In case you feel like getting out next month. . . .
Theatrical
The New Conservatory Theater Center presents Jewelle Gomez's Unpacking in P-Town, directed by Kimberly Ridgeway, in which a group of retired vaudevillians meet in 1959 for their annual summer reunion on the Cape & must face up to a changing world, & that runs from 1 to 31 March.
From 1 to 24 March, the Oakland Theater Project presents Martyna Majok's Cost of Living, directed by Emilie Whelan, the 2018 Pulitzer-Prize winning drama about several people living with disabilities.
Cal Performances presents Elevator Repair Service's performance of Baldwin and Buckley at Cambridge, conceived by Greig Sargeant with Elevator Repair Service & directed by John Collins, based on the 1965 debate between the titular two, & that's at Zellerbach Playhouse from 1 - 3 March.
San Francisco Playhouse presents the spy thriller The 39 Steps, given a comic twist in an adaptation by Patrick Barlow, from John Buchan's novel & Hitchcock's movie, directed by Susi Damilano, & that runs from 7 March to 20 April.
Berkeley Rep brings us to The Far Country by Lloyd Suh, directed by Jennifer Chang, the epic story of a man assuming a new identity in America under the baneful eye of the Chinese Exclusion Act, & that runs from 8 March to 14 April.
The UC Berkeley drama department presents The River Bride by Marisela Treviño Orta, directed by Karina Gutiérrez, about two sisters in the Amazon who struggle with life & each other, from 14 to 17 March at the Durham Studio Theater in Dwinelle Hall.
The African-American Shakespeare Company presents Dominique Morisseau's Pipeline, exploring the troubles of a young Black man with the school & justice systems, directed by Nataki Garrett, & that's 15 - 31 March at the Taube Atrium Theater.
Shotgun Players at the Ashby Stage launches its new season with A Midsummer Night's Dream, starting 16 March & running through 14 April.
Theater Rhinoceros offers the world premiere of The Pride of Lions by Roger Q Mason, directed by Ely Sonny Orquiza, telling the story of the first night in jail for the five female impersonators arrested for indecency after performing in Mae West's The Pleasure Man in 1928, & that runs from 28 March to 21 April.
Talking
City Arts & Lectures presents Angela Davis in conversation with Hilton Als, in a benefit for Marcus Books, on 20 March; tickets include a copy of her new book, Abolition, Politics, Practices, Promises (Vol I).
City Arts & Lectures presents Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City & Poverty, By America, in conversation with Bernice Yeung on 27 March.
Operatic
West Edge Opera's Snapshot series, featuring excerpts of operas-in-progress, will take place this year on 2 March at the Hillside Club in Berkeley & 3 March at the Taube Atrium Theater in San Francisco; this year's scenes are from: Nu Nah-Hup, reimagining the Agai-Dika/Lemhi-Shoshone woman best known to us as Sacajawea of the Lewis & Clark Expedition (composers Hovia Edwards & Justin Ralls, librettist Rose Ann Abrahamson); Least of My Children, exploring a Catholic family's experience of AIDS when it was new (composer Loren Linnard, librettist Donald Briggs); Madame Theremin, based on the life of Black ballet dancer Lavinia Williams, who was married to electronic music master Leon Theremin (composer Kennedy Verrett, librettist George Kopp); & The Road to Wellville, based on TC Boyle's novel about John Harvey Kellog & his fellow healthnauts (composer Matt Boehler, librettist Tony Asaro).
Rossini's La Cenerentola receives the Pocket Opera treatment (with direction by Bethanie Baeyen & musical direction by Paul Dab) on 25 February at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 3 March at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, & 10 March at the Hillside Club in Berkeley.
The San Francisco Conservatory of Music presents Proving Up, with music by Missy Mazzoli to a libretto by Royce Vavrek, adapted from a short story by Karen Russell about Nebraska homesteaders in the 1870s, directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer & conducted by Steven Osgood, on 8 & 9 March.
See also Bartók's Duke Bluebeard's Castle at the San Francisco Symphony under Orchestral.
Choral
Sacred & Profane presents Escape: Music to be Transported By, a program including music by William Byrd, Frank Martin, Benjamin Britten, Samuel Barber, Caroline Shaw, & Karin Rehnqvist, & that's 2 March at Saint Mark's Episcopal in Berkeley & 3 March at Saint Mark's Lutheran in San Francisco.
