Don Giovanni at Opera San Jose

This Easter Sunday I attended the afternoon performance of Don Giovanni at Opera San Jose. The production is double cast, & Sunday's line-up sang out robustly & was uniformly loud, particularly mezzo Lisa Chavez as Donna Elvira, who in the quartet in act 1 was louder than the other 3 participants combined. Baritone Evan Brummel was a bear-like Don Giovanni, & his bellowing voice had a metallic ring. Baritone Krassen Karagiozov as Leporello has a smooth voice & is an athletic figure onstage. All 3 female principals sang with great strength. Baritone Bryan James Myer portrayed an indignant & resentful Masetto, seeming more like a Figaro than a peasant. Tenor Marc Schreiner sang "Il mio tesoro" briskly, but "Dalla sua pace" was omitted.

The orchestra played nicely. The woodwinds were balanced & together, & the brasses made a blended sound in the dinner scene. Conductor Anthony Quartuccio replaced the originally announced George Cleve. Tempos were square. Though Maestro Quartuccio seemed to mark every beat, the orchestra & singers were not always together. Mezzo Tania Mandzy Inala as Zerlina looked scared when she gave the conductor an urgent glance at the start of "Batti, batti."

The simple set consists of doors on both sides of the stage & an open space in the middle. The many scene changes are indicated by walls moving on & off, though all the locations are nondescript. The casts' 18th century costumes are attractive. There were no onstage bands at the ends of the acts. Instead of The Don descending to hell amid smoke & flames, Masetto sneaks up behind him & strangles him, then drags the body offstage.

For Don Giovanni's serenade in act 2, a mandolin is tossed into his hands from a doorway by an unseen stagehand. To complete the gag, Don Giovanni tossed it back at the end of the aria, but the mandolin bounced off the doorjamb & landed back onstage, at which point we saw a hand reach out to retrieve it.

I like the warm & supportive San Jose audience. They attentively followed the action & laughed at all the jokes. My opera companion & I arrived at the California Theatre early enough for me to hear the theater organ in the lobby & watch an elderly couple dance to one of the songs.

§ Don Giovanni
Opera San Jose

Conductor: Anthony Quartuccio
Stage Director: Daniel J. Witzke

Donna Anna: Jennifer Forni
Donna Elvira: Lisa Chavez
Don Giovanni: Evan Brummel
Leporello: Krassen Karagiozov
Masetto: Brian James Myer
Zerlina: Tania Mandzy Inala
Commendatore: Silas Elash
Don Ottavio: Marc Schreiner

Opera San José Orchestra, Chorus, Dancers and Supers

Sun., Apr. 20, 2014 3 p.m.
California Theatre

Opera Parallèle Rehearsal

Saturday afternoon Opera Parallèle held an open rehearsal for its up-coming double bill of Mahagonny Songspiel & Les mamelles de Tirésias. We heard substantial chunks of both works, with staging. The cast includes 7 principles, the San Francisco Girls Chorus, an adult chorus, 2 dancers & 4 supers. Opera Parallèle may be a small company, but there is nothing modest about its ambitions.

The show combines the 2 works into a single asurdist scenario. The performance starts with the Mahagonny Songspiel, set in an arid, dystopian future, where a troupe of travelling players is dragging a boat across a desert. The production features an actual boat, which can be wheeled all around the stage & becomes a stage-within-a-stage for the troupe's performance of Les mamelles. Conductor Nicole Paiement was very excited to demonstrate how the last notes of Mahagonny dovetail into the 1st notes of Les Mamelles without a break or transition.

This was a working rehearsal, & there were times when the performers were getting notes from 3 directors simultaneously. There will be a lot to watch. The young cast is charismatic & sounded great. Soprano Rachel Schutz has a spacious voice & gliding high notes & is a confident actress. It seems she will be wearing a very peculiar costume when she appears as Thérèse, before transforming into Tirésias. Baritone Hadleigh Adams is a persuasive actor, even when wielding a prop as silly as a hobbyhorse.

Following the performance portion of the rehearsal, there was a Q & A with the cast & artistic team, who all clearly enjoy working together. The rehearsal took place in the old Palace of Fine Arts location of the Exploratorium, which has been converted into a very cool campus for the Town School for Boys.

More rehearsal photos over at Barihunks.


§ Kurt Weill's Mahagonny Songspiel
and
Francis Poulenc's Les Mamelles de Tirésias

Opera Parallèle
Nicole Paiement, Artistic Director / Conductor
Brian Staufenbiel, Stage Director / Concept Designer

Rachel Schutz: Jessie/tirésias, La Cartomancienne
Gabriel Pressier: Bobby/le Mari
Thomas Glenn: Charlie/lacouf, Le Journaliste, Le Fils
Daniel Cilli: Billy/presto, Le Directeur
Hadleigh Adams: Le Gendarme
Aleksey Bogdanov: Jimmy/ Le Monsieur Barbu
Renee Rapier: Betty/ La Marchande De Journaux

§ Open Rehearsal
Town School for Boys (formerly the Exploratorium)
4 p.m. to 6 p.m. April 19, 2014

§ Performance
Yerba Buena Center for the Performing Arts’ Lam Research Theater
8 p.m. April 25, 26, 2014 and 2 p.m. April 27, 2014

Used Book Sale at Fort Mason

The Friends of the SF Public Library are holding their Spring Book Sale at Fort Mason this week through Sunday. It's probably not the most efficient place to find a specific book, but browsing can be fun.

