San Francisco Classical Voice

Sonoma State's Green Music Festival
Among all the summer events on the campus of Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, the Green Music Festival's Chamber Music Series is of special interest, with a sterling record in recent years. To be headed again by series founder Jeffrey Kahane, the four-concert summer series in Person Theater will have an important addition the following winter: the world premiere of the opera Every Man Jack, about Jack London, by Libby Larsen and librettist Philip Littell, November 11-19.

Before and after the concerts on campus, and in intermissions, there is a summery, open-air, free reception outside the theater, with refreshments (including Sonoma wines) and an exhibit of art works. Some musical highlights: Debussy's Sonata for Cello and Piano, with Desmond Hoebig and Kahane; Mozart, Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K. 581, with Bil Jackson, Margaret Batjer, Chee-Yun, Aloysia Friedmann, and Alisa Weilerstein; Brahms, Clarinet Trio in A Minor, Op. 114, with Jackson, Hoebig, and Jon Kimura Parker; Brahms, Horn Trio in E-Flat Major, Op. 40, with Batjer, Kahane, Richard Todd; Beethoven, Archduke Trio in B-Flat Major, Op. 97, with Chee-Yun, Weilerstein, Kahane; Rachmaninoff, Suite No. 2, Op. 17, for Two Pianos, with Parker and Kahane. The series-closing solo concert with Kahane will be an all-Schumann program, including Kinderszenen, Kreisleriana, and the Fantasy in C Major. July 7, 11, 25, 8 p.m.; July 9, 4 p.m., Person Theater, Sonoma State campus, Rohnert Park, $12-$35, (707) 664-2880, www.cityboxoffice.com. (J.G.)

American Bach Soloists' SummerFest
Jeffrey Thomas and the American Bach Soloists mark summer with three evenings of chamber music, optionally combined with informal Meet-the-Artist events, Twilight Serenades, and even Bach's Suppers. Programs include "Bach, Vivaldi, and Friends," "Haydn, Mozart, and Boccherini," and "Schubert and Beethoven." Among the artists: Elizabeth Blumenstock (violin and viola), Corey Jamason (harpsichord), Katherine Kyme (violin and viola), Steven Lehning (violone and viola da gamba), Sandra Miller (flute), Tanya Tomkins (violoncello). July 7-9, St. Stephen's Church, Belvedere; July 11-13, Grace Cathedral, San Francisco; July 14-16, Mondavi Center, Davis; 6 p.m., Meet-the-Artist; 6:30 p.m., Bach's Suppers; 7:15 p.m., Twilight Serenade; 8 p.m., concert; $18-$37 for concert only, (415) 621-7900, www.americanbach.org. (J.G.)

Carmel Bach Festival
Between July 15 and August 5, the Festival will present more than 50 concerts and hundreds of works at the recently renovated Sunset Center Theater, Carmel Mission, and other venues. Highlights include Bach's St. John Passion, music of the Mexican Baroque, Handel's Israel in Egypt, numerous concertos by Vivaldi, Corelli, and Bach, plus a celebration of Mozart. Conductors Bruno Weil and William Jon Gray, violinist Elizabeth Wallfisch, keyboardist Andrew Arthur, and lutenist Richard Kolb lead the acclaimed instrumental and vocal forces. July 15 – August 5; times and venues vary; $20-$92, (831) 624-2046, www.bachfestival.org. (S.M.)

Napa's Festival del Sole
A new music festival with the sun in its name is bringing star performers to Napa this summer. IMG Artists owner Barrett Wissman is extending the Tuscan Sun Festival in Cortona, Italy, to this other famed wine-making region, under the name Festival del Sole. The inaugural festival will open July 16, with a roster including singers Renée Fleming, Frederica von Stade, Anne Sofie von Otter, and Samuel Ramey; instrumentalists Nikolaj Znaider, Sarah Chang, Joshua Bell, Nina Kotova, Piotr Anderszewski, and the Emerson String Quartet; and conductors Alan Gilbert, Stéphane Denève, and Carlo Ponti Jr. with the Russian National Orchestra.

The weeklong event will also feature meals and classes by some of the region's top chefs and, of course, local wines. The festival in Italy, which runs August 5-20, was founded four years ago by Wissman and author Frances Mayes. In addition to some of the Napa participants, the Cortona festival also presents Anna Netrebko, Susan Graham, Marcelo Alvarez, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, and the Royal Opera House Orchestra of Covent Garden. In Napa, the Festival del Sole cofounder and codirector is Richard Walker, formerly a Walnut Creek attorney, who has been instrumental in the development of the 15-year-old Russian National Orchestra, which is financed mostly from outside Russia by such donors as San Francisco's Gordon Getty and Seattle's Charles Simonyi.

