San Francisco Classical Voice

Matthews, who is the school's one-man "music program," brought a large, impressive group of his colleagues to the Marin Showcase Theater on Saturday to put on a fundraising concert. Coleman School, writes our correspondent, "unlike the common Marin stereotype, is not rolling in dough. We've got kids who live in multimillion-dollar homes, to be sure. But there are as many, or more, who share apartments with other families or who arrive to fourth grade not speaking a word of English. Plus, there's everyone in between. I think that's one reason Matthews likes the place; it's not a privileged enclave. He obviously believes in the impact of music on all kinds of kids, and we are so grateful that he feels that way."

For the Saturday concert, Matthews mobilized friends from the San Francisco Opera, Symphony, and the Ballet Orchestra. A three-hour program, followed by a champagne reception, featured performances by — take a deep breath here — singers Joni DeGabriele, Katherine McKee, Virginia Pluth, Colby Roberts, Jennifer Schwarz, Dan Stanley, Richard Walker, and Matthews himself; harpsichordist Gilbert Martinez; pianists Robert Schwarz, Peter Grunberg, and Jonathan Dimmock; cellist Emil Miland; flutist Stephanie McNab; and the intermediate level of the San Francisco Boys Chorus. Selections included music by Bernstein, Liszt, Puccini, Dvorák, and Stravinsky, as well as jazz tunes and a contemporary cello piece by Toby Tenenbaum.

All the artists donated their services in support of the cause of keeping music alive in public schools. You may want to join their ranks at a school near you.

Philharmonia's New Guarneri Violin

Financed by an anonymous donation, Philharmonia Baroque has added a 1660 Guarneri violin to the storehouse of rare period instruments that the orchestra's musicians use. The violin, from Cremona, will be available on loan to Elizabeth Blumenstock, one of the orchestra's concertmasters.

"This goes beyond anything I could have dreamed of in my career," Blumenstock says. "Musicians rarely have the opportunity to actually play instruments of this caliber. The process of selecting an instrument was one of the most informative experiences of my life. I’m immensely humbled and touched by the thoughtfulness and generosity of this gift and wish only that I could thank the donor, or donors, in person."

A recent issue of The Economist reported that the price of ancient string instruments is soaring. Stradivarius and Guarneri violins last year were sold for $3.5 million. The Guarneri, purchased by a consortium for Robert McDuffie, was priced at $250,000 in 1975, and is expected to be valued at $20 million by 2020.

Ageism or Truism?

Richard Aldag, executive director of Napa Valley Symphony, joined in a Napa Valley Register discussion about classical-music audiences. In telling fashion, his letter was headlined "Of ‘Geezers’ and the Symphony."

Aldag's comments, on March 1, came in response to a letter from Richard E. Schaaf, titled "Singing the Modern Music Blues." In agreement with Schaaf's assessment of "the sad state of our popular music industry," Aldag discussed the reference to the audience in Lincoln Theater, where "the geezers outnumber their juniors by an overwhelming proportion." The Napa Valley Symphony is "very aware of the aging demographics of our audience and we are currently developing a plan for next year's season, our 75th anniversary, that we hope will diversify our audience," Aldag wrote. He continued:

"For many years, the Symphony has given concerts on Sunday afternoons and Tuesday evenings, but in recent years, the Tuesday audiences have begun to dwindle for a variety of reasons. While our need to cancel our Tuesday night concerts this season was predicated on fiscal issues and not on audience capacity, per se, the problems that we faced allowed us to step back and examine the Symphony’s scheduling and its appeal. We will shift our concerts to a Saturday night/Sunday afternoon schedule.

We are hoping that the allure of a Saturday night at the Symphony — along with renowned soloists and interesting programming, including continuing our successful Pops Series — will entice younger audience members to our concerts. To support our desire to attract a younger audience, the Symphony will also concentrate more on e-mail and Internet marketing strategies. And, we are exploring the addition of social events linked to our concerts to provide a deeper concert experience for younger patrons.

