San Francisco Classical Voice

In Dulci Jubilo
The California Bach Society sings a Christmas program anchored by Charpentier's Messe de Minuit pour Noel. That work is based on French carols, and the rest of the program features settings of traditional melodies, some well-known, some not. Paul Flight, who is everywhere this season, conducts. Dec. 1, 8 p.m., St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church, San Francisco; Dec. 2, 8 p.m., All Saints Episcopal Church, Palo Alto; Dec. 3, 4 p.m., St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Berkeley; $10-$18, (415) 262-0272, www.calbach.org (C.G.)

Tallis Scholars
The Tallis Scholars, peerless exponents of early choral music, sing a concert of music by Tallis, Tye, de Monte, Palestrina, and Taverner. Director Peter Phillips discusses the program one hour before performance time. Dec. 1, 8 p.m., First Congregational Church, Berkeley, $46, (510) 642-9988, www.calperfs.berkeley.edu (L.H.)

Sacred & Profane's Christmas in London
The Bay Area a cappella chorus celebrates Christmas, British-style, with choral selections from England, including motets by Renaissance master William Byrd, modern works by Howells, Warlock, Holst, and Maxwell Davies, as well as several pieces by England’s choral master, Benjamin Britten. Drinks and reception with the singers to follow. Dec. 2, 8 p.m., St. Francis Lutheran Church, San Francisco; Dec. 3, 7 p.m., Trinity Lutheran, Walnut Creek; Dec. 10, 7 p.m., All Souls Episcopal Church, Berkeley, $12-$18, (510) 524-3611, www.sacredprofane.org. (C.G.)

Pacific Mozart Ensemble
The Grammy-nominated Pacific Mozart Ensemble opens its 2006-2007 season with a multimedia choral concert — an evening of spirituals, narration, poetry, and projections. The concert, "A Story of Freedom," includes arrangements by William Dawson, founder of the Tuskegee Institute’s music program and its choir; contemporary spirituals master, the late Moses Hogan; and two major Bay Area arrangers, William Bell and Jacqueline B. Hairston. Dr. Belva Davis will interweave first-person slave narratives with a montage of projections. Dec. 3, 5 p.m., The Berkeley City Club, Berkeley; Dec. 8, 7:30 p.m., Veterans War Memorial Building, San Francisco, $15-$25, (415) 705-0848, www.pacificmozart.org. (C.G.)

San Francisco Girls Chorus
S.F. Girls Chorus' holiday concert is always a treat (see one past review). This year's concert, titled "Voices of Hope and Peace," features works by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Baldassare Galuppi, J.S. Bach, Zoltán Kodály, and others. Dec. 8, 8 p.m., Lafayette-Orinda Presbyterian Church, Lafayette; Dec. 12, 8 p.m., Davies Hall, San Francisco; $12-$50, (415) 392-4400, www.sfgirlschorus.org. (M.B.)

OEBS SingAlong Messiah
The Oakland East Bay Symphony's second SingAlong Messiah takes a different tack from most: cabaret, klezmer, gospel, and mariachi performers will offer decidely nonstandard interpretations of some of the solo arias. Michael Morgan leads the performance, and he is joined by conductors Magen Solomon, Lynne Morrow, Lucy Kinchen, and a host of other musicians. Dec. 9, 8 p.m. (chorus warmup at 7 p.m.), Paramount Theater, Oakland, $15-$28, (510) 444-0801, www.oebs.org (L.H.)

Takács Quartet
Probably Cal Performances' biggest recital event will be the Takács Quartet performance, with the familiar Geraldine Walther, longtime principal of the S.F. Symphony, on viola. The premier string ensemble continues its exploration of the complete Beethoven string quartet cycle with the A Major, Op. 18, No. 5; C Minor, Op. 18, No. 4; and A Minor, Op. 132. (They'll be back in Berkeley on March 25, too, with the F Major, Op. 18, No. 1; E-flat Major, Op. 74; and C-sharp Minor, Op. 131. And if you can't get enough Takács, they'll be in Santa Cruz on Dec. 1). Dec. 3, 3 p.m., Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley, $42, (510) 642-9988, www.calperfs.berkeley.edu/presents/. (H.T.)

San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra
The intrepid composer-performers of the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra buck the holiday season with a program called "Pure Speculation," featuring works by Mark Alburger, Alexis Alrich, Michael Cooke, David Graves, Michael Kimbell, and Lisa Scola Prosek. The theme is "what if," and the questions are many. Dec. 2, 8 p.m. Old First Church, San Francisco, $12-$15, (415) 474-1608, www.oldfirstconcerts.org (L.H.)

The Maybeck Trio
A shared passion for chamber music and a common Czech ancestry bring together the members of the Maybeck Trio — clarinetist Roy Zajac, cellist Elaine Kreston, and pianist Jerry Kuderna. The trio, named after one of Berkeley's finest architects, will play the Bach Suite for Solo Cello, Schumann's Fantasie Pieces for clarinet and piano, as well as trios by Rota and Brahms. Dec. 2, 8 p.m., Trinity Chapel, Berkeley, $8-$12, (510) 549-3864, www.trinitychamberconcerts.com. (C.G.)