It's $3 for hardcovers, $2 for paperbacks. Other items like CDs are $1. On Sunday, everything goes for a dollar. Shoppers often fill shopping carts.

The collectibles area has interesting titles, though these are priced at more than a few bucks.

The last thing I need is more used books around my apartment, but there were no lines at the registers, so just for fun I bought this wonderfully judgy pocket guide to composers, from 1943. Wagner is called "the Führer of nineteenth century opera."

§ 4th Annual Spring Book Sale
Friends of the San Francisco Public Library
April 16-20th, 2014
10 AM-6 PM
Fort Mason Festival Pavilion

49 Geary Round-Up

Vivian Maier
Wilmette, Illinois
Girl In Clown Costume
circa 1967-1968

Tuesday lunchtime I peeked into a couple of galleries at 49 Geary. The Scott Nichols Gallery has a selection of photographs by the enigmatic Vivian Maier, a prolific & posthumously discovered street photographer who worked as a nanny in suburban Chicago in the 1950's & 60's while creating an archive of 100,000 negatives. Her work has only been known since 2009, but she is already the subject of news reports, exhibitions, books & 2 documentaries. The whole thing sounds like a post-modern stunt, but the pictures on display have an immediacy that is often arresting. There's a sense that the photographer saw something meaningful each time she snapped a picture. The images would not be out of place next to Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Diane Arbus or Henri Cartier-Bresson.

John Chiara    
155 Somerset, 2014
Camera Obscura Ilfochrome Photograph, Unique
34 x 28 inches
HG12266

In the Haines Gallery, I enjoyed the washed-out colors & ghostly atmosphere of pictures of homes in the Excelsior district, taken in series by John Chiara with a camera obscura. There are no negatives, & the images were developed directly on photographic paper about a yard high. Unfortunately the exhibit does not show the camera obscura itself, which must be huge.

David Sokosh
Mike's Arm, Brooklyn
tintype

The Robert Tat Gallery is also featuring photography without negatives. David Sokosh's contemporary tintypes are made using 19th century processes & lenses, so each photograph is a unique object. The subjects look like they could have come from the 19th century as well. The dusky images have a potent presence & feel vaguely fetishistic.

§ Vivian Maier
Out Of The Shadows
Scott Nichols Gallery
February 6 – June 14

§ John Chiara
de • tached
Haines Gallery
March 6 - April 26, 2014

§ David Sokosh
American Tintypes
Robert Tat Gallery
March 6, 2014 - May 31, 2014

Cherry Blossom Festival

This afternoon I was at the Cherry Blossom Festival in Japantown, mainly to stop by the food bazaar for an unagi bowl. This is the 1st weekend of the festival, which culminates in a parade next Sunday afternoon.


There were a lot of people enjoying the street fair, so some of the booths had long lines.


Sponge Bob was spending the day as a tout for the Boy Scouts.


People played games of Go in the street.


There are 2 outdoor stages, as well as the usual exhibits & street vendors.


The origami exhibit is small, unfortunately, but these colorful hot air balloons look like they were fun to make.


I saw fine displays of Lolita fashion among attendees,


... as well as cosplay folks having a leisurely day out.


These slightly skittish furries behaved like escapees from a Disney park, trying to act natural in the crowd in order to avoid recapture.

§ Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival
Saturday and Sunday April 12-13 and April 19-20, 2014
San Francisco’s Japantown

Opera Parallèle Preview

Wednesday evening Opera Parallèle previewed their up-coming double-bill of Weill's Mahagonny Songspiel & Poulenc's Les Mamelles de Tirésias, which will have 3 performances at YBCA, April 25 - 27. Conductor Nicole Paiement enthusiastically gave a slide talk about the 2 composers, arguing that they go well together because of their shared sense of aesthetics. Both drew from popular music, excelled at melody & experimented with the boundaries of tonality & dramatic structure. 7 singers were on hand to perform excerpts from both works, accompanied by industrious pianist Keisuke Nakagoshi. The young cast all sounded fresh & strong & dropped into their scenes with ease. Mezzo Renee Rapier was wonderfully sultry demonstrating the contrast between sprechgesang & singing in the Alabama Song, & soprano Rachel Schutz was such an engaging actress as Tirésias that I was ready to hear the rest of Les Mamelles right then. John Bischoff was standing in for just this performance, but his orotund bass voice was striking.

Director Brian Staufenbiel explained the production's "Überstory," which amalgamates the 2 works. First we'll hear Mahagonny, set in a dystopian future, where nomads search for water in a world where natural resources have been depleted. A theater troupe, dragging a boat on wheels across dry land, stops to perform Les Mamelles, followed by a "retrograde reprise" of Mahagonny. According to blogger SF Mike, who's a super in the show, we'll see a real decomissioned boat on stage. SF Mike's determined face can also be seen in the show's publicity photos.

