Listening Ahead
Our Critics’ Choices of Upcoming Events in the Bay Area
for March 25 – April 7, 2008
Early Music
Anthems by Handel and Purcell
As it always does, Philharmonia Baroque brings in the Philharmonia Chorale to end the season. This year, there won’t be an oratorio. Instead the orchestra performs Handel’s festive Dettingen Te Deum, commemorating a victory by George II and his allies over the French during the War of Austrian Succession. Philharmonia also offers Zadok the Priest, the most famous of the Coronation Anthems composed for George II’s accession in 1727, and two of Purcell’s gorgeous anthems, the forerunners of Handel’s in the English tradition.
April 3, 8 p.m., Herbst Theatre, San Francisco; April 4, 8 p.m., First United Methodist Church, Palo Alto; April 5, 8 p.m., and April 6, 7:30 p.m., First Congregational Church, Berkeley; $30-$72, (415) 252-1288, www.philharmonia.org. (M.Z.)
Vivid Vivaldi
Listen to the Music
Symphony orchestras like to bring big-draw repertory items with them on tour, so why not a Baroque group? When Europa Galante, with its violinist-leader, the fabulous Fabio Biondi, come to Cal Performances, it will feature “Summer” from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, along with works by Telemann, Purcell, Leclair, and Biber. No apologies necessary, though: If any readings of Vivaldi’s overfamiliar masterpiece can be called revelatory, they would be Europa Galante’s two recordings on Op. 111 and Virgin Classics. Biondi benefits from modern historically informed performance practices, obviously, but is not bound by them. He heads straight for the emotional, rough heart of the music, and pulls out all the dramatic stops. Listen here to the Adagio e spiccato, No. 2 in G minor RV578 (from L’estro armonico), and the second movement from L’estro armonico.
April 4, 8 p.m., $48, First Congregational Church, Berkeley, (510) 642-9988, www.calperfs.berkeley.edu. (M.Z.)
Chamber Orchestra
New Century Chamber Orchestra
Stuart Canin, NCCO’s founding music director, returns to lend his silken violin tone to the solo part of Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5, K. 219. The concert will also feature string orchestra versions of Mendelssohn’s Octet and Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8. (NCCO gave one of the best concerts of 2007.)
April 3, 8 p.m., St. John’s Presbyterian Church, Berkeley; April 4, 8 p.m., St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Palo Alto; April 5, 8 p.m., Florence Gould Theatre, San Francisco; April 6 at 5 p.m., Osher Marin JCC, San Rafael; $28-$42, (415) 392-4400, www.ncco.org. (D.B.)
Stuart Canin
Swedish Chamber Orchestra
The Swedish Chamber Orchestra brings a program of Beethoven and Schumann to Cal Performances, with pianist Piotr Anderszewski as soloist in Beethoven’s first concerto. The Coriolan Overture and Schumann’s Symphony No. 2 are also featured.
April 6, 3 p.m., $34-$58, (510) 642-9988, www.calperfs.berkeley.edu. (M.Z.)
Chamber Music
Words, Stories, and Music
The power of words in music is the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble’s charge for its March concert, and the works chosen range from old to new: There’s Leoš Janáček’s String Quartet No. 2, Intimate Letters; Carl Schimmel’s The Pismirist’s Congeries for violin, cello, flute, and piano; the U.S. premiere of Sean Varah’s Borderline for cello and tape; and the West Coast premiere of Harold Meltzer’s Sindbad for narrator and piano trio.
March 27, 8 p.m., Throckmorton Theater, Mill Valley; March 31, 8 p.m., Green Room, San Francisco; $25-$40, (415) 642-8054, www.chambermusicpartn.org. (C.G.)
Left Coast Chamber Ensemble
TinAlley String Quartet
The San Jose Chamber Music Society promised to bring us the winner of last fall’s Banff International String Quartet Competition, and here it is: The TinAlley String Quartet from Australia. Past winners of this competition include the St. Lawrence, Miró, and Jupiter Quartets, so with those forerunners we should be in for some excellent and distinctive music-making. It will be a challenging program: Haydn’s delicate Op. 76, No. 5; Mendelssohn’s somber Op. 13; and Bartók’s fearsome Fourth. The quartet is also giving a free performance in San Francisco earlier in March, with the same program except for Alban Berg’s early and rarely heard Op. 3 in place of the Bartók.
March 30, 7 p.m., Le Petit Trianon, San Jose, $25-$40, (408) 286-5111, www.sjchambermusic.org. (D.B.)
St. Lawrence String Quartet
The St. Lawrence String Quartet bring their yearlong residency at Stanford to a close with a Haydn classic, Op. 77, No. 1, and the premiere of Jonathan Berger’s String Quartet No. 4, The Bridal Canopy. Pianist Stephen Prutsman joins the quartet for a performance of Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Piano Quintet.
