m., Medicine for Nightmares: This week’s Other Dimensions in Sound program will present saxophonist Raffi Garabedian. He will give an electro-acoustic set during which he will explore a diversity of sonorities 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.

Friday, January 16, Saturday, January 17, and Sunday, January 18, 7 p.m., Friday, January 16, and Saturday, January 17, 9:30 p.m., and Sunday, January 18, 9:15 p.m., Black Cat Jazz Supper Club: Alto saxophonist Sarah Hanahan will lead a quartet. Rhythm will be provided by pianist Caelan Cardello, Matt Dwonszyk on bass, and drummer Khary Abdul-Shaheed. Admission will be $40.

Friday, January 16, 7:30 p.m., Stookey’s Blue Room: Bassist Sam Trapchak will lead a trio, whose other members will be keyboardist Adam Shulman and Darren Johnston on trumpet. This appears to be a new venue. The only information I have is its location at 891 Bush Street!

Saturday, January 17, 7:30 p.m., Bird & Beckett Books and Records: Trapchak, Shulman, and Johnston will move to a venue likely to be more familiar to most readers. They will be joined by Tim Bulkley on drums. When they perform together, they call themselves the Symbiosis Quartet. This is another familiar venue for “bleeding edge” events; but, for those encountering the venue for the first time, it is located in Glen Park at 653 Chenery Street. The cover charge is between $20 and $30 with a student rate of between $10 and $15. Those wishing to make reservations can call 415-586-3733.

Saturday, January 17, 8 p.m., The Lab: This will be a two-set evening, beginning with a solo by cellist and vocalist Theresa Wong. She has prepared a performance to utilize the open space and quadraphonic surround sound system in the venue. Kara-Lis Coverdale will then perform material from her recent album, A Series of Actions in a Sphere of Forever (Smalltown Supersound). Coverdale’s performances tend to draw upon the resources of both acoustic and electronic sources. For those that do not yet know, the venue is located in the Mission at 2948 16th Street, a short walk to the east from Mission Street. Admission will be $23 if paid in advance or $25 at the door. Members of The Lab will be admitted either for free or at a discounted rate.

Sunday, January 18, 7:30 p.m., The Musicians Union Hall: Outsound Presents will present the next installment in the SIMM (Static Illusion Methodical Madness) Series. This will also be a two-set evening. I suspect that at least some readers are familiar by now with instrument inventor David Samas. He will lead Pet The Tiger, a collective ensemble of other instrument inventors. Listeners familiar with the music of Harry Partch may recognize some stylistic resemblances. The other set will be devoted to compositions by Dan Plonsey. As many readers probably already know, the venue is located at 119 Ninth Street, just below  Market Street.

On “Improvement”

1988 photograph of John Cage by Rob Croes (from the Dutch National Archives, made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication)

I have many memories of my past experiences with John Cage, but the one I remember best was the cautionary approach he took to change. The way he put was that those that try to “change the world” end up by only making matters worse. I was reminded of this precept while waiting for the latest upgrade of the MacOS Tahoe release. To be fair, things tend not to get worse; but I usually come away feeling that change usually tends to be “on the surface,” with subtle differences in layout. I never seem to feel that the change actually mattered, since there was little impact on either my activities or the software responses to those activities. This has left me questioning what constitutes “improvement” in the Software Development division of Apple. I doubt that there is any way I can pose this question to Apple; and, even if Apple provided me with a means to do so, would I get a satisfactory response?

Prior to filing this article, I happened to look at my Finder window. It turns out that the slider bars along the bottom and right side of the frame are now “translucent.” There is still an opaque region that accounts for what is displayed in the window, but the space along which that region can be moved has changed. This is progress?

Omni to Present Recitals by Student and Teacher

Guitarists Julia Trintschuk and Joaquín Clerch (from the Humanitix Web page for their performance)

This month the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts will see the return of guitarist Julia Trintschuk, who made her Dynamite Guitars debut in April of 2024. As was the case at that time, she will give a solo performance for the second half of the program. The first half will also be a solo offering, this time by Trintschuk’s teacher, Joaquín Clerch.