As a suggestion to all of the (us?) 'geezers' out there who understand the value of having a local symphony orchestra in the Napa Valley, if each of you (us) were to purchase a ticket for a younger family member, neighbor, or friend and bring that individual with you to a Napa Valley Symphony concert, you (we) would be making a valuable contribution to keeping high-quality orchestral music alive in our community."

New Opera Company in Marin

Grove Street, which separates the San Francisco Opera from the San Francisco Symphony, lent its name to a new company, founded by artists from those two organizations. Grove Street Opera makes its debut this weekend at Tiburon's Saint Hilary Church, with Mozart's Così fan tutte. Corte Madera's Stephen Paulson and Gretchen Klein, of the Symphony and Symphony Chorus, respectively, head the enterprise. Cast members include Virginia Pluth Walker, Terry Alvord, Tiffany Cromartie, Corey Head, Paul Thompson, Joshua Henderson, and Jere Torkelson.

A Star Substitute on Her Way Here

A funny thing happened in Boston on Monday (where temperatures dipped into the unfunny teens) — the great, if cancelation-prone pianist Martha Argerich ... canceled her appearances with the Boston Symphony scheduled for this week. What makes this a news item is how conductor Charles Dutoit (Argerich's ex and most frequent collaborator) handled the problem. He engaged a graduate student from the Curtis Institute, one Yuja Wang, to be the soloist and replacement for Argerich.

Quirky enough, but there is more. Wang, recipient of the 2006 Gilmore Young Artist Award, has already made a name for herself, substituting for no less than Radu Lupu in Ottawa. And, this remarkable 19-year-old is heading here to perform with the San Francisco Symphony in subscription concerts April 18-21. Wang will be the soloist in the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 2, and Dutoit will conduct.

New York's Retro-Garde Musical Life

Jeff Dunn forwards information about the New York Philharmonic's next season with the comment: "If you think the San Francisco Symphony's 2007-2008 season is bad ... "

The reference is to the less-than-adventurous programming by Michael Tilson Thomas, who used to be more adventurous (and still is, but elsewhere), which is looking better and better against the Philharmonic's Tchaikovsky-saturated September.

Kurt Rohde in Carnegie Hall Debut

Composer and violist Kurt Rohde, artistic director of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, will perform his new viola concerto, White Boy/Invisible with the American Composers Orchestra in Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall on March 26. Dennis Russell Davies conducts.

The concerto will be performed locally March 9-11 by the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Benjamin Simon. Next year the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester in Berlin will play the piece. Igor Budenstein will be the soloist; DSO Music Director Ingo Metzmacher (who succeeded Kent Nagano last summer) will conduct.

Peninsula Women's Chorus at 40

The Peninsula Women's Chorus presents a program that includes four premieres at the organization's 40th anniversary celebration, March 17, at Stanford Memorial Church. The premieres are all commissioned works, from Marta Lambertini, Chen Yi, Brian Holmes, and Stacy Garrop. Martín Benvenuto conducts and the four composers will participate in a 7 p.m. forum.

Virtuoso Program: Hearing Is Believing

In San Anselmo, San Domenico School's Virtuoso Program, founded by Faith France and directed by George Thomson, has been performing some large, difficult works, far out of the age range of high school musicians — and they've been winning awards along the way. There is now a nice Web site with generous excerpts from recent performances: Listen and be impressed.

Musical Fortunes Opens Jewish Music Festival

Dan Cantrell's work, based on Jewish and Roma themes, will have its premiere Thursday evening in the opening concert of the 2007 Jewish Music Festival. Participants in the performance, at Berkeley's First Congregational Church, include: Kitka Women’s Vocal Ensemble, Michael Alpert, Rumen Shopov, Dusan Ristic, as well as dancers Rachel Brice and Elizabeth Strong.

