Listening Ahead
Our Critics’ Choices of Upcoming Events in the Bay Area
for August 19 – September 1, 2008
Chamber Music
Cypress in the Vineyards
The Cypress String Quartet starts its season early and al fresco with the music of Mozart, Dvořák, and Aaron Jay Kernis at the Merryvale Vineyards. The adventurous foursome will then carry on as part of the concert Musical Cuisine: A Four Course Feast at the Jarvis Conservatory. The program at Jarvis: Dvořák’s Cypresses for String Quartet, Kernis’ The Four Seasons of Futurist Cuisine, Barber’s String Quartet, and Sollima’s Vibrez Violoncellos.
Aug. 20, 7:30 p.m., Merryvale Vineyards, St. Helena; Aug. 22, 7:30 p.m., Jarvis Conservatory, 1711 Main Street, Napa, $50, (707) 258-5559, www.napavalleymusic.org. (J.G.)
Cypress Quartet
Basso Profundo
Gregory Stapp’s deep bass has been a part of at least 30 San Francisco Opera productions; he was featured as Sarastro on Great Performances: Live From Lincoln Center, and widely acclaimed as Osmin. Here he joins with pianist (and former Eugene Opera Artistic Director) Robert Ashens for works by Mozart, Gounod, Strauss, Ravel, Schumann, Flégier, Meyerbeer, Fischer, Saint-Saëns, and more.
Aug. 22, 8 p.m., Old First Church, San Francisco, $12-$15, (415) 474-1608, www.oldfirstconcerts.org. (C.G.)
Kernis in the Vineyards
In the season finale of Music in the Vineyards, Aaron Jay Kernis sits in on piano with guitarist David Tanenbaum and soprano Anja Strauss for his Two Awakenings and a Double Lullaby, recently premiered for the opening of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Also on the bill is a trio by Arvo Pärt, which is based on a Mozart piano sonata (K. 280), and Brahms’ Piano Quartet in G Minor.
Aug. 24, 5 p.m., Markham Vineyards, St. Helena Highway, (707) 258-5559, $50, www.musicinthevineyards.org. (M.Z.)
Opera
Art and Arias
Head the Sausalito Art Festival to see art and you will hear it as well. A series of performances of arias put on by the Golden Gate Opera will include selections from Carmen, La Traviata, Rigoletto, Madama Butterfly, and will be performed by soprano Olga Chernisheva, mezzo-soprano Lisa Houston, and tenors Benjamin Bongers and Monte Zanetti. Svetlana Gorzhevskaya, accompanies on piano.
Aug. 31, 11 a.m., Marinship Park and Bay Model, Sausalito, free with festival ticket, (415) 339-9546, www.sausalitoartfestival.com. (C.G.)
Boning Up on Bonesetter
In advance of the Sept. 13 premiere of the Stewart Wallace-Amy Tan Bonesetter’s Daughter, the San Francisco Opera and its auxiliaries are presenting a veritable plethora of events educational and illuminating. Wallace and Tan will appear in an on-stage conversation for City Arts and Lectures at the Dominican University of California and at the Book Passage. There will be insight panel discussions, preview lectures, and other events sponsored by the San Francisco Opera Guild throughout the Bay Area.
August and September, see www.sfopera.com for details. (J.G.)
Qian Yi will be the Precious Auntie in The Bonesetter’s Daughter
Contemporary
Wordless Music
San Francisco Symphony Resident Conductor Benjamin Shwartz leads the West Coast premiere of Popcorn Superhet Receiver by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood in the first appearance here of New York’s Wordless Music Series. The young organization bridges classical and contemporary instrumental music, including genres such as indie rock and electronica. The local contribution is from the new Magik*Magik Orchestra, with cellist Jean Joanrenaud, violinist Gloria Justen, and percussionist William Winant. The program includes Arvo Pärt’s Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten, Fred Frith’s Save As, John Adams’s Shaker Loops, and Mason Bates’ Icarian Rhapsody.
Aug. 21, 8 p.m., Herbst Theater, San Francisco, $15-$60, (415) 392-4400, www.cityboxoffice.com. (J.G.)
Jonny Greenwood
Room With (a Different) View
Pamela Z is back at it in her “Room” chamber music series at Royce Gallery. The final concert of the series “MOUTH” features of room full of mouths, the likes of these contemporary notables, many with corresponding contemporary names: Pamela Z, Amy X Neuberg, Dina Emerson, Julie Queen, Randall Wong, Aurora, Kattt Sammon, and Michael Peppe.
Aug. 22, 8 p.m., Royce Gallery, San Francisco, $10, (415) 861-3277, www.pamelaz.com. (C.G.)
Choral
S.F. Lyric Chorus
The Te Deum prayer is often recited or sung after a battle or at the conclusion of a peace treaty. Perhaps the San Francisco Lyric Chorus are being a bit premature if they are offering these works as a prayer for U.S. soldiers and Iraqis, but the group proposes to take you on a tour of the full range of this subgenre. Handel’s famous “Dettingen Te Deum” leads a parade of examples by Haydn, Dvořák, and Britten.
Aug. 23, 8 p.m., Aug. 24, 5 p.m., Trinity Episcopal Church, San Francisco, $17 (students 5-18, free), (415) 721-4077, www.sflc.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.