The Poulenc will be presented in a re-orchestration for smaller orchestra, which has its US premiere at these performances. Members of the San Francisco Girls Chorus are participating as well. When Maestra Paiement momentarily lost her place during her talk, she let out a "Merde!", which she translated for us as "that means a flower." "I forgot!" During the Q&A, Mr. Staufenbiel hinted that Tirésias would get rid of her breasts in a surprising manner quite different from what is in the libretto. A wine reception with the musicians & Opera Parallèle administration followed the preview.

§ Kurt Weill's Mahagonny Songspiel
and
Francis Poulenc's Les Mamelles de Tirésias

Opera Parallèle
Nicole Paiement, Artistic Director / Conductor
Brian Staufenbiel, Stage Director / Concept Designer

Rachel Schutz: Jessie/tirésias, La Cartomancienne
Gabriel Pressier: Bobby/le Mari
Thomas Glenn: Charlie/lacouf, Le Journaliste, Le Fils
Daniel Cilli: Billy/presto, Le Directeur
Hadleigh Adams: Le Gendarme
Aleksey Bogdanov: Jimmy/ Le Monsieur Barbu
Renee Rapier: Betty/ La Marchande De Journaux

§ Sneak Preview
Sol Joseph Recital Hall, San Francisco Conservatory of Music
6 p.m. April 9, 2014
Free and open to the public
Handouts:  Les Mamalles, Mahagonny

§ Open Rehearsal
Town School for Boys (formerly the Exploratorium) 2750 Jackson Street
4 p.m. to 6 p.m. April 19, 2014
Free and open to the public

§ Performance
Yerba Buena Center for the Performing Arts’ Lam Research Theater
8 p.m. April 25, 26, 2014 and 2 p.m. April 27, 2014

Sharknado

I was sold on Sharknado by its title alone. This low-budget disaster movie was made for the Syfy channel & was so bad that it picked up bigger audiences with each re-airing & eventually made it onto late-night cinema screens. I was elated to see it for myself at a Midnight Madness show at the Clay Theater over the weekend.

A tornado strikes LA, resulting in flash floods, the destruction of the Santa Monica Pier, & giant man-eating sharks dropping from the skies. Homemade bombs are used to disperse land-based waterspouts, & at the climax the hero chainsaws his way out of the belly of a shark. A fleeting reference to global warming & a MacGuffin involving a bowl of shark fin soup hint at an ecological theme.

There couldn't have been more than 20 people at the midnight screening, but there was much vociferous laughter & howling nonetheless. I felt enjoyably like I was 12 years old again. A sequel set in New York is in production, called Sharknado 2: The Second One.

§ Sharknado (2013)
dir: Anthony C. Ferrante

SFS Rehearsal with Blomstedt & Carey Bell

Last week, a friend who is a San Francisco Symphony subscriber took me along to a closed rehearsal for donors. We sat in the 1st row of the loge & watched conductor Herbert Blomstedt rehearse the Nielsen Clarinet Concerto with soloist Carey Bell, the Symphony's principal clarinetist. There was a reduced orchestra, grouped closely around Maestro Blomstedt, who stood on the stage floor instead of a podium. The arrangement had a cozy feeling. The violins were split, with the cellos next to the 1st violins. The piece's important snare drum was right behind the violas. Many of the musicians wore brightly-colored leis, which they had apparently received at a luncheon before the rehearsal. The youthful Mr. Bell, resembling a graduate student more than anything else, wore a t-shirt with a picture of Brahms on it. When my friend pointed out an elderly man with a cane onstage, it took me a while to recognize principal cellist Michael Grebanier.

There was constant starting & stopping, & Maestro Blomstedt gave a lot of instructions to the players. He sang the opening melody before giving them their 1st cue. He seemed to be making sure that everything had a light but clear articulation. Mr. Bell's playing was smooth, tidy & calm, though he got looser in the rehearsal's 2nd half. At one point the orchestra applauded his execution of a particularly tricky passage. Toward the end of the rehearsal, Maestro Blomstedt attempted a run-through without stopping, but just as they got into the home stretch, a union timekeeper appeared onstage, began stealthily approaching the conductor, like a cat stalking its prey, & cut the music off mid-stream.

For those who arrived early, there was a lecture by Alexandra Amati-Camperi of USF, who gave a detailed breakdown of the concerto. A woman seated next to me asked if I played the clarinet, because she saw me writing notes.

§ FRIENDS Private Rehearsal
San Francisco Symphony 
Herbert Blomstedt, conductor
Carey Bell, clarinet

Nielsen: Clarinet Concerto

Wednesday, April 2, 2014 12:30p
Davies Symphony Hall

Austin Kleon at Flax

Last week Austin Kleon give a talk to an SRO crowd of creative-looking people at the art store Flax. His new book, Show Your work, reframes self-promotion as social sharing & is aimed at those wanting to promote themselves better. It's a somewhat cartoony book combining words & pictures & looks like a fast read.

