Listening Ahead
Our Critics’ Choices of Upcoming Events in the Bay Area
for November 4 – 17, 2008
Symphony
Santa Rosa Symphony
Under Jeffrey Kahane, the Santa Rosa Symphony’s programming set a standard that most of the Bay Area’s regional orchestras didn’t really try to match — enterprising, thoughtful, offbeat, and graced moreover with an unusually interesting roster of guest artists. Those of us who wondered initially whether Bruno Ferrandis — now beginning his third season as Kahane’s successor — would follow his predecessor’s lead can now answer the question heartily in the affirmative. Santa Rosa’s 2008-2009 season is full of goodies, from Haydn’s “Lord Nelson” Mass to Carl Maria von Weber’s piano-and-orchestra Konzertstück to Nikolai Miaskovsky’s Cello Concerto to three movements of Olivier Messiaen’s Turangalîla-symphonie. The November set opens with a double whammy. First there’s György Ligeti’s 1967 Lontano, a wondrously intricate, glacially shifting study in orchestral color; then Gilles Apap in Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto. (Lovers of the Berg will, naturally, be looking forward to Gil Shaham’s return visit with the piece to the San Francisco Symphony next spring, but Apap — a sort of panstylistic violinist possibly better known as a fiddler than as a classical musician — has the kind of hyperinflected violinistic voice that would be fascinating to hear in this music.) It’s a heady combination, leavened (at “heavenly length”) by Schubert’s Ninth Symphony.
Nov. 8, 8 p.m. (also Nov. 9, 3 p.m.; Nov. 10, 8 p.m.), Wells Fargo Center, Santa Rosa, $27-$50, (707) 546-8742, www.santarosasymphony.org. (M.D.T.)
Bruno Ferrandis
Summers Past
Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, the “Pastoral,” which the San Francisco Symphony plays this week under Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas is his one overtly programmatic symphony (if you discount the “Battle Symphony,” Wellington’s Victory). It stands in a long line of 18th-century symphonies with pastoral elements (maybe you know The Four Seasons?). Of course, Beethoven extends the tradition in a personal way, the result of his summer stays in the country. That’s what connects it to James Agee’s poem, Knoxville, Summer of 1913, which Samuel Barber set as an extended concerted piece for soprano and orchestra. Haydn does a different kind of programmatic music for his Symphony No. 60, “Il distratto” (The absent-minded man), which was originally music to accompany a stage play by the same name. This is inventive programming in the highest degree.
Nov. 13-15, 8 p.m.; Nov. 16, 2 p.m.; Davies Symphony Hall, $30-$130, (415) 864-6000, www.sfsymphony.org. (M.Z.)
Crazy in Love, and Just Plain Crazy
Two people coming together is celebrated by Michael Morgan and the Oakland East Bay Symphony, with a new piece by Nathaniel Stookey dubbed “a breathless affair for two singers and orchestra,” and Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet suites. The Stookey work, Zipperz, will incorporate the zippered-poetry form pioneered by librettist Dan Harder (see www.danharder.com for an example). The concert begins with a 12-minute funhouse of jokes by the “bad-boy of music,” George Antheil — his Jazz Symphony.
Nov. 14, 8 p.m., Paramount Theater, Oakland, $20-$65, (510) 444-0801, www.oebs.org. (J.D.)
Michael Morgan
Dance
Dance Inventor
The prodigiously creative dancer/choreographer Merce Cunningham has lived long enough to see dance history written around him. In November, he brings his company back to Berkeley, a tour stop for half a century now. The programs include some of his iconic works with John Cage, including 1958’s Suite for Five, as well as some newer works such as eyeSpace (2006-2007), and Split Sides (2003), to music by Radiohead and Sigur Ros.
Nov. 7-8, 8 p.m.; Nov. 14-15, 8 p.m.; Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley, $26-$48, (510) 642-9988, www.calperfs.berkeley.edu. (M.Z.)
Recital
Piano Fever
Concerts Grand, the North Bay’s only piano recital series, curated by SFCV’s own Terry McNeill, charges into another season, with the local debut recital of Russian Elena Ulyanova. The program is full of big pieces, from Beethoven’s “Appassionata Sonata,” and Chopin’s Andante spianato and Grand polonaise brillante, to Rachmaninov’s Sonata No. 2 in B-flat, Op. 36.
Nov. 14, 7 p.m., St. Hilary’s Church, Tiburon, $25-$50, (707) 526-2447, www.concertsgrand.com. (M.Z.)
