The Michael Tilson Thomas–San Francisco Symphony American Mavericks concerts in 2000 made a big splash, and a welcome revival of the project will be part of the orchestra's centennial season. (See story elsewhere in this edition.)
What is "maverick"? You won't find this in the dictionary, but the MTT–SFS sense of the term is "music you don't know, but really should ... and here it is!" That was the perfect description for last week's subscription concerts, which brought universal raves for sold-out performances.
Unexpectedly, the Mozart Requiem — Ragnar Bohlin's SFS Chorus in full flight, with Sasha Cook (and, less, Kiera Duffy, Bruce Sledge, and the many-voiced Nathan Berg), MTT in a slightly Verdiesque mode — was not the main attraction, though very good indeed.
It's the first half of the concert that made this a special occasion, a mini-Maverick event. A small group from the SFS Chorus was conducted by Bohlin in an otherworldly performance of — ready? — Mindaugas Urbaitis' Lacrimosa, an ethereal work from the contemporary Lithuanian composer, who sounds like a less-moody upgrade of the great Arvo Pärt, from neighboring Estonia.
Photo by Hickey Robertson
And then, the crowning event of the evening: Morton Feldman's Rothko Chapel, a singularly beautiful, spiritual work with MTT in his element, Bohlin's Chorus once again shining brightly, and SFS principal viola Jonathan Vinocour's instrument singing through the piece, both spearheading the music and blending into the ensemble.
Urbaitis, Feldman, Mozart — an extraordinary combination, especially when performed this well. Makes you feel better about a season that features 14 (fourteen) Beethoven works.
Good news for all newfangled Feldman fans: his Piano and Orchestra will be part of the SFS centennial season's American Mavericks Festival, March 15-17, 2012.
As to Bohlin: Don't miss his conducting his great SFS Chorus in the greatest of choral works, Bach's B-Minor Mass later this month, March 16-20.
Images by Michael Maltzan Architecture
Designs were unveiled last weekend for the Mashouf Performing Arts Center at San Francisco State University.
The Center, an $80 million project to be completed by a yet-unannounced date (but optimally within five years if the money is forthcoming), will include:
- 1,200-seat theater
- 350-seat music recital hall
- 450-seat little theater
- 250-seat black box theater
- 60-seat brown bag theater
- State-of-the-art broadcast facilities, with two high-definition television studios, electronic journalism studio, music recording studio, and radio station
Los Angeles architect Michael Maltzan was selected to design the facility. Iranian-American businessman Manny Mashouf, founder and chairman of the 172-branch bebe stores, and an SFSU alumnus, has made a $10 million gift to the university, making the project possible.
Under the baton of Artistic Director David Morales, Cantare con Vivo will perform Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, with an exciting group of soloists: Kristin Clayton, Megan Berti, Thomas Glenn, and Philip Skinner.
Unfortunately, there is only one performance of this gigantic work, which is difficult to find in a live performance. It takes place on Saturday, March 19, in the Walnut Creek Presbyterian Church.
Cantare con Vivo has 100 auditioned singers in its symphonic chorale, 24 voices in a chamber ensemble. Its children's music education and outreach program serves more than 1,300 Oakland public-school children.
Everybody's favorite baby musician incubator, the small-but-mighty Crowden School, is conducting an important online auction in preparation for its annual fund-raising gala. This is an important function for this unique institution, which educates children in grades 4-8 while gifting them with a lifetime involvement in music, and a significant one for donors, who may win grand prices.
Those rewards (the physical ones, in addition to the satisfaction of helping a good cause) include artworks; vacations in Italy, Mexico, Hawaii, et al.; and even a private dinner with John Adams and Deborah O'Grady. The latter is both Mrs. Adams and the Crowden gala honoree, a distinguished photographer.
Online bidding closes on March 9 (winners need not attend the gala), and the event itself, "Illuminations: Celebrating Deborah O'Grady," takes place on March 12, in Craneway Pavilion, Richmond Marina.
Armenian connections abound in Other Minds Artistic Director Charles Amirkhanian's announcement of a concert by pianist Sahan Arzruni of music by Alan Hovhaness. The event is on March 13, in Berkeley's First Congregational Church. (Other Minds' Festival 16 takes place March 3-5.)
It is the centennial for Hovhaness (born Alan Vaness Chakmakjian, in 1911), who eventually embraced his Armenian heritage by — unfortunately — destroying most of the compositions from the early period of his life when he had been dubbed "the American Sibelius."