Mr. Kleon comes across as a friendly inspirational speaker for the Millennial Generation. He drew pictures on a flip chart to illustrate his slogan-like points, such as "Your work does not speak for itself" & "Share your process." We learned about the genius -- the stereotypical lone creator -- vs. the "scenius," which is a network of people stealing & then sharing one another's ideas. Mr. Kleon warned us not to become human Spam, & said if you want to meet someone, don't email them. Instead, shine a spotlight on them.

In the Q & A, Mr. Kleon earnestly provided helpful & pragmatic answers. Flax employees offered cookies & beverages to attendees. A man who saw me taking notes sidled up beside me & whispered, "Why buy the book when you can just write it all down?"

§ Book Signing with Austin Kleon
Tue, April 1, 5:30pm – 7:00pm
Flax

SFIFF57: Opening Press Conference

Last week I attended the San Francisco International Film Festival's opening press conference, which was held under an outrageous chandelier at the Fairmont Hotel. Noah Cowan, the SF Film Society's 4th Executive Director in as many years, briefly touted the Film Society's educational & grant programs, then festival programmers Rachel Rosen, Rod Armstrong, Audrey Chang & Sean Uyehara gave a general rundown of festival events.

Opening night film is The Two Faces of January, an international thriller based on a Patricia Highsmith novel. The centerpiece film is Palo Alto, a film by yet another Coppola, based on a book by James Franco. Mr. Franco, who already did a good job publicizing the film last week, is also represented in the festival as the director of Child of God. The closing night film, Alex of Venice, is another film from an actor, Chris Messina.

Richard Linklater will attend for a 3rd time, receiving the Founder’s Directing Award & presenting Boyhood, which was shot with the same cast over a span of 12 years. Live events include Thao Nguyen accompanying short films, including Charlie Chaplin’s The Pawnshop, & Stephin Merritt accompanying the silent horror film The Unknown, starring Lon Chaney. Hasan Minhaj will appear in an evening of stand-up comedy.

The documentary Return to Homs was mentioned several times during the press conference. Bob Weir is expected at the screening of the documentary The Other One. All that Jazz, Manila in the Claws of Light & Queen Margot are being shown in newly restored versions. All About the Feathers is the 1st film from Costa Rica to play at the festival. I'm glad that The Trip to Italy, a follow-up to Michael Winterbottom's entertaining The Trip, is on the program.

3 films have been added since the printed schedule came out: Begin Again, Calvary & The One I Love. During the Q & A, a journalist asked if there were any films "made under dire conditions."

§ 57th San Francisco International Film Festival
April 24–May 8, 2014

§ Opening Press Conference
Tuesday, April 1, 2014, 10:00 am
Fairmont San Francisco

2014 Schwabacher Debut Recital with Steven Blier

Last weekend I attended a Schwabacher Debut Recital program featuring 4 Adler Fellows. There was lovely singing throughout. Each performer presented a set of songs by a different composer. Short ensemble numbers for all 4 separated each set. Steven Blier was the accompanist & host, providing amusingly pithy commentary. He referred to the 1st set of Villa-Lobos songs as "art song in a string bikini." Soprano Maria Valdez sang them with a liquid, space-filling voice & displayed impressive dynamic control. Mezzo Zanda Švēde has a stunningly rich & substantial contralto-like sound, & she gave her set of Grieg songs in German an appropriately deep & dark texture.

Tenor A.J. Glueckert sang a set of Frank Bridge songs that ranged from the cheerful & floaty to the psychologically spacey, & his voice was consistently clear, ringing & fluid. Baritone Hadleigh Adams did a terrific job selling the hipster melancholy, nostalgia & regret of songs by New York composer Gabriel Kahane, whom Mr. Blier described as "the love child of Schumann, Faure & Stevie Wonder." Mr. Hadleigh sang with a neat, even & natural sound that was easy to listen to. He also acted the song's emotions with discreet & unaffected gestures.

The interstitial ensemble numbers were lighter in mood & acted as palate-cleansers, though the Smokey Robinson selection felt out of place. The singers seemed careful about balancing their voices. In their encore from Candide, they all sang out more, revealing just how much they had been holding back during the recital.

Mr. Blier has a muscular condition that restricts the use of his upper arms, & occasional allowances must be made, but his musical intentions are always definitively clear. After the audience applauded during the 1st set of songs, he asked for "vociferous applause" only at the black lines in the printed program. The concert was absorbing, & the audience gave extended applause for each singer's set, though there seemed to be a policy that performers not take a 2nd solo bow.

