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By Janos Gereben / January 29, 2008

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Get Thee to a Master Class

There is simply no more value for less cost in all music than a master class. Where else would you get variety, novelty, dazzling glimpses into the future, excitement shared with young artists, and the unique opportunity to learn about music “at the source”?

For decades now, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music has offered spectacular master classes, providing some peak musical experiences, such as those given by Thomas Hampson, Elly Ameling, and Donald Runnicles.

On Monday, it was another grand master class, by the pianist Hung-Kuan Chen (see next item) — an afternoon of fascinating performances and instructions befitting students and listeners alike. Chen, chair of the Shanghai Conservatory piano department, has unusual and powerful ways of communicating his ideas. And four stellar young pianists “got” and instantly implemented Chen’s technical and artistic advice.

Lo-An Lin (playing Scriabin’s Piano Sonata No. 2), Elizabeth Dorman (Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 24), Younhee Lee (Schumann’s Piano Sonata No. 1), and Xiyan Wang (Liszt’s Sonata in B Minor) performed impressively. But during the half hour allotted for each with Chen, they virtually transformed themselves to reach a higher level.

Besides playing brilliant examples of “another way” to perform phrases, suggesting “better language,” and focusing on the essence of music, Chen also instructed and entertained in colorful ways, including use of Formula One racing technique (really!) and phrasing by Maria Callas, as examples of thoughtful pianism. Also, just how many pianists would speak of a passage in Schumann as “a most touching moment, almost Wagnerian … “?

There are some choice Conservatory master classes coming up (admission is free, as marked below, or $15-$20). Miss them at your own peril:

Jan. 30, 7:30 — James Ehnes, violin (free)

Jan. 30, 7:30 — Håken Hardenberger, trumpet

Feb. 2, 9:30 a.m. — Ann Baltz, voice

Feb. 6, 7:30 — Robert Mann, violin (free)

Feb. 19, 7:30 — Jonathan Biss, piano

Feb. 26, 7:30 — Paula Robison, flute

Feb. 27, 7:30 — Barbara Bonney, voice

March 6, 10 a.m. — Gil Shaham, violin

March 14, 7:30 — Manuel Barrueco, guitar

March 18, 7:30 — Joel Krosnick, cello, in a chamber-music master class (free)

Barbara Bonney

Photo by Lisa Kohler

Hung-Kuan Chen Recital

Hung-Kuan Chen, who led a master class at the Conservatory of Music on Monday (see item above) will perform a free recital in the Conservatory’s Concert Hall tonight, Jan. 29, beginning at 8 p.m. The program includes Messaien’s “Le baiser de l’Enfant-Jésus,” from Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus; Schubert’s Sonata in B-flat Major, D. 960; and Beethoven’s Sonata in B-flat Major, Op. 106.

Born in Taipei and educated in Germany, Chen has won top prizes in the Arthur Rubinstein, the Busoni, and the Géza Anda International Piano Competitions, along with prizes in the Queen Elisabeth, Montreal, Van Cliburn, and Chopin Competitions. He is chair of the Shanghai Conservatory’s piano department, and is the director of the International Piano Academy in Shanghai. Previously, he was on the faculty of Boston University, New England Conservatory Preparatory, and was a distinguished artist in residence at Mount Royal Conservatory in Canada.

Chen is also known for his recovery from a major injury to his hand in 1992. The neurological damage eventually resulted in focal hand dystonia, a condition that causes uncontrollable muscular contractions, such as the fingers curling into the palm or extending outward — often a career-ending illness for a pianist. Prominent musicians affected by focal dystonia include Leon Fleisher, oboist Alex Klein, flutist Ernestine Whitman, former New York Philharmonic principal tuba Warren Deck, and many others. In some cases, dystonia (which means “abnormal muscle tone”) manifests itself as a trembling, shaking phenomenon. There is a “Musicians With Dystonia” bulletin board.

In Chen’s case, he famously “cured himself” through Qi Gong meditation and a method of his own, leading to resumption of his concert career in just six years. (Fleisher spent 30 years on the road to recovery.)

Conservatory Capital Campaign Nets $65 Million

Monday’s master class (see above) was the first event in the history of the Conservatory of Music’s new Civic Center building taking place not in the plain-old Recital Hall, but in the Sol H. Joseph Recital Hall. And therein lies a tale of great fund-raising success, amounting to $65 million.

When the school’s $80 million teaching, performance, rehearsal, and practice complex opened at 50 Oak Street in September 2006, its halls and facilities were yet unnamed, and the Conservatory was still hard at work on a $65 million capital campaign first launched in 2000. Now the drive has met its lofty goal and, in the process, space after space in the building has received a name honoring the school’s benefactors.

