Listening Ahead
Our Critics’ Choices of Upcoming Events in the Bay Area
for January 29 – February 11, 2008
Chamber Orchestra
S.F. Chamber Orchestra and Virtuosi
San Francisco Chamber Orchestra offers three well-known Bay Area soloists this weekend, in its program titled “Virtuosi.” Included is a premiere, the Concertino for Flute and String Orchestra, by Yu-Hui Chang. Violinist Bill Barbini plays the Rondo for Violin and String Orchestra, D. 438 (1816), by Schubert, and Rufus Olivier plays Jean Francaix’s Divertissement for Bassoon and String Orchestra. Naturally, Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings ends the concert.
Jan. 24, 5:30 p.m. (one-hour concert), Old St. Mary’s Cathedral, San Francisco; Jan. 25, 8 p.m., Herbst Theatre, San Francisco; Jan. 26, 8 p.m., St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Palo Alto; Jan. 27, 3 p.m., First Congregational Church, Berkeley; free admission, (415) 248-1640, www.sfchamberorchestra.org. (M.Z.)
Symphony
S.F. Symphony Takes Manhattan
Composer Einojuhani Rautavaara keeps going from strength to strength, one of the more youthful of classical music’s grand old men. His Manhattan Trilogy, a “reminiscence of his student years,” is 18 minutes of orchestral magic evoking poetic images of interior feelings, rather than a musical portrait of the city. Conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy pairs it with Respighi’s overtly programmatic Fountains of Rome, and Max Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy, with violinist James Ehnes. The concert ends with Albert Roussel’s Bacchus et Ariane Suite No. 2.
Jan. 31, 2 p.m.; Feb. 1, 2, 8 p.m.; Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, $25-$125, (415) 552-8000, www.sfsymphony.org. (M.Z.)
Berkeley Season Opener
Kent Nagano starts things off right with a program of Mozart’s Symphony No. 26 in E-flat Major, the U.S. premiere of Toshio Hosokawa’s Lotus under the moonlight with Momo Kodama on piano, and Schubert’s long, majestic Symphony No. 9, “The Great.”
Jan. 31, 8 p.m., Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley, $40-$60, (510) 841-2800, www.berkeleysymphony.com. (C.G.)
Kent Nagano
Ligeti at San Francisco Symphony
Guest conductor Ingo Metzmacher hones in on Central Europe and Russia in a program divided between Hungarians in the first half and Shostakovich’s Sixth Symphony in the second. György Ligeti’s San Francisco Polyphony shows that there really were some exciting avant-garde works written in the 1970s, and Hélène Grimaud’s rendition of the exquisite second movement of Béla Bartók’s Third Piano Concerto should not be missed.
Feb. 7-9, 8 p.m., Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, $25-$125, (415) 864-6000, www.sfsymphony.org. (J.D.)
Redwood Symphony: The American Sound
Baritone Cole Grissom will sing arias from three great American operas: Douglas Moore’s The Ballad of Baby Doe, Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah, and Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking. The program is filled out with a variety of bright American orchestral sounds by Tobias Picker, Joan Tower, Vivian Fung, and Arturo Marquez, plus Copland’s Appalachian Spring, without which no Americana program would be complete. Eric Kujawsky and Barbara Day Turner will conduct.
Feb. 9, 8 p.m., Cunningham Memorial Chapel, Notre Dame de Namur University, Belmont, $10-$25, (650) 366-6872, www.redwoodsymphony.org. (D.B.)
Recital
Trumpeter on a Mission
Few artists have pursued the goal of expanding the repertory of their instrument with the singlemindedness of trumpet virtuoso Håkan Hardenberger. The list of composers who have written works for him, often at his own instigation, is gettting to be as long as Leporello’s famous catalog. With him at his San Francisco Performances concert is percussionist Colin Currie, whose dedication to contemporary music makes him a perfect match for Hardenberger. The trumpet-and-drum duo will perform a number of works, none older than 1971.
Jan. 29, 8 p.m., Herbst Theatre, San Francisco, $30-$45, (415) 398-6449, www.performances.org. (M.Z.)