§ 2014 Schwabacher Debut Recitals
Presented by San Francisco Opera Center and Merola Opera Program

New York Festival of Song
In the Memory Palace

Steven Blier, piano
Maria Valdes, soprano
Zanda Švēde, mezzo-soprano
A.J. Glueckert, tenor
Hadleigh Adams, baritone

HEITOR VILLA-LOBOS (1887 - 1959)
Cançao da folha morta
The Ensemble

From Floresta do Amazonas
    Canção de amor
    Cair da tarde
    Melodia sentimental
Maria Valdes

WILHELM STENHAMMAR (1871 - 1927)
I seraillets have
The Ensemble

EDVARD GRIEG (1843 - 1907)
From 6 Songs, Opus 48
    Lauf der Welt
    Die verschwiegene Nachtigall
    Zur Rosenzeit
    Ein Traum
Zanda Švēde

WILLIAM STERNDALE BENNETT (1816 - 1875)
Come live with me
The Ensemble

FRANK BRIDGE (1879 - 1941)
Go Not, Happy Day
Goldenhair
When You Are Old and Grey
Dweller in my Deathless Dreams
A. J. Glueckert

STEPHEN SONDHEIM (b. 1930)
Two Fairy Tales
The Ensemble

GABRIEL KAHANE (b. 1981)
The Memory Palace
    Underberg
    7 Middagh
    Merritt Parkway
    North Adams
    Rochester
Hadleigh Adams

SMOKEY ROBINSON (b. 1940)
You've Really Got a Hold On Me
The Ensemble

Encore: Quartet from Leonard Berstein's Candide

Sunday, March 30, 5:30 p.m.
Temple Emanu-El’s Martin Meyer Sanctuary

SF Sound Salon

Last week I finally visited the Center for New Music, where I heard a performance in the SF Sound Salon Series. The venue is a narrow storefront with good acoustics, though noises from the street & the building's plumbing leak into the space. There were about 15 people in the audience, all of whom seemed to be friends of the performers. I felt I was sitting among elite auditors.

Violinist Benjamin Kreith & guitarist Travis Andrews began the evening with 2 duos that both picturesquely depict nighttime. Carlo Prosperi's In Nocte seemed to be about a restless night, & David del Puerto's Jardín bajo la luna (Garden in the Moonlight) had a definite Spanish flavor & was often effusively romantic. Mr. Kreith & Mr. Andrews were affable performers, & their musical intentions were always clear.

There was a slight delay while Mr. Kreith hunted down his misplaced music for Elliott Carter's Riconoscenza per Goffredo Petrassi for solo violin. Mr. Kreith did a nice job making the piece's compressed, contrasting phrases sound fluent. Mr. Andrews used a travel guitar without a sound hole for Örjan Sandred's Cracks and Corrosion II, in order to minimize feedback from the piece's use of sound processing software. I liked a recurring effect that sounded like a bunch of bubbles rising up through water. The piece has an uncanny atmosphere, & Mr. Andrews played with exactitude.

After a break, clarinetist Matt Ingalls joined Mr. Kreith & Mr. Andrews for a short improvision. Mr. Andrews provided arpeggios underneath interjections from the other 2 players. The performers seemed amused when their improvisation came to a halt without warning.

To end the evening, Mr. Ingalls was The Terminator of the clarinet in a powerful 30 minute solo that utilized a range of unconventional techniques. He ricocheted notes around the space, played while swinging the instrument wildly, blew barely audible whistling noises, & kept up a tenacious circular breathing for most of the half-hour. In one astounding section he was an implacable clarinet-playing machine as he executed an impossibly rapid stream of notes, sounding like an electronic instrument & creating the illusion of 3 voices going at once. His peformance culminated in a sustained, piercing passage that created buzzing vibrations deep in my ear canal. In his introductory remarks, Mr. Ingalls called these "difference tones," which are a perceptual phenomena created by the ear. After a few minutes, though, I was beaten into submission. I started experiencing the sensation as pain, so I sat through the conclusion of Mr. Ingalls' performance with my fingers crassly in my ears. I felt like I had a screwdriver jammed into my ears for an hour afterward.

§ SF Sound Salon Series
Benjamin Kreith / Travis Andrews Duo; Matt Ingalls solo

Benjamin Kreith, violin
Travis Andrews, guitar
Matt Ingalls, clarinet

Carlo Prosperi: In Nocte
Mr. Kreith & Mr. Ingalls

David del Puerto: Jardín bajo la luna
Mr. Kreith & Mr. Ingalls

Elliott Carter: Riconoscenza per Goffredo Petrassi
Mr. Kreith

Örjan Sandred: Cracks and Corrosion II
Mr. Ingalls

Improvisation
Mr. Kreith, Mr. Ingalls, Mr. Andrews

Clarinet Solo
Mr. Ingalls

Center for New Music
Tuesday, March 25, 2014: 7:49 pm

Left Coast Chamber Ensemble: Short Stories

Sunday evening I attended a salon-like concert by the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble in the small downstairs recital hall at the SF Conservatory of Music. Artistic Director Anna Pressler observed that all the composers on the program were present, except Debussy. Flutist Stacey Pelinka began with Debussy's Syrinx, which she played with a pleasant, unforced tone that was nicely colored. Maureen Ochi Sides, a junior at Oakland School for the Arts, explained that her short piece for flute, oboe, cello & piano takes its cheerful marching theme from a popular YouTube video. The audience was clearly amused by the finale in which the pianist industriously plays 2 voices simultaneously.

