Listening Ahead
Our Critics’ Choices of Upcoming Events in the Bay Area
for May 27 – June 9, 2008
Symphony
Black & White Ball (Education Support With an Official Cocktail)
Democracy in fund-raising action: The San Francisco Symphony’s Black & White Ball used a community campaign to vote for a “Build Your Own Ball” campaign. The result of 5,000 ballots: the San Francisco Indie rock band Elephone was picked for opening musical act, S.F. Academy of Art graduate Sara Shepherd was selected to create Ball Chair Patricia Sprincin’s gown for the evening: “a black and white strapless dress featuring a fitted bodice and elegant full skirt,” and — drum roll, please — the vote favored Grey Goose Vodka Orchard Martini as the official cocktail of the Ball. (From the Complete Reporter: It’s the classic Grey Goose Vodka martini augmented with apple cider, maple syrup and cinnamon sugar. Sweet.)
At 8 p.m. Grammy-winner singer-songwriter Seal performs at Davies Hall, and at 9 p.m., the usual multiple-venue, manifold activity begins in the Civic Center, with the bacchanalia planned to run through 1 a.m. Proceeds from the Ball benefit the Symphony’s Adventures in Music education program, now in its 20th year of bringing music to every student in grades 1-5 in all of San Francisco’s public elementary schools.
May 31, 8 p.m., San Francisco Civic Center, $200 and up for party pass, $325 for Seal concert and party, $375-$600 for “Symphonix Bash Beyond the Ball,” $375-$600 for Supper Club tickets, $1,000-$2,500 for Patrons’ Dinner tickets, (415) 864-6000, www.sfsymphony.org. (J.G.)
Young Conductors
Three young conductors — James Gaffigan, Benjamin Shwartz, and Ragnar Bohlin — take the podium in San Francisco Symphony’s first June program. The music includes Marc Anthony Turnage’s dark, often violent, Three Asteroids; the Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 1, with Concertmaster Alexander Barantschik as soloist; Poulenc’s beautiful choral cantata La figure humaine (The Face of Man); and Bartòk’s The Miraculous Mandarin, a score that is, well, miraculous.
June 5, 7, 8 p.m.; June 6, 6:30 p.m. (shortened program), Davies Symphony Hall, $35-$125, (415) 864-6000, www.sfsymphony.org. (M.Z.)
Turangalila Symphony
The San Francisco Symphony performs it perhaps once a decade, the only other orchestra in the Bay Area to have performed it (once) was Kent Nagano’s Berkeley Symphony, and it is the stuff of the world’s preeminent orchestras. But leave it to the talented, all-volunteer Redwood Symphony to tackle Olivier Messiaen’s 80-minute, ten-movement symphony/piano concerto/synthesizer extravaganza work, Turangalila. Written at the request of Serge Koussevitsky and premiered by the young Leonard Bernstein with the Boston Symphony in 1949, the work is the centerpiece of the composer’s tryptych of Tristan and Isolde-inspired compositions, which also incorporate his characteristic bird-calls. It is one of the composer’s most popular works and a 20th century landmark, yet its length, difficulty, instrument requirements (including 10 percussionists), and soloist demands are enough to deter most orchestras. Besides a taxing part for the piano soloist — Daniel Glover will be up to the task — the work also employs the synthesizer, played here on the Marimba Lumina, a mallet-percussion-type synthesizer, by Mark Goldstein.
June 8, 3 p.m., Cañada College Main Theatre, Redwood Symphony, $10-$25, (650) 366-6872, www.redwoodsymphony.org. (C.G.)
Opera
Watch on the Rhine
Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen cycle is usually such a big deal that opera houses presenting a new production of it precede and surround the four operas with a plethora of activities: lectures, workshops, symposia, and so on. And yet, shifting attention from the Hamburg production to San Francisco’s own new “American Ring“ reveals slim pickings in preparation for Das Rheingold: There’s a free preview lecture on May 28, and a panel discussion on June 2 (see details below).
Once the Rheingold run takes place, June 3-28, Wagner expert Evan Baker will present an introductory lecture an hour before curtain at each performance in the War Memorial Opera House. Other than that, to prepare, you may want to read stories about director Francesca Zambello’s thoughts on creating the production, reviews of Rheingold at the co-producing Washington Opera, and of course about the opera itself.