From March 8 through March 25, the festival's concerts will present klezmer from Buenos Aires, violin music originally performed at the Terezin concentration camp, Italy's Ensemble Lucidarium, a tribute to Tzadik music, Hasidic chants from the group Pharaoh's Daughter, "Diaspora blues" with Steven Bernstein, Peter Apfelbaum and Friends, NOA — Achinaom Nini — Israel's leading Yemenite concert and recording artist, and many more varied and colorful programs.

BPM: Quake-Driven Turntables

The main title — "Beats Per Minute" — is too terse, and the secondary title — "Contemporary Artists Influenced by Craft and Folk Art Practices" — is rather ponderous. But if you go to see the show, it will all make sense, and pleasantly so.

"Beats Per Minute" is coming to the San Francisco Museum of Craft and Folk Art, on Yerba Buena Lane, March 13 through April 29. It deals with several recent movements in contemporary art influenced by folk art and craft, with a surprising emphasis on music.

An example: Walter Kitundu, currently in residence at the Exploratorium, develops instruments that blur boundaries between music, visual arts, and new media. He has constructed elementary turntables that rely on wood, water, fire, and earthquakes for their power and pitch. (I repeat: turntables running on quakes.)

Kitundu has created Phonoharps, multistringed instruments made from record players. He says he is working to connect the technology of new music to fundamental and traditional principles drawn from the natural world. Kitundu exhibits his instruments at "Beats Per Minute," and presents a workshop based on traditional instrument-making and technology.

Curated by Julio Cesar Morales, "Beats Per Minute" refers to the term BPM, which is used by disc jockeys who blend sounds together to create new music. "Folk art and craft influences are becoming more apparent in the work of contemporary ‘trained’ artists," says Morales.

The show features artists such as N. Trish Lagaso Goldberg, Mung Lar Lam, Christy Matson, Christine Wong Yap, and the artist collective Torolab in collaboration with Nortec. Matson, who weaves cloth on both hand-operated and industrial Jacquard looms, presents "Sound," a sculptural project that mixes fiber with new media. Matson often transcribes sound waves to textiles as visual samples that she utilizes to create new patterns in the weaving design. "The process serves as a translation of, and bridge between, traditional folk art practices and new approaches."

Torolab, a Tijuana-based consortium of artists, designers, and musicians founded in 1995 by architect and artist Raúl Cárdenas Osuna, is a socially engaged "laboratory" committed to residents of Tijuana and the entire transborder region. Torolab will host the music of Tijuana’s Nortec collective, a group of musicians who create electronic music by mixing the traditional northern Mexican folk music styles of norteño and tambora with electronic instruments, drum patterns, and manipulated tubas for bass.

Nortec, a combination of norteño and techno, samples instrumental parts of dusty tapes of tambora and norteño band rehearsals, combining their complex hard-driving rhythms and sounds with the use of electronics and a dance-music aesthetic.

Monster Mashup

San Francisco is to be turned into one big jukebox on March 21, when at 9:56 p.m., the city's first musical mashup takes place. Played by amateur DJs on secondhand turntables in neighborhoods from Chinatown to the Mission, the sound will last for four minutes, the length of a standard single. "It will be a collaborative act, both the playing and the listening," says bernadette, the organizer/performer who will headline the mashup on a turntable at Cafe du Nord, where her eponymous band will be performing that evening.

Vinyl will be freely distributed to one and all on street corners and in parks over a seven-day period preceding the mashup. The exact mix of music is not fixed, but potentially includes strains of the Beatles, Ella Fitzgerald, Madonna, and Mozart. "This geospacial mashup will be as eclectic as the city itself," says consulting conceptual artist Jonathon Keats. "It's the first performance by and for the collective conscious."

Adventurous? Apply to Be Recognized

The American Symphony Orchestra League is serving notice that March 22 is the deadline for applications for the ASOL/ASCAP annual Awards for Adventurous Programming. All ASCAP-licensed professional, youth, collegiate, and festival member orchestras of the league that operate within the United States are eligible to apply, following league guidelines.