Composer Charles Zoll told us how his work for oboe, violin, cello & piano was expanded from a 6 minute competition entry to a 17 minute dance suite with a Lindy Hop as its central movement. It features a lot of rhythmic accents, which the musicians attacked avidly. 2 slower movements had a dark, questioning mood. Pianist Eric Zivian's playing was both aggressive & loose. At one point he used mallets to strike the piano strings directly. Violinist Phyllis Kamrin took such a long time tuning at the beginning that she joked to the audience,"That's not the first movement!"

In her introductory remarks, composer Laurie San Martin simply thanked all the participants & refrained from speaking about her piece, which provided music for a reading of Reply to a Dead Man, a benign & fanciful short story by Walter Mosley. Actor David E. Moore stood to the side of the stage & read the story in the voices of its characters. His voice was miked, & his lightly lilting delivery was soothing. A quintet of flute, oboe, bass, guitar & viola played a supporting role, weaving in & out under the reading, playing brief, pretty motives & adding dabs of color. There was no music when the narrator read the story's pivotal letter, but at that point guitarist Michael Goldberg switched from an acoustic to an electric guitar, signalling the letter's transformative revelations. The piece ran about 45 minutes & seemed like something that might be on NPR on a Saturday night.

All the compositions received assidous attention from both the perfomers & the audience. The audience was especially attentive during the short story & laughed at its humorous moments. Complimentary wine & bite-sized chocolates were offered during  intermission.

§ Short Stories
Left Coast Chamber Ensemble

Claude Debussy • Syrinx, L. 129
    Stacey Pelinka, flute

Maureen Ochi Sides • I Am Glad, For I Am Finally Returning Home
Oakland School for the Arts student composer
    Stacey Pelinka, flute
    Andrea Plesnarski, oboe
    Leighton Fong, cello
    Eric Zivian, piano

Charles Zoll • Bailes encima del escritorio de nuestra juventúd for Oboe, Violin, Cello, and Piano (2013)
Rapido! Competition National Winner
West Coast Premiere
    Andrea Plesnarski, oboe
    Phyllis Kamrin, violin
    Leighton Fong, cello
    Eric Zivian, piano

Laurie San Martin • Reply to a Dead Man for Chamber Ensemble and Speaker (2014)
World Premiere
    Stacey Pelinka, flute
    Andrea Plesnarski, oboe
    Phyllis Kamrin, viola
    Michel Taddei, bass
    Michael Goldberg, guitar
    David E. Moore, actor

San Francisco Conservatory of Music
Sol Joseph Recital Hall
Sunday 3/23/2014 at 7:00pm

The 19th Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair

Last Saturday afternoon I crossed under the Bay to check out the Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair. The atmosphere was bustling & friendly. Anarchists do seem to love paper. I was given a handy wallet-size guide about interacting with the police & picked up a zine titled "Abolish Restaurants." I enjoyed learning how Beehive Design Collective uses computers to plan the layouts of its wall-sized images.

The event was catered by food trucks & groups handing out free food. There were also 3 tracks of talks & panel discussions. I attended a session on Surveillance Self Defense, in which 4 presenters listed on-line privacy apps to an extremely polite audience.

This year, the fair's venue was The Crucible in West Oakland, a very cool warehouse space offering classes in industrial arts. Most of the classes involve the use of open flame, making it an ironic place to hold a book fair.

§ The 19th Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair
March 22, 2014, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The Crucible, West Oakland

New Century Chamber Orchestra & Chanticleer

Last Friday night I heard the New Century Chamber Orchestra's joint concert with Chanticleer. The program was an olio of songs & light classics, such as the Barcarole from Tales of Hoffman, Bartók's folk music arrangements & a songs by George Gershwin & Kurt Weill. Chanticleer's performance was consistently exacting & prim. Their renditions of Comedian Harmonists songs, complete with crooning soloists & imitations of brass instruments, were highly elegant. I was startled by the high notes Chanticleer could sing in the 3 Hindemith songs. They stood next to the orchestra for their numbers, but during instrumental pieces retreated to chairs at small round tables at the side of stage, where they looked like swank nightclub patrons.

I liked the incisive playing from the cellos & bass at the start of a fugue-like section of Miklós Rózsa's Concerto for String Orchestra. The orchestra dug in for Bartók's Romanian Folk Dances. Cellist Michelle Djokic played a soulful solo in the "Pe loc" movement, & Music Director Nadja Solerno-Sonnenberg imitated stuttering speech with her violin. The ensemble ended the suite with a flourish of bows in the air.

A female moritat singer, in bowler hat & long overcoat, came down the aisle singing "Mack the Knife." She was convincingly sinister & her voice was both pleasant & a bit raw. The audience laughed when it realized she was the orchestra's missing violinist, Iris Stone. She sang in German, but Chanticleer entered singing breezily in English.

Countertenor Cortez Mitchell stunned the audience with his solo of "Summertime," which he may have sung in the original register. He had a full-throated sound & did a seamless slide at the end. "Bess, You Is My Woman Now" was a solo for Ms. Solerno-Sonnenberg. During a toe-tapping medley of Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn songs, the musicians hissed to imitate a steam engine & talked amongst themselves while bassist Anthony Manzo plucked out background music. The audience gave the show a standing ovation.

