Thursday, August 31, 2017

San Francisco Conservatory of Music: September, 2017

Far more will be happening at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) next month in addition to the Centennial Celebration Weekend. Indeed, before those festivities get under way, two concerts will already have been given. Furthermore, all of the other options for this month will be free and, with one exception, will not require reservations. The SFCM building is located at 50 Oak Street, between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street, a short walk from the Van Ness Muni Station. Readers are encouraged to consult the Performance Calendar Web page at the SFCM Web site for the most up-to-date information about any of these offerings. Here is a chronological listing of events likely to be of interest:

Sunday, September 10, 2 p.m., Recital Hall: The first Faculty Artist Series concert of the new season will be given by clarinetist Jeff Anderle, Woodwinds Chair and Woodwind Chamber Music Coordinator. He will be joined by his colleagues in the Splinter Reeds all-reed quintet, Kyle Bruckmann on oboe, Dana Jessen on bassoon, Bill Kalinkos on clarinet, and Dave Wegehaupt on saxophones. The program will revisit two of the selections that Splinter Reeds played this past April as part of the ROOM Series of inventive chamber music programming curated by Pamela Z. Those pieces will be Teresa Wong’s “Letters to a Friend,” which was given its world premiere at the April performance, and Eric Wubbles “Auditory Scene Analysis II,” which may be taken as a practicing composer responding to a psychological theory of perception. (The reader can guess who has the better sense of humor!) The quintet will also play Mark Mellits’ Splinter, an eight-movement suite, each of whose movements is named after a different type of tree. Other works will be two pieces that Cara Haxo collected under the title Exercises for Reed Quintet, Jannik Giger’s “Contaminare,” and Yannis Kyriakides’ “Hypothetical Islands.”

Monday, September 11, 7:30 p.m., Recital Hall: The second Faculty Artist Series recital of the season will present mezzo Susanne Mentzer, accompanied by pianist Craig Rutenberg. She has prepared a program that will cover a diversity of stylistic approaches to art song. Her selections will be Robert Schumann’s Opus 42 cycle Frauenliebe und -leben, Libby Larsen’s “Sifting through the Ruins,” Richard Strauss’ Opus 22 collection Mädchenblumen, three of the songs from Lili Boulanger’s Clairières dans le ciel, Erik Satie’s Trois Chansons de 1916, and Carrie Jacobs-Bond’s 1910 collection of Half Minute Songs. Violist Jay Liu will also be performing.

Monday, September 18, 7:30 p.m., Recital Hall: The final Faculty Artist Series recital in September will be given by the holder of the Isaac Stern Chair of the Violin Department, Ian Swensen, who is also co-Chair of String and Piano Chamber Music. His accompanist will be pianist Weicong Zhang. His program will begin with Suite italienne, excerpts from Igor Stravinsky’s score for the one-act ballet “Pulcinella,” which the composer prepared in collaboration with violinist Samuel Dushkin. This will be followed by Sergei Prokofiev’s Opus 80 sonata in F minor and Bedřich Smetana’s reflection on Czech folk sources, “From the homeland.” The program will conclude with two selections by Maurice Ravel, the posthumous sonata in G major and the gypsy-inspired “Tzigane.”

Tuesday, September 19, 7:30 p.m., Concert Hall: This will be the concert given in conjunction with the Artist Residency of the quintet Spanish Brass. Program details have not yet been announced. During their residency, the group will also give a master class in the Concert Hall the preceding evening at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, September 18.

Friday, September 29, 7:30 p.m., Concert Hall: Nicole Paiement will conduct the first performance of the season by the New Music Ensemble. Guitar Faculty Member Marc Teicholz will be soloist in Clarice Assad’s three-movement suite for solo guitar and chamber ensemble, O Saci-Pereré. The program will also include Aleksandra Vrebalov’s “Transparent Walls” and Composition Faculty Member Elinor Armer’s “Recollections and Revel.”

Friday, September 29, 8 p.m., Recital Hall: Stage Director Michael Mohammed and Music Director Michael Horsley will present the first showcase program of excerpts performed by Musical Theatre students; details have not yet been announced.

Saturday, September 30, 7:30 p.m., Recital Hall: This is the one free event that will require reservations. It will mark the beginning of the Roots, Jazz, and American Music series, in which students will perform alongside faculty and members of the SFJAZZ Collective. The program will consist of standards from the Great American Songbook, as well as original pieces. Reservations may be placed through a Google Forms Web page.

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