Clerch will conclude his half of the program with one of his own compositions, “El segundo instante de una primavera” (the second moment of a spring). The featured composer will be Francisco Tárrega with performances of “Endecha” and “Oremus.” Clerch will also perform two of his arrangements. The first of these will be Robert Schumann’s Opus 12 Fantasiestücke (fantasy pieces); and the second will be Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 1004, his five-movement keyboard partita in D minor.

Trintschuk will conclude her portion with four selections by Astor Piazzolla. Her final offering will be “Yo soy Maria,” one of the songs from María de Bueno Aires, which the composer called an “operita.” She will begin with “Invierno Porteño,” the “winter” movement from Piazzolla’s Estaciones Porteñas (the four seasons of Buenos Aires). The other selections will be “Oblivion” and “La Muerte del Angel” (death of the angel), which happens to be a fugue in four voices! Her preceding selections will be works by three earlier composers: Joaquin Malats (“Serenata Española”), Manuel Ponce (his variations on the “Folia” theme), and Agustín Barrios (“Mazurka Apasionada”).

As was the case this past October, the performance will take place in St. Mark’s Lutheran Church. It will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, January 17; and, according to the Humanitix Web page, the performance will last about an hour. Most readers probably know by now that the church is located at 1111 O’Farrell Street, just west of the corner of Franklin Street. General admission for all seating will be $45, and all children from kindergarten to the twelfth grade can attend for free. Tickets may be purchased through a Humanitix Web page.

Through Kristi Noem’s Looking-Glass

My parents had the Modern Library anthology of the writings of Lewis Carroll, so it was almost inevitable that this would be my first choice for “serious reading.” One of the most interesting sources I encountered was Through the Looking-Glass, the sequel to Alice in Wonderland. Most memorable is Alice’s encounter with Humpty Dumpty (before his inevitable fall), which turned out to be my first encounter with an argument over semantics.

The keystone of this dialog comes with the following exchange:

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘“it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master — that’s all.” 

In the reality of the present day, Humpty Dumpty has become Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who has appointed herself master of the semantics of “domestic terrorism.”

Screen shot of the protest in Minneapolis over the shooting of Renee Nicole Good (from the Web page for the Al Jazeera article)

This morning I read an Al Jazeera article originally written for PolitiFact by Maria Ramirez Uribe and Amy Sherman entitled “US woman killed by ICE agent called ‘domestic terrorist’: What it means.” The “spoiler alert” is that the meaning of “domestic terrorism” is basically what Noem chose it to mean. That choice was that the killing of Renee Nicole Good at a rally in Minneapolis was because, according to Noem, she “refused to obey orders to get out of her car, ‘weaponise[d] her vehicle’ and ‘attempted to run’ over an officer.” However, according to Uribe and Sherman: “Minnesota officials disputed Noem’s account, citing videos showing Good trying to drive away.”

So “which is to be master,” the Homeland Security Secretary, who was not “on site” for this event, or the sources Uribe and Sherman drew upon to write their article? To be fair, those authors made it clear that there is no hard-and-fast definition of “domestic terrorism,” which pretty much gives the Secretary the liberty of defining the term. It should therefore be no surprise that she would exercise that liberty to the advantage of her “primary authority,” meaning, of course, the President of the United States. “For the record,” the Al Jazeera article never cites anything involving the President’s role in this affair other than the sub-headline “The Trump administration has broadened the ‘domestic terrorism’ label.”

The fact is that, in trying to account for what happened in Minneapolis, Uribe and Sherman could not avoid getting bogged down in a morass on ambiguities; and, when there are so many ambiguities, anyone can come away from this report believing whatever suits their preferences!

David James Honors Father’s Legacy with Jazz

Cover of the album being discussed

Mission Rebel No. 1: Looking for Rev. Jesse James is an album released a little over a month ago by guitarist David James. The album is named after the composer’s father, who is presumably illustrated by the portrait on the album cover. Jesse was one of the founders of Mission Rebels in Action, a youth empowerment and employment organization formed in 1965 to serve the primarily Brown and Black youth of the Mission District of San Francisco. David’s suite was inspired by a film about Mission Rebels in Action made by his father.