Elena Ulyanova
Early Music
Chalice Consort
The new early music choir Chalice Consort opens its 2008-2009 season with a Bay Area premiere: Pierre de Manchicourt’s Requiem — a Franco-Flemish Renaissance masterpiece from the 16th century. The program, “Iberian Renaissance Music From Death to Life,” includes the polyphonic setting of the Requiem Mass Propers, framed with appropriate liturgical chants, as well as motets by Alonso Lobo and Duarte Lobo.
Nov. 8, 8 p.m., St. Monica Catholic Church, San Francisco; Nov. 9, 4 p.m., St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Oakland; $15-$20, (415) 875-9544, www.chaliceconsort.org. (C.G.)
Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra
“Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven” may sound like a chapter heading in a music-history text, but in the context of a Philharmonia Baroque program with Nicholas McGegan at the helm, it’s a recipe for a fine two-hour romp. The centerpiece is the Beethoven “Triple” Concerto, which is one piece that the historical-performance movement — ordinarily gung-ho to tackle Beethoven — has given suspiciously scant attention. Can the ridiculously difficult solo cello part have anything to do with that? Tanya Tomkins tackles the beast here, with Colin Jacobsen on violin and Eric Zivian, better known in his modern-pianist guise, on fortepiano as co-soloists. Mozart (the “Haffner”) and Haydn (No. 88) symphonies round out the program.
Nov. 13, 8 p.m., Herbst Theatre, San Francisco; Nov. 14, 8 p.m., First United Methodist Church, Palo Alto; Nov. 15, 8 p.m., Nov. 16, 7:30 p.m., First Congregational Church, Berkeley; $30-$75, (415) 252-1288, www.philharmonia.org. (M.D.T.)
Contemporary
Eulogy for a Departed Species
As usual, Nicole Paiement’s BluePrint Festival at the San Francisco Conservatory offers some of the most interesting programs of contemporary music. In this month’s edition, Philip Collins mourns the extinction of another frog species in Requies ranarum. The other works are more introspective, including the premiere of the Conservatory-commissioned Transparent Walls by Aleksandra Vrebalov, Giya Kancheli’s Midday Prayers,, and Young-Shin Choi’s XY Unsquared.
Nov. 15, 3 p.m., San Francisco Conservatory of Music Recital Hall, $15-$20, (415) 503-6275, www.sfcm.edu. (M.Z.)
Nicole Paiement
Chamber Music
Anthony Marwood and Thomas Adès
To the extent that American audiences know violinist Anthony Marwood at all, it’s likely as a member of a number of busy British chamber ensembles (foremost among them the Florestan Trio), with whom he has recorded all sorts of mostly 19th-century repertoire staples. Adès, meanwhile, is far better known as a composer than as a pianist. But those who have heard Adès at the keyboard on his previous visits to the Bay Area still talk about the experience, and Marwood, for whom Adès wrote his 2005 violin concerto Concentric Paths, turns out to be as comfortable well away from German Romanticism as in it. The duo’s program — Stravinsky’s violin-and-piano music, nearly all of it adapted by the composer from his own earlier works at the behest of violinist Samuel Dushkin — might seem a limiting one. Actually, there’s plenty of variety in there, from the Baroque and Tchaikovskian sources of the Suite italienne (after Pulcinella) and the Divertimento (after Le Baiser de la fée) respectively, to the sinuous, early Pastorale (originally a vocalise), to the astringent Duo concertant of 1932.
Nov. 8, 7 p.m., Herbst Theatre, San Francisco, $32-$49, (415) 392-2545, www.performances.org. (M.D.T.)
The Messiaen Centenary
Olivier Messiaen’s centenary is in December, and Stanford Lively Arts celebrates the visionary composer in style. Scott St. John, violin, and Christopher Costanza, cello, both from the St. Lawrence String Quartet, are joined by clarinetist Todd Palmer and pianist Jamie Parker for Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time. Written while the composer was a prisoner of war during World War II and a product of Messiaen’s Catholic mysticism, the Quartet is a seminal 20th-century chamber work. Robert Huw Morgan rounds out the program with a selection of organ works, Messiaen’s own instrument.
Nov. 13, 8 p.m., Memorial Church, Stanford University, $22-$44, (650) 723-2551, http://livelyarts.stanford.edu (L.H.)
St. Lawrence Quartet
Chamber Orchestra
Mill Phil
The Mill Valley Philharmonic is just one of a number of quality community orchestras in the Bay Area. In their next set of concerts, titled “The Works Progress Administration: Music and Art of the 1930s,” they’ve taken some of the more famous pieces of 1930s-inspired musical populism (Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings) and placed them next to two unfamiliar works from the same era, George Frederick McKay’s From a Moonlit Ceremony, and Ernst Bacon’s Symphony No. 2, “Americana.” Bacon has Bay Area connections, but beyond that, he wrote good-quality music, and the symphony will give you a flavor of the period beyond the standard repertory items. There’s also dramatic narration and a short video about the WPA. The orchestra has chosen to perform the concerts in various WPA sites around the Bay Area. Too cool for words.