In the case of the Recital Hall, numerous individuals and the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation contributed to a final $2 million drive to match a Conservatory Trustees’ challenge grant. At Gordon Getty’s initiative, the hall was named in tribute to his former composition teacher and long-time Conservatory faculty member, Sol Joseph.

The drive began with an anonymous $10 million challenge seven years ago. Subsequent challenge grants came from the late Phyllis Wattis, the Bernard Osher Foundation, and the Getty Foundation. In addition, a $3.5 million challenge grant contribution came from Mr. and Mrs. William K. Bowes, Mr. and Mrs. Jean Deleage, and Mr. and Mrs. Michael R.V. Whitman. The Conservatory has also received gifts totaling more than $7.5 million to the endowment from the estates of James Schwabacher, Phyllis Wattis, and Emy Callahan.

Gifts of $1 million or more are now being recognized by named spaces as follows:

Osher Salon

Sol H. Joseph Recital Hall

Phyllis Wattis Atrium

Deleage Family Reception Area

Deleage Reception Area

Emy and Lewis S. Callaghan Academic Center

Carol and Lyman Casey Chorus Seating

Carol and Dixon Doll

Kimball Green Room, given by the William and Gretchen Kimball Fund

Classroom in memory of Chas. Frederick Crocker, given by Mr. and Mrs. Michael R.V. Whitman

Classroom in memory of Lucile and Bernhardt Poetz, given by Mrs. A. Barlow Ferguson

Lyman and Carol Casey Classroom

The Herbst Foundation Classroom

William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Classroom

James Irvine Foundation Dual-Piano Teaching Studio

Mr. and Mrs. Claude N. Rosenberg Jr. Dual-Piano Teaching Studio

David B. Gold Chamber Music Studio

Concert Hall

The Concert Hall is in a unique category of a named space, complete with a discreet tablet, but Conservatory officials are honoring the donors’ wish “not to publicize it.” So be it.

Ann and Gordon Getty

French-Israeli Tribute to Messiaen

The consulates of France and Israel, as well as several local organizations, are marking the 100th birthday of Olivier Messiaen and the 60th anniversary of the creation of the Israel with a free concert on Feb. 2 at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco.

The program includes Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, along with a work written in response to the Messiaen piece by Israeli composer Menachem Wiesenberg, and music by Betty Olivero, David Schiff, and Ron Weidberg. Israeli clarinetist Moran Katz will lead the group of young Israeli and French musicians.

The concert is free, but reservations are required by calling (415) 292-1233 or writing to arts@jccsf.org.

Opera, Symphony in Fremont

David Sloss, Fremont Symphony music director and Fremont Opera artistic director, will be hard at work next week, first with an intriguing opera concert on Sunday, Feb. 3, then with a symphonic concert on Saturday, Feb. 9, both at Ohlone College.

The opera event is advertised, subtly, as “Murder, Suicide, Madness & TB, or, All the Ways to Die in an Opera.” Participants in this “tour through the 400-year history of opera” include a trio of the area’s most promising young singers: soprano Aimée Puentes, tenor Kevin Courtemanche, and bass Kirk Eichelberger, who is is currently appearing in the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Shostakovich’s The Gamblers, and covering roles in Verdi’s Macbeth and Ernani, as well as in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde.

The Fremont Symphony event features Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, Handel’s Concerto Grosso, Op. 6, No. 7, and Lou Harrison’s Suite for Symphonic Strings.

Kirk Eichelberger

OEBS Travels the World

Michael Morgan’s Oakland East Bay Symphony is going on geographical adventures for its next two concerts — first to China, then to Iran. On Feb. 25, the Paramount concert will observe Chinese New Year (the Year of the Rat begins on Feb. 7), with “Sounds of China” (just don’t ask what Stravinsky’s Fireworks is doing there — other than being, oh, festive). With the “new and unusual” flair this observer wishes the San Francisco Symphony would employ more frequently, the OEBS concert presents John Adams’ The Chairman Dances: Foxtrot for Orchestra (music from Nixon in China), Jon Jang’s Chinese American Symphony, and Tan Dun’s Water Concerto, a suite from his Water Passion After St. Matthew. Soloists are Ward Spangler, percussion (and water bowls), and Jiebing Chen, erhu.

Michael Morgan

And on March 14, the OEBS theme is “Notes From Persia,” with pianist Tara Kamangar and Tehran-born, S.F. Conservatory alumna and mezzo Raeeka Shehabi-Yaghmai. The program features music by Aminollah Hossein and Loris Tjeknavorian, in addition to Richard Strauss’ Don Juan and Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.