April 6, 2:30 p.m., Dinkelspiel Auditorium, Stanford, $20-$44, (650) 723-2551, www.livelyarts.stanford.edu. (M.Z.)
Recital
Elza van den Heever
This soprano and native of South Africa has one of the more astute sensibilities to the fine points of vocal coloration. Van den Heever is no foreigner to Bay Area audiences, as she graduated from the San Francisco Conservatory and recently made her debut with the San Francisco Opera as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni. Her San Francisco Performances recital promises to showcase another side of her repertoire with songs by Brahms, Strauss, and Debussy. Her temperament, musical sensitivity, and intelligence will be a nice match for the rich ruby-red carpets and intimate setting of the Hotel Rex.
March 26, 6:30 p.m., Hotel Rex, San Francisco, $20, (415) 398-6449, www.sfperformances.org. (C.G.)
Elza van den Heever
Nikolaj Znaider
Listen to the Music
He’s got a Guarneri “del Gesu” and he’s not afraid to use it: Nikolaj Znaider is the latest star violinist to grace the Bay Area with an appearance. He’s not toting any of the Brahms works he just released on CD, but the San Francisco Performances concert does include a couple of Beethoven sonatas: the D Minor Bach Partita (No. 2), and, by way of variety, Schoenberg’s Phantasy for Violin With Piano, Op. 47. Pianist Robert Kulek accompanies.
March 26, 8 p.m., Herbst Theatre, San Francisco, $27-$39, (415) 398-6449, www.performances.org. (M.Z.)
Tambourine (and Everything Else) Man
Chen Zimbalista, like many percussionists, has personality to spare. He’s a virtuoso with a little bit of old-school showman in him. Wired with the intense energy of a rock star, he devours the technical challenges of 20th-century and contemporary repertory, plays classic concertos, arranged for percussion, with style, and regularly gives “world music” concerts in which he plays more than 40 instruments. In his appearance at the 2008 Jewish Music Festival, Zimbalista focuses on the music of contemporary Israeli composers, including a few of his own pieces. Percussionist Katja Cooper and Argentine pianist Josè Gallardo, lend their assistance.
March 27, 7:30 p.m., St. John’s Presbyterian Church, Berkeley, $20-$24, (510) 848-0237, www.jewishmusicfestival.org. (M.Z.)
Ian Tracey, Organist
Ian Tracey is an organist in such demand, he’s had to give up his day job. After a quarter century as organist and then music director at Liverpool Cathedral, in January, he turned over his duties to David Poulter and became the cathedral’s “Organist Titulaire” — in other words, its musical star performer. He’s made several recordings on the cathedral’s grand organ, among his dozen or so CDs. His recital in Grace Cathedral, part of his 22nd U.S. tour, will be quite an event, and, like all organ recitals at Grace, it’s free.
March 30, 4 p.m., Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, free, (415) 749-6355, www.gracecathedral.org. (M.Z.)
Ian Tracey
With Replacements Like These …
Pianist Murray Perahia was originally slated to lead the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields in performances of Mozart piano concertos (No. 21 in C Major, K. 467, and the equally marvelous No. 24 in C Minor, K. 491) and his “Paris” Symphony, No. 31 in D Major, K. 297, as well as Haydn’s crowning symphonic masterpiece, the “London” Symphony, No. 104, and a pair of Mendelssohn perennials, the Hebrides Overture and the “Italian” Symphony, No. 4. Because of an illness, he has been replaced by pianist Yuja Wang and conductor Sir Neville Mariner. With backup talent like this spoiling Bay Area audiences, we better not let it go to our heads.
March 30, 7 p.m., March 31, 8 p.m., Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, $25-$95, (415) 864-6000, www.sfsymphony.org. (M.Z.)
Leon Fleisher
This native of San Francisco is no stranger to challenge — when he suffered a debilitating ailment to his right hand, he fought back by performing and recording repertoire for the left hand (to popular and critical acclaim), eventually worked to regain the use of his right hand, and now performs (to popular and critical acclaim) with both hands. His Chamber Music S.F. concert, including both solo works and four-hand works with pianist Katherine Jacobson Fleisher, will feature Schubert’s Fantasy in F Minor and Ravel’s La Valse (both for piano four hands), as well as a Schubert’s Piano Sonata in B-flat major, D. 960.
April 5, 8 p.m., Herbst Theatre, San Francisco, $47-$51, (415) 392-4400, www.chambermusicsf.org. (C.G.)
