Center for New Music: May, 2016

Next month will be another busy one at the Center for New Music (C4NM). Some readers may recall that C4NM named this month “Astonishing April;” and, as of their release yesterday, they have declared next month to be “aMazing May!” One of the events, the El Tiempo Latine program to be presented by Ensemble for These Times, was already announced on this site’s “Choices for May 16” article; and there will be (of course) 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 other dates below is hyperlinked to an event page through which tickets may be purchased as follows:

Friday, May 1, 7:30 p.m.: The subtitle for this program is New Music from Indonesia. All of the works on the program will be by Indonesian composers. There will be two solo selections by Dewa Alit, leader of the gamelan ensemble Gamelan Salukat. One will be for solo piano, performed by Eva-Maria Zimmerman; and percussionist Graham Viegut will perform the second. These two solos will be followed by a multi-media percussion duo composed by Dion Nataraja. Finally, there will be improvised sets from aQarawaQ (Putu Tangkas) and the Berkeley Banjar residents: Ida Bagus Made Widnyana, Ida Ayu Wayan Arya Satyani, and Viegut. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members and students.

Friday, May 15, 7:30 p.m.: Following up on this month’s performance at Mr. Tipple’s Jazz Club, drummer Scott Amendola will lead another trio performance at C4NM; he will be joined again by alto saxophonist Kasey Knudsen and Mat Muntz on bass. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members and students.

Thursday, May 21, 7:30 p.m.: Working with electronic gear from a keyboard, Neil Rolnick will present pieces from the album Messages, which will be released later this year; general admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members and students.

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

Saturday, May 23, 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. Mephitick Ooze
2. Fowl Figures
3. Madame Varga
4. Mission Hypnotic
5. Shuttered

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

Sunday, May 31, 8 p.m.: The month will conclude with a trio led by clarinetist Ben Goldberg. Rhythm will be provided by Tim Bulkley on drums and Dillon Vado on vibraphone. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for C4NM members and students.

Jeff Lederer to Release Album with Wind Quintet

Cover of the album being discussed (from its Amazon.com Web page)

One week from today, saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer Jeff Lederer will release one of those albums that approaches jazz as chamber music by other means. The full title of the album is There’s a Yearnin’: Music for Winds and Voice. Vocals are provided by Mary LaRose, who is Lederer’s partner. They are joined by the Wildebeest Quintet, whose members are Michel Gentile on flute, oboist Katie Scheele, Mike McGuiness on clarinet, Sara Schoenbeck on bassoon, and Nathan Koci on French horn. The album will be released one week from today; and, as readers probably expect, Amazon.com has already created a Web page for pre-ordering.

As a composer, Lederer contributes only the first track on the album. “Crucifixion (not a word)” was inspired by Marian Anderson’s performance of the spiritual “They Crucified My Lord.” This is followed by a wind quintet composed by Eric Dolphy, which is coupled with Ornette Coleman’s quintet, “Forms and Sounds 1, 2, 3.” The remaining five tracks are arrangements of vocal works by Oliver Nelson, one of which inspired the title of the album.

I must confess that I have been a fan of wind quintets since my secondary school days. (My instrument in those days was clarinet.) Lederer seems to have found just the right balance to accommodate both chamber music and jazz; and there is no arguing with his choices of composers from the last century. This is definitely the sort of album that will benefit from multiple listening experiences.

Noe Music to Present Mother’s Day Concert

Unless I am mistaken, this is the first time I am announcing a performance that will celebrate Mother’s Day. That program will mark the conclusion of the current Noe Music season. Sadly, as of this writing, little information has been provided about the program. The performance will be by the San Francisco Girls Chorus, led by its Artistic Director, Valérie Sainte-Agathe. The selections will be international in scope, since the performers will be Iranian singer Mahsa Vahdat, Mexican singer Diana Gameros, and Clarissa Bitar, a virtuoso Palestinian-American performing on oud.

This will be a two-hour performance beginning at 5 p.m. on Sunday, May 10. General Admission will be $45 with a $15 rate for students. Noe Music has created a Web page for online ticket purchases. The performance will take place at the Noe Valley Ministry, which is located in Noe Valley (of course!) at 1021 Sanchez Street.

Shunske Sato Disappoints on PBO Podium

Shunske Sato with his violin (from the PBO event page for last night’s performance)

Last night in Herbst Theatre, violinist Shunske Sato led the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (PBO) in the final program of its 2025/26 season. The title of that program was Kinks and Quirks and, over the course of the evening, it became apparent it was served with a rhetoric that was more annoying than engaging. Sato performed on his violin throughout the program, but his instrument never managed to yield satisfying intonation while the full ensemble was clearly taking care of themselves.

The selections accounted for a prodigious spread of music history with Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach at one end the Felix Mendelssohn at the other. The latter was represented by his MWV O 3 concerto for violin and strings in D minor. The low number identifies this as a very early work, and the composer completed it at the age of thirteen. Unfortunately, Sato’s intonation never managed to fit in with the ensemble work, making the listening experience a frustrating one.

Indeed, frustration was the order of the evening. The excerpts of the K. 345 music Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed for Baron Tobias Philipp von Gebler’s Masonic drama Thamos, König in Ägypten were given a brutal account under Sato’s leadership. Just as disappointing was the Bach selection, his H 665 (Wq 183:3), the first in a set of four symphonies given the collective title Orchester-Sinfonien mit zwölf obligaten Stimmen. At the other end of the evening, the program concluded with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 21, his first symphony composed in the key of C major. This was the clearest account of the evening, but the performance was still undermined by the liberties Sato took with tempo.

To be fair, the program was true to its name, almost warning the attentive listener not to expect a substantive listening experience.

Choices for May 16, 2026

A little over a week ago, I wrote an article about how the concert season would begin to wrap up as of the very beginning of next month. Thus, concert-goers would be faced by having to choose among three performances, all beginning at 7:30 p.m. and taking place in the Civic Center. It turns out that the next round of choices will be taking place in the middle of the month with at least one of them in the Civic Center. I say “at least” because the first event has been announced by Groupmuse, refraining from identifying the venue until tickets have been secured. Having established the context, the events will be as follows:

7 p.m., to be announced by Groupmuse: This will be the next performance by the Sixth Station Trio, last discussed on this site this past February when they gave their third performance in the Old First Concerts series at Old First Presbyterian Church. That entire program was devoted to the music that Joe Hisaishi composed for Hayao Miyazaki’s anime Howl’s Moving Castle. Next month’s program will include only one Hisaishi composition, “Madness,” composed for the anime Porco Russo. This will be followed by three pieces composed for the video game Genshin Impact!. The first of these will be Koji Kondo’s “Great Fairy Fountain,” followed by “Gallant Challenge” and “Rapid as Wildfires,” composed by Yu Peng Chen. The program will begin with Astor Piazzola’s Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteños, a suite of four tango movements often referred to in English as “the four seasons of Buenos Aires.” The members of the trio are still pianist Katelyn Tan, violinist Anju Goto, and cellist Federico Strand Ramirez.

Album cover of the new E4TT release (from the E4TT Web page for next month’s program)

7:30 p.m., Center for New Music: Ensemble for These Times will conclude its season with a program entitled El Tiempo Latine. This is also the title of the sixth CD to be released by E4TT. The performance will introduce a selection of the works that were recorded. All three core members will be joined by coloratura soprano Chelsea Hollow with Lylia Guion on violin. For those that do not yet know, those core members are soprano Nanette McGuinness, Megan Chartier on cello, and pianist Margaret Halbig. The venue will be at 55 Taylor  Street.