Raeeka Shehabi-Yaghmai

Dancing at 75: Giving Americana a Leg Up

America’s oldest ballet company celebrated its 75th birthday Wednesday night with grace, power, Americana, and youth. Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson could have opened the gala with some of the company’s top stars dancing in a 19th-century French or Russian classic, but instead he opted for something brave, meaningful, and right.

The stars came out later, shining brightly, but the enchanting opening piece was a quintessentially American work, set on Stephen Foster songs (performed gloriously by Thomas Hampson on an Angel recording), and danced to a t by students of the Ballet School. It was thrilling to see the Ballet marking three-quarters of a century with American music, choreography, and the old company’s explosive young talent.

This was the local premiere for excerpts from John Neumeier’s 1996 Yondering, with funny and affecting choreography to Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair; Molly, Do You Love Me? (the best piece of the suite); and four other Foster songs. Born in Wisconsin, Neumeier has been heading the Hamburg Ballet for over three decades, but in spite of his residence in Germany, he is still apple-pie authentic in every way.

Americana as a theme continued with a wonderful surprise: Following an excerpt from Kenneth MacMillan’s Elite Syncopations (OK, he is a Britisher), to a Scott Joplin rag, Tomasson appeared onstage (something he rarely does), to introduce a dozen major former company members, such as Evelyn Cisneros, Joanna Berman, and even the Snow Queen from the company’s 1944 U.S. premiere of Nutcracker — Jocelyn Vollmar, who danced here until 1972, and has been teaching at the Ballet School for the past two decades. How long ago was that historic Nutcracker? Top tickets cost $3.50 — that’s how long.

The three-hour-long program was chock full of talent and peak performances. Martin West conducted the Ballet Orchestra in big, gala-size numbers, climaxing with the George Balanchine Diamonds finale, to music from Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 3.

The only possible misgiving about the evening was a certain thematic monotony, piece after piece matching a pining male with a truculent or resisting (but eventually yielding) female. Among the best of that motif were performances by Katita Waldo and Gennadi Nedvigin, in Tomasson’s Two Bits (to Aaron Jay Kernis’ percussive music); Sarah van Patten and Pierre-Francois Vilanoba in the pas de deux from Christopher Wheeldon’s Carousel, and by the exquisitely graceful Tina LeBlanc, with Ruben Martin, in the Adagio from Tomasson’s Sonata, to music by Rachmaninov, performed live by Roy Bogas (piano) and David Kadarauch (cello).

In the boy-and-girl-outdo-each-other category, Joan Boada and company newcomer Maria Kochetkova both showed world-class technique and consummate artistry in the classic La Esmeralda pas de deux; the duo of Vanessa Zahorian and Davit Karapetyan dazzled in the José Martinez Delibes Suite (Zahorian was floating in the air in a way never seen before); and prima ballerina assoluta Yuan Yuan Tan was brilliant in Edwaard Liang’s Distant Cries (to Albinoni’s music), partnered by Damian Smith.

The evening’s most acrobatic show came from Nicolas Blanc and Pascal Molat scorching the stage in an excerpt from Renato Zenella’s Alles Walzer, to music by Johann Strauss Jr. No Blue Danube here; the action was more like red-hot lava.

Vanessa Zahorian and Davit Karapetyan in Diamonds

U2 (and You Too) Can Transcend Opera

The peculiar thing about this report is that I am not a rock fan, not by a long shot. Of course, I could not be allowed to live in San Francisco without some appreciation for the Grateful Dead, but that’s about it. When it comes to U2, I know far more about Bono’s commendable social activities than of the band’s performances.

A labored preamble is necessary to put this in context: U2 3D, released on Friday, has simply knocked me on my limited-crossover backside. It is a spectacular, musically and visually superb experience, certain to enchant any classical-music fan … if only the fan is not too fanatic to stay away. Watching it, I kept wishing for the Ring to be produced with this kind of passion, commitment, “hanging 10″ every moment, and the creation of such stunning images. An important added bonus: Unlike other rock films, this one is not deafening, not even in the IMAX setting.

For over a quarter-century, the press release says, U2 has been recognized not only for its musical innovation, but also for reaching millions of fans through new technologies. U2 3D claims to be the first digital, three-dimensional, multicamera, real-time concert production, taking “viewers on an extraordinary cinematic journey, a quantum leap beyond traditional concert films.”

Directed by Catherine Owens and Mark Pellington, U2 3D is a production of 3ality Digital Entertainment starring Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr.

I would detail my rapture about the screening of this most stunning of concert films (www.u23dmovie.com), but I was pre-empted: Read Eliot Van Buskirk’s report.

Playing a Dutch Uncle to the Concertgebouw

Apologies in advance for an outrageous generalization coming up here, a worldview of music limited to six orchestras. This is partially in response to unimaginative programming by the Royal Concertgebouw for the orchestra’s appearance in Davies Hall Sunday night.

