New Century Chamber Orchestra in the Presidio

The New Century Chamber Orchestra presented a thoroughly delightful concert on Sunday afternoon at the Presidio Theatre. The 600-seat theater near the Main Parade Lawn in the Presidio National Park is tricky to visit via public transportation, but it's a marvelous, comfortable venue that has started hosting its own programming, along with renting it to outside organizations like NCCO.

Music Director Daniel Hope is an excellent speaker, keeping his introductions short, informative, and amusing. The first work on the program was C.P.E. (Carl Philipp Emmanuel) Bach's 1745 Keyboard Concerto in D Minor. Carl Philipp Emmanuel was the second of J.S. Bach's 20 children and the most successful, becoming the court composer for the gay, art-loving Frederick, King of Prussia in Berlin, where C.P.E. Bach wrote over 40 keyboard concertos among hundreds of other works.

The soloist was the 46-year-old, New York based pianist Inon Barnatan, who did a lovely job with the three-movement concerto. However, after hearing music from this era performed on harpsichords and original string instruments by local organizations like the American Bach Soloists and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, this rendition just didn't sound quite right.

Next up was Shostakovich's lively 1933 Piano Concerto #1 with Inon Barnatan on piano and Brandon Ridenour on trumpet. Hope mentioned that Shostakovich started the composition as a trumpet concerto, but lost confidence in his trumpet writing abilities so he inserted himself as a piano soloist and turned it into what is essentially a concerto for trumpet and piano. This is youthful, sarcastic Shostakovich music, which I adore, and according to Hope the composer borrowed a lot from his time working as an accompanist for silent films, "jumping all over the place, even the Wild West." The performance by the entire ensemble was an utter delight.

After intermission, Hope explained that Bartok wrote his 1939 Divertimento for String Orchestra while a guest of Paul Sacher, the great Swiss conductor and patron of 20th century composers. Bartok desperately needed money to make his way to the United States before the Nazi takeover of Hungary, so this commission was a godsend. "Divertimento usually means a diversion -- light, simple, and amusing, and this work is none of those things, though I believe it's one of the greatest musical works of the 20th century," Hope explained.

The performance by the string chamber ensemble was alternately ferocious and mysteriously atmospheric, with a folk tune inflected final movement that had the entire cello and bass section bobbing their heads in time with the irresistable dance rhythms.

Amy Sherald on MLK, Jr. Day 2025

There was a march downtown this morning celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr., and a concert afterwards at the Yerba Buena Gardens...

...where the gentleman above was singing quite beautifully at about 2PM.

It seemed a good occasion to revisit the Amy Sherald painting exhibition at SFMOMA.

Sherald is less of a realist painter than a stager of scenes.

She casts models, puts them in clothing that she chooses, and occasionally recreates famous photos with black people in place of white people, often on a massive scale.

Her Mona Lisa is the famous portrait of Michelle Obama...

...who managed to do the right thing today when she ignored the grotesque inauguration in Washington, D.C.

Sitting on a bench in Michelle's portrait alcove was a gentleman who looked as if he had stepped out of one of Sherald's paintings.

Happy birthday, Martin Luther King, Jr.

John Adams and Carl Orff, Together at Last at the SF Symphony

The San Francisco Symphony is presenting a world premiere piano concerto by John Adams this weekend followed by Carl Orff's "dramatic cantata" Carmina Burana. Presaging the odd juxtaposition, the concert started with the 1906 The Unanswered Question by Charles Ives. It's a strange little piece that consists of a lovely, meditative tune for strings, interrupted intermittently by a plaintive off-stage horn asking the question and a quartet of flutes squabbling dissonantly with the answer. It was a great joy hearing principal trumpeter Mark Inouye again (above) after an extended sabbatical.

Two years ago, the SF Symphony and the Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson performed John Adams's second piano concerto from 2018 entitled Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? It was a sensational performance of a manic, hard-driving piece and it so impressed the composer that he offered to write a new piano concerto for Ólafsson, which he entitled After The Fall. (Photo by Brandon Patoc)

Thursday was the world premiere of the 30-minute concerto and it was quite a contrast to the fiendish Devil and his Tunes. There were the usual Adams kaleidescope of rapidly changing time signatures and motoric rhythms, but the overall impression was of a colorful gentleness. The piece starts out softly, sounding a bit like Ravel with many sparkling sounds in the orchestra, and the piano makes its way through quite a journey in three uninterrupted movements, ending as softly as it began. For a good, detailed description of the music, check out Lisa Hirsch at the San Francisco Classical Voice website. (Photo above is pianist Víkingur Ólafsson and guest conductor David Robertson.)

