Hamza El Din

Oud and tar virtuoso Hamza El Din, highly regarded by fellow musicians from the Kronos Quartet to the Grateful Dead, died Tuesday at Berkeley's Alta Bates Hospital, of complications following brain surgery. Born Wadi Halfa, in 1929, in the Sudan, Hamza carried on a lifelong mission of preserving and advocating Nubian music. He sang and performed on the oud (Arabian short-necked lute) and the tar (frame drum of the upper Nile), combining Arabic music with the sounds of Nubia.

First discovered by Western audiences at the Newport Folk Festival and through the U.N. Human Rights Day and Vanguard recordings in 1964, his 1971 Nonesuch recording Escalay: The Water Wheel, made him world famous. Hamza's compositions were performed by the Béjart Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, and Lines Contemporary Ballet in San Francisco.

He toured the world but resided in the Bay Area in recent years. One of his presenters in Asia and the Pacific, El Cerrito's Graeme Vanderstoel, speaks of Hamza as "a fine man, and a wonderful musician. He always made one feel at home, whether playing and singing, taking time for an intermission to say his prayers, inviting a Japanese friend to do a flower arrangement on stage while he played." Hamza's music has also appeared in movies soundtracks including the Black Stallion and The Passion in the Desert. Hamza appeared regularly with the Kronos Quartet, and his recordings were nominated for the European equivalent of the Grammy, the Preis der Deutschen Schallplatten Kritik. He taught ethnomusicology in several American universities, including the University of Ohio (Athens), the University of Washington (Seattle), and the University of Texas (Austin).

A New Mass for Chanticleer

In addition to the Big Three (Symphony, Opera, Ballet), a dozen each of regional opera companies and symphony orchestras, and countless chamber-music organizations, Our Town ('round the Bay) is also distinguished by a few small outfits of world renown, such as the Philharmonia Baroque, the Kronos Quartet, and — the headline item for today — the 12-man vocal ensemble Chanticleer.

For the next season, its 29th, Chanticleer will perform in 26 concerts locally, in addition to touring around the country. The emphasis will be on new music. Among the premieres will be a full-length Mass by five contemporary composers, a group amazingly varied. Canadian film composer Mychael Danna writes the Kyrie. Turkish-American Kamran Ince composes the Gloria, on a Sufi text. Israeli-born Shulamit Ran contributes the Credo, to a Hebrew text. Ivan Moody writes a Sanctus in the Greek Orthodox tradition. And Irish folk- and medieval-influenced composer Michael McGlynn, of Riverdance, is responsible for the Agnus Dei.

Titled And On Earth, Peace: A Chanticleer Mass, the work will be performed here next spring, following its world premiere in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Meanwhile the season opens in September with a program titled "Quotations," an exploration of new choral music by several contemporary composers. San Francisco performances will take place at Terra, the art gallery and event space, rather than in the churches that are Chanticleer's usual local venues. Besides Argentine-American composer Ezequiel Viñao's The Wanderer, the program includes works by Paul Schoenfield, Carlos Sanchez Gutierrez, Robert Kyr, Arthur Jarvinen, and Steven Stucky.

"Dedication to new music has been a hallmark of our activities since the early years," says Music Director Joseph Jennings. "The continued vitality of the choral repertoire demands that we support and present the work of a diverse selection of living composers." For full information about the season, see www.chanticleer.org.

Girls Chorus Gets New Director

Six months after the resignation of Rachel Malan, the San Francisco Girls Chorus has a new executive director: Melanie Smith, San Francisco Performances' director of education and artistic administration for the past eight years. Before that, she was executive director of the Midori Foundation in New York City. "Vocal music has been a great love throughout my life," Smith said, in accepting the appointment. "Choral music is the art form with which I am most intimately and emotionally connected." Founded in 1978, SFGC provides music education and performance opportunities for more than 300 singers, ages 7-18, from 48 Bay Area cities and 160 schools.

Honoring Farruggio's Memory

San Francisco Opera will dedicate the Merola Grand Finale, on August 19, to the memory of Matthew Farruggio, who died on March 11. He was production supervisor, house stage director, and mentor to many young artists during his years with the S.F. Opera Center, receiving the San Francisco Opera Medal in 1981. The event is the final concert of this summer's Merola Program.

