Listening Ahead
Our Critics’ Choices of Upcoming Events in the Bay Area
for July 29 – August 11, 2008
Symphony
Beethoven and Bernstein
The UC Berkeley Summer Symphony, a one-time grouping of students and local amateurs led by graduate student conductors, has been known to take on a musical challenge, dispatching arduous chops-busters as if it is all in a day’s work. This time around the musicians are conducted by Henry Shin and Hoh Chen, in a concert featuring Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125 (”Choral”) and Leonard Bernstein’s “Symphonic Dances” from West Side Story.
Aug. 8, 8 p.m., Hertz Hall, UC Berkeley, donations at the door, (510) 642-4864, www.events.berkeley.edu. (C.G.)
Choral
Britten War Requiem
Of the great Requiems in all of music, Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem is unique in its combination of dark, dramatic, gripping music (alternating with moving lyric passages), realistic depiction of the horrors of war, and eminently contemporary tone — even within its “classical” setting. Most importantly, when it’s performed well, the Britten Requiem has an emotional impact few choral works can match. Conducted by Robert Geary, the Davies Hall performances will feature the Chorus, the California Chamber Symphony, Marcelle Dronkers (soprano), Brian Thorsett (tenor), Kenneth Goodson (bass), and the Piedmont Children’s Choir.
Artistic Director Robert Geary and Assistant Conductor Bryan Baker
Aug. 1-2, 8 p.m., Davies Symphony Hall, $24-$30, (415) 221-5590, www.sfchoral.org. (J.G.)
Ritual of Virtues
Rarely do you get to hear Hildegard von Bingen’s extraordinary plainsong liturgical drama, the Ordo Virtutem (The ritual of virtues). Even rarer is to hear it performed in conjunction with classical music and dance of India. But that’s what Todd Jolly’s hipper-than-thou San Francisco Renaissance Voices propose to do in their version. In addition, Diana Rowan accompanies the piece on Celtic harp, an instrument that Hildegard once described as the instrument of heavenly blessedness.
Aug. 2, 7:30 p.m., Seventh Avenue Presbyterian, San Francisco; Aug. 9, 8 p.m., Old First Church, San Francisco; Aug. 10, 7:30 p.m., Alameda Presbyterian Church; Aug. 16, 7:30 p.m., All Saint’s Episcopal, Palo Alto; Aug. 17, 4 p.m., St. John’s Presbyterian Church, Berkeley, $12-$15, www.sfrv.org. (M.Z.)
Diana Rowan
Opera
Don Giovanni the Younger
San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program of 2008 is halfway through the two-month training/performing program, now getting ready for Mozart’s Don Giovanni. The predoomed antihero is sung by baritone Austin Kness (Cedar Rapids, Iowa), soprano Rena Harms (Santa Fe, New Mexico) is Donna Elvira, soprano Amanda Majeski (Gurnee, Illinois) is Donna Anna, and soprano Joélle Harvey (Richburg, New York) is Zerlina. Mexican bass-baritone Carlos Monzón (Guadalajara) sings Leporello, and his countryman tenor David Lomeli (Monterrey, Mexico) is Don Ottavio. Gary Wedow conducts and famed soprano Catherine Malfitano is the stage director.
Aug. 1, 8 p.m., Aug. 3, 2 p.m., Cowell Theater, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, $40-$60, (415) 864-3330, www.berkeleysymphony.org/.
(J.G.)
Adam Cioffari, Ben Wager, Alan Hamilton (apprentice coach), Austin Kness, David Lomelí, Joélle Harvey, Carlos Monzón, Amanda Majeski, Rena Harms, Jimmy Smith (apprentice stage director), Dennis Doubin (apprentice coach)
Photo by Kristin Loken
Britten’s Dream
Benjamin Britten’s most lyrically effusive and delightful opera, A Midsummer Night’s Dream comes to Festival Opera in Walnut Creek, with a fine young cast. Britten’s artful way with words serves Shakespeare’s text as well as it’s ever been adorned by music. Even if you’re not a fan of 20th-century opera, this is a score that may charm you.
Aug. 9, 12, 15, 8 p.m.; Aug. 17, 2 p.m.; Lesher Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek, $36-$100, (925) 943-7469, www.festivalopera.com. (M.Z.)
Transcendent Dickinson
Emily Dickinson’s poems leave a lot of open spaces for interpretation, and even in white space on the page. Though the impeccable verse structure makes them easy to set to music, their opaque quality challenges a composer to find the right expression. There are any number of songs to her poetry, but “visual artist” Lesley Dill goes further, using Dickinson as a springboard for a celebration of 19th-century American transcendentalism. The music for this interdisciplinary collaboration is by Tom Morgan and Richard Marriott. The performers include Dill, the Del Sol String Quartet, and The Choral Project.