Håkan Hardenberger
Philippe Castagner
The Schwabacher Recitals at the intimate Temple Emanu-El are always a treat. The first program gets things started off right with the expressive tenor Philippe Castagner, a 2002 Merola Opera Program alumnus, performing a program of Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin. The work is one of the earliest song cycles to be widely performed, but what’s unusual is how the piano part bears the brunt of its expressive burden. The accompanist, Ken Noda, should be up to the task.
Feb. 3, 5:30 p.m., Martin Meyer Sanctuary, Temple El-Emanuel, San Francisco, $20, (415) 864-3330, www.sfopera.com. (C.G.)
Richard Goode
The Bay Area is fortunate that pianist Richard Goode often swings through here, courtesy of Cal Performances. He is one of the great living masters of the traditional repertory, and any program can only explore part of that territory. This recital ranges from Bach to Debussy and Fauré, with a little Beethoven and Chopin thrown in.
Feb. 3, 3 p.m., Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley, $34-$62, (510) 642-9988, www.calperfs.berkeley.edu. (M.Z.)
Jubilant Sykes
Baritone Jubilant Sykes’ career is almost two decades along now, and covers both classical standards and “crossover” projects. His solo recordings for Sony have included pairings with jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard, on a program of spirituals, and with guitarist Christopher Parkening in a musical journey through Spain, Brazil, and the United States. His latest release is a selection of songs by contemporary popular masters like Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan. Sykes’ recital, presented by Stanford Lively Arts, conveys something of the breadth of this extraordinary artist’s repertory. He is, as Duke Ellington would have said, “beyond category.”
Feb. 9, 8 p.m., Dinkelspiel Auditorium, Stanford University, $19-$42, (650) 723-2551, www.livelyarts.stanford.edu. (M.Z.)
Yuja Wang
Pianist Yuja Wang has consistently drawn rave reviews, including from SFCV’s Janos Gereben, for her interpretive finesse. In her recital for San Francisco Performances, the 20-year-old Gilmore Award winner challenges herself with a program packed with fingerbusters by Ligeti, Liszt, Scriabin, Bartók, and a piano transcription of Ravel’s La Valse.
Feb. 10, 2 p.m., Herbst Theatre, San Francisco, $30, (415) 398-6449, www.performances.org. (M.Z.)
Yuja Wang
Photo by Christian Steiner
Contemporary Music
Del Sol Quartet
The Del Sol Quartet is one of the many Bay Area groups that have won ASCAP’s creative programming award. As if to make the point, its upcoming Berkeley concert includes Stephen Kent on the didgeridoo (an Australian aboriginal drone instrument), as well as clarinetist Jeff Anderle. With Kent, the group plays Peter Sculthorpe’s String Quartet No. 16, while Anderle joins the quartet for Golijov’s ubiquitous Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind. Derek Bermel’s jazz-classical fusion, Coming Together, is also on the program, which ends with Arturo Salinas’ Awiroma (2005), in which the musicians indulge their secret desires to be percussionists.
Jan. 29, 8 p.m., Berkeley City Club, $20, (510) 525-5211, www.berkeleychamberperform.org. (M.Z.)
Del Sol Quartet
Classical Meets Electronica
And now for something completely different. Classical music will never be accused of stuffiness at Mercury Soul, an “electro-acoustic evening” held at the Mezzanine dance club in San Francisco (see the feature article in this issue). Following up on the original event held in Berlin’s Volksbühne in 2005 with the Berlin Philharmonic is Mason Bates, DJ and composer of “symphonic electronica” (see SFCV’s review), Benjamin Shwartz, San Francisco Symphony resident conductor and director of the SFS Youth Orchestra, and visual designer Anne Patterson. The trio will create an immersive environment in which trip-hop, techno, and house music are interspersed with short chamber-orchestra performances of classical music by composers like Ligeti, Nancarrow, and Bates, with the musicians scattered around the art-installation-bedecked club. Whether the concept works or not, or it attracts the young crowd for classical music it’s after, this should definitely be a scene.
Feb. 1, 9 p.m., The Mezzanine, San Francisco, $10, www.mercurysoul.org. (M.B.)