Beethoven Cycle
Listen to the Music
Even to a pianist as devoted to complete traversals of composers’ piano works as András Schiff, the Beethoven 32 piano sonatas are something of an irresistible mountain that requires repeated climbing. Schiff has played the full set a number of times and he is in the midst of recording it. The four concerts in 2007-2008 at San Francisco Performances, offer exactly half of the sonatas. In the upcoming concerts, Schiff goes slightly out of order so that the tragic, experimental Op. 26 in A-Flat Major (No. 12), can join its soulmates, the Op. 27 pair (Nos. 13, “Quasi una fantasia,” and 14, “Moonlight”), and Op. 28 (the “Pastoral”, No. 15). On the earlier program, Op. 22 in B-Flat Major (listen here), with its gorgeous, expansive, Adagio movement, is followed by Op. 49/1 in G Minor (listen here), which sports a lyrical, elegiac, Andante for a first movement. The two sonatas of Op. 14 (Nos. 9-10) and the remaining one in Op. 49 (No. 20), complete the program.
April 6, 13, 7 p.m., Davies Symphony Hall, $25-$81, (415) 398-6449, www.performances.org. (M.Z.)
Daniela Mack
When John Bender reviewed the Merola Program’s La Cenerentola for SFCV last year, he praised mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack, in the title role, in fulsome terms: “The velvet integration of her vocal registers and her amazing fluency in ornamentation are enough to make crystal-ball gazers predict future greatness.” You now have the chance to hear this young singer in a Schwabacher Debut Recital, and it would be a shame to miss it. The next chance you have might cost you a bundle.
April 6, 5:30 p.m., Temple Emanu-El, San Francisco, $20, (415) 864-3330, www.sfopera.com. (M.Z.)
Daniela Mack
Contemporary Music
Lighting Up the Switchboard
The Switchboard Music Festival promises to bend genres, challenge preconceptions, and entertain for eight hours straight. The interactive event offers a who’s who list of contemporary musicians — “an eclectic, genre-crossing, convention-breaking, bastardizing group of experimentalists, innovators, and musical omnivores” — including the Del Sol String Quartet, Amy X Neuburg, Edmund Welles, Christopher Adler with Wong KrajaukThet (The Ostrich Ensemble), Gamelan X, Inner Ear Brigade, and Slydini. The composers represented are just as boundary-pushing: Osvaldo Golijov, Dan Becker, Ryan Brown, Ian Dicke, Robin Estrada, Erik Jekabson, Aaron Novik, Jonathan Russell, and Ian Dickenson.
March 30, 2 to 10 p.m., Dance Mission Theater, San Francisco, $5-$25, (800) 838-3006, www.switchboardmusic.com. (C.G.)
Choral
S.F. Choral Artists Hit Home
Local choral composers are featured in San Francisco Choral Artists’ April concerts. The 23-year-old chorus presents a grab bag of musical styles and premieres from Kirke Mechem, Henry Mollicone, Herb Bielawa, and others.
March 30, 4 p.m., St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Palo Alto; April 5, 8 p.m, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, San Francisco; April 6, 4 p.m., St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Oakland; $9-$22, (415) 979-5779, www.sfca.org. (M.Z.)
Song of Peace
On the fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, choruses around the world are joining together to sing a song of peace. Singers pledge to perform a setting of “Dona nobis pacem,” or words that call for peace in another language, during the month of March. Check the Web site for updates, but so far participating choruses in the Bay Area, where the initiative began, include American Bach Soloists, Clerestory, Schola Cantorum San Francisco, San Francisco Renaissance Voices, Threshold Choir, San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, Sonoma Valley Chorale, and numerous church choirs.
March 2008, dates, times, and locations vary, info@songofpeace.org, www.songofpeace.org. (M.B.)
Dance
Swan Lake Double Take
Tchaikovsky Perm Ballet brings Natalia Makarova’s Swan Lake to Cal Performances, with full orchestra. Makarova was one of the great Odette/Odiles, pre- and postdefection from the Kirov, and her choreographies of the Russian classics — my favorite is her La Bayadere — are legion. Among the ballerinas taking on Swan Lake’s legendary dual role: Paulina Semionova, a principal dancer at the Berlin State Opera Ballet.
March 28, 8 p.m.; March 29, 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.; March 30, 3 p.m.; Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley, $34-$90, (510) 642-9988, www.calperfs.berkeley.edu. (J.B.)
Swan Lake Pas de Deux
Symphony
Alan Gilbert at the San Francisco Symphony
The music director-designate of the New York Philharmonic returns to the San Francisco Symphony, and this time he’s mostly given free rein to do what he does best, which is to conduct music of the last hundred years. The program is billed as “Richard Goode Plays Mozart,” and that great pianist is sure to satisfy in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 18 — but for my money, the real draws are Steven Stucky’s Son et lumière and Nielsen’s Symphony No. 2, The Four Temperaments.
