Sunday at the Asian Art Museum was a mob scene with Free First Sunday admission, the Terracotta Warriors exhibit, and students from Washington High School, Hamlin School, and Presidio Middle School giving musical performances in Samsung Hall.
In one half of the ground floor lobby of the museum and along the loggia on the second floor, student artwork is being displayed as part of the SFUSD Arts Festival. The oil painting above, Hard Day, is by Declan Fitzpatrick, a senior at the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts.
Leon Xu, another senior student of teacher Phyllis Clement at Ruth Asawa, is represented by the gorgeous oil painting above entitled Moving On.
An anonymous student from Presidio Middle School is one of the featured collage artists who conjured up the Fantasy Bird above under teacher Lynn Lewis.
Jessica Yan Ruan, a senior from George Washington High School, created the striking Year of the Snake print above while studying with teacher Susan Witka.
There was a whole wall filled with Frida Kahlo portraits from the fifth grade class of Meg Sandine at New Tradition Elementary School.
From the same school, there was more Fridamania in the form of mixed media sculptures, including Frida Kahlo in Bed above by third grader Caleb Pike. The exhibit will stay up through this weekend, so check it out for free, and catch a performance in Samsung Hall while you are at it.
BluePrint, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music's contemporary music ensemble, finished this season's Latin America theme concerts on Saturday evening with an ambitious pair of works by the Mexican (born in Chihuahua) Armando Luna and the American (born in New Jersey) Ian Dicke. The evening was called Tandy's Tango after a short, gentle piece by Lou Harrison for two guitars that opened the program.
This was followed by Luna's Graffiti, in 11 movements for 13 players, a fun, wild, raucous tribute to favorite composers that range from J.S. Bach to Benny Goodman to Alberto Ginastera. The individual composers' styles were easiest to pick out in the jazz selections devoted to Dave Brubeck, Chick Corea, Goodman and Gershwin. I could even make out the stylistic fingerprints of Bartok, Schnittke, and Shostakovich in their respective movements, but the Bach and Haydn sections were mostly loud, unrecognizable waves of sound that must have had some inner meaning for Luna, but were undecipherable for most of the audience.
To help people keep track of the composers, there were still projections of photography by Carlin Ma for each movement with the respective composer's name. It was a great idea, but I wanted to tell somebody to "pick a font and a color, stick with it, and make it legible," because about a third of the names were unreadable which was missing the point of the exercise.
The second half of the concert started with another gentle curtainraiser, Encantamiento by Daniel Catan for harp and flute, beautifully played by Carla Fabris and William Cedeno. This was followed by the world premiere of Ian Dicke's Grand Central, a four movement meditation on New York's Grand Central Station for chamber orchestra, recorded sound and video. Dicke had won the 2012 edition of the Conservatory's annual Jacqueline Hoefer Prize, where a graduate of the school is given a cash award, a week-long residency at the school, and a public performance and recording of a commissioned work. The great performance was under Blueprint's conductor and artistic director Nicole Paiement above, with her reliably great musicians who are a mixture of current students sprinkled with talented alumni.
The first movement, Solari di Udine, is dedicted to the Italian manufacturer who created split-flap departure boards for airports and train stations around the world before the arrival of digital displays. The twitchy, rhythmic music matched the flashing vintage video display of times and destinations perfectly, and was the most successful merging of music and screen. This was followed by two slower, soulful movements depicting the underground network of rail lines and the Grand Central Terminal. The music was evocative enough on its own that the arty black-and-white video of subway trains and speeded-up passengers in the Grand Central Terminal started to feel superfluous. In fact, the third movement, with is aching cello sounds, would probably have worked better accompanied by still photography rather than what look like outtakes from Koyaanisqatsi. The finale, Iron Horse, was a rollicking section dedicated to steam locomotives, and the driving music made me want to jump on a train that very moment.
The composer came onstage to enthusiastic, well-earned applause at the end, and though he looked to be about 16 years old, he's actually 30 and a professor at UC Riverside. I look forward to hearing more of his music.
Wednesday morning in front of San Francisco's City Hall, there were speeches and performances heralding the upcoming SF Unified School District Arts Festival, which will be taking place at the Asian Art Museum starting Saturday, March 2nd and running through Sunday, March 10th (click here for a schedule).
There were a number of self-congratulatory speeches about the value of the arts in San Francisco's public schools from politicians that included Superintendent Richard Carranza, School Board member Hydra Mendoza, and Board of Supervisors President David Chiu above.
Meanwhile, the children from Bessie Carmichael Elementary School were yawning with boredom as they patiently sat on the Polk Street stairs of City Hall as the adults droned on.
Finally, the children were allowed to sing an amusing ditty about eating right and studying and exercising...
...with a few of them above looking ready to step into the new Broadway production of Annie at a moment's notice.
After the children's song, a band from Burton High School stationed across the street in the plaza began a short concert that was sensational fun...
...led by a young conductor who looked to be a fellow student.
After the concert, the rally broke up but the Burton teenagers hung out in the plaza...
...and at one goofy moment broke into a free-form dance.
It was a delightful novelty seeing so many young people in the Civic Center neighborhood, and there is hope that the
public Ruth Asawa School of the Arts will finally move out of its location at the top of Portola and O'Shaughnessy and move into a planned facility at 130 Van Ness next to the new SFJAZZ Center.
In the meantime, check out the young performing talent this coming week at the Asian Art Museum. According to the SFUSD website, "All performances take place in Samsung Hall of the Asian Art Museum. Admission to the Asian Art Museum is free to those coming to the SFUSD Arts Festival." So just tell them at the front door that you are there to cheer on the kids.