7:30 p.m., Knuth Music Hall, San Francisco State University: The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players (SFCMP) will conclude its 55th season with a program entitled American Reflections: Full Circle. The circle will be closed, so to speak, with a performance of John Adams’ “Son of Chamber Symphony.” The program will also see the world premiere by “Symphony: Color & Line,” composed by Edward Smaldone on an SFCMP commission. The other relatively recent work on the program will be Haruka Fujii’s “Divisions I,

completed in 2024. The program will begin with Nico Muhly’s “Flexible Music” (2003). The second half of the program will include John Zorn’s “Baudelaires,” completed in 2013. The venue will be the Knuth Music Hall on the campus of San Francisco State University at 1600 Holloway Street.

Tobin Mueller Partners with Tomás Martinez

Cover of the album being discussed (from the Amazon.com Web page)

Yesterday saw the release of the first volume in a series entitled Blue Side. This is a collaborative project between jazz pianist Tobin Mueller and Tomás Martinez on alto saxophone. Selected tracks include guest artists with Juan Torres Fernández on tenor saxophone and percussionists Ruben de Ruiter and Shahar Haziza. In addition, Mueller has two solo piano tracks.

The advance material for this album describes the tracks as drawing upon a diversity of genres, including “contemporary jazz, blues, be-bop, and modal post-bop.” Some readers may recall that my past encounters with Mueller’s albums have been consistently sanguine. This new series promises to unfold two approaches to invention, and the first volume suggests that the undertaking is definitely starting on the right foot.

As of this writing, the album is currently available for MP3 download through an Amazon.com Web page.

Angel Island Oratorio to be Staged with Ballet

Some readers may recall that, in the fall of 2021, the China New Music Festival has hosted by Bard Music West. Performances included the world premiere of Angel Island - Oratorio for Voices and Strings, composed by Huang Ruo. The strings for the performance were the members of the Del Sol string quartet: violinists Sam Weiser and Benjamin Kreith, violist Charlton Lee, and cellist Kathryn Bates. The voices were the members of the Volti a cappella vocal ensemble. The libretto was based on poems inscribed on the walls of the Angel Island Immigration Station by those interned there during the years of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Poster design for next month’s Oakland Ballet performance (from the event’s City Box Office Web page)

The beginning of this month will see a second presentation of the oratorio. This time the musicians and vocalists will be joined by Oakland Ballet as part of its Dancing Moons Festival. Choreography will be provided by Natasha Adorlee, Phil Chan, Lawrence Chen, Ye Feng, Elaine Kudo, Ashley Thopiah, and Wei Wang, all of whom are Asian American and Pacific Islanders.

Angel Island will be given two performances on Friday, May 8, at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, May 9, at 2:30 p.m. The venue will be Herbst Theatre in the Civic Center at 401 Van Ness Avenue, across the street from City Hall. The performance will last about 90 minutes. Tickets may be purchased online through the hyperlinks for the respective dates. General admission will be between $56 and $158, with a 15% discount for those 65 and older or less than eighteen.

Previously Unreleased Peterson from Verve

Cover of the album being discussed (courtesy of Crossover Media)

This past Friday Verve issued an album of previously unreleased performances of the Oscar Peterson Trio. The full title of the album is The Oscar Peterson Trio at Baker’s Keyboard Lounge, and it now has an Amazon.com Web page, which only provides an MP3 download of the 27 tracks. The venue is in Detroit, and all of the tracks were recorded in August of 1960.

The other members of the trio are Ray Brown on bass and drummer Ed Thigpen, both major figures in twentieth-century jazz. The album is very much a compilation, since the tracks were recorded over the course of the two weeks during which the trio was playing at Baker’s. The delay in releasing this trove of Peterson performances was due to the fact that the original recordings were only recently discovered in a mislabeled box in the Verve vaults! That was in time for the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Peterson’s birth on August 15, 1925. Roughly half a year later, these performances are now available for listening!

Those familiar with this site probably know that my approaches to jazz tend to be (for better or worse) cerebral. Apparently, I have not written about a Peterson album since December of 2021, in which I assigned him to a “trinity,” whose other members were Johann Sebastian Bach and Art Tatum. That release involved both six selections from Duke Ellington’s book and “A Salute to Bach.” The new release steers away from such sources in favor of a wide diversity of both composers and their works. As a result, listening made for an engaging journey of discovery, whether than involved unfamiliar tunes or unfamiliar arrangements.

My interest in Peterson pre-dates my current writing gig. I have anthologies from both MPS in Germany and Verve here in the United States. Nevertheless, regardless of when a recording was made, I find that there is always something I have not yet discovered on at least one of the album tracks. Ellington declared him the “Maharaja of the keyboard,” but Peterson’s friendship with Art Tatum probably says more about his approach to jazz. I have already accumulated fifteen Tatum CDs, but I am still making discoveries while listening to this new set of three!

May to Begin with American Bach Finale

Harpsichordists Gabriel Benton and Corey Jamason (courtesy of American Bach)

American Bach’s 37th season will conclude at the beginning of next month with a program entitled Bach’s Harpsichord. Two harpsichordists will contribute to the program, Gabriel Benton and Corey Jamason; but there will be a diversity of approaches to instrumentation. Thus, the program will begin with a solo harpsichord performance of BWV 903, the “Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue,” composed in the key of D minor. This will be followed by BWV 1019, the last of a set of six sonatas for violin and harpsichord in the key of G major. (The third movement of this sonata is a harpsichord solo in E minor.) The remainder of the program will involve strings in the instrumental ensemble for three concertos: BWV 1050 in D major, the fifth of the six “Brandenburg” concertos, BWV 1044 in A minor for flute, violin, and harpsichord, and BWV 1061, the C major concerto for two harpsichords. The instrumental soloists will be Bethanne Walker on flute and three violinists: Tatiana Chulochnikova, Toma Iliev, and YuEun Gemma Kim.

The San Francisco performance of this program will take place at 4 p.m. on Sunday, May 3. The venue will be St. Mark’s Lutheran Church at 1111 O’Farrell Street, on the southwest corner of Franklin Street. Ticket prices are between $44 and $111; and they may be purchased through a Tix Web page, which provides a diagram showing where remaining seats are available.

The Bleeding Edge: 4/20/2026

Readers may recall that last week’s Bleeding Edge was “relatively quiet.” This week will be almost entirely the opposite. Three events have already been announced:

1. Lea Bertucci’s performance at The Lab on Friday evening
2. 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 noon on Saturday, April 25
3. the next performance to be presented by the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the National Association of Composers/USA (NACUSA/SF) on Sunday, April 26

On the other hand, beginning with tomorrow, there will events on every day of the week as follows:

Tuesday, April 21, 7 p.m., Make-Out Room: This month’s Jazz at the Make-Out Room will be a three-set evening. The first set will be a half-hour of solo organ performance by Douglas Katelus. He will be followed by the return of Grex, the “experimental/art rock band,” led by Karl Evangelista (guitar and vocals) and his wife Rei Scampavia (keyboards and vocals). Rhythm will be provided by Cory Wright on bass guitar and drummer Robert Lopez. The final set will be by the Brett Carson Quartet, led by Carson on keyboards. The other performers will be Kyle Bruckmann on clarinet, vocalist Lorin Benedict, and Mat Muntz on bass. For those unfamiliar with the venue, it is located in the Mission at 3225 22nd Street.