Benjamin Shwartz
San Francisco Contemporary Music Players
In a concert titled “Strongbox of American Music,” the ensemble features two works it commissioned, Steven Mackey’s Indigenous Instruments and David Sheinfeld’s Dear Theo, Morton Feldman’s Bass Clarinet and Percussion, and a premiere of a violin concerto by Jorge Liderman, Furthermore ....
Feb. 4, 8 p.m., Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum, San Francisco, $10-$27, (415) 978-2787, www.sfcmp.org. (L.H.)
Wine, Art, … and “Gnarly” Music
Be a part of the live audience in this multisensory event, recorded as part of the Adorno Ensemble’s award-winning podcast series, the Gallery Sessions Radio Show. Bay Area composers Kurt Rohde and Ronald Caltabiano, long dedicated to the new-music scene, come together in a concert of, as the program says, “‘gnarly’ music that is filled with everything that your ears can possibly grasp in one listening. This is serious ear candy and brainy ooze.” Director Cynthia Mei will translate what that means in her conversation about the works: Rohde’s Plain and Simple for string quintet, a string quartet by Caltabiano as well as his Ellington Sonata for solo bass.
Feb. 7, 7 p.m., Varnish Fine Art and Wine Bar, San Francisco, $10-$15, (415) 682-9946, www.adornoensemble.org. (C.G.)
Bang on a Can
The three founders of Bang on a Can — composers Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe — are still working on their ongoing project to break down barriers between different musical styles and audiences. For its San Francisco appearance, the group has constructed not just a concert, but an all-day marathon event featuring an eclectic group of musicians mostly drawn from the city’s thriving alternative music scene. A wide variety of musical genres will be represented, along with unusual groups like Edmund Welles: The Bass Clarinet Quartet. The culminating evening concert will feature Iva Bittová, a Romani singer/violinist who creates her “own personal folk music,” and Don Byron, a composer/clarinetist who has played and recorded jazz, klezmer, and German lieder, among other things. In addition the concert features the music of Annie Gosfield, another New York “downtown” composer, who samples industrial noise and uses prepared or altered instruments in her music, and Thurston Moore, the songwriter/guitarist of the alternative rock band Sonic Youth. Better leave preconceptions at home.
Feb. 9, 12-6 p.m. (marathon), 8 p.m. (concert), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, free (marathon), $26-$45 (concert), (415) 978-2700, www.ybca.org. (M.Z.)
Unorthodox Journeys
Mary Chun leads Earplay in a concert of contemporary works, some of which are premieres or commissions by the group known for celebrating the new and the daring. A work by Claude Vivier (the Canadian great who was murdered at 34) starts off the program with Paramirabo, next up is Peter Maxwell Davies’ Hymnos, followed by two premieres — Martha Callison Horst’s poetic Creature Songs and Aaron Einbond’s Beside Oneself, which attempts to blur boundaries between vaious instruments and electronica — as well as Morton Feldman’s i met heine on the rue fürstenberg and Richard Festinger’s Diary of a Journey. All the pieces were composed after 1967.
Feb. 11, 7 p.m., Herbst Theatre, San Francisco, $10-$20, (415) 585-9776, www.adornoensemble.org. (C.G.)
Mary Chun
Opera
The Secret Garden
Lamplighters presents this classic of children’s literature turned Tony-award winning musical that appeals to adults and children alike. Based on the novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Frances Hodgson Burnett, the book and lyrics are by Marsha Norman, music is by Lucy Simon, Jane Erwin Hammett directs, and Brett Strader conducts.
Jan. 31 – Feb. 3, Lesher Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek, $50-$200, (925) 943-7469, www.lamplighters.org. (C.G.)
Youth Rigoletto
Opera San José offers Verdi’s Rigoletto, as always with young artists. Scott Bearden and Andrew Fernando split performances in the title role, Christopher Bengochea and Isaac Hurtado, appear as the Duke of Mantua, and Khori Dastoor and Rochelle Bard, as Gilda. Fans of Opera San Josè will certainly recognize the Duke and Gilda. The four singers share the lead roles in all of the company’s productions this year.
Feb. 9-24, 8 p.m. (Sunday matinees, 3 p.m.), California Theatre, San José, $66-$88, (408) 437-4450, www.operasj.org. (M.Z.)