July 16, 6:30 p.m., opening orchestral concert (von Otter, Bell), Lincoln Theater, $45-$125; July 17, 7 p.m., piano recital by Christopher Taylor, Napa Valley Opera House, $50; July 19, 8 p.m., orchestral concert (von Stade, Ramey), 8 p.m., Lincoln Theater, $45-$125; July 20, 7 p.m., Emerson String Quartet, NV Opera House, $50; July 21, 7 p.m., orchestral concert (Znaider, Anderszewski), Lincoln Theater, $45-$125; July 22, 7 p.m., orchestral concert (Chang, Anderszewski), Lincoln Theater, $45-$125; July 23, 6:30 p.m., orchestral closing concert (Fleming, Kotova), Lincoln Theater, $45-$150; (707) 944-1300, www.festivaldelsole.com. (J.G.)

Symphony's Summer in the City
Summer-lite but noteworthy, the San Francisco Symphony's summer series (formerly known as "Pops") opens on July 7, with Edwin Outwater conducting a program of Copland, Gershwin, and Bernstein, featuring pianist Christopher O'Riley. On July 9, it's Lemony Snicket's The Composer Is Dead; on July 14 and 15, Howard Shore's The Lord of the Rings Symphony, based on the soundtrack to the film cycle. July 7, 14, 8 p.m.; July 8, 15, 2 p.m.; Davies Hall, $15-$64, (415) 864-6000, www.sfsymphony.org/. (J.G.)

Free at Stern Grove
For the 69th year, San Francisco's unique free music festival in Stern Grove will feature the usual mix of pop, classical, and world music. All concerts begin at 2 p.m. in the Grove, a 33-acre recreation area with meadows, picnic facilities, hiking trails, and a lake, located at 19th Avenue and Sloat Boulevard in San Francisco's Sunset District. July 9, San Francisco Symphony; July 30, San Francisco Opera; August 13, San Francisco Ballet; free, (415) 252-6252, www.sterngrove.org. (J.G.)

Worn Chamber Ensemble
Double-bassist Richard Worn's eponymous Chamber Ensemble presents a minifestival of music by Hans Werner Henze. The first concert, which will include his Violin Sonata, Five Scenes From the Winter Country, Cappriccio, Sextett, and Flute Sonata, is on July 8 (the second, program not yet announced, is on July 22).
July 8, 8 p.m., Main Post Chapel, the Presidio, San Francisco, (415) 386-8954. (L.H.)

Eos Ensemble at Old First Concerts The Eos Ensemble plays a concert of 20th century French chamber music. Ravel's Introduction and Allegro and String Quartet, Debussy's Danses sacrée et profane, and Roussel's Serenade are performed by Craig Reiss, violin/viola; Elbert Tsai, violin; Emily Onderdonk, viola; Ruth Lane, cello; Michael Rado, harp; Julie McKenzie, flute; Clark Fobes, clarinet. July 9, 4 p.m., $12-$15, Old First Church, San Francisco, (415) 474-1608, www.ticketweb.com. (L.H.)

Summer Sing-Ins
It's summer, and most choruses are taking a break from rehearsals. If you like to sing, a summer sing-in may be just the thing for you: You turn up, you're handed a score, and you read through the work with an impromptu chorus, led by an experienced conductor. They're great fun, whether to maintain your chops, get in some extra sight-singing practice, read through a work you've never sung (or review it if you know it well), or see if choral singing is for you. Some pieces are perennial favorites, such as the Brahms Requiem, but you can find more unusual works as well — for example, one of the Oakland Symphony Chorus' sing-ins this year includes Ralph Vaughan Williams' Dona Nobis Pacem. These events can be found in various places around the Bay Area; below are listed dates, works, and other information for three sets of summer sings.

Oakland Symphony Chorus Summer Sing-Ins
The Oakland Symphony Chorus's summer sing-ins are on Tuesdays in Oakland: July 11, Haydn: Lord Nelson Mass, and Bach: Magnificat, Lynne Morrow; July 18, Mozart: Mass in C Minor, and Vaughan Williams: Dona Nobis Pacem, Robert Worth. 7 p.m., $10, First Covenant Church, 4000 Redwood Rd., Oakland, (510) 207-4093, info@oaklandsymphonychorus.org, www.oakland-sym-chorus.org.

Schola Cantorum Summer Sings
Schola Cantorum's summer sings are on Mondays in Los Altos: July 10, Mozart: Requiem and Coronation Mass, Greg Wait; July 17, Fauré: Requiem and Haydn: Lord Nelson Mass, Claire Giovanetti. 7:30 p.m., $10-$15, Los Altos United Methodist Church, 625 Magdalena Ave., Los Altos, (650) 254–1700, info@scholacantorum.org, www.scholacantorum.org.