Wednesday, April 22, 6 p.m., Gray Area Art and Technology: Tidal Transmissions: Navigation is a live audiovisual performance by CROSSLUCID with experimental violinist Sayaka Botanic presented by Future Humans. Botanic will respond to a system of generative AI entities programmed to process oceanic data. The venue will again be in the Mission, this time at 2665 Mission Street.

Wednesday, April 22, 7 p.m., Mr. Tipple’s Jazz Club: Drummer Scott Amendola will lead his trio with alto saxophonist Kasey Knudsen and Muntz again on bass. The performance will include “some interesting cover songs” and a generous share of free improvisation. For those that do not yet know, the venue is in the Civic Center at 39 Fell Street.

Thursday, April 23, 7:30 p.m., Bird & Beckett Books and Records: FLOWER-RADISH is a trio led by Ben Goldberg. As many readers probably know by now, Goldberg plays a diversity of clarinets of different sizes. Rhythm will be provided by Andrew Conklin on guitar and drummer Hamir Atwal. The venue is located at 653 Chenery Street. There will be no charge for admission, but visitors should give in to the temptation to buy a book!

Friday, April 24, 7 p.m., Medicine for Nightmares: This week Other Dimensions in Sound will present a two-set evening. The opening set will be a solo performance by guitarist Karl Evangelista, playing all the tracks on Sonny Sharrock’s Guitar album. The second set will be presented by the Ghost Dub trio. David Michalak provides rhythm with a skatchbox and lap steel guitar. Bruce Ackley will take the front line with his usual diversity of wind instruments, joined by trumpeter Darren Johnston. The venue is located in the Mission at 3036 24th Street, between Treat Avenue and Harrison Street. As always, there is no charge for admission, presumably to encourage visitors to consider buying a book.

Friday, April 24, and Saturday, April 25, 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., and Sunday, April 26, 7 p.m. and 9:15 p.m., Black Cat Jazz Supper Club: Peter Rodriguez is a vocalist, as well as trumpeter and percussionist. He will lead a quintet joined by saxophonist Jon Beshay on the front line. Rhythm will be provided by pianist Esteban Castro, Nico Martinez on bass, and drummer Francisco Alcala. Admission will be $40. The address for the venue is 400 Eddy Street.

Friday, April 24, and Saturday, April 25, 7:30 p.m., Audium: Alex Abalos and Roco Córdova are both Audium alumni. Each of them will perform a solo set. The Abalos selection will be “Soliloquy of Chaos, which he describes as an “encyclopedia of sound” taking his source material for the Filipino community of San Francisco. Córdova will perform “Things You May Find Hidden in my Ear,” in which he adds his own vocals to recordings. The venue will be at 1616 Bush Street, and ticket information will be found at the above hyperlinks.

Saturday, April 25, 2 p.m., San Francisco Public Library, Golden Gate Valley Branch: This program will be a commemoration of Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. Tenor saxophonist Raffi Garabedian will give a solo performance, followed by a screening of a half hour video on the history of the Armenian people, courtesy of the Armenian Film Foundation.. Library performances do not charge for admission. For those not familiar with the venue from past articles, it is located at 1801 Green Street in Pacific Heights.

Saturday, April 25, 5:30 p.m., Center for New Music: This will be a three-set program with performances by Perpendiculous, xtra.dae, and Golden Dream Vulture. The venue has described the event as a “suite of improvisational theatrics.” The venue is located at 55 Taylor Street, just north of Market Street; and admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for members and students.

Saturday, April 25, 7:30 p.m., Bird & Beckett Books and Records: Trumpeter Darren Johnson will lead a quintet he formed called Cyclic Break, providing all the compositions for the performance. He will also add vocals to his trumpet work. He will be joined on the front line by trombonist Danny Lubin-Laden; and rhythm will be provided by Liberty Ellman on guitar, bassist Mat Muntz, and Tim Bulkley on drums. Admission will be $20.

Saturday, April 25, 7:30 p.m., The Lab: The program will present two solo performances. Bassoonist Dafne Vicente-Sandoval performers on her instrument in a setting of spatial resonance and amplification. Charles Curtis explores classical cello performance, exploring the implications of precise tuning and sustained sound. He is likely to present short performances of music by Tashi Wada, Morton Feldman, Christian Wolff, and Johann Sebastian Bach. Admission will be $17 if paid in advance or $20 at the door, which is located at 2948 16th Street. Members will be admitted at a discount or for free.

Poster design for the Wooden Fish Ensemble (from the event page for their performance)

Sunday, April 26, 4 p.m., Old First Church: The Wooden Fish Ensemble will return to Old First Church with a program of two world premiere performances of compositions by Hyo-shin Na, two selections of music by Franz Schubert, and one an arrangement of music by Louis Moreau Gottschalk. The performance will be by a somewhat unconventional trio with cellist Thalia Moore and Thomas Schultz on piano joined by Richard Worn on double bass. The Gottschalk selection is “The Banjo,” arranged by Schultz. The Na premieres will be “Kafka’s Hands” and “Pushing Open the Garden Gate,” which will be followed by “Walking” at the conclusion of the program. Schultz will begin the program with an excerpt from Franz Schubert’s D. 840 piano sonata in C major, and Moore will join him for the D. 821 sonata, originally composed for arpeggione with piano accompaniment. The venue is located at 1751 Sacramento Street.

Monday, April 27, 7:30 p.m., Artists’ Television Access: Rewards Program is an improvisational trio, whose members are Miles Lassi, Skyway Man, and Zekarias Musele Thompson. They will provide music for a “three-projector celluloid meditation.” The content being projected will be created by Ellie Vanderlip. The venue is located at 992 Valencia Street.

Monday, April 27, 8 p.m., Dead End Vintage: A vintage clothing store will provide a setting for two sets of improvised music by the Oakland Reductionist Orchestra. This will be a trio of Era Mothra on saxophone, cellist Désirée Sturrock, and Isabelle Waldner Kalb on guitar. The venue is in the Mission at 3370 19th Street, and admission will be $15. Doors will open at 7 p.m.

Joshua Bell Returns to SFS Great Performers

Violinist Joshua Bell (from the Web page for last night’s recital)

Last night violinist Joshua Bell returned to San Francisco as the recitalist in the latest event in the Great Performers Series presented by the San Francisco Symphony. He was accompanied at the piano by Shai Wosner for a program of four violin sonatas, two each from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The composers for the first half of the program were Franz Schubert and Edvard Grieg, and those in the second half were Sergei Prokofiev and Maurice Ravel.

The program got off to an uneven start in which Bell and Wosner seem to have had different approaches to Schubert. Schubert has had a significant role in Wosner’s repertoire, and he has released several Onyx Classics albums of that composer’s piano music. On the other hand, I am not sure that I have had an opportunity to listen to Bell play Schubert previously. Last night I could see why, since Bell never seemed to find the right way to fit himself into Wosner’s account of the D. 574 violin sonata in A major.

Things got better when Bell advanced to the other end of the nineteenth century. He was much more in his element with movements having tempo adjectives such as “appassionato,” “espressivo,” and “animato.” Nevertheless, he overplayed his hand even when Wosner tried to establish a more disciplined frame of reference. On the other hand, Bell consistently found the right approaches to expressiveness in the Prokofiev and Ravel sonatas, and his chemistry with Wosner could not have been better. The evening concluded with an encore performance of “Mélodie,” the last of the three movements in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir d’us lieu cher (memory of a dear place). In many ways, the brevity of the Tchaikovsky movement came across as more expressive than any of the multi-movement sonatas, making for a “less is better” evening.