Early Music
Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra With Robert Levin
Fortepianist Robert Levin is renowned for his improvisational skill and also his willingness to add ornamentation to familiar classical concertos outside of the expected space, the cadenza. When he plays Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto with the Philharmonia Baroque, you might imagine he’ll be restrained, given that the pianist’s part is unusually fully notated for a Classic-era concerto. But be prepared to be surprised. Also on the program, Schubert’s rarely played Symphony No. 3, and an overture by Anton Reicha, a contemporary of the two famous composers.
Feb. 7, 8 p.m., Herbst Theatre, San Francisco; Feb. 8, 8 p.m., First United Methodist Church, Palo Alto; Feb. 9, 8 p.m. and Feb. 10, 7:30 p.m., First Congregational Church, Berkeley; $30-$72, (415) 252-1288, www.philharmonia.org. (M.Z.)
S.F. Renaissance Voices
Love is in the air at the S.F. Renaissance Voices February concert, “A Feast for St. Valentine.” The group focuses on the Franco-Flemish Renaissance with music for lute. Lutist Sean Smith will perform Airs de Coeur and chansons including Clement Janequin’s La Guerre. Also on the program is Orlando di Lasso’s Missa super Mon cœur se recommande à vous (My heart is offered still to you), a parody mass based on his motet of the same name.
Feb. 10, 4 p.m., Noe Valley Ministry, San Francisco; Feb. 17, 5 p.m., St. John’s Episcopal Church, Ross; Feb. 23, 7:30 p.m., Seventh Avenue Presbyterian Church, San Francisco; $12-$18, (415) 664-2543, www.sfrv.org. (C.G.)
Chamber Music
Belcea Quartet
The Belcea Quartet’s San Francisco Performances-sponsored Bay Area debut two years ago revealed one of the most intelligent and attractive ensembles going, a quartet whose out-of-the-ordinary attention to detail somehow coexisted with a thoroughgoing sense of spontaneity. This time around, the ensemble brings a program that ought to test those virtues in any number of ways: Schubert’s mammoth, late, G-Major Quartet, Webern’s Five Pieces, and Haydn’s Quartet in G Major, Op. 77, No.1.
Jan. 31, 8 p.m., Herbst Theatre, San Francisco, $30-$45, (415) 398-6449, www.performances.org. (M.D.T.)
Basically British XI
The 11th installment in the Basically British series at Old First is a toast to the 50th anniversary of Vaughan Williams’ death. This time around the usual suspects — Joseph Edelberg, violin; Adrienne Herbert, violin; Elizabeth Prior Runnicles, viola; Thalia Moore, cello; and John Parr, piano — welcome Thomas Glenn, who is establishing himself as a major force as a lyric tenor. See him here before his forthcoming roles for the Chicago Lyric Opera and English National Opera. Program highlights include On Wenlock Edge, which inaugurated the Basically British series, and the rarely performed cycle of impassioned settings of G.D. Rosetti’s visionary poetry, The House of Life.
Feb. 1, 8 p.m., Old First Church, San Francisco, $12-$15, (415) 474-1608, www.oldfirstconcerts.org. (C.G.)
Alexander String Quartet, “Inspirations”
For some years now the ensemble has busied itself giving Bay Area quartet lovers good reasons not to sleep in on Saturday mornings. This season its 10 a.m. Herbst Theatre series features a not unprecedented but still irresistible design: two quartets per program, one “standard rep,” one more recent, less familiar, and in some way related. On the former side of the ledger are the likes of Haydn, Bartók (two of his six), and Schubert; on the latter, Carter (No. 2), Wayne Peterson, George Crumb (Black Angels), and the Alexanders’ longtime colleague Robert Greenberg. The series opener juxtaposes Maurice Ravel’s 1903 String Quartet with Lou Harrison’s Quartet Set.
Feb. 2 – May 17 (Saturdays, dates vary), 10 a.m., Herbst Theatre, San Francisco, $22-$34, (415) 398-6449, www.performances.org. (M.D.T.)