He died in 2000, and in the course of his long life he wrote more than 60 symphonies, many operas and chamber works, and a great body of choral music.
Arzruni is known not only as a recitalist and chamber musician but also as a composer, ethnomusicologist, lecturer, writer, recording artist, broadcast personality, producer, and impresario. He continuously researches the musical roots of his Armenian heritage, having recorded and produced anthologies of Armenian music, as well as delivered papers and organized symposia at such institutions as Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Michigan.
The program for the March 13 concert includes Hovhaness' Achtamar (1947), Lake of Van Sonata (1946, rev. 1959), Mystic Flute (1937), Pastoral No. 1 (1952), Yanovk (world premiere of the 1951 revision of the 1946 composition), world premiere of the 1956 Laona, and others.
Public radio station KDFC, 89.9 and 90.3 FM, will be the radio home for San Francisco Symphony's Keeping Score series for 13 weeks, beginning Sunday April 3. (Videos of the programs are available on DVDs, on PBS telecasts, and in the PBS archives.)
As before, the program features Suzanne Vega as narrator, conducting interviews with composers, musicologists, writers, and musicians. Michael Tilson Thomas is the key interview subject. The producer of the series is Tom Voegeli, while writers include music critics Justin Davidson and Tim Page.
The Sunday afternoon hour-long broadcasts begin at 6:00 p.m., opening with a program about the 1607 premiere of Monteverdi’s opera L’Orfeo. Historical-musicological explorations of events connected with Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, and others follow.
Named for famous dishes from their country of origin, Japan (Keisuke Nakagoshi) and Switzerland (Eva-Maria Zimmermann), a "Sushi-Fondue concert" by the piano duet ZOFO is coming to Old First Church on March 11.
The duet has been selected to compete in the final rounds of the Osaka International Chamber Music competition in May. As finalists, they will travel to Japan, all expenses paid by the competition, to vie for the top award.
The program in next week's recital includes Toshimitsu Tanaka's An Ancient Five-Storied Pagoda (1977), Honegger's Pastorale d’Eté (1920), Masao Honma's Sound Shift No. 4 (1988), Hermann Goetz's Sonata, Op. 17 (1865), Dieter Ammann's Regard sur les Traditions (1995), and Ryuichi Sakamoto's Tong Poo (1978).
San Francisco–based ZOFO is an affiliate of the city's Friends of Chamber Music.
Photo by Steve J. Sherman
The San Francisco Symphony's centennial season includes a rich selection of vocal and choral works, some new, some unusual, some classic — or all three. Examples:
- Mahler #3, MTT–Katarina Karnéus; Sept. 21-25
- Shostakovich #14, James Conlon–Olga Guryakova, Sergei Leiferkus; Oct. 13-16 [+ Mussorgsky/Ravel, Pictures at an Exhibition]
- Verdi Requiem, Fabio Luisi–Sondra Radvanovsky, Dolora Zajick, Frank Lopardo, Ain Anger; Oct. 19-22
- Brahms, A German Requiem, MTT–Jane Archibald, Kyle Ketelsen; Nov. 17-20 [+ new work by Sofia Gubaidulina]
- Orchestral excerpts from Der Ring des Nibelungen, Esa-Pekka Salonen; Dec. 8-10 [+ Sibelius, Pohjola’s Daughter, Salonen Violin Concerto (Leila Josefowicz)]
- Handel, Messiah, Ragnar Bohlin–soloists TBA; Dec. 16-18
- Debussy, Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien, MTT– Karina Gauvin, Sasha Cooke, Leah Wool, Frederica von Stade (narrator); Jan. 12-14 [+ Janácek, Sinfonietta]
- Lukas Foss, Phorion, Cage, Song Books, MTT–Jessye Norman, Meredith Monk, Joan La Barbara; March 10-13 [+ Cowell Piano Concerto (Jeremy Denk)]
- Barbary Coast and Beyond: Music From the Gold Rush to the Panama-Pacific Exhibition, MTT–Laura Claycomb
- Britten, Les Illuminations, David Robertson–Dawn Upshaw; May 31–June 3 [+ Dvorák #7] - Bartók, Duke Bluebeard's Castle, MTT–Michelle DeYoung, Alan Held; June 21-23 [+ Liszt Piano Concerto No. 1 (Jeremy Denk)]
- Schoenberg, A Survivor From Warsaw, MTT–Erin Wall, Kendall Gladen, William Burden, Nathan Berg; June 27-30 [+ Beethoven #9]