SFS Programs for May, 2026

Next month will be both busy and diverse for the San Francisco Symphony (SFS). Once again, performances will extend beyond Davies Symphony Hall, with particular attention to branches of the San Francisco Public Library. As usual, all of the dates and times will have hyperlinks to facilitate ticket purchases; and they may also be acquired 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, May 3, 2 p.m.: The next chamber music performance in Davies will be diverse not only in its performers but also in instrumentation. This will include Yuhsin Galaxy Su, Matthew Griffith, and Jerome Simas playing basset horns. The instrument is somewhat similar to an alto clarinet but with a lower register. The program will begin with an arrangement by the Apollo Chamber Players of two of the movements from Harry Burleigh’s Six Plantation Melodies Old and New: “Negro Lullaby” and “An Ante-Bellum Sermon.” This will be followed by Carl Nielsen’s “Serenata in vano,” a quintet for clarinet, bassoon, horn, cello, and double bass. This will be complemented by a string trio composed by one of Nielsen’s contemporaries, Jean Françaix. The remainder of the program will be devoted to two more familiar composers from two different centuries. The three basset horns will play movements from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 439b, the last in a set of five divertimentos in B-flat major. The program will then conclude with Sergei Prokofiev’s Opus 39, a quintet in G minor for oboe, clarinet, violin, viola and double bass.

Friday, May 8, and Saturday, May 9, 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, May 10: The first visiting conductor of the month will be Dima Slobodeniouk. The second half of the program will be devoted entirely to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 36, his fourth symphony in F minor, often known for its “Fate” motif. The first half of the program will be shared by two twentieth-century French composers. The opening selection will be “Métaboles,” composed by Henri Dutilleux, followed by Jacques Ibert’s only flute concerto.

Saturday, May 9, 2 p.m.: The first free Community Chamber Concert will take place at the Library’s Portola Branch at 380 Bacon Street and will last one hour.

Thursday, May 14, 5:30 p.m.: The second Community Chamber Concert will be performed by violinist Anne Richardson and Dan Smith on bass. The venue will be the Marina Library Branch at 1890 Chestnut Street. This will also last one hour.

Friday, May 15, and Saturday, May 16, 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, May 17, 2 p.m.: Conductor Laureate Herbert Blomstedt will return to the Davies podium. The entire program will be devoted to Gustav Mahler’s ninth symphony, the last symphony that he completed. As its Wikipedia page observes, a “typical performance” lasts between 75 and 90 minutes. In the past, I have experienced an extended pause following the extended duration of the first movement.

Sunday, May 17, 7:30 p.m.: The SFS Youth Orchestra will conclude its season with two significantly contrasting symphonies. The second half of the program will be devoted entirely to Dmitri Shostakovich’s Opus 47, his fifth symphony in D minor, composed in 1937. This tends to receive the most attention among the fifteen symphonies he composed between 1923 and 1971. By way of contrast, the first half of the program will conclude with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 21, his first symphony, composed in the key of C major. The “overture” for this program will be Dylan Hall’s “Scherzo for Orchestra.”

Friday, May 22, and Saturday, May 23, 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, May 24, 2 p.m.: Cristian Măcelaru has made regular appearance on the Davies podium, the most recent having been in April of 2023. His concerto soloist will be Macedonian pianist Simon Trpčeski, performing Sergei Rachmaninoff’s first piano concerto, the Opus 1 in F-sharp minor. The second half of the program will be devoted entirely to Antonín Dvořák’s ninth (and last) symphony, composed in the key of E minor during his tenure as the Director of the National Conservatory of Music of America in New York City. The program will begin with the world premiere performance of “Embers,” composed by Tyler Taylor on an SFS commission.

Friday, May 29, and Saturday, May 30, 7:30 p.m.: The title of this program is Ravel & Music of the Americas, and it will conclude with Maurice Ravel’s “Rapsodie espagnole.” Ravel’s rhapsody will be complemented by its predecessor, the “Danzas fantásticas” by Spanish composer Joaquín Turina. The American side of the program will begin with dances from Alberto Ginastera’s Opus 8, his score for the ballet “Estancia,” commissioned for the American Ballet Caravan by Lincoln Kirstein. This will be followed by the United States premiere of “Shift,” composed by Peruvian composer Jimmy López on an SFS commission.

Sunday, May 30, 2 p.m.: The third Community Chamber Concert will be performed by violinist Jeein Kim and Davis You on cello. The venue will be the Anza Library Branch at 550 37th Avenue. Like the other library events, this will last one hour.

Sunday, May 31, 2 p.m.: This will be the next chamber music performance to take place in the Gunn Theater at the Legion of Honor. The performers will be the trio of violinist Alexander Barantschik, Peter Wyrick on cello, and pianist Anton Nel. The program will be framed by two major works in the piano trio repertoire. It will begin with Mozart’s K. 542 trio in E major and conclude with Robert Schumann’s Opus 63, his first piano trio, composed in the key of D minor. Between these two selections, Wyrick and Nel will perform Johannes Brahms’ Opus 38, his first cello sonata, composed in the key of E minor.

Members of the SFS Chorus (from the Web page for their performance at the end of next month)

Sunday, May 31, 2 p.m.: At exactly the same time, Davies will see a performance by the SFS Chorus led by Jenny Wong. Accompaniment will be provided by both John Wilson on piano and organist Jonathan Dimmock. The program will begin with the first of the four quartets in Brahms’ Opus 92, “O schöne Nacht!” This will be followed by Gabriel Fauré’s Opus 11, “Cantique de Jean Racine.” There will also be an arrangement of three traditional American songs by Shawn Kirchner. The other composers contributing to the program will be James Macmillan (“O Radiant Dawn”), Lili Boulanger (“Hymne au soleil”), Ola Gjeilo (“Across the Vast, Eternal Sky”), and Morten Lauridsen (“Lux Aeterna”).

James Mahone 4tet Returning to Chez Hanny

James Mahone with his saxophone (photograph © Sharon Garner, from the GALLERY Web page on Mahone’s Web site)

Some readers may recall that, almost exactly a year ago, saxophonist James Mahone brought a quartet to a house concert presented by Jazz Chez Hanny. They will return for their next Chez Hanny gig at the end of the month.  This time the other members of the quartet will be pianist Grant Levin, Giulio Xavier Cetto on both acoustic and electric bass, and drummer Michael Mitchell.

Regular readers probably know by now that these events begin at 4 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon. This one will take place on April 26. The “house” for this house concert is located at 1300 Silver Avenue. This is best reached by public transportation by taking the Muni 44 bus going east from Glen Park Station. For those thinking of driving, parking tends to be available on Silver Avenue, Silliman Street, one block south of Silver, and Holyoke Street, which connects Silver and Silliman.

Simone Young Brings Wagner to SFS

Visiting Conductor Simone Young (photograph by Sandra Steh, courtesy of SFS)

Simone Young made her debut on the podium of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) in Davies Symphony Hall in April of 2019, and her most recent appearance took place in December of 2021. She has been serving as Chief Conductor of the Sydney Symphony since 2022 and conducted complete cycles of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen at last year’s Bayreuth Festival. This weekend sees her return to Davies, and the second half of her program is devoted to an orchestral account of Ring music.