Sonoma Choral Society Summer Sings
July 5, Bach: Cantata 21, Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis and Cantata 140, Wachet auf, Megan Solomon; July 12, Brahms: Requiem; Robert Worth. 7 p.m., $5-$10, Ives Hall, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, (707) 664-4234, sonomachoral@sonoma.edu, www.sonoma-choral.org. (L.H.)

Happy End
ACT presents the West Coast premiere of Happy End, a musical comedy written by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill in Berlin in 1929, to take advantage of the great success of The Threepenny Opera (see the review). Set in a mythical gangland, supposedly Chicago on the cusp of the Roaring Twenties, Happy End follows the struggle of the passionate Salvation Army lieutenant Lillian Holiday to save the soul of down-and-out mobster Bill Cracker, whose gang is led by the mysterious Lady in Grey (also known as "The Fly"). Through July 16, Geary Theater, San Francisco, $25-$70. (J.G.)

Pocket Opera
The endlessly inventive Donald Pippin and his Pocket Opera present Verdi's tragic Rigoletto. As usual, the forces will be tiny (piano with a smattering of strings and winds), the translation graceful, the staging economical. Most of the performances are in the tiny Florence Gould Theater at the Palace of the Legion of Honor, where the singers don't have to push to be heard and the acting can be more natural and intimate than in larger spaces. With singers Shouvik Mondle, Pedro Betancourt, Heidi Moss, Kathleen Moss, Roger McCracken, Mel Leroy, Brad Kynard. July 7, 7:30 p.m.; July 9, 2 p.m.; Florence Gould Theater, Palace of the Legion of Honor, $18-32, (415) 972-8934, Ticketweb. (L.H.)

Festival Opera
Politics and passion collide in Puccini's Tosca, based on Sardou's melodrama of the same name. Famously labeled a "shabby little shocker" by musicologist Joseph Kerman, Tosca is full of great tunes, larger-than-life characters, and high emotion. Festival Opera has a strong record of putting on productions with excellent singing, convincing staging, and fine conducting, plus you get to see this full-blooded opera up close, in a 900-seat theater. Othalie Graham, Robert Breault, and Bojan Knezevic star. July 8, 11, 14, 8 p.m.; July 16, 2 p.m., $36-$100, Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek, (925) 943-7469, http://www.festivalopera.com/. (L.H.)

Music of Bolivia at Yerba Buena Gardens
In the ongoing Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, which presents more than 100 free cultural events in the summer, the festival's International Music Series will feature Bolivia: The Oscar Reynolds Trio. Reynolds is a composer, guitarist, and master of the Andean bamboo flute. July 13, 12:30 p.m., Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco, free, (415) 543-1718, www.ybgf.org. (J.G.)

Independence Day Concert
KDFC-FM will broadcast San Francisco Symphony recordings of live performances of Copland's Rodeo, Gershwin's Second Rhapsody, and Dvorák's Symphony No. 9, "From the New World." July 4, 8 p.m., KDFC-FM, 102.1, www.kdfc.com. (J.G.)

Manon, the Sequel
Jules Massenet followed up his well-known Manon with a one-act opera about Des Grieux, après Manon's death — a work that fell well short of the earlier opera's popularity. There is a rare chance to hear The Portrait of Manon on a double bill with Francis Poulenc's The Human Voice. Both performances are from Glimmerglass Opera, with Theodore Baerg as Des Grieux, and Amy Burton in the one-woman Human Voice. There are many radio stations available on the Internet, but if you want to hear this program or the rest of NPR's World of Opera, local stations KQED, KALW, and KUSF are listed on the NPR site. (But when you go to these stations' program schedule, the information becomes hard-to-impossible to find; better use the Web.) July 15, NPR World of Opera, www.npr.org. (J.G.)

Crossing the Bridge
The bridge of the title spans the Bosporus, the strait connecting the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, separating the European and Asian parts of Turkey. The film, subtitled The Sound of Istanbul, is by German-born Turkish director Fatih (Head-On) Akin and is a musical tribute to the manifold aspects of Turkish music. Alexander Hacke (of the German avant-garde band Einstürzende Neubauten) roams the streets of Istanbul with a mobile recording studio, capturing the Asian-European broad spectrum of genre, from modern electronic, rock and hip-hop to classical "Arabesque." Some of the featured musicians: Baba Zula, Orient Expressions, Duman, Replikas, Selim Sesler, Siyasiyabend, Müzeyyen Senar. July 14, opening in San Francisco and Berkeley theaters. (J.G.)