Gordon Hawking (Alberich) in the Washington Rheingold
Photo by Karin Cooper
Preview lecture, May 28, noon, San Francisco Main Library Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin Street; Rheingold dress rehearsal, May 31, 5 p.m., War Memorial Opera House, by invitation only; Insight panel discussion, June 2, 6 p.m., Herbst Theatre, free to donors, $5 for the general public. Rheingold performances: June 3, 6, 14, 8 p.m.; June 19, 7:30 p.m.; June 22, 2 p.m.; June 28, 8 p.m.; (video projection screens will be used on the balcony at the last three performances); $25-$200, (415) 864-3330, www.sfopera.com. (J.G.)
Alberich and the Nibelung
The Turn of the Screw Returns
The San Francisco Lyric Opera is stretching its muscles this month. The company that is associated with the warhorses of Italian repertory, from Mozart to Puccini, has turned to (gasp!) — Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw. But this opera is a perfect size for them, as it was for Oakland Opera Theater and Sacramento Opera earlier this season. Chamber opera is an underutilized corner of the repertory, but it can offer great rewards in small theaters.
May 30, June 6, 7, 7:30 p.m.; June 1, 2 p.m., Cowell Theater, Fort Mason, San Francisco, $18-$32 (children under 12, free), (800) 919- 8088, www.sflyricopera.org. (M.Z.)
Chamber Orchestra
Rachel Barton Pine and New Century Chamber Orchestra
Guest concertmaster Rachel Barton Pine Pine’s fascinating program begins with a work by Saint-Georges, the West Indian composer and fencer who commissioned Hadyn’s six Paris symphonies. Fast forward to the 20th century with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer George Walker’s Lyric Suite, followed by Sinfonietta No. 2 by Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, who was music director of the Alvin Ailey Dance Company and co-founder of New York’s Symphony of the New World. The evening, and the NCCO season, concludes with the richly Romantic and bittersweet String Sextet No. 1 by Brahms.
June 5, 8 p.m., St. John’s Presbyterian, Berkeley; June 6, 8 p.m., St. Mark’s Episcopal, Palo Alto; June 7, 5 p.m., Osher Marin JCC, San Rafael; June 8, 8 p.m., Herbst Theatre, San Francisco, $28-$412, (415) 357-1111, www.ncco.org. (C.G.)
Rachel Barton Pine
Contemporary
Intricate Inventions
As part of the San Francisco International Arts Festival, Earplay’s upcoming concert features works by composers born outside of the U.S. Peter Maxwell Davies’ rarely performed Ave Maris Stella is paired with works by three modern composers. The U.S. premiere of a work by Hèctor Parra (the 2007 Earplay Donald Aird Memorial Composition Competition winner) shares the program with Christopher Burns’ xerox book, Salvatore Sciarrino’s Lo spazio inverso, and Beat Fürrer’s Presto con fuoco. Mary Chun conducts the usual suspects — Tod Brody, Peter Josheff, Terrie Baune, Ellen Ruth Rose, Thalia Moore, and Karen Rosenak — who are joined this time by other notable Bay Area artists: Dan Reiter, Brenda Tom Vahur, Ann Yi, Eric Zivian, Chris Froh, and Dan Kennedy.
May 29, 7 p.m., Herbst Theatre, San Francisco, $10-$20, (415) 392-4400, www.earplay.org. (C.G.)
Odes to Pablo Neruda
Bring together a poet, a muse, and a composer and it sounds like the perfect occasion for a party. Well, that’s sort of the idea for Adorno’s May concert at the De Young Museum and the wrap-up party that follows. The ensemble will premiere songs set to the work of poet Pablo Neruda by composer Gabriela Lena Frank, and the group is joined once again by Naumburg Award-winning soprano Lucy Shelton, the inspiration for many a modern composer, and the champion of more than 100 premieres. Mario Davidovsky’s Synchronisms No. 9, Pablo Ortiz’ Hipermilonga, and George Crumb’s Madrigals Book I are also on the program. A seminar at the Berkeley Jazzschool on May 27th titled “Finding Music in Neruda” will explore Frank’s new work, and you can listen to samples of Shelton and Adorno performing other works by Frank here. Oh, and that party isn’t just about food and wine: Make your reservation now for the celebration on June 3 at San Francisco home where the group will perform works by John Cage, Arthur Jarvinen, Gavin Bryars, and more. (Tickets for the party are $125.)
May 30, 7 p.m., De Young Museum, San Francisco, (415) 392-4400, www.adornoensemble.org. (C.G.)
Avante-garde Adventures
sfSound, another local winner of ASCAP’s Adventurous Programming Award, presents one of its forays into music-sound experiments with a program featuring saxophonist John Butcher’s improvisations. Also on the program are John Cage’s Fourteen, Kajia Saariaho’s Sept Papillons, and Bruno Ruviaro’s Seis Vícios de Garlandia.
June 8, 8 p.m., ODC Dance Commons, San Francisco, www.sfsound.org. (M.Z.)
Chamber Music
Focile and Clarke
Cal Performances favorite Nuccia Focile will be stopping in Berkeley with her husband, tenor Paul Charles Clarke. The pair will be entertaining admirers in intimate Hertz Hall with a program of operatic and musical theater duets. The Berkeley Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Cal Performances’ chief, Robert Cole.
May 31, 8 p.m., Hertz Hall, Berkeley, $48, (510) 642-9988, www.calperfs.berkeley.edu. (M.Z.)
Nakamatsu and the Stanford Woodwind Quartet
Avedis wraps up its season with Van Cliburn International Piano Competition Gold Medalist, Jon Nakamatsu and the Stanford Woodwind Quintet, now celebrating its 20th year. This varied program includes American composer Robert Muczynski’s energetic Quintet for Winds, Op. 45; Joseph Jongen’s sextet Rhapsodie, Op. 70; Mozart’s Quintet in E-flat Major, K. 452; and Beethoven’s Trio in G Major.
June 8, 2 p.m., Legion of Honor, San Francisco, $15-$20, (415) 392-4400, www.avedisconcerts.org. (C.G.)
Jon Nakamatsu
Choral
Chanticleer
What better way to celebrate its debut 30 years ago in the Mission Dolores than with nine concerts of Mission-era music (from the era of the Spanish settlement) in missions up and down the Camino Real between San Francisco and San Luis Obispo? Knowing this all-male chorus, these performances will be well worth their price in gas getting there.
Through May 29, times and locations vary, $22-$44, (415) 392-4400, www.chanticleer.org. (C.G.)
Monteverdi’s Vesper Service
As part of the fringe events of the Berkeley Festival and Exhibition, AVE (Artists’ Vocal Ensemble) sings Monteverdi’s magnificent 1610 Vespers service (Vespro della Beata Vergine), which the composer originally sent to Pope Paul V. The Pope was put off by the modern style, but Monteverdi then submitted it as an advertisement of his qualifications for the post of maestro di capella at St. Mark’s Cathedral, Venice. Yeah, he got the job.
June 2, 8 p.m., St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Berkeley, $15-$35, www.ave-music.org. (M.Z.)
Women’s Antique Vocal Ensemble
England may not yet have been all-conquering-Britannia in the 16th and 17th centuries, but the music of the period sure rules. The WAVE women, together with the indispensible (and ubiquitous) Katherine Heater on harpsichord and a consort of instrumentalists, do homage to the great tradition through Purcell. What a fantastic way to open the Berkeley Festival and Exhibition.
June 3, 8 p.m., St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Berkeley, $5-$15, (510) 233- 1749, www.wavewomen.org. (M.Z.)
Deep Water
Cantare Chorale bids adieu to the local scene for a while, as they tour central Europe in mid-June. In their last concert of the season here, “Waters Ripple and Flow,” they perform some of the folksongs they will bring across the Atlantic, and balance that with some all-American folk music from spirituals to Stephen Foster, to Irving Berlin and George Gershwin, and including some contemporary music by Eric Whitacre, and others.
June 7, 7:30 p.m., Walnut Creek Presbyterian Church, $10-$30, (510) 836-0789, www.cantareconvivo.org. (M.Z.)
Janos Gereben (janosg@gmail.com) is a regular contributor to San Francisco Classical Voice.
Catherine Getches is managing editor of San Francisco Classical Voice. Her writing has appeared in publications such as The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Salon.
Michael Zwiebach holds a Ph.D. in music history from UC Berkeley.
©2008 By Janos Gereben, Catherine Getches, Michael Zwiebach, all rights reserved.