One of the problems with separating that music from its staging is that the flow of the narrative is often supported through extended repetitions of critical phrases. This is evident as early as the Prelude to Das Rheingold, and the final episode of Des Rheingold, the procession of the Gods entering Valhalla, practically drowns in a repetition whose only difference involves louder and louder dynamics. For those that enjoy operatic performances of the Ring, this is a moment as compelling as it is grand. However, when you take away the dramatic context, all that remains is redundancy.

Mind you, the excerpts from the remaining three operas were better suited to the concert hall. There was, of course, the “Ride of the Valkyries” (how could there not be?); and Young gave it a dynamite account. Equally engaging was her approach to “Siegfried Idyll,” basically a “preview” of thematic material that would show up later in the Siegfried opera of the Ring. Finally, there were excerpts from Götterdämmerung from both early and late in the narrative, beginning with the “Dawn” episode, then following Siegfried on his “Rhine Journey,” and concluding with his death and funeral. Taken as a whole, the second half of the program provided an abbreviated account of the Ring narrative through some of the most compelling excerpts from the cycle.

The program began with the latest debut of a recent composition. “The Space Between Stars” was composed by Ella Macens, who has received commissions from both the Sydney Symphony and the Melbourne Symphony. I must confess that I tend to be skeptical about music that attempts to capture cosmology. Macens definitely knew how to manage a rich palette of sonorities, but the piece as a whole tended to be more static than one would have preferred.

More secure was the account of Camille Saint-Saëns’ first cello concerto, his Opus 33 in A minor. The soloist was Gautier Capuçon, who gave a solid account of the three-movement score. Unfortunately, the composer had a tendency to repeat his themes too many times, and even a cellist as talented as Capuçon could not overcome that repetition with an overall shaping. As usual, however, one could appreciate the polish in his solo passages.

Sadly, that polish did not continue into his encore selection. This was “Towards the Forest” by Bryce Dessner, which came off as music conceived for Earth Day. However, there was too much repetition in the score and too much attention to what can only be called “special effects.” Mother Earth (Gaia) deserved better.

Clerestory to Explore “Elemental Sources”

Poster design for the next Clerestory program (from the Eventbrite Web page)

The title of the next performance by the Clerestory vocal chamber ensemble will be Prima Materia, with the subtitle Elemental Forces. The title refers to the first matter from which all things rise. The selections on the program (which has not yet been finalized) will serve to explore the nature of not only what things are but also how they come to be.

These were issues that occupied the Renaissance philosophers. Their mission will be reflected in compositions by their contemporary composers, such as Thomas Morley, Thomas Weelkes, and Thomas Tomkins. (None of these composers are “Doubting Thomases!”) The program will advance its way in music history, culminating in works by contemporary composers like Don Macdonald, Mårten Jansson, and Timothy Takach.

The performance will take place at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, located at 1111 O’Farrell Street, just west of Franklin Street. It will begin at 8 p.m. on Saturday, May 2, and last for about 90 minutes. Eventbrite has created a Web page for purchasing tickets at prices beginning at $12.51.

Australian Ensemble Plays John Luther Adams

Cover design for the album being discussed (from the Amazon.com Web page)

In reviewing my past articles, it appears that I have been doing my best to keep up with releases of music composed by John Luther Adams and produced by Cold Blue Music. However, my last article seems to have been written in May of 2024, meaning that there has been a hiatus of almost two years since then. The good news, however, is that the latest Adams album, entitled Horizon, showed up today on its own Amazon.com Web page.

The album presents a two-movement composition making virtuosic demands on a string orchestra. The album title shows up in the title of both of the movements: “Visible Horizon” and “True Horizon.” The composer provided notes to elaborate on these titles. The distinction between these two titles is described as follows:

1. “The visible horizon is what we see from where we look.”
2. “The true horizon is the full extent of all that we might possibly see, an unobstructed view of the enveloping circle where the sky meets the earth or the sea.”

Adams composed Horizon on a commission by the Australian Chamber Orchestra. The recording process for the album took place in Chatswood, New South Wales, on October 14 and 15 of last year. The ensemble then gave its first performance before an audience at Newcastle City Hall this past February 5.

My Blogger search tool informs me that I have used some form of the word “texture” in writing about five past recordings, the earliest of which was the first Cold Blue release: The Light That Fills the World. On the other hand, there seems to be no sign of my ever referencing the opening measures of Richard Wagner’s Das Rheingold, the first of the four operas given the collective title Der Ring des Nibelungen. It would be fair to say that Wagner’s prologue depicts the emergence of life itself out of pure nothingness. Adams seems less interested it how things come to be and more interested in how we cultivate our awareness of them.

I must confess that I find myself curious to see the score for Horizon. On this album, there are seventeen musicians in the Australian Chamber Orchestra, ten violins, three violas, three cellos, and one double bass. My guess is that the engaging textures that emerge from Adams’ score are the production of providing each instrument with its own part. This might make for challenging score-following, but the listener has the luxury of allowing his attention to “wander about,” exploring one sonority and then moving on to another.

This was the way in which I dealt with a performance of “Inuksuit” in the summer of 2017. The work was an “open-ended” composition, which had more to do with establishing an environment, rather than unfolding a path from beginning to end. The piece had a three-part structure. However, the music was scored for 9 to 99 percussion players; and the score pages were distributed among them. The performance took place at Lands End with the permission of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. One might say that the performance was less a matter of listening and more one of “being there.”

A recording, on the other hand, encourages one to prioritize listening over being. I have now listened to Horizon several times. Each new experience tends to have its own “being,” rather than stimulating memories of the last listenings. My guess is that this is how one should approach any of the albums of Adams’ compositions.

Ébène Quartet Concludes SFP Chamber Series

Last night in Herbst Theatre, this season’s Chamber Series, presented by San Francisco Performances, concluded with the return of the Ébène Quartet. Membership has changed since the ensemble last visited San Francisco with the arrival of a new cellist, Yuya Okamoto. Pierre Colombet and Gabriel Le Magadure are still the violinists; but the violist was Hélène Clément, substituting for Marie Chilemme for the current Spring United States tour. The program was framed by two of the “Three Bs,” both represented by a “second quartet,” with Claude Debussy’s only string quartet as the “middle” selection.

I must confess to a particular fondness for that quartet. For the better part of my youth, my exposure to his music was limited to orchestral works (due in no small part to a bias on the part of my parents). I would later get to know several of his piano compositions; but my “first encounter” with the quartet came relatively late. As a result, it struck me like a bolt of lightning.

Lightning struck again last night. Even with a substitution in membership, the ensemble could not have been more attuned to the rhetorical diversity mined from Debussy’s quartet. Mind you, I have had no shortage of opportunities to listen to this music on recording (such as last year’s Sony Masterworks anthology of the Guarneri Quartet); but the music is so nuanced that one can only really appreciate the details in a recital setting. It would be unfair to say that the Debussy selection rose above the quartets of Ludwig van Beethoven and Johannes Brahms, which flanked it on either side. Nevertheless, there is a uniqueness to Debussy’s rhetoric in his quartet that consistently seizes my attention, particularly when given a recital performance by an ensemble as skilled as Ébène.

Indeed, I found it interesting that Debussy was “approached” by the second in the first six Beethoven quartets to see publication, his Opus 18. The set is often called the “early quartets;” and there is very much a sense that Beethoven is looking back on Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart while looking forward at the same time. Personally, I find the Opus 18 set to be consistently refreshing across all six of its quartets. Last night began with the second of those quartets in the key of G major, which suited the high spirits of the Ébène musicians accordingly.