Alexander String Quartet
Blowin’ in the Wind
It’s not every day that a wind ensemble is prized above other chamber music groups. But just a year after its formation in 1995, the Zéphyros Winds won first and grand prizes at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, becoming the first wind quintet in the competition’s 22-year history to do so. It will perform classic wind repertoire: Milhaud’s Le Cheminée du Roi René, Britten’s Pan, Debussy’s Syrinx, Szervánszky’s Fúvósötös, Ligeti’s Six Bagatelles, and Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin.
Feb. 3, 5 p.m., Mt. Tamalpais Church, Palo Alto, $20, (415) 381-4453, www.chambermusicmillvalley.org. (C.G.)
Brahms Trifecta
The brothers Capuçon, Renaud (violin) and Gautier (cello), have teamed with pianist Nicholas Angelich (the oldtimer in the group, at 37) to make a heralded recording of the complete Brahms piano trios. High-profile artists on their own, they are taking their first tour together, which begins in San Francisco with the Brahms set. It’s a full evening, but if the musicians do their part, Brahms will hold up his end.
Feb. 5, 8 p.m., Herbst Theatre, San Francisco, $30-$45, (415) 398-6449, www.performances.org. (M.Z.)
Emerson Quartet
As though to balance its all-Brahms recital last fall, the Emerson Quartet’s next Bay Area program, courtesy of Stanford Lively Arts, is a cache of enticingly unfamiliar music. Béla Bartók’s tersest and thorniest quartet, the Third, is the one reasonably standard repertoire item on offer. Alongside it are Bohuslav Martinu’s 1929 Third Quartet (his tersest, and a bright and colorful little romp it is), as well as his Three Madrigals for violin and viola, and Bay Area premieres of new quartets by Bright Sheng and Kaija Saariaho.
Feb. 6, 8 p.m., Dinkelspiel Auditorium, Stanford University, $44-$48, (650) 725-2787, livelyarts.stanford.edu. (M.D.T.)
Emerson Quartet
Photo by Mitch Jenkins
Cypress Quartet and Dan Coleman
The Cypress String Quartet continues its “From the Artist’s Studio” series at Montalvo Arts Center, with a performance and discussion of Dan Coleman’s String Quartet No. 2. Coleman will attend and, as always, there will be an informal reception following the concert.
Feb. 7, 7:30 p.m., Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga, $30, (408) 961-5800, www.montalvoarts.org”. (M.Z.)
Ives Quartet
“Composing in Isolation” is the title of the Ives Quartet’s winter concert featuring string quartets. On the program is Leo Ornstein’s Quartet No. 2; Haydn’s Quartet in C Major, Op. 20, No.2 — the composer’s take on the fugue — and the second string quartet that Beethoven composed, the Quartet in F Major, Op. 59, which has four movements, the second of which was inspired by the tomb scene from Romeo and Juliet.
Feb. 8, 8 p.m., St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Palo Alto; Feb. 10, 7 p.m., Le Petit Trianon Theatre, San Jose; $15-$25, (650) 224-7849, www.ivesquartet.org. (C.G.)
Ives Quartet
David Bratman is a librarian who lives with his lawfully wedded soprano and a wall full of symphony recordings.
Mickey Butts (www.mickeybutts.com) is executive director and editor of San Francisco Classical Voice. His writing has appeared in Salon, Food & Wine, Portfolio.com, The Industry Standard, Wired, Parenting, Sunset, The Nation, and The San Francisco Chronicle. As a professional singer, he has performed with such groups as Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Mark Morris Dance Group, Artists' Vocal Ensemble (AVE), and Pacific Collegium.
Jeff Dunn (jdunnpm@yahoo.com) is a freelance critic with a B.A. in music and a Ph.D. in geologic education. A composer of piano and vocal music, he is a member of NACUSA and president of Composers Inc.
Catherine Getches is managing editor of San Francisco Classical Voice. Her writing has appeared in publications such asThe Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Salon.
Lisa Hirsch is a technical writer. She studied music at Brandeis and SUNY/Stony Brook.
Michelle Dulak Thomson is a violinist and violist who has written about music for Strings, Stagebill, Early Music America, and The New York Times.
Michael Zwiebach holds a Ph.D. in music history from UC Berkeley.
©2008 By David Bratman, Mickey Butts, Jeff Dunn, Catherine Getches, Lisa Hirsch, Michelle Dulak Thomson, Michael Zwiebach, all rights reserved.