Nov. 8, 4 p.m. Cavallo Point, The Lodge at the Golden Gate, Sausalito; Nov. 9, 1 p.m., The San Francisco Zoo; free, (415) 383-0930, www.millvalleyphilharmonic.org/home.html. (M.Z.)
Making Connections
The San Francisco Academy Orchestra allows young professional musicians to play alongside members of the San Francisco Symphony, something they call the “Academy experience.” It’s a fantastic opportunity for younger players, and the results are often superior quality. In their coming concert, the orchestra plays Edward Elgar’s Serenade for Strings, Benjamin Britten’s Simple Symphony, and Terry Riley’s In C.
Nov. 9, 6 p.m., Calvary Presbyterian Church, San Francisco, $15-$20, (415) 392-4400, www.sfacademyorchestra.org. (M.Z.)
Choral
Musing With Musae
There is so much musing in Musae’s season opener — its fifth — that it will be hard not to be inspired. The concert takes place at Muse Gallery and it is a special behind-the-scenes event featuring the winners of their 2008 Commission Competition. The composers will speak about their muses in creative process and preview of the group’s new works; Musae will perform with the artists in an intimate setting. If that’s not enough to chew over, head to the wine and cheese station.
Nov. 8, 6:30 p.m., a.Muse Gallery, San Francisco, free, info@musae.org, www.musae.org. (C.G.)
Musae
Mozartean Mass-terwork
The Masterworks Chorale of San Mateo begins its 45th season still going strong under Bryan Baker’s direction. The group takes on another big choral work in Mozart’s magnificent, unfinished Mass in C Minor, K. 427. Also on the program are Eric Whitacre’s popular Five Hebrew Love Songs and a premiere by chorus member Nicholas Carlozzi.
Nov. 8, 8 p.m.; Nov. 9, 4 p.m., Trinity Presbyterian Church, San Carlos, $10-$20, (650) 574-6210, www.masterworks.org. (M.Z.)
Song of Norway
Widely acclaimed as the group most likely to fill the shoes of the now-disbanded but still beloved vocal quartet Anonymous 4, Trio Mediæval has taken their own path, and ordered their own boots for use in Norway. The Oslo-based women’s group comes to Herbst Theatre, thanks to San Francisco Performances, with a program of Norwegian folk songs and medieval ballads.
Nov. 16, 7 p.m., Herbst Theatre, San Francisco, $32-$42, (415) 398-6449, www.performances.org.. (M.Z.)
Trio Mediæval
Opera
The Elixir of Love
The simplest and most enchanting of love stories (see review), with Donizetti’s irresistible music, and a brilliant cast, including Inva Mula (the seven-foot-tall “blue diva” of The Fifth Element) as Adina, Ramón Vargas as Nemorino, and the San Francisco debuts of Giorgio Caoduro (Belcore) and Alessandro Corbelli (Dulcamara). Bruno Campanella conducts, James Robinson is stage director. The opera is 2 1/2 hours long, but a “family edition” presents a 2-hour version, with recent Adler Fellows in the principal roles, and reduced admission.
Nov. 5, 7:30 p.m.; Nov. 9, 2 p.m.; Nov. 14 and 18, 8 p.m.; Nov. 23, 2 p.m.; Nov. 26. 7:30 p.m. For families: Nov. 8 and 15, 12:30 p.m., War Memorial Opera House, $15-$260, (family performances: $20-$80), (415) 864-3330, www.sfopera.com. (J.G.)
Inva Mula
Bohemian Rhapsody
Perennially popular, Puccini’s La Bohème is sometimes left to fend for itself in the casting department. But the San Francisco Opera has taken the opposite approach, engaging international superstar Angela Gheorghiu and star-in-the-making Piotr Beczala as Mimì and Rodolfo, and also rounding out the cast with attractive singers. The second cast looks just as strong and might be the sleeper pick of the opera season. Music Director-designate Nicola Luisotti conducts.
Nov. 16 – Dec. 7, various times, War Memorial Opera House, $20-$290, (415) 864-3330, www.sfopera.com. (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.
Lisa Hirsch is a technical writer. She studied music at Brandeis and SUNY/Stony Brook.
Michelle Dulak Thomson is a violinist and violist who has written about music for Strings, Stagebill, Early Music America, and The New York Times.
Michael Zwiebach holds a Ph.D. in music history from UC Berkeley.
©2008 By Janos Gereben, Catherine Getches, Lisa Hirsch, Michelle Dulak Thomson, Michael Zwiebach, all rights reserved.