The program concluded with the second of the two string quartets in Johannes Brahms’ Opus 51. Brahms composed only three string quartets, the two in Opus 51 followed by Opus 67. It was clearly not his favorite genre, but I have come to appreciate all three of the quartets over the years. Last night served as a reminder for me that I should be paying more attention to all three of them! (Those that attended the latest performance of chamber music by members of the San Francisco Symphony this past Sunday may know that the piano quartets receive more attention.) Indeed, it may well be that my last encounter with the complete set of those string quartets took place back when I was living in Connecticut and making frequent visits to listen to the Guarneri Quartet at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan!

Ébène prepared an encore that also involved seldom encountered music. This was the second of the three Divertimenti that Benjamin Britten composed in 1933 (revised in 1936). The selection was an engaging waltz, which turned out to be a wistful way in which to wish the audience a good night. Perhaps for their next visit the Ébène musicians will play all three of them!

AVIE Releases New Cantata Collective Album

A little over a year ago AVIE Records released a new album anticipating the celebration of Easter. The performance was by the Orchestra and Chorus of Cantata Collective joined by four vocal soloists. Tomorrow AVIE will release a new album, which may be taken as a “prequel” to the two compositions on the Easter album. As might be guessed, the composer for all of these works is Johann Sebastian Bach.

Cover of the album being discussed (from its Amazon.com Web page)

The new release is a more ambitious undertaking. While the two Easter selections fit on a single CD, the “physical” version will occupy three CDs. These will account for the entirety of Bach’s BWV 244 St Matthew Passion. This is in two parts, the first on the first CD and the second distributed across the other two.

Once again the conductor will be Nicholas McGegan, but there will be a more generous number of vocal soloists. Four of them are assigned “roles” in the narrative: bass-baritone Paul Max Tipton is Jesus, baritone Harrison Hintzsche is Pontius Pilate, and the narration of the Gospel texts is sung by tenor Thomas Cooley as the Evangelist, soprano Sherezade Panthaki is Pilate’s wife. Panthaki and Hintzsche also sing the soprano and bass arias, respectively. The other vocalists are countertenor Reginald Mobley and tenor James Reese.

Because BWV 244 is so much more massive than the contents of the AVIE Easter album, my opportunities to write about the music have been few and far between. My last opportunity came a little more than exactly two years ago. That was when I wrote about the second “volume” in the Warner Classics Remastered Edition of recordings of the conductor Otto Klemperer, given the subtitle Operas & Sacred Works. Klemperer, of course, predated the very idea of “historically informed performance;” and I have to confess that listening to his recording reminded me of spending a long period of time on an uncomfortable church bench! McGegan, on the other hand, has a better sense of “pace;” and, after listening to this new release several times, I have come to enjoy the overall experience, rather than dreading it as an ordeal!

The Lab: May, 2026

Next month promises to be a very busy one at The Lab. The very first event of the month will take place on May 1, which, as was published yesterday, already has to account for three overlapping events. My guess is that regular readers know by now that The Lab is located in the Mission at 2948 16th Street. This is particularly convenient for those using public transportation, since it is a short walk to the corner of 16th Street and Mission Street. Busses stop at that corner for both north-south and east-west travel, and downstairs there is a station for the BART line running under Mission Street. Doors open half an hour in advance of the performance; and specific information for each event (including the one conflicting with May 1), provides a hyperlink to the Web page that accounts for both background material and hyperlinks for ticket purchases as follows:

Friday, May 1, 8 p.m.: The Apmonia Quartet will perform a full evening of microtonally inflected works drawing on visual language, graphic notation, and improvisation. The earliest work on the program will be Three Pieces for String Quartet, composed by Morton Feldman in 1956. The most recent  was composed in 2021 by Chiyoko Szlavnic, whose “Gradients of Detail” draws on a score consisting of minimal graphical line-based notation. Another unconventional use of visual notation will be Anthony Braxton's “Composition No. 17,” composed in 1971. The remaining work on the program will be “Minor,” composed by Tony Conrad in 1995, taking a minimalist approach to just intonation. The members of the quartet are Modney and Sabrina Salamone on violins, Julian Seney on viola, and Tyler J. Borden on cello.

Saturday, May 9, 8:30 p.m.: This will be a two-set program. Cécile Schott composes and performs under the name Colleen. Her compositions draw upon a variety of resources, including music boxes, pocket synthesizers, and baroque stringed instruments. The other set will be taken by the collaborative duo of Sally Decker and Briana Marela. Their performance includes voice, text, and improvisational textural soundscapes. Their debut album Small Tremble in Slow Motion was released on Surface World in 2022.

Peter Evans playing his flugelhorn (from the Web page for his performance at The Lab)

Sunday, May 10, 8:30 p.m.: One set will be entitled Being & Becoming, a performance by trumpeter, composer, and improviser Peter Evans, leading a quartet whose repertoire ranges from jazz and experimental music to contemporary concert music and beyond. The other set will be taken by the Heavy Arts Ensemble, a septet, all of whose members play percussion. Three of them, Joel Reber, David Alvarez, and Tommy Wong, also play reed instruments, Chili Corder is a cellist, and Justin Esposito plays double bass. The remaining member of the group, Diego Munguia, alternates between reeds and a modular synthesizer.

Friday, May 15, 8:30 p.m.: The entire evening will be a duo performance entitled Seeing if Forgetting. Henry Solomon will alternate between baritone saxophone and bass clarinet, while Elori Saxl will accompany with a diversity of analog synthesizers. They describe their repertoire has drawing upon “equal parts from American jazz abstraction, New York classical minimalism, and contemporary pop’s sense of harmony, form, and hooks.”

Saturday, May 23, 8 p.m.: This program has been given the following minimal description: “keyon gaskin performs ‘uncty: a mid life ex(pectancy/istential) performance,’ an experimental sound and movement in-process solo.”

Amaral Brightens Shenson Spotlight Series

Violinist Nathan Amaral (from the San Francisco Symphony Web page for last night’s recital)

Some readers may have noticed that my headlines for the first two Shenson Spotlight Series recitals, presented by the San Francisco Symphony, in January and February both included the adjective “dim.” I am happy to report that things brightened up last night in Davies Symphony Hall with the debut recital by violinist Nathan Amaral, accompanied at the piano by Sophiko Simsive. The program was framed by two major (in both key and reputation) violin sonatas, beginning with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and concluding with César Franck. Amaral was born in Brazil and selected the second “Valsa de esquina” by Brazilian composer Francisco Mignone to separate these two European sonatas.

I first became aware of Mignone through Nelson Freire’s Brasileiro album, which I had written about during my tenure with Examiner.com. Last night he was just the right composer to reflect on the soloist’s Brazilian heritage. Personally, I found it to be a perfectly well-conceived “centerpiece,” which could competently “rub shoulders” with both Mozart and Franck. Furthermore, because the Mozart and Franck sonatas both show up frequently in violin recitals, there was something refreshing in Mignone’s rhetoric in departing from the more familiar “classics.”