The California Bach Society gives us Voices of Ukraine & Estonia: "In solidarity with the people of Ukraine, we celebrate their rich musical heritage with a program featuring Baroque and contemporary choral works from Ukraine and Estonia, including works by Urmas Sisask, Anna Gavrilets, and Arvo Pärt", & that's 1 March at Saint Mark's Lutheran in San Francisco, 2 March at All Saints' Episcopal in Palo Alto, & 3 March at Saint Mark's Episcopal in Berkeley.
On 16 March at First Congregational in Berkeley, Chora Nova, led by guest conductor Derek Tam, will perform Maurice Duruflé's Requiem, César Franck's Psaume 150, Rossini's O salutaris hostia, Messiaen's O sacrum convivium, Fauré's Cantique de Jean Racine, & Duruflé's Ubi Caritas & his Tu Es Petrus from Quatre Motets.
The Yale Spizzwinks(?) [sic], an a cappella group of Yale undergrads, will perform unspecified but no doubt fun & lively repertory at Old First Concerts on 15 March.
Ladysmith Black Mambazo appear at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley on 15 - 16 March.
Chanticleer gives us Breathe together, Sing together, a program rather vaguely described on their site as "an evening of meditation & mindfulness" which will include "prayerful Gregorian and Buddhist chant, meditative Renaissance polyphony, and soothing contemporary compositions" & you can be soothed on 21 March at Saint Mark's Episcopal in Berkeley, 22 March at Mission Santa Clara, 23 March at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, & 24 March at Saint John's Lutheran in Sacramento.
The San Francisco Symphony Chorus performs Orff's Carmina Burana on 23 March in Davies Hall.
The Conspiracy of Venus, directed by Joyce McBride, will perform new arrangements by McBride of popular songs on 23 March at Old First Concerts.
Vocalists
The second concert in this years Schwabacher Recital Series will take place at the Taube Atrium Theater on 6 March & features sopranos Arianna Rodriguez & Olivia Smith, mezzo-soprano Nikola Printz, bass-baritone Jongwon Han, & pianist Yang Lin in a program of songs in English, German, Russian, Spanish, French & Korean, chosen by tenor Nicholas Phan.
On 7 March at Zellerbach Playhouse, Cal Performances presents Nathalie Joachim, composer, flutist, & singer, in Ki moun ou ye (Who are you?), a staged song cycle exploring her Haitian heritage.
Mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovska & pianist Howard Watkins will perform pieces by Schubert, Schumann, & Debussy for Cal Performances in Hertz Hall on 10 March.
Cal Performances presents tenor Mark Padmore & pianist Mitsuko Uchida performing Schubert’s Winterreise in Hertz Hall on 17 March.
On 21 March in Herbst Theater, San Francisco Performances presents tenor Ilker Arcayürek with pianist Simon Lepper in an all-Schubert program.
The SF Jazz Center presents superstar Brazilian songwriter / singer Caetano Veloso at the Paramount Theater in Oakland on 29 March.
Orchestral
On 1 - 3 March at Davies Hall, Esa-Pekka Salonen leads the San Francisco Symphony in an intriguing double bill: Scriabin's Prometheus, The Poem of Fire, with piano soloist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, followed by Bartók's Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, with mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung & baritone Gerald Finley – & here comes the caveat: the Scriabin is a special all-senses experience & will include a perfume, devised for the occasion by Cartier perfumer Mathilde Laurent, pumped into the hall. On the one hand, I salute the attempt to vary the standard concert format. On the other hand, a hand which is clutching a handkerchief & a handful of allergy pills, I very much do not like scented products forced on me. I don't even buy laundry detergent that's scented. I've had more than one concert ruined by trying to breathe next to some aging patron dowsed in a cloud of flowery scent, intended to hide the stench of decay; sometimes the scent is intended to mask the lingering stench of tobacco, rendering the person's aroma doubly offensive. So if you have allergies/asthma/a dislike of perfumes, proceed at your own risk.
On 14 - 16 March, Salonen will be back leading the SF Symphony in an all-Sibelius, & presumably scent-free, except for the occasional doddering dowager, concert, including Finlandia, the Violin Concerto with soloist Lisa Batiashvili, & the Symphony #1.
One Found Sound gives us Waveform, a program including the world premiere of Sam Wu's Hydrosphere, Ruth Gipps's Seascape, & the Beethoven 3, the Eroica, on 2 March at the Swedish American Hall in San Francisco.
On 2 March at Herbst Theater, Jessica Bejarano leads the San Francisco Philharmonic in Rossini's Overture to The Barber of Seville, Barber's Adagio for Strings, Khachaturian's Waltz from Masquerade Suite, & the Tchaikovsky 2.
