Hear "Outside Music" on the radio tomorrow night

Listen to the streaming broadcast of Edmund Campion's "Outside Music" tomorrow night (June 24) at 8pm. Radio KKFI.org in Kansas City will broadcast the entire CD, as well as Dr. Mike's interview with composer Edmund Campion.
The CD "Outside Music" (released in 2008) was recorded by the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players with David Milnes conducting. (Read January's rave review of this CD.)

Report from Ojai

Last week I joined a group of San Francisco Contemporary Music Players supporters at the Ojai Music Festival, curated this year by the new music sextet, Eighth Blackbird.

A self-directed group of musicians, Eighth Blackbird has won respect for their dedication to new music and to a shared vision of what they stand for as a group. Showing remarkable restraint, they programmed themselves alone on the stage only one time in the entire four-day festival. That single, guestless performance--of Stephen Hartke’s recent piece, Meanwhile, written on their commission—made me want to hear the piece again on a future San Francisco Contemporary Music Players concert.

As a full-time ensemble that benefits from playing each piece many times over during their extensive tours, Eighth Blackbird performs from memory. Freed from pages and music stands, they are able to engage more directly with each other and with the audience than would otherwise be possible. Besides Hartke’s piece, highlights of their performances included Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians, and an exciting, if not quite wrinkle-free, staging of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, with Lucy Shelton, soprano, and Elyssa Dole, dancer. To hear Eighth Blackbird play this famously gnarly piece from memory was, for me, to hear it as if for the first time.

“They made it sound so straightforward, like cabaret music!” was the general reaction. I could quibble with subtleties of the ensemble’s interpretation of this and other pieces, but I never for an instant questioned their commitment and conviction.

Among the performances by guest artists in the festival, the highlight, for me, was pianist Jeremy Denk’s beautifully controlled account of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. This hefty, sublime piece was not out of place in a contemporary music festival in which so much of the other music, especially the numerous minimalist pieces, seemed to reach across the years to clink glasses with Baroque musical ideals and forms.

Not everything on the festival worked perfectly. Some pieces, especially ones that were being presented for the first time, were not quite ready, like dresses still pinned and basted rather than properly hemmed. For the most part, though, rough edges did not spoil the enjoyment. One could see where the performance was headed, almost hear how it would sound when they repeated the piece in a festival in some other state two weeks hence. The evident pleasure of the musicians in working together spread readily to the listeners.

Since the Ojai Festival is curated each year by a different artist, its artistic focus varies significantly. The Festival’s Executive Director, Jeff Haydon, his staff, and volunteers, however, remain consistent, and they form an impressively heads-up team. The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players was resident at the festival in 1990 and, perhaps for that reason, our group was welcomed like family. From what I saw, though, pretty much everyone who attended the festival—a large number of folks, mostly from greater L.A.—was made exceptionally welcome and comfortable. It would be tempting to go back and see what the festival is like another year.

Peter Josheff's INFERNO

Starting tomorrow night you can see INFERNO, a new chamber opera composed by one of our favorite clarinetists, Peter Josheff. Read below for more details...

Wednesday & Thursday, June 17 & 18, 2009, 8:00 pm

Sunday, June 21, 5:00 pm

Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, California

$20 general admission, $15 seniors and students

Telephone reservations: (415) 289-6877

Online reservations: www.goathall.org

INFERNO, Part One, The Second Circle of Hell: The Lustful (2006-2008) is the culmination of a decade-long collaboration between Peter Josheff and Jaime Robles, a collaboration that began with readings and musical improvisations and has progressed to vocal and instrumental works of ever-increasing scope and complexity. INFERNO is their first large-scale theatrical project and is envisioned as the first of a two-part chamber opera dealing with themes from Dante’s Commedia. In librettist Robles’ re-imagining of Dante’s second circle of hell—a place of eternal suffering for those who were unable to control their passions in life—the murdered lovers Paolo and Francesca are trapped in a world of dreams and fantasies, where they are doomed to be forever yearning, forever unable to touch.

Jaime writes: “When I first read Francesca da Rimini’s 'confession' from Dante’s Inferno, I was struck by the story’s dramatic potential. All of Dante’s Commedia is very dramatic, set as it is in realms beyond every day life and encompassing a huge spectrum of human emotions. Each story contains the cathartic potential that we find in opera. But unlike Tchaikovsky’s opera, this version of Francesca’s story focuses on the moral—rather than romantic—content of story. Like Dante, we have set the opera in hell, and, although we have used contemporary references in the sets and costuming, I have woven ideas found in medieval texts about love and melancholia throughout the libretto. In this way, I hope to remain truer to Dante’s vision.”

The cast includes dynamic Bay Area singers Adam Flowers (tenor) and Eliza O’Malley (soprano) as the murdered lovers, Paolo and Francesca, and Richard Mix (bass) as the demon, Hell’s Wind, accompanied by the wonderful pianist Eric Zivian. INFERNO will be directed by San Francisco Cabaret Opera Artistic Director Harriet March Page. The production will feature theatrical movement designed by Bay Area choreographer Jenny McAllister, with members of Huckabay McAllister Dance as the tormented inhabitants of the Second Circle of Hell. McAllister's unique choreography replaces the usual chorus of singers with a cast of dancers, filling the stage with sensual movement.

SAN FRANCISCO CABARET OPERA PRESENTS

INFERNO

A New Chamber Opera by composer Peter Josheff and librettist Jaime Robles

WHEN:

Wednesday & Thursday, June 17 & 18, 2009, 8:00 pm

Sunday, June 21, 5:00 pm

WHERE:

Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, California

TICKETS:

$20 general admission, $15 seniors and students

Telephone reservations: (415) 289-6877

Online reservations: www.goathall.org

Last chance to join our trip to Ojai

Don't miss your last chance to join our trip to the Ojai Music Festival in Southern California.
You'll hear exciting new music in a beautiful outdoor locale, with luxurious lodgings and excellent seats. Learn more and sign up on our website.
Part of the price of your trip will go toward supporting the SF Contemporary Music Players!

Hear music from Peter Josheff's new opera

Clarinetist Peter Josheff, who performs regularly with our ensemble, has composed a chamber opera based on Dante's Inferno. While the full opera won't be performed until mid-June, you can get a sneak peak at the music on Monday, April 27 when the Laurel Ensemble premieres Josheff's Instrumental Suite from the Opera Inferno.

Monday, April 27, 2009
Music at Meyer
Temple Emanu-El
2 Lake Street, San Francisco
Tickets are $23-$25

Learn more at www.laurelensemble.com.

Daniel Kennedy reflects on his upcoming performance

Before I was given the honor of performing Loops IV for solo marimba, I wasn’t familiar with Philippe Hurel’s music. But now, I’m very interested to know much more about it, and Loops IV is a piece that I intend to keep in my repertoire for a long time. It’s definitely in its own class; I can’t compare it to any other marimba solo that I’ve ever done. There’s something about the language of the work that is simultaneously logical and abstract, and it’s also invigorating and physically exhausting at the same time! It presents itself as a kind of otherworldly fantasy, at times producing a roller coaster effect, rising and falling as it moves from dense to sparse; loud to soft. At points of rest, it settles into a haunting lull, then gradually builds to swirling patterns that hint at tonality, but not for long. Fragmented rhythmic gestures expand and contract, sometimes while rapidly spanning the entire marimba without warning. The overall effect is a brilliantly transformative work of many shapes, sizes, and colors.

Reviews for "Things Fall from the Sky"

Click below to read the rave reviews for last Monday's concert:
San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Classical Voice