That said, Amaral did far more than just doing justice to both Mozart and Franck. There is a diversity of intensity in Franck’s rhetoric, which Amaral captured perfectly without ever overplaying it. The Mozart sonata, on the other hand, was conceived as a modest delight, making it the perfect selection for engaging the attentive listener. For all of these selections, Simsive knew how to establish just the right framework for the rhetorical phrasing in the violin solo passages. The result was a selection of three duo performances in which the attentive listener had much to benefit from both of the performers.

As might be expected, Amaral prepared an encore. This was Florence Price’’s “Adoration.” This piece has been championed by violinist Randall Goosby, who has performed it in San Francisco during his past visits. I have come to enjoy that short piece and was glad to listen to an interpretation by another violinist!

Choices for May 1, 2026

It often seems that things get busy during what is basically the last month of the concert season. This year the need to make choices will begin at the very start of the month. As of this writing, there are three overlapping events, on the first day of the month all beginning at 7:30 p.m., each with its own unique offerings. The good news is that the diversity of the programs may make it easier for listeners to decide which concert to attend. Specifics are as follows:

Taube Atrium Theater: The San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, led by conductor Jory Fankuchen, will host this year’s Irving Klein Competition, violinist Julia Schilz. She will be the soloist in a performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 219, the last of his five violin concertos, composed in the key of A major. On the premise that “one good fifth deserves another,” the concerto will be followed by Franz Schubert’s D. 485, his fifth symphony in the key of B-flat major. The program will begin with the third movement of the first Sinfonietta composed by Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson. There will be no charge for admission, meaning that tickets are not required. The venue is located on the top floor of the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue, on the southwest corner of McAllister Street.

St. Mark’s Lutheran Church: California Bach Society will conclude its season with a program entitled Psalmen Davis: Three Centuries of Sacred Song. The title refers to a composition by Heinrich Schütz, which will be the “main event” of the program. Those psalms will also be present in different settings by two of Schütz’ predecessors, Jacobus Gallus and Salamone Rossi. There will also be nineteenth century settings composed by Felix Mendelssohn. General admission will be $35, but there is now a Choose What You Pay option for advance ticket purchasing, which may be enabled through the Society’s Web page. For those that do not already know, the church is located at 1111 O’Farrell Street, just west of Franklin Street.

The members of The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain (from their SFP event page)

Herbst Theatre: The final event to be presented by San Francisco Performances will be the return of The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. They last visited Herbst on April 16, 2024. The group is a septet with members playing five different sizes of the instrument. The program will be announced from the stage. Tickets are currently being sold for $100, $85, and $70; and a Web page has been created for online purchases.

DSQ’s Stravinsky-Schnittke Connection

Last night the Danish String Quartet (DSQ) made its third visit to Herbst Theatre to perform a recital presented by San Francisco Performances. Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen took the leadership chair with Frederik Øland on second violin, violist Asbjørn Nørgaard, and cellist Fredrik Schøyen Sjölin. Much of the program was devoted to traditional Nordic music; and, to politely suggest that they have been keeping up with news about our President, many of those selections originated in Greenland.

This attention to folk music was preceded by works of two major twentieth-century composers, Igor Stravinsky and Alfred Schnittke. The contrast could not have been more engaging. Stravinsky’s Suite Italienne consists of selected movements from the ballet “Pulcinella,” whose score appropriated compositions by Giovanni Pergolesi. The composer clearly enjoyed having his way with eighteenth-century Italian tradition, and his instrumentation had some raucous moments to underscore the ballet’s narrative. DSQ provided its own arrangement of the suite’s movements, which may not have been quite as raucous but were still high-spirited.

Photograph of Alfred Schnittke in Moscow taken by Dmitri N. Smirnov, from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license)

This was followed by Schnittke’s second string quartet. This composition also had a “background source” in the form of Russian church music. However, the composer’s capacity for intense dissonance tended to override any reflections on liturgical traditions. The thorns in Schnittke’s music are long and sharp, and I must confess that it took a fair amount of listening experience for me to begin to find my way through his string quartets. Nevertheless, last night it was clear that DSQ had a firm command of Schnittke’s unforgiving rhetorical stances. Now that I am more familiar with those stances, I could appreciate the intensity of DSQ’s interpretation of his music.

Yamada Conducts Walton for Debut Album

Kazuki Yamada is the latest conductor to serve as Music Director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO). He began his tenure in 2018, having succeeded Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla in that position. This Friday will see the release of his first album recorded with CBSO.

Kazuki Yamada on the cover of his debut album with Deutsche Grammophon

He decided that he would make his recording debut with Deutsche Grammophon, devoting the entire album to music by William Walton. Seven of the eight tracks account for the first and second symphonies (in that order), the first consisting of four movements and the second structured around three, the last of which is an elaborate passacaglia with a set of variations followed by a fugue and a concluding coda.

For my generation, Walton was a major (perhaps the major, following the death of Ralph Vaughan Williams) British composer. His repertoire was engagingly diverse, as adept with vocal performance as with his instrumentalists. I know him best for his 1931 cantata Belshazzar’s Feast. Unless I am mistaken, I have Eugene Ormandy to thank for bringing that composition to my attention when he performed it leading the Philadelphia Orchestra.

It should therefore not surprise readers that listening to this album was a nostalgic experience. Mind you, I do not think I had listened to either of the two symphonies; but I had no trouble encountering any number of familiar thematic tropes. The same can be said for the opening track, which serves as an overture of sorts. Indeed, one could call it an overture of “more than sorts,” since Walton composed it for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. The context of the coronation brought about the compositions name, “Orb and Sceptre,” qualified with the subtitle “Coronation March.”

Fortunately, at least some of Walton’s works have found a place in the repertoire of the San Francisco Symphony. In recent years there seems to have been an enthusiastic bias for the composer’s viola concerto. Geraldine Walther may have triggered this bias back in 1997, when she led the viola section. Then, almost exactly two years ago, her first-chair successor, Jonathan Vinocour, performed the concerto for a program entitled Inspirations: Film/Classical. (Walton’s ghost may well have nodded in agreement with that choice of title!)

I hope that San Franciscans that have followed Walther and Vinocour might wish to “take the leap” to explore how Walton could handle a symphony as well as a concerto. He also had enough of a sense of humor to contribute to the Hoffnung Music Festival. In the spirit of Gerald Hoffnung’s sense of humor, Walton conducted the orchestra in the Royal Festival Hall with a fly swatter. The performance was a very short excerpt from Walton’s oratorio Belshazzar’s Feast. Indeed, the excerpt was so short that it consisted of only a single chord, during which the chorus sang “Slain!”

It goes without saying that Yamada’s debut album is much more serious! Nevertheless, there is no shortage of engaging expressiveness in both the symphonies and “Orb and Sceptre.” According to the Amazon.com Web page, the album is due for release this coming Friday; and, as most readers probably expect, that page can currently be used for processing pre-orders.

The Bleeding Edge: 4/14/2026

This week’s Bleeding Edge will be relatively quiet. There will be only five events, two of which will probably overlap. Both of them have already been reported, along with a third such event as follows:

The full expanse of Herbst Theatre as seen from its stage

1. Ensemble for These Times will present its Women Crossing/Liminality program at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, April 17 in the Cha Chi Ming Recital Hall, located in the Bowes Center of the San Francisco Conservatory Music at 200 Van Ness Avenue.
2. On that same Friday, The Lab will present its two-set evening of the Skylight duo and the Thingamajigs Performance Ground, beginning one hour later at 8:30 p.m.; the venue is located in the Mission at 2948 16th Street.
3. On Saturday, April 18, San Francisco Performances (SFP) will present a flute recital by Claire Chase in Herbst Theatre at 401 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of McAllister Street.