Kahane and Kraggerud
San Francisco Performances presents Scandinavian violinist Henning Kraggerud, who came to national attention in 1988 when he won the prestigious Young People’s String Championship. Joining him is the Bay Area's beloved Jeffrey Kahane, who, it's fair to say, just might be one of Mozart's biggest fans. The program will include chamber works by that composer as well as other works that mirror Kraggerud's and Kahane's musical tastes and passions: Mozart's Sonata for Piano and Violin in B-flat Major, K.454; Brahms' Violin Sonata No. 2 in A Major, Op. 100; and Beethoven's Sonata in F Major for Violin and Piano, Op. 24, (“Spring”). Dec. 2, 8 p.m., Herbst Theatre, San Francisco, $27-$44, (415) 392-2545, www.performances.org. (C.G.)

Left Coast Chamber Ensemble
It's true that the Left Coasters' most interesting concerts are in February and March of 2007. Still, Artistic Director Kurt Rhode has an intriguing penchant for juxtaposing music of the past and present, an approach that's now familiar to anyone who attended the most recent Music@Menlo Festival. Whether or not the works have anything to do with each other is another thing, however. The strategy continues with a concert on the theme of "Beethoven and His Legacy." The first of two concerts pairs Beethoven's String Quartet in C-sharp Minor, Op. 131, with recent Left Coast commissions by Bill Beck, Sam Nichols, and Yu-Hui Chang. (The second part of the series continues in May.) Dec. 7, 8 p.m., Throckmorton Theatre, Mill Valley; Dec. 11, 8 p.m., Green Room, War Memorial Veterans Building, San Francisco; $15-$20, (415) 642-8054, www.chambermusicpartn.org. (M.B.)

Sundays@Four
Now in its eighth season, Sundays@Four features the Arlekin String Quartet, graduates of the Moscow Conservatory of Music who now reside here. Violinists Eugene Chukhlov and Igor Veligan; Rem Djemilev, viola; and Sergei Riabtchenko, cello; are joined by special guests in an afternoon of chamberworks by Haydn, Shostakovich, and Tchaikovsky. The program for this second concert of the series includes the Overture from Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross and Shostakovich’s Quartet No. 7 in F-sharp Minor, Op. 108. Bassist Michel Taddei and violist Edith Szendrey join Arlekin for Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence. Dec. 10, 4 p.m., Crowden Music Center, Berkeley, $12, (510) 559-2941, www.crowden.org. (C.G.)

Borisova-Ollas, Rachmaninoff, and Tchaikovsky at the Symphony
Vladimir Ashkenazy puts on his conducting hat and leads the S.F. Symphony in a Russian concert. The program leads off with the young composer Victoria Borisova-Ollas's Kingdom of Silence, followed by pianist Simon Trpceski in Rachmaninoff's brilliant and thrilling Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, and Tchaikovsky's rarely heard Third Symphony ("Polish"). Nov. 29, 30; Dec. 1, 2; 8 p.m., Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, $25-$114, (415) 864-6000, www.sfsymphony.org (L.H.)

Music for Movies, Music for Volcanoes
David Zinman will conduct the S.F. Symphony in a well-balanced quartet of 20th century items, beginning with one of Copland's less commonly performed works, Music for Movies, a suite cobbled together in 1942 from excerpts for The City, Of Mice and Men, and Our Town. Hilary Hahn, one of the best-ever interpreters of the romantic Barber Violin concerto, will try her bow on the equally romantic concerto of Erich Wolfgang Korngold. In case hardnosed modernists are dying from a sugar overdose, Anders Hillborg's Liquid Marble will provide a change of pace. This truly frightening piece looses 10 minutes of the rarest and highest-temperature lava onto the stage (musically, that is). Bring your asbestos jacket! Finally, survivors of the eruption can stick some jaunty tunes into their heads to walk out with, via the ever-fresh Háry János suite of Kodály. A shorter version of the concert, with Marble lost and less Háry, will include an explanatory lecture focusing on the cinematic aspects of Copland and Korngold. Dec. 6-7, 8 p.m. (full concert); Dec. 8, 6:30 p.m. (shorter version in the "6.5" series); Davies Hall, San Francisco, $25-$110, (415) 864-6000, www.sfsymphony.org. (J.D.)

Santa Rosa Symphony
Bruno Ferrandis, the charismatic new music director of the Santa Rosa Symphony, will be out of town, but the long nights of December will make the rising star of guest conductor Joana Carneiro all the more visible. Currently assistant conductor of the L.A. Philharmonic, Carneiro, a native of Lisbon, will turn her hand to one of the great British choral works, Vaughan Williams' Dona Nobis Pacem. Highlights of the antiwar cantata include three dramatic settings of Walt Whitman poetry. Also on the program, John Corigliano's Fantasia on an Ostinato, his take on Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, and the Schumann Piano Concerto, played by Jonathan Biss. Dec. 9-10, 3 p.m.; Dec. 11, 8 p.m., Wells Fargo (neé Luther Burbank) Center for the Arts, Santa Rosa, $16-$49, (707) 546-8742, www.santarosasymphony.com. (J.D.)