The program: two French romantic warhorses — Berlioz’ 1830 Symphonie fantastique and Debussy’s 1903 La Mer. That’s it. Nothing contemporary, nothing unusual, nothing Dutch … nothing American, even. (How about bringing John Adams, coal-like, to this Newcastle of the West?)

Blame for the programming should be shared by the orchestra itself (which offered to play only three other works than those performed here, Otto Ketting’s De aankomst [”The Arrival”], Brahms’ Symphony No. 2, and Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3) and the hosting San Francisco Symphony, which apparently picked the “most popular” pieces.

And here’s that threatened abstraction: While the Concertgebouw is a great orchestra, with a range from reliable to excellent, it usually operates in the dependable category of the New York Philharmonic or the Met Orchestra, rather than in the class of the throat-grabbing, pushing-against-the-seat excitement of Simon Rattle’s Berlin Philharmonic, Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Los Angeles Philharmonic, or — brace yourself — Gustavo Dudamel’s Simón Bolóvar Youth Orchestra.

Given considerations of programming and of the nature of the orchestral beast, how was the Sunday concert? It opened magnificently, under Mariss Jansons’ baton, with a hushed, velvety sound for the Debussy. In La Mer, as in the Berlioz, the more quiet the music, the better the sound from this Russian-Dutch combination. (Both Jansons and his father trained under and assisted Leningrad’s/St. Petersburg’s marvelous Yevgeny Mravinsky.)

Ensemble remained impressive throughout, but while first violins and cellos played their passages as one instrument, there was a kind of edge to the sound: A cello tutti in Debussy that is more mellow is preferable. Still, Jansons — an honest, unpretentious conductor who knows how to control and let go at the same time — worked the large arc of the piece impressively, while favoring a straightforward sound to bringing out more colors from the music.

The Berlioz offered moments of quiet beauty, excitement, and — toward the end — a slight deterioration in ensemble playing. But what made the performance memorable was the sound from the stunning woodwinds, especially the soloists who are so, well, instrumental in Symphonie fantastique. What makes the Concertgebouw the institution it is are its matchless treasures: Lucas Macias Navarro, the principal oboe, and Ruth Visser, playing the simplest, most straightforward and powerful English horn you will ever hear. The musical conversations between those two instruments were fabulous. Principal clarinetist Jacques Meertens, Arno Piter on E-flat clarinet, and principal flutes Emily Beynon and Kersten McCall were right up along with them.

Fabulous, too, on this dark and stormy night, was the Davies Hall audience. During the performance, there was silence; during the breaks between movements, the good people coughed their lungs out. In one instance, Jansons was about to give the downbeat when someonr coughed — the conductor stopped midmotion, paused (without casting one of MTT’s withering looks in the direction of the miscreant), and began when it was quiet again.

A significant footnote from Monday night, and the orchestra’s second appearance in Davies HallZ: This time around the homogeneous programming consisted of two German Romantic works, Richard Strauss’ Don Juan and Mahler’s Symphony No. 5. The Mahler was majestic, fascinating, different, but Don Juan pretty much made a lie of all the foregoing: It had all the energy, excitement, and grand perfection anyone can wish for — no superlatives will do. With Navarro’s big fat oboe solos, and the orchestra filling the hall with a focused sound of abandoned intensity, this was the performance to treasure forever.

Mariss Jansons

Janos Gereben (janosg@gmail.com) is a regular contributor to San Francisco Classical Voice.

Comments

Is it really necessary for a visiting great orchestra to raise the Netherlands’ flag with a composition from the homeland that we are likely never to hear again (and often wish we had not heard for the first time)? It can play the local fare when it is at home. As a visitor to Davies Hall, we are fortunate to hear this group play old war horses so that we can compare its presentation to that of our local band. How do we match up? We have plenty of opportunity to hear John Adams’ works here. To hear great performances of Debussy, Berlioz, Strauss, and Mahler, as we did these past two nights,as well as watch an athletic, committed conductor such as Mariss Jansons, was a privilege that is rare to experience. More power to old war horses and to him!

Posted by Don McKay on January 29, 2008 at 3:21 pm
My dear friend in NY forwarded me a review from the NY Sun. It appears that Sean Panikkar who often left audience members wishing he was the lead is doing so even at the Metropolitan. No small task and another singer proving that San Francisco’s training programmes are top notch.

“Tenor Marcello Giordani had simply an uncharacteristically bad night. Tending to sharp from beginning to end, he showed strain in his upper register, and the direction of Gina Lapinski left him standing around quite a bit looking lost. In Act I he was hardly a match for young Sean Panikkar, making his Met debut as Edmondo.”

Posted by Mike on February 3, 2008 at 1:11 pm