The first of the new events will take place at a venue that may not be familiar to many readers, while the second venue is probably known to most San Francisco residents. Specifics are as follows:

Wednesday, April 15, 5:30 p.m., Bar Tanuki at Stable Cafe: Lorin Benedict will perform his latest experiments in inventive vocal work. Jed Holtman will accompany on guitar. The venue is located in the Mission at 2128 Folsom Street.

Sunday, April 19, 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., San Francisco Museum of Modern Art: Theresa Wong is also a vocalist, but she accompanies herself on cello. There will be two performances of the program she has prepared, entitled Arch of Air. These have been conceived in response to works by Sol LeWitt and Ellsworth Kelly in the museum’s gallery. The Museum is located at 151 Third Street, just south of Market Street and adjacent to the Yerba Buena Gardens.

Pocket Opera: Britten’s Shakespeare

Tytania smitten with Bottom (in spite of his asses’ head, from the event page for this Pocket Opera production)

The last Sunday of this month will see the second of the four productions planned for this year’s Pocket Opera season. The performance will present A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Benjamin Britten’s operatic interpretation of William Shakespeare’s comedy. I know this work primarily because it is included in the Decca anthology of the composer’s complete works. To the best of my knowledge, the closest I have come to seeing it staged was in August of 2010, when the Grand Finale performance of the Merola Opera Program included a performance by soprano Hye Jung Lee, who, in my words for an Examiner.com article, took on “two of the most challenging soprano roles from the twentieth century repertoire.” (I also declared them to be "the mother of all killer coloratura roles.”)

As usual, the performance will take place in the Gunn Theater at the Legion of Honor. It will begin at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, April 26. As many readers probably know by now, the Legion of Honor is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. It is located at 100 34th Avenue, which is basically right in the center of Lincoln Park. General admission will be $89. Those age 30 and under may purchase tickets for $45. A Web page has been created for online purchases. As of this writing, only five seats remain available for purchase.

Three Centuries of Chamber Music at Davies

1872 photograph of Johannes Brahms (photographer unknown, public domain from Wikimedia Commons)

Yesterday afternoon Davies Symphony Hall hosted the latest performance of chamber music by members of the San Francisco Symphony. This was a “three centuries” program presenting music composed in the nineteenth, twentieth, and 21st centuries. The earliest work on the program was Johannes Brahms’ Opus 60, the last of his three piano quartets, composed in the key of C minor. The most recent was a performance of tracks from Last Leaf, an album of a diversity of Nordic selections (some traditional) recorded by the Danish String Quartet. The first half of the program present two twentieth-century works composed within a year of each other. The opening selection was Steve Reich’s 1973 “Music for Pieces of Wood,” followed by an octet composed by Jean Françaix in 1972.

I was particularly drawn to that octet. Françaix was one of Nadia Boulanger’s pupils; and, on the basis of the few performances I have heard of his compositions, I would say that he has a rhetorical upbeat. Given the experiences of my past visits to France, I would postulate that such an upbeat was conceived to reflect the devil-may-care disposition of a flâneur. That disposition was particularly reflected in the wind performances by clarinet (Carey Bell), bassoon (Joshua Elmore), and horn (Michael Stevens). The richness of that disposition made the perfect complement to the engaging abstraction of the opening selection, “Music for Pieces of Wood,” composed by Steve Reich and performed by five musicians, each with his own pair of claves.

In the second half I did not quite know what to make of Last Leaf; but the performance by the string quartet of violinists Chen Zhao and Polina Sedukh, Christina King on viola, and cellist Davis You definitely held my attention. Nevertheless, the Brahms quartet was high point of my afternoon; and the ensemble of violinist Jessie Fellows, Katie Kadarauch on viola, cellist Anne Richardson, and Yuhsin Galaxy Su at the piano could not have been more engaging. Brahms almost always has me leaving any performance with a bit of zip in my walk!

April to Conclude with Another Busy Weekend

April is turning out to be such a busy month that it was necessary to provide separate articles for Saturday and Sunday of next weekend. On the following weekend the month will conclude with busy days on Friday and Saturday. One of the events was already reported at the beginning of this month: the performance of The Days Pass Quickly Immersed int he Shadow of Eternity, composed by Lea Bertucci for sampled and live early flutes in 8-channel sound. As usual, there will involve a diversity of other performances at a diversity of venues. As of this writing, specifics are as follows:

Friday, April 24, and Saturday, April 25, 7:30 p.m., St. Ignatius Church: The San Francisco Choral Society, led by Artistic Director Robert Geary, is preparing for a new work by the Ukrainian composer Oleksandr Shchetynsky entitled Signs of Grace. The performance will be preceded by more familiar sacred music from Eastern Europe, Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Opus 37, the “All-Night Vigil,” setting fifteen texts from the Russian Orthodox ceremony. Tickets are being sold by City Box Office at prices from $40 to $65 with discounts for seniors, students, and those under the age of 30. Tickets may be purchased online, and City Box Office has created separate Web pages for Friday and Saturday. In addition, the Saturday performance will be livestreamed with digital tickets sold for $40. The church is located on the campus of the University of San Francisco at 650 Parker Avenue, on the northeast corner of Fulton Street.

Friday, April 24, 7:30 p.m., Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall, San Francisco Conservatory of Music: The next Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts program is entitled A to Z Guitar Duo. That title refers to two of the most commanding guitarists currently in Europe, Aniello Desiderio and Zoran Dukić. Program details have not yet been announced. General admission will be $70. Tickets may be purchased through a Humanitix Web page. The Concert Hall is located in the Conservatory building at 50 Oak Street.

Friday, April 24, Saturday, April 25, Friday, May 1, and Saturday, May 2, 8 p.m., Saturday, April 25, Sunday, April 26, Saturday, May 2, and Sunday, May 3, 2 p.m., and Tuesday, April 28, Wednesday, April 29, and Thursday, April 30, 7:30 p.m., War Memorial Opera House: Mere Mortals is a full-evening ballet created by choreographer Aszure Barton. The narrative amounts to a technology perspective on the Pandora myth. This will be the return of a ballet originally commissioned for the inaugural season of Artistic Director Tamar Rojo. A single Web page has been created for ticket purchases. As many (most?) readers know, this venue is located on the southwest corner of Van Ness Avenue and Grove Street.

1971 photograph of Astor Piazzolla with his bandoneon (from a Wikimedia Commons Web page, copyright by Pupeto Mastropasqua)

Saturday, April 25, 2 p.m., Presidio Theatre: The New Century Chamber Orchestra will conclude its season with a program entitled Radiance in Rhythm. The guest soloist will be guitarist Pablo Sáinz-Villegas, who will be the soloist in the final selection, the “Concierto de Aranjuez” composed by Joaquín Rodrigo. Sáinz-Villegas will also perform Michael Daugherty’s “Bay of Pigs,” a reflection on a darker period in the past history of our country. There will also be a world premiere performance of “Blues Variations,” composed by Henry Dorn on a New Century commission as part of the Emerging Black Composers Project. The other composers on the program will be Astor Piazzolla (“Fuga y misterio”) and Alberto Williams (“Primera Suite Argentina”). As usual, Daniel Hope will serve as both music director and concertmaster. The venue is located in the Presidio of San Francisco on the south side of the Golden Gate and the bridge that crosses it. City Box Office has created a Web page for online ticket purchases.