At the beginning of the evening, 2 latecomers made their way to seats in the middle of the 2nd row after the orchestra was already on stage. Ms. Solerno-Sonnenberg watched them for a while then said, "You're late!" She turned to them again & asked, "Why are you so late?" During the 2nd half, a man sneaking into a seat close to the stage was caught by Ms. Solerno-Sonnenberg, who declared, "You're very late!" The best-dressed audience member was a little boy, no more than 6, wearing a suit & tie, in the row behind me. He slept through the performance.

§ Atlantic Crossing
New Century Chamber Orchestra | Chanticleer

New Century Chamber Orchestra
Fritz Kreisler: Midnight Bells

Chanticleer
Jacques Offenbach/Julius Hopp (arr. Erwin Bootz/Comedian Harmonists): Barcarole aus "Hoffmanns Erzählungen"
Trad. (arr. H. Frommermann/Comedian Harmonists): In einem kühlen Grunde

New Century Chamber Orchestra
Miklós Rózsa: Allegro Giusto from Concerto for String Orchestra, Op. 17

Chanticleer
Béla Bartók: Four Old Hungarian Folksongs
Paul Hindemith: Selections from Six Chansons
    O La Biche
    Un Cygne
    Puisque tout passe

New Century Chamber Orchestra
Béla Bartók: Romanian Folk Dances

Chanticleer
Milton Ager/Jack Yellen (arr. Harry Frommermann/Comedian Harmonists): Wochenend’ und Sonnenschein
Kurt Weill : My Ship

Tutti
Kurt Weill (arr. Clarice Assad): Mack the Knife

Tutti
George Gershwin (arr. C. Assad): Medley
    It Ain’t Necessarily So
    Summertime
    Bess, You Is My Woman Now
    There’s a Boat Dats Leavin Soon for New York

Chanticleer
Vincent Youmans/Irving Caesar (arr. H. Frommermann/Comedian Harmonists): Tea for Two
Harold Arlen (arr. H. Frommermann/Comedian Harmonists): Stormy Weather

Tutti
Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn (arr. C. Assad): Medley
    Lush Life
    East St. Louis Toodle-oo
    Take the A Train
    It Don’t Mean a Thing

Fri, March 21, 2014, 8pm, SF Conservatory of Music

SF Opera Annual Meeting

Last week I attended the San Francisco Opera’s Annual Meeting. General Director David Gockley reviewed the company’s financial health. Operating expenses for fiscal year 2013 were $68 million, with a deficit of $812K. This is down from the previous year, due to there being fewer performances, but this meant that ticket sales were also down 7%. Mr. Gockley acknowledged the falling subscription rate & said he was "betting the ranch" on the 2014-15 season, which he called the company's "return to greatness." He spoke urgently about the need for more subscriptions & legacy giving & observed that operating expenses rapidly outstrip ticket revenues because opera depends on expensive labor & does not benefit from technology to save costs. His announcement that new seats would be installed in 2015 drew applause from attendees. We also learned that Opera at the Ballpark will be on July 5th this year.

Immediately following the business presentations, Mr. Gockley had a brief on-stage conversation with composer Carlisle Floyd, whose Susannah will be presented next season. The 87-year-old Mr. Floyd was sharp, & he gave cogent answers to questions from Mr. Gockley & the attendees. Discussing the creation of Susannah, he positioned himself as a composer more interested in drama, at a time when opera was all about singing. He intriguingly described his newest opera, inspired by the movie Stage Beauty, about Restoration-era actor Edward Kynaston. It will premiere at Houston Grand Opera in 2016.

Adler Fellows A.J. Glueckert, Hadleigh Adams & Rhoslyn Jones then performed excerpts from Susannah, accompanied by pianist Noah Lindquist. The music & the performances were lovely. Mr. Glueckert had a clear, fluid delivery that made it seem like he was talking. Mr. Adams made his character’s anguish sound disconcertingly pretty. Ms. Jones sounded fresh, natural & even. She almost broke up when a wine cork popped at the back of the room during her duet with Mr. Glueckert. Mr. Gockley & Mr. Floyd remained sitting on the stage behind the singers, mouthing the words along with them. A wine reception followed.

§ San Francisco Opera
Annual Meeting

John A. Gunn, Chairman of the Board
Keith Geeslin, President
Michael Simpson, Director of Finance and Administration / CFO
David Gockley, General Director

Adler Fellows Fellows perform excerpts from Susannah by Carlisle Floyd
Sam's Aria -- Mr. A.J. Glueckert 
Hear me, O Lord -- Mr. Hadleigh Adams
Ain't it a Pretty Night -- Ms. Rhoslyn Jones
Jay Bird -- Rhoslyn Jones & A.J. Glueckert
Mr. Noah Lindquist, piano

Thursday, March 20, 2014 • 4:00 p.m.
Zellerbach Rehearsal Hall, Studio A

Ray Chen & Julio Elizalde at SF Performances

Monday evening I attended SF Performances’s gift concert for subscribers and donors, featuring violinist Ray Chen & pianist Julio Elizalde in a program of Mozart, Sarasate & Beethoven. Mr. Chen has a disarmingly cheerful stage presence, & he looked stylish in his tailored Armani suit. His playing is sleek & joyful, & his performance of the Mozart Violin Sonata in A Major was perky.