Daniel Hope leads the New Century Chamber Orchestra in Playing with Structure, a program which includes Gluck's Dance of the Furies from Orfeo ed Euridice, Bloch's Prayer from Jewish Life, #1, Haydn's Cello Concerto #1 in C major (with soloist Sterling Elliott), Mozart's Six Contredanses, & Stravinsky's Suite Italienne (adapted from the ballet Pulcinella & arranged for solo violin and strings by Adrian Williams), & that's 8 - 9 March at the Presidio Theater in San Francisco & 10 March at Bing Concert Hall at Stanford; there is also a free open rehearsal on 6 March, in the morning, at the Wilsey Education Studio at the Veterans Building in Civic Center; contact tickets@ncco.org if you'd like to attend.
On 9 March at Herbst Theater, The San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band presents Heart of the Golden West: A Celebration of Music from and about San Francisco, a program including the world premiere of Cobra by Mattea Williams & the San Francisco premiere of Awakening by Roger Zare, as well as San Francisco Suite – Mauve Decade by Ferde Grofé (arranged by Kevin Tam), Suite Francaise by Darius Milhaud (arranged by Higgins), A Tribute to Dave Brubeck by Patrick Roszell, Flower of Youth by Roger Nixon, Shoonthree by Henry Cowell, Dawn of Freedom by Nancy Bloomer Deussen, Short Ride on a Fast Machine by John Adams, Friml Favorites by Rudolf Friml (compiled by Grofé, arranged by Leidzén), Linus and Lucy by Vince Guaraldi (arranged by Clark), Panama-Pacific Expo March by Al Pinard (arranged by Philip Orem), & San Fran Pan American by Joel P. Corin (arranged by Philip Orem).
On 10 March at Davies Hall, Brad Hogarth leads the San Francisco Symphony Brass in Presto Barbaro from Symphonic Suite from On the Waterfront by Leonard Bernstein (arranged by Erikson), Ottoni by Magnus Lindberg, Quatre Motets sur des thèmes grégoriens by Maurice Duruflé, A Moorside Suite by Holst (arranged by Welcomer), Variations on a Theme by Paganini by Lutosławski (arranged by Harvey), Chicago Skyline by Shulamit Ran, & Concert Music for Brass, Percussion, and Timpani by Timothy Higgins.
David Milnes leads the UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra in Poulenc's Organ Concerto (with soloist Joseph Tak Maga), Chausson's Poème, (with violin soloist Shalini Namuduri), & Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique at Hertz Hall on 15 & 16 March.
Donato Cabrera leads the California Symphony in Richard Strauss's Serenade, Lou Harrison's Concerto for Violin with Five Percussionists (with concertmaster Jennifer Cho as featured soloist), & Mozart's Serenade #10 (Gran Partita), at the Lesher Center in Walnut Creek on 16 - 17 March.
On Saint Patrick's Day, 17 March, at the Chabot College Performing Arts Center in Hayward, Jung-Ho Pak leads the Bay Philharmonic in a Celtic Celebration, featuring Irish & Scottish music & dance, with Annie Dupre (vocals / violin), Caroline McCaskey (Scottish fiddler), the Irish band Culann’s Hounds, the San Francisco Scottish Fiddlers, Todd Denman (Irish Uilleann Pipes), the Kennelly School of Irish Dance, Bill Wolaver (piano / arranger), & the Dunsmuir Scottish Dancers.
Daniel Stewart conducts the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra in Fingal's Cave (The Hebrides Overture) by Mendelssohn, the Violin Concerto by Alexander Glazunov (with soloist Hiro Yoshimura), Fratres by Arvo Pärt, & Daphnis et Chloé, Suite #2 by Ravel, on 17 March at Davies Hall.
On 17 March at Herbst Theater in San Francisco, Urs Leonhardt Steiner leads the Golden Gate Symphony Orchestra & Chorus in ¡Las Voces de México!, a program including the world premiere of Indigenous Symphony by Carlos Pazos, Copland’s El Salón México, Moncayo’s Huapango, danzones from the Anthony Blea Afro Cuban Sextet & a Mariachi Sing-Along.
Glass Marcano leads the Oakland Symphony in the American premiere of Johanna Doderer's Ritus, Barber's Violin Concerto with soloist Amaryn Olmeda, & the Tchaikovsky 4 at the Paramount Theater on 22 March.