The suite consists of twelve movements. Fortunately, these are enumerated (with brief descriptions) on the Web page that Bandcamp created for this album. James leads a septet with a “front line” of clarinet (Beth Custer), trombone (Alan Williams), and viola (Keith Lawrence), all whom also provide vocals. Rhythm is provided by Lisa Mezzacappa on bass and drummer John Hanes, as well as James on guitar, also provides vocals. There are also two vocalists that do not also a play an instrument: Allegra Brady and Sòlás Burke-Lalgee. Jesse James also makes an “appearance” on the track “to you people who represent labor, I’m asking you ….”

Back in May of 2024, I took on the issue of “delivering a message.” As a rule, I continue to subscribe to the adage, “If I want to deliver a message, I’ll call Western Union!” The virtue of this particular album is that the message does not try to overwhelm the music. Instead, the message is limited to “key principles” associated with their respective tracks; and the music sets the context for dispositions behind those principles. As a result, Mission Rebel No. 1 emerges as a sort of “chamber oratorio” in which the music and the message engage in a partnership, rather than a competition!

Of “Lies, damned lies, and statistics” (again)

As I previously wrote back in 2019, this is a phrase famous enough to have its own Wikipedia page. Mark Twain cited it in Chapters from My Autobiography, where he attributed it to Benjamin Disraeli. While that attribution is questionable, it certainly does not undermine the semantic substance. Mind you, statistical results are only as good as the sample space from which they are computed, which is why willful distortion of the sample space will often (if not always) lead to “damned lies.”

Photograph from the article for The Guardian showing private jets at an airport in Arizona (provided by Associated Press photographer Ross D Franklin)

That said, when we are not yet halfway through the first month of the year, Oxfam has come up with a chilling statistic. I read about it this morning in an article for The Guardian by Rosie Peters-McDonald. Her first two sentences say it all:

The world’s richest 1% have used up their fair share of carbon emissions just 10 days into 2026, analysis has found.

Meanwhile, the richest 0.1% took just three days to exhaust their annual carbon budget, according to the research by Oxfam.

Peters-McDonald then goes on to add insult to injury:

Not only are the super-rich responsible for most carbon emissions, but they also invest in the most polluting industries. A billionaire carries, on average, an investment portfolio in companies that will produce 1.9m tonnes of CO2 a year – roughly equivalent to the annual emissions of 400,000 petrol cars.

Now my guess is that many of these billionaires account on the belief that the “man on the street” neither knows nor cares about statistics. For better or worse, belief tends to be guided by “what television tells us;” and, sadly, too often television relies on that old line from the “Daily News” song:

Don’t try to confuse my mind with facts.

More often than not, the “human condition” relies on the preference of what we would like things to be, rather than what they are. My guess is that that “richest 1%” are well aware of these statistics. They probably even know better than to dismiss them as “damned lies.” Rather, they probably take comfort in the fact that the remaining 99% either just does not care or feels helpless about doing anything. I put myself in the latter category, since I know that this kind of writing is very unlikely to have much impact. Nevertheless, I feel that the least I can do is to make my opinions known “on the record!”

Groupmuse to Host Sixth Station Trio

Sixth Station Trio musicians Anju Goto, Katelyn Tan, and Federico Strand Ramirez performing in Grace Cathedral (from their performance of music by Yu-Ping Chen)

Some readers may be familiar with the Sixth Station Trio through their performances for Old First Concerts. Those readers probably know that all three of the trio members have had experiences with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM). The pianist is Katelyn Tan, who received her Masters degree from SFCM in 2020. That same year, violinist Anju Goto completed his SFCM undergraduate degree. Finally, cellist Federico Strand Ramirez holds both a Bachelor of Music and an Advanced Certificate degree from SFCM.

In a little over two weeks’ time, this trio will present a Groupmuse recital. They have prepared a “three centuries” program. The earliest work on the program will be a piano trio by Joseph Haydn, his 39th (Hoboken XV:25 in G major, sometimes known as the “Gypsy” trio). The second half of the program will be devoted entirely to Robert Schumann’s Opus 88, the piano trio given the title Fantasiestücke. The program will begin with the trio’s arrangement of two of the tracks composed by Yu-Peng Chen for the game soundtrack album Genshin Impact – Jade Moon Upon a Sea of Clouds.