NPR, Naxos, YouTube for a Little Web Music

National Public Radio and Naxos have teamed up to provide a Web site of information and 525 musical examples from Ted Libbey's NPR Listener's Encyclopedia of Classical Music. After logging in to www.naxos.com/workman, owners of the book can find material to illustrate the works, techniques, terms, and composers covered in the encyclopedia.

YouTube.com is something else: a "community Web site" of a zillion audio and video pieces, uploaded and shared by the general public, with a rich classical music section. A few examples: Rolando Villazon sings Werther, Villazon and Placido Domingo in a Bohème duet, Franco Corelli as Calaf, and San Jose's Lori Decter as Senta. Hunt on!

Music on the Web, With a Canadian Accent

"Closer to home" than the BBC or German stations (not that physical distance counts on the Internet), Canada's CBC Radio is now providing classical music at the click of the mouse. Radio Two of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is chock full o' music, day and night. Check the program guide.

Bach for and by the Young

The upcoming fourth international American Bach Soloists Young Artists Competition is all set for June 7 and 9, this time as part of the Berkeley Festival and Exhibition. These are the six semifinalists to vie in the ABS/Henry I. Goldberg competition: Derek Chester, tenor, New Haven, Conn.; Amy Conn, soprano, Evanston, Ill.; Joshua Copeland, baritone, Knoxville, Tenn.; Katherine Growdon, alto, San Francisco; Ian Howell, countertenor, New Haven, Conn.; Yulia Van Doren, soprano, Boston.

The selections were made by ABS Music Director Jeffrey Thomas among candidates from the U.S., Canada, England, and Germany. Semifinals and finals will be accompanied by a period-instrument ensemble of American Bach Soloists musicians, led by Thomas. The schedule: June 7, 4 p.m., Trinity Chapel, Berkeley, for the semifinals; June 9, 8 p.m., First Congregational Church, for the finals.

Audiences: A Renewable Resource?

San Francisco Opera General Director David Gockley couldn't help noticing the empty seats. When he took over the job in January from Pamela Rosenberg, attendance was down from previous years, and there was a large list of lapsed season-ticket holders. Taking the bull by the horns, Gockley used the database of former customers to invite them back into the fold. Tempting all once and future opera fans with desserts, coffee, and a good time, Gockley threw a party in the Opera House last Monday, and lo! some 1,500 invitees showed up.

Rosenberg herself spent the evening in the Civic Center, but not at the party — she was attending the Los Angeles Philharmonic concert in Davies Hall. In the Opera House, Gockley and Music Director Donald Runnicles presented "A New Era: A Sneak Preview of the 2006-2007 Season," taking turns to talk about the 10 operas to be presented between September 9 and June 29, from Verdi's A Masked Ball to Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride.

The sales pitch included a delightful show-and-sing, with young Opera Center artists singing arias from the upcoming works, against images projected on the upstage wall screen. Gerald Thompson, Eugene Brancoveanu, Melody Moore, Kendall Gladen, Jeremy Galyon, Elza van den Heever, Rhoslyn Jones, and Matthew O'Neill sang music of Strauss (Die Fledermaus), Rossini (The Barber of Seville), Puccini (Manon Lescaut), Bizet (Carmen), and Mozart (Don Giovanni) — constituents of the next season.

Audience attendance is difficult to compare because of the different number of performances, changing prices, and so on, but here are some statistics for the War Memorial: In 2002, with 11 works in 90 performances, there were 19,225 subscribers and 210,269 tickets sold. Five years later, in 2005, nine works were given in 72 performances, there were 19,010 subscribers and 187,576 tickets sold. Total ticket revenues dropped from $22.7 million in fiscal 2002 to $19.2 million in fiscal 2005. Most American opera companies manage to have about 40 to 50 percent of their budget covered by ticket sales, San Francisco falling within those parameters, but there was a marked decline in subscriptions and ticket sales after 2000, the dot-com meltdown, and 9/11. At Gockley's former company, in Houston, his early and fairly drastic economic measures prevented a significant deficit, while in San Francisco, the slide into deficit was halted only a year ago.