It was easy to get lost listening to a dense piece of music for the first time so I looked into buying a cheap ticket for one of the two remaining performances on Saturday or Sunday, but the nosebleed second tier seats which usually cost about $30-$50 were instead being offered for the dynamic pricing amount of $225. (Photo of conductor David Robertson, composer John Adams, and pianist Víkingur Ólafsson is by Brandon Patoc)

This was not because the entire world was clamoring to see an important world premiere by John Adams, but because of the massive popularity of Carmina Burana, Carl Orff's 1936 hour-long cantata about fortune, nature, drinking, love, and sex. I had seen the work in 2012 at Davies Hall in a staged version by Opera Parallele's Brian Staufenbiel with the San Francisco Choral Society, but this was the first time hearing the crude, melodic, crowd-pleaser full blast with the entire SF Symphony and Chorus along with the SF Girls' Chorus and a trio of starry soloists.

Soloists soprano Susanna Phillips and baritone Will Liverman were both excellent, as was the orchestra under David Robertson. (Photo by Brandon Patoc)

Tenor Arnold Livingston Geis (above right) hammed it up as the dying swan, which was entirely appropriate, and William Liverman (above left) had such a beautiful baritone voice that it was good to hear he'll be returning to the city this summer for SF Opera's production of La Boheme.

Soprano Susanna Phillips was luxury casting in a small role where she basically sings whether or not she should lose her virginity or remain a proper maiden. (She eventually chooses the former option.)

The real star of the evening was the SF Symphony Chorus, which finally reached a financial settlement with penny-pinching management after an anonymous donor put up $4 million to pay the 32 professional singers who are the core of the ensemble. They sounded great, even though I never want to hear the opening and closing song, O Fortuna, ever again in this lifetime.

Ray Chen and James Gaffigan at the SF Symphony

This weekend's San Francisco Symphony concerts were a mixed bag. It began with conductor James Gaffigan leading the orchestra in the 2016 Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) by the talented 44-year-old American composer, Missy Mazzoli. This wondrous, ten-minute piece was making its SF Symphony debut, and it actually sounded like the cosmos spinning, no mean feat. I hope it becomes a concert opener staple.

This was followed by violin soloist Ray Chen playing the 1940 Violin Concerto of Samuel Barber. Even though it's an often-performed standard, I wasn't familiar with the work at all, so went to YouTube and listened to a performance featuring violinist Joshua Bell. "That music sure is dull," my spouse commented. "Let's try this version with Ray Chen, who we'll be seeing tonight," I replied. By the end, the jury agreed, "This is a gorgeous piece of music." (Photo above is by Kristen Loken.)

The performance on Thursday's opening night was hard-charging, which seemed at odds with the gentleness of the first two movements, but it was an interesting approach that made the piece sound more anguished than meditative. The problem was that Gaffigan had the orchestra playing too loudly, drowning out Chen at various climactic moments. (Photo above is by Kristen Loken.)

Chen's performance, however, was flawless, bringing out the pathos of the Andante movement, and reveling in the pyrotechnics of the final Presto movement.

Chen addressed the audience before playing an encore. Born in Taiwan, raised in Australia, and until recently living in Philadelphia, Chen announced that he had just moved to California, which prompted applause from the audience. "Unfortunately, I just settled in Los Angeles, and I'm in a state of shock right now" on account of the fires currently destroying the city. "This piece fits my mood right now," he continued, before playing Eugène Ysaÿe's Obsession from his Violin Sonata No. 2. Starting with a J.S. Bach quote, it's a wild, knotty piece that felt fitting.

The second half of the concert was dedicated to Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony, a triumphant 45-minute hymn to Mother Russia at the end of World War Two. After Gaffigan's "rather vigorous conducting" (as my London seatmate put it) of the Barber concerto, I was worried about Gaffigan's approach to the Prokofiev symphony, which already leans toward incoherent bombast, particularly its long first movement. The worry was fitting because the performance sounded like Gaffigan was trying to see how fast and how loud he could have the orchestra play, with hardly any modulation or quiet moments. Hearing the Prokofiev Fifth Symphony can be a great, exciting experience, but by the end of this concert I felt bludgeoned. (Photo above is by Kristen Loken.)