On 23 March at the First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley, Joseph Young leads the Berkeley Symphony in Literary Soundscapes, a program consisting of the west coast premiere of Joel Puckett's There Was a Child Went Forth, a Whitman setting featuring tenor Nicholas Phan, Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture, & Laura Karpman's Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz, Part 1 & Part 3, a Langston Hughes setting featuring jazz singer Clairdee, soprano Arianna Rodriguez, & mezzo-soprano Olivia Johnson.
Cal Performances presents Mitsuko Uchida leading the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (José Maria Blumenschein, concertmaster and leader) from her piano in two Mozart piano concertos, #17 in G major & #22 in E-flat major, as well as an arrangement for chamber orchestra of Jörg Widmann's String Quartet #2, in Zellerbach Hall on 24 March.
On 30 March, guest conductor Mei-Ann Chen, with assistant conductor Chih-Yao Chang, leads the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Orchestra in Beethoven's Coriolan Overture, Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #2 (with soloist Parker van Ostrand), Unsuk Chin's Subito Con Forza, & the Schumann 4.
Chamber Music
The San Francisco Performances Saturday Morning lecture series in Herbst Theater with music historian Robert Greenberg & the Alexander String Quartet continues to explore Music as a Mirror of Our World: The String Quartet from 1905 to 1946 with two concerts this month: on 2 March, one on the United States, featuring Walter Piston's String Quartet #1 & Samuel Barber's String Quartet in B Minor, Opus 11, & on 23 March, one on Austria, featuring Zemlinsky's String Quartet #4, Opus 25 & Korngold's String Quartet #3 in D Major, Opus 34.
On 3 March at Herbst Theater, Chamber Music San Francisco presents the Esmé String Quartet & pianist Yekwon Sunwoo performing Haydn's String Quartet in E-flat Major, Opus 33 #2, Debussy's String Quartet in G minor, Opus 10, & the Brahms Piano Quintet in F minor, Opus 34.
On 5 March at Herbst Theater, San Francisco Performances presents the Castalian String Quartet & pianist Stephen Hough, performing Hough's String Quartet #1 along with Haydn's String Quartet in A Major, Opus 20, #6 & the Brahms Quintet for Piano and Strings in F Minor, Opus 34.
Cal Performances presents the Isidore String Quartet playing the Haydn String Quartet in C major, Opus 20, #2, the Billy Childs String Quartet #2, Awakening, & the Beethoven String Quartet #15 in A minor, Opus 132, at First Congregational on 5 March.
San Francisco Conservatory of Music faculty members Jennifer Culp (cellist), Julio Elizalde (pianist), & Simon James (violinist) will be joined by some of their students at SFCM's Chamber Music Tuesday on 5 March to perform the Franck Piano Quintet in F Minor & the Fauré Piano Quartet in C Minor.
The Wooden Fish Ensemble (Terrie Baune, violin; Thalia Moore, cello; & Thomas Schultz, piano) celebrates International Women’s Day on 10 March at Old First Concerts by performing the world premiere of Hyo-shin Na's Many Paradises for violin, cello, and piano, Galina Ustvolskaya's Duet for violin and piano, Ruth Crawford's Piano Study in Mixed Accents for piano solo, & selected Romances by Clara Schumann from Opus 11 & Opus 21 for solo piano.
On 12 March at the Berkeley City Club, Berkeley Chamber Performances presents the Zodiac Trio (Kliment Krylovskiy, clarinet; Vanessa Mollard, violin; Riko Higuma, piano) in American Stories, which will include Gershwin's An American in Paris (arranged by Higuma), the late Peter Schickele's Serenade for Three, Piazzolla's Angel Series, David Baker's Clarinet Sonata, & Arturo Marquez's Danzon #2.
On 24 March at Herbst Theater, Chamber Music San Francisco presents the American debut of the Boccherini Trio (violinist Suyeon Kang, violist Vicki Powell, & cellist Paolo Bonomini); they will perform Beethoven's Trio in C minor, Opus 9 #3, Dohnányi's Serenade in C Major, Opus 10, & Mozart's Divertimento in E-flat Major.
Instrumental
Cal Performances presents pianist Conrad Tao at Hertz Hall on 3 March, when he will perform works inspired by fairy tales & poetry, by Brahms (Six Pieces for Piano, Opus 118), David Fulmer (I have loved a stream and a shadow (With glitter of sun-rays, Nor with stars stretched, nor looking back to heaven…)), Todd Moellenberg (Leg of Lamb (after Bernadette Mayer)), Rebecca Saunders (Mirror, mirror on the wall), & Ravel (Gaspard de la nuit).
Old First Concerts presents a Chopin