March 26, 28, 29, 8 p.m.; March 27, 2 p.m.; Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, $25-$125, (415) 864-6000, www.sfsymphony.org. (L.H.)
The Ode That Never Grows Old
Fabio Mechetti conducts the Symphony Silicon Valley in Brahms’ Schicksalslied before launching into Beethoven’s Ninth with the 100-voice Symphony Silicon Valley Chorale (Elena Sharkova, director). This symphonic celebration of the human voice, combining both chorus and soloists, apparently warrants the addition of an extra performance (on Friday). Soloists include: Jane Jennings, soprano; Gigi Mitchell Velasco, mezzo; Noel Espíritu Velasco, tenor; and Scott Bearden, baritone.
March 27, 7:30 p.m., March 28-29, 8 p.m., March 30, 2 p.m. California Theatre, San Jose, $37-$73, (408) 286-2600, www.symphonysiliconvalley.org. (C.G.)
Classics for Kids
Listen to the Music
April is party time for the underage set at the San Francisco Symphony. The indispensible Benjamin Schwarz, who takes charge of most education concerts and events at the Symphony, leads the orchestra in two concert sets this month, one for kindergarten through third grade, and one for grades 4-9. The April youth concerts are 45-minutes long and include a wide variety of fascinating music, including Christopher Rouse’s Ku-Ka-Ilimoku, a canzona by early-17th-century composer Giovanni Gabrieli, Astor Piazzolla’s Libertango (listen here), and the Times Square ballet sequence from Leonard Bernstein’s 1944 musical, On the Town (listen here). Note that tickets are not available online, only from the box office.
April 1, 3, 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.; April 4, 10 a.m.; Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, $5, (415) 864-6000, www.sfsymphony.org. (M.Z.)
The Search Continues at Berkeley Symphony
Laura Jackson, the third of six finalists in the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra’s search for a music director to succeed Kent Nagano, leads the Symphony’s last concert in its Zellerbach Hall series. She’ll conduct Milhaud’s 20-minute-long ballet La création du monde, which demonstrates the composer’s interest in jazz, and the Rimsky-Korsakov’s colorful fairytale Scheherazade. Two additional pieces by international prize-winning composer and singer Susan Botti are on the program: a piece set to poetry titled The Exchange, with tenor Thomas Glan and harpist Wendy Tamis, and the West Coast premiere of Translucence, the symphonic setting of The Exchange.
April 2, 8 p.m., UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley, $20-$60, (510) 841-2800, www.berkeleysymphony.org. (C.G.)
Laura Jackson
Baroque Standards
Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos and Handel’s 3rd suite of Water Music are the highlights of the San Francisco Symphony’s program with guest conductor Harry Christophers. Britten’s arrangement of Purcell’s Chacony in G Minor and Respighi’s Ancient Airs and Dances add a touch of the 20th century to the Baroque standards.
April 2, 5, 8 p.m., Davies Symphony Hall; April 3, 8 p.m., Flint Center, Cupertino; $25-$125, (415) 864-6000, www.sfsymphony.org. (M.Z.)
Mahler’s Third
The ambitious, all-volunteer, and always impressive Redwood Symphony is at it again — this time for the marathon that is Mahler’s Third Symphony, which promises to be as stirring as ever with alto Theresa Cardinale and the Peninsula Women’s Chorus. Rapturously nostalgic, like the composer’s more haunted Ninth, it ends in an extended Adagio that demands extraordinary concentration and dedication from the conductor and the orchestra. Kristin Link will lead the concert, which also includes a work that is a comparison in contrasts: Lutosławski’s skittish and intense — one and a half minute long — Fanfare for Louisville. Listen for the stellar wind section before the sprint is over.
April 6, 3 p.m., Cañada College Main Theater, Redwood City, $10-$25, (651) 366-6872, www.redwoodsymphony.org. (C.G.)
Opera
Xerxes
It’s almost a crime to attempt to describe an opera that Donald Pippin is sure to describe in person, poignantly and with a dose of his trademark humor. But, the tangled love story that is Xerxes deserves an advance plug for not only Pippin, but also for the stellar cast: Elspeth Franks is in the title role, Karen Carle is Arsamene, and Aimee Puentes is Romilda.
April 5, 12, 2 p.m., Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco; April 6, 2 p.m., Notre Dame de Namur University, Belmont, $20-$34, (415) 972-8934, www.pocketopera.org. (C.G.)
Janice Berman was an editor and senior writer at New York Newsday. She is a former editor in chief of Dance Magazine.
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.
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.
Michael Zwiebach holds a Ph.D. in music history from UC Berkeley.
©2008 By Janice Berman, David Bratman, Mickey Butts, Catherine Getches, Lisa Hirsch, Michael Zwiebach, all rights reserved.