fun stuff I may or may not get to: March 2014

Theater:

Shotgun Players completes its astonishing traversal of Tom Stoppard's Coast of Utopia trilogy with the third play, Salvage, from 20 March to 27 April. They are reviving their production of Part 1, Voyage, from 26 March to 17 April and of Part 2, Shipwreck, from 27 March to 19 April. There will be some marathon viewing days in April. For more information click here.

Cutting Ball theater has extended Ubu Roi to 9 March. The production is well worth your time. And their annual Risk Is This. . . festival takes place Fridays and Saturdays in March, featuring staged readings of five new (in development) plays: Stegosaurus or Our Golden Years by their Resident Playwright Andrew Saito, 28 February - 1 March; Ondine by Katherine Sherman, 7 - 8 March; Mt Misery by Saito, 14 - 15 March; WINK by Jen Silverman, 21 - 22 March, and Ex Machina by David Jacobi, 28 - 29 March. More information on all that is available here.

ACT has Venus in Fur by David Ives, directed by Casey Stangl, 19 March - 13 April.

New Music:

At the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Hot Air Festival takes place 2 March, from 12:30 to 9:00. It's free; check out the line-up here. And their new music ensemble, BluePrint, led by Nicole Paiement, performs music by Ryan Brown, John Adams, Lou Harrison, and Terry Riley on 16 March (that's Sunday, not their usual Saturday).

Other Minds, at the SF Jazz Center for its 19th festival, plays music by Mark Applebaum, Joseph Byrd, John Bischoff, and Donald Buchia on 28 February and by Charles Celest Hutchins, John Schott, Wendy Reid, Myra Melford, and Roscoe Mitchell on 1 March. Details here.

Volti sings new choral music by Shawn Crouch, Ted Hearne, David Smooke, Melissa Dunphy, and Forrest Pierce on the broad theme of "war and peace"; that's 7 - 9 March in a different location each day; click here for details.

Baroque Music:

Elizabeth Blumenstock leads Philharmonia Baroque in music of Muffat, Schmelzer, Schein, Biber, Benda, Bach, and Telemann, 5 - 9 March in their usual varied locations; details here.

Chamber Music/Recitals:

San Francisco Performances presents Quatuor Ebène playing Mozart, Bartók, and Mendelssohn on 3 March; pianist Angela Hewitt playing Bach's Art of the Fugue on 9 March; baritone Christopher Maltman on 16 March; and the Pavel Haas Quartet playing Shostakovich, Dvořák, and Beethoven on 31 March; details on all that (and more!) here.

The New Century Chamber Orchestra joins with men's chorus Chanticleer for a re-creation in music of a possible mid-1930s voyage from Berlin to New York, featuring music from Offenbach to Ellington, 18, 20 - 23, and 25 March, in their usual various locations; more details here.

Earplay presents music by George Crumb, Nick Omiccioli, Mark Winges, Jean Ahn, and Howard Hersh on 31 March at the ODC Theater.

The Fourth Annual San Francisco-Shanghai Chamber Music Festival returns to the Conservatory of Music, with concerts on 13 - 14 March and other events from 10 - 15 March.

Karen Clark sings Pierrot Lunaire on a program that includes works by Brahms, Zemlinsky, and Berg, 28 March at Old First Concerts. Check out the rest of their March offerings here.

Symphonic:
At the San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas conducts the Mahler 3 with soloist Sasha Cooke (27 February, 1 - 2 March) and the Prokofiev Violin Concerto No 1 with soloist Julia Fischer along with Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique (6 - 9 March). Then they're off on a tour, but their place is taken in turn by other touring ensembles: Yuri Temirkanov conducts the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic in two different concerts of mostly Russian music (2 - 3 March); Gustavo Dudamel conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic in two different programs, also mostly featuring Russian music, with Yuja Wang as the soloist in the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No 3 in the second concert (11 - 12 March). Pianist Evgeny Kissin gives a solo recital of Schubert and Scriabin on 20 March. Details on all that and more may be found here.

Dance:

San Francisco Performances presents the Stephen Petronio Company in Like Lazarus Did on 14 - 15 March.

San Francisco Ballet revives Cinderella, with music by Prokofiev and choreography by Christopher Wheeldon, 11 - 23 March.

ODC Dance presents two different programs, 20 - 30 March, at the Yerba Buena Center.

All of the Above:

Some highlights from the month at Cal Performances: the Vienna Philharmonic plays at Zellerbach for three nights, with three different conductors and three different programs, 7 - 9 March (there are also various lectures and panel discussions connected with their history); the Jerusalem Quartet plays three by Shostakovich, 16 March; the Takács Quartet plays the six Bartók quartets over two days, 22 - 23 March; and countertenor Iestyn Davies and lutenist Thomas Dunford perform songs by the Elizabethans (and Nico Muhly) on 28 March. Check out their other offerings this month here. As usual I don't list sold-out events because what's the point, but there might be turned-back tickets for some events, so you may want to check out their procedures for sold-out events.