Grace Nikae
The young pianist Grace Nikae plays a virtuosic and fascinating program at Old First, ranging from Beethoven's Op. 90 through to George Crumb's Processional for Piano, via Schumann, Ravel, and Bartok. Nov. 28, 8 p.m., Old First Church, San Francisco, $12-$15, (415) 474-1608, www.oldfirstconcerts.org (L.H.)

Lynn Harrell in Carmel
Acoustics at Carmel's new Sunset Theater vividly reach every seat in the house, all of them expected to sell out for cellist Lynn Harrell's November appearance. Harrell's recording of the Bach cello suites is still held up as an example of how great the works themselves are, not to mention his distinctive interpretations. Harrell's announced program includes such meat-and-potatoes sonata repertory as Schubert's "Arpeggione," Beethoven's D Major, and Brahms' E Minor. Nov. 30, 8 p.m., Sunset Theater, Carmel, $20-$52, (831) 625-9938, www.carmelmusic.org. (S.M.)

Thomas Adès
It's not often that pianist and controversial composer Thomas Adès appears in recital, but San Francisco Performances has him on the roster in early December, playing Janácek, Castiglioni, Stravinsky, Nancarrow, and his own Darkness Visible and Traced Overhead. Bay Area pianist Sarah Cahill will host a Meet the Artist conversation with Adès the next day at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Concert Hall. Dec. 9, 8 p.m., Herbst Theatre, San Francisco, $29-$47; Meet the Artist, Dec. 10, 11 a.m., San Francisco Conservatory of Music, free, (415) 392-2545, www.performances.org. (M.V.C.)

Advent and Christmas Cantatas
'Tis the season for Dietrich Buxtehude with the early music masters Magnificat. Dec. 1, 8 p.m., First Lutheran Church, Palo Alto; Dec. 2, 8 p.m., St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Berkeley; Dec. 3, 4 p.m., St. Gregory Nyssen Episcopal Church, San Francisco; $12-$25, (415) 979-4500, www.magnificatbaroque.org. (M.B.)

Manon Lescaut
The incandescent soprano Karita Mattila returns to the San Francisco Opera in Puccini's Manon Lescaut, which hasn't been staged there since 1988 (see review). Mattila, silver-toned and stunning in Strauss, Wagner, and Janácek, isn't an obvious choice for Puccini. Yet, she is never anything less than musically imaginative and theatrically riveting, in whatever she sings. Misha Didyk, last year's Gherman in Queen of Spades, is Des Grieux, and Donald Runnicles is at the helm of a new production directed by Olivier Tambosi. Nov. 28; Dec. 1, 7, 10; times vary, War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, $25-$245, (415) 864-3330, www.sfopera.com. (L.H.)

Adler Fellows Gala Concert
The San Francisco Opera's Adler Fellowships provide some of the best training and singing opportunities out there for young singers — thus, it attracts the best of the best. If you attend the San Francisco Opera on a regular basis, you know the 2006 Adler Fellows already: Kimwana Doner, Rhoslyn Jones, Melody Moore, Elza Van Den Heever, Kendall Gladen, Gerald Thompson, Matthew O'Neill, Sean Panikkar, Eugene Brancoveanu, Jeremy Galyon, and Matthew Piatt. Hear them in a concert of arias and scenes by Verdi, Puccini, Tchaikovsky, Offenbach, and Britten; conducted by Donald Runnicles. Dec. 5, 8 p.m., War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, $35-$75, (415) 864-3330, www.sfopera.com (L.H.)

Other Minds
A wide range of new-music voices will continue to confound expectations at this year's Other Minds festival of three concerts. Composers from Norway (Maja Ratkje), Germany (Markus Stockhausen), the Netherlands (Tara Bouman), Daniel David Feinsmith (U.S.), and Ronald Bruce Smith (Canada) will be onsite, with their music, to resist all attempts at classification. Joining them will be two more elder masters who can't hide from their distinguished records: the most famous living Danish composer, Per Nørgård, master of otherworldly sounds; and the relatively traditional and highly accessible Peter Sculthorpe (Australia), champion of the didgeridoo — and string instruments too. This three-day extravaganza may prove to be the best-yet manifestation of Artistic Director Charles Amirkhanian's vision. Dec. 8-9, 8 p.m.; Dec. 10, 2 p.m.; Kanbar Hall, San Francisco Jewish Community Center, San Francisco, $20-$26 per concert, (415) 292-1233, www.otherminds.org. (J.D.)

Feinsmith Quartet
Feinsmith Quartet will premiere Daniel David Feinsmith's new piece, ELOHIM. The composer and all but one musician call the Bay Area home — Jennifer Culp, Michael Manning, Christopher Taylor, and Gran Riley. The December 8 premiere is part of the opening program for the 12th Annual Other Minds Festival, at Kanbar Hall. That program will also include the U.S. premiere performance of Per Nørgård’s Quartet No. 10 for Strings, "Høsttidløs" (Harvest-Timeless). Dec. 8, 8 p.m., Jewish Community Center, San Francisco, $20-$30, (510) 428-2220, www.feinsmithquartet.com. (C.G.)