This will be a house concert taking place in Parnassus Heights. Specific information is provided once a reservation has been processed. The fee for reservation is $5 and admission, payable at the event itself, will be $25. The performance will begin at 7 p.m. on Saturday, January 24. Further information is available on the Groupmuse Web page for this event. Groupmuse has also created a Web page for the ensemble, which includes three videos of excerpts from past performances.

Center for New Music: January, 2026

This seems to be the first time that I have written an article devoted entirely to events at the Center for New Music (C4NM) since this past September. To be fair, however, there will be only two events this month; and, as usual, one of them will be the monthly G|O|D|W|A|F|F|L|E|N|O|I|S|E|P|A|N|C|A|K|E|S offering. As most readers probably know by now, the venue is located at 55 Taylor Street, half a block north of the Golden Gate Theater, which is where Golden Gate Avenue meets Market Street. Each of the dates below is hyperlinked to an event page through which tickets may be purchased as follows:

Charles Boone on the poster for his visit to C4NM this month

Saturday, January 10, 7:30 p.m.: Composer Charles Boone will visit C4NM to present the two most recent works in his catalog of percussion scores. Both of these pieces will require unusual techniques, which will be demonstrated and discussed prior to the performance. The performer will be Garret Mendelow. According to the announcement, audience members will be invited to participate. There will be no charge for admission.

Saturday, January 17, noon: This will be the monthly G|O|D|W|A|F|F|L|E|N|O|I|S|E|P|A|N|C|A|K|E|S performance. As is usually the case, there will be five sets with at least some of the titles guaranteed to raise eyebrows:

1. Amphibious Gestures
2. Leyya Mona Tawil
3. Rot Diet
4. Adult Math
5. Kink Disposal Unit

The last of these will be visiting from Oregon. Also as is usually the case, general admission will be $10 with a $6 rate for C4NM members and students.

SFCMP Begins Year with Emerging Composers

This year the concert scene seems to be getting off to a slow start. However, Herbst Theatre was the place to be last night when, once again, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players (SFCMP), led by Artistic Director & Conductor Eric Dudley, offered the latest concert of world premiere performances made possible by the Emerging Composer Grant Program presented by the ARTZenter Institute. As in the past, the program consisted of recent works each by a different composer. In order of appearance, those composers and their respective offerings were as follows:

1. Anak Baiharn: Forever, Until/Until, Forever
2. Trevor Zavac, Composition No. 0136
3. Brady Wolff, Lichtenberg Figures
4. SiHyun Uhm, Pulse

Also as in the past, the program took a brief intermission between the second and third selections.

I must confess that my past experience with mathematics drew me to Zavac’s composition. The numbers represented stages along the chromatic scale. Thus, if one begins with C natural, the following notes will be C-sharp, E-flat, and F-sharp. The span of the entire interval is known as a tritone, which has often served as the fundamental building block for atonal music. “Composition No. 0136” is thus a playful reflection on the role of the tritone among the pioneers of atonality, perhaps leading the listener to wonder just where the path of atonality, now traversing over a century, led.

Suzanne Dean’s cover design for Julian Barnes’ book, The Sense of an Ending (from its Wikipedia page, fair use)

Fortunately, the program as a whole was definitely not mathematically inclined! The opening selection was particularly impressive in the diversity of sonorities and the presentation of those sonorities through different levels of dynamics. What was lacking, unfortunately, was much thought concerning “the sense of an ending” (to appropriate the title of Julian Barnes’ book). That sense was more evident in “Lichtenberg Figures,” perhaps because Wolff seems to have been influenced by the rhetorical devices explored by Maurice Ravel and Alexander Scriabin. My only serious misgiving came with “Pulse,” which left me feeling that it had overstayed its welcome far too long.

That said, all four of these composers are clearly in their early stages. Each of them used their ARTZenter grant productively; and the SFCMP musicians, led by Dudley, could not have done a better job in presenting the results to the audience. That said, I have not heard much further from the composers that “emerged” this past September, making it clear that the path to recognition is definitely a long one!