Before the set of 3 Sarasate showpieces, Mr. Chen explained that he was “putting the dessert first,” because when he added Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata to the program, he realized there wasn’t anything that could follow it. He dispatched Sarasate's virtuosic challenges with suave ease. The audience reacted audibly to the left hand pizzicato, & he executed a startling run of staccato notes starting from the bottom of the bow in the Habanera. His tone was consistently sweet & pleasing. I enjoyed the singing, contralto-like sound he made on the G string in the lyrical Playera. He impressively controlled the audience’s silence at the end as well. The Zigeunerweisen was very rapid without feeling out of control, & the audience responded with cheers.

Before the Kreutzer Sonata, the accompanist Mr. Elizalde humorously told the story of the piece’s premiere. Noting that it was once titled a “Sonata for Piano with Violin Obbligato,” Mr. Elizalde declared, ”The Beethoven is mine!” His playing was weighty & even, with a sense of deliberation behind each note. Mr. Chen was contrastingly airborne & a bit flighty. In the 32nd-note variation of the 2nd movement, Mr. Elizalde lost some notes, & the performers came close to dragging in the minor variation. The audience applauded after the monumental first movement & gave a standing ovation at the end. When Mr. Chen returned for encores, he apologized for coughing during the Beethoven, as he had a cold. At the conclusion of the Meditation from Thais, he again got the audience to maintain an extended silence.

I attended this concert as a guest of Patrick Vaz. We sat so close to the stage that I could hear Mr. Elizalde’s humming. The performers read their music off iPads, which they controlled with foot pedals. The pair signed CDs & in the lobby afterwards, where I snapped a picture of one of my friends meeting Mr. Chen.

§ Annual Gift Concert
San Francisco Performances 
Sponsored by Camilla & George Smith

Ray Chen, violin
Julio Elizalde, piano

MOZART: Violin Sonata in A Major, K. 305
SARASATE: Spanish Dances, Opus 21, No. 2 “Habanera”
SARASATE: Spanish Dances, Opus 23, No. 5 “Playera”
SARASATE: Zigeunerweisen, Opus 20

BEETHOVEN: Violin Sonata in A Major, Opus 47 “Kreutzer”

Encores:
SARASATE: Introduction and Tarantella, Op. 43
MASSENET: Meditation from Thais

Monday, March 10, 2014, 7:30pm
SFJAZZ Center

Little League on Parade

Saturday morning my walk to the bus stop was interrupted by a raucous motorcade in the Marina. Pickup trucks loaded with youngsters in baseball uniforms went down Chestnut Street, the kids joyfully beating the sides of the vehicles & chanting the names of their favorite teams.

The kids definitely knew how to play to a crowd. There was much waving & high-fiving.

There seemed to be main viewing area in front of Lucca Deli. Spectators overflowed into the street.

This was all part of opening day ceremonies for San Francisco's Little League. No baseball was played today, but the parade ended up at Moscone Park for a BBQ.

§ San Francisco Little League Opening Day
March 8, 2014
Moscone Recreation Center

2014 San Francisco History Expo

Over the weekend, a friend & I spent an afternoon at the San Francisco History Expo, a gathering of local history buffs & organizations. It's held, appropriately, in the Gold Rush-era Old Mint building, where the exhibitors occupied rooms on 2 floors. There seem to be history societies for every neighborhood, profession & affinity group in the city. I got the impression that historians must rely on the kind of people who never throw anything away.

A member of the Yerba Buena Lodge of the Odd Fellows told me ghost stories about the Legion of Honor, which was built atop a burial site. A local tour guide informed me that the Presidio doesn't use any Hetch Hetchy water but instead has it's water supplied by a creek. From the author of a food history of San Francisco, I learned that the Chronicle ran a review of a sushi restaurant in 1906. Fortunately the food critic enjoyed the experience. I had fun looking up the entry for my dad in a 1972 directory, which impressively listed him as "dining rm capt Fairmont Hotel."

Historical geographer Gray Brechin delivered a heart-felt slide show talk about local WPA projects, which ranged from street improvements to a diorama in the Academy of Sciences, as well as the public art. I was amazed to learn of a 37-foot square 3D model of San Francisco, constructed in 1940 & meant for City Hall. Mr. Brechin claimed that every building in the city was represented. Seeing the breadth of jobs the feds once offered to the poor & underemployed made my expo companion & I depressed afterward.

Coffee was available in a vault downstairs from Travelin' Joe's coffee cart. It was definitely the most happening place in the expo, & the barista delivered excellent old school patter as he made our drinks. Sadly, there wasn't enough electricity available for his waffle iron.

§ 2014 San Francisco History Expo

Saturday March 1, 2014 - 11am to 5pm
Sunday March 2, 2014 - 11am to 4pm

The Old Mint
88 Fifth Street