Aug. 13, 8 p.m. to midnight, Garden Theater, Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga, $15-$55, (408) 961-5800, www.montalvoarts.org. (M.Z.)
Contemporary
Festival of Contemporary Music
As the Cabrillo Festival ends, the sixth annual Festival of Contemporary Music, a much more local and small-scale new music series, will open up. Run by composers Brian Bice, John Bilotta, and C. Michael Reese, under the aegis of Bice and Reese’s New Music Forum, this minifestival will take place at the Community Music Center in San Francisco. Over two days, listeners can hear works by 16 composers, some young and unknown, some with reasonably impressive resumes. As usual, the festival will be distinguished by its breadth. Koji Nakano brings Ancient Songs, based in folk material and premiered at this year’s Japanese Spring Festival sponsored by the United Nations’ International School. Bruce Bennett, a graduate of the Ph.D. composition program at UC Berkeley, contributes an older piece for piano, Schematic Nocturne (1997), which reflects the composer’s research into electroacoustics. Bilotta, having run the recent San Francisco Chamber Wind Festival, presents the premiere of his woodwind quintet, First Light, among other highlights.
Aug. 15-16, 8 p.m., San Francisco Community Music Center, $5-$10, (415) 647-6015, www.newmusicforum.com. (M.Z.)
Music Theater
The Mikado Returns
Lamplighters’ Music Theatre revives Gilbert and Sullivan’s evergreen satire of English society dressed a la Japonais, The Mikado. The show, directed by Phil Lowery and starring the company’s stalwart G&S experts, opens in Walnut Creek, spends the next weekend in Napa, and finally turns up in San Francisco in mid-August.
July 31 – Aug. 2, 8 p.m. (and 2 p.m. Saturday matinee), Dean Lesher Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek; Aug. 8, 8 p.m., Aug. 9, 2 p.m., Napa Valley Opera House; Aug 15, 16, 8 p.m., Aug. 16, 17, 2 p.m., Novellus Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; $11-$46, (415) 227-4797, www.lamplighters.org. (M.Z.)
Chamber Music
Six-String Shootout
The Guitar Foundation of America holds its annual conference on the San Francisco Conservatory’s campus, August 5 to 9. If you’re a fan of guitar music, you have to check out the roster of stars and young talent who will give concerts throughout the four days. They include Hopkinson Smith (on lute), Zoran Dukic, Duo Melis, Raphaella Smits, Xue Fei Yang, and others. Many of these artists will also give master classes. And of course there will be lectures, a vendor fair, and competitions.
August 5-9, recitals at 11 a.m. and 8 p.m., San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Herbst Theatre, $30-$38, www.guitarfoundation.org. (M.Z.)
Guitar Quartet
Along with the many great recitals at the Guitar Foundation of America conference, guitar lovers can take an afternoon away from the festivities to hear the local boys, the San Francisco Guitar Quartet, play Bluezillian by Clarice Assad, the new composer in residence of the New Century Chamber Orchestra. Also on the program are premieres by Christopher Gainey and Darin Au, selected mazurkas by the early 20th-century composer Karol Szymanowski, and a number of other interesting pieces.
Aug. 10, 3 p.m., Old First Church, San Francisco, $12-$15, (415) 474-1608, www.oldfirstconcerts.org. (M.Z.)
Festival
Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music
Marin Alsop has her ear to the ground for composers of contemporary orchestral music, and you could do no better than to let her Cabrillo Festival programs be your guide through this particular thicket. (See this week’s feature.)This year, the festival brings back some longtime associates, like Christopher Rouse, whose Concerto for Orchestra, a Cabrillo Festival commission, anchors the opening night concert, on August 1. John Corigliano’s percussion concerto, Conjurer, with its original soloist, Dame Evelyn Glennie, highlights the second concert. But in addition to these, plus works by Mark-Anthony Turnage, John Adams (the Doctor Atomic Symphony), and Osvaldo Golijov, there are a number of composers represented who are in their early 30s or younger. One of them, Matthew Cmiel, is all of 19. With Mason Bates performing on electronica in his Liquid Interface, composer Michael Daugherty featured in an evening of jazz, and cellist Matt Haimovitz and Bates combining for a concert with electronic soundscapes, this year’s Cabrillo Festival embraces the huge diversity of musical possibilities present at the beginning of the 21st century.
Through Aug. 10, Santa Cruz and San Juan Bautista, www.cabrillomusic.org. (M.Z.)
Evelyn Glennie
Stern Grove Festival
Once again we can enjoy the S.F. Symphony and Opera outdoors. On June 29, Orli Shaham plays Rachmaninov’s Variations on a Theme by Paganini, with James Gaffigan on the podium, while the orchestra gives Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 36. The San Francisco Opera closes the festival with a celebration of American opera and musical theater, on August 17.
Through Aug. 17, Sundays at 2 p.m., Stern Grove, San Francisco, $10-$30, (415) 252-6252, www.sterngrove.org. (M.Z.)
Orli Shaham
Photo by Christian Steiner
Music Academy of the West Summer Festival
This festival is centered on an eight-week summer program for pre-professional musicians. Concerts involve students and faculty, along with a few guest artists. This year’s big deal is a performance of William Bolcom’s 2004 opera, A Wedding, based on the Robert Altman film. The Takács Quartet also drops in for a visit, performing with faculty on July 15, and on their own on July 17. Christopher Taylor does Messiaen’s complete Vingt regards again (July 9), and the Academy Orchestra, under the Philharmonia Baroque’s own Nicholas McGegan, performs Messiaen’s Un sourire, along with Mozart, Ibert, and Schumann.
Through August 15, Santa Barbara, (805) 969-4726, www.musicacademy.org. (M.Z.)
Takács Quartet
Photo by Peter Smith
Midsummer Mozart Festival
This movable feast of a festival doesn’t invite you to go to the mountains, it brings the mountain to you. The two main Mozart programs include Jon Nakamatsu playing the A-Major Piano Concerto, K. 488, Nikolai Demidenko (See review) working over the C-Minor Piano Concerto, K. 491, and Laura Griffiths, principal oboist of the S.F. Ballet Orchestra, performing the Oboe Concerto, K. 271k. This year’s festival is expanded to reach San José, with a semi-staged performance of The Abduction From the Seraglio, at the California Theatre, and starring some recent Opera San José stalwarts, and a concert at Le Petit Trianon on August 2.
Through Aug. 3, Santa Clara, San Francisco, Sonoma, Berkeley, San Jose, www.midsummermozart.org. (M.Z)
Jon Nakamatsu
Music@Menlo
The impressively funded Music@Menlo Chamber Music Festival (See review offers multimedia full immersion, if you want to take advantage of the lectures, “Café Conversations,” open houses, CD-based listening guides, art displays, and “Encounter” discussion centers. It is also a training program for young musicians, who merit their own series of concerts. The main concerts this year present a chronological march through the development of chamber music beginning with a survey of the Baroque period from Salamone Rossi through to J.S. Bach and ending with a program of contemporary music including a premiere of a piano trio by Kenneth Frazelle. The recital series includes the Borromeo String Quartet playing the complete Bartók string quartets; Stephen Prutsman in a program that juxtaposes preludes and fugues from The Well-Tempered Clavier with a kaleidoscopic variety of works, classical and not; and Gary Graffman in a program of left-hand piano music.
Through Aug. 8, Atherton and Palo Alto, www.musicatmenlo.org. (M.Z.)
Borromeo String Quartet
Photo by Christian Steiner
Carmel Bach Festival
The Carmel Bach Festival packs an awful lot of music into three weeks. This year, the theme seems to be the Bach-Brahms connection. The main concerts include Bach’s B-Minor Mass, the complete Brandenburg Concertos, a concert that connects the Viennese School greats, and one that pairs Brahms’ German Requiem and Bach’s Cantata No. 21. In the chamber concerts series, Sanford Sylvan sings Schubert’s song cycle Die Winterreise, and an all-Brahms vocal evening. (See review.) In addition, there are the preconcert (Twilight) concerts, and the postconcert (Candlelight) concerts. You could spend a day and hear a week’s worth of music.
Through Aug. 9, Carmel, www.bachfestival.org. (M.Z.)
Sanford Sylvan
Photo by Susan Wilson
Music in the Vineyards
The Napa Valley Chamber Music Festival actually takes place within the local wineries, and indulges two palates at once — the aural and gastronomic, as wine tastings occur at intermissions throughout the festival. Despite its seductive appeal, the festival retains its emphasis on locally based artists, with the FOG Trio, the Cypress Quartet, guitarist David Tanenbaum, and soprano Anja Strauss slated to appear, among others. Aaron Jay Kernis shows up as well, with four of his compositions.
August 6 – 24, Napa Valley, www.napavalleymusic.org. (M.Z.)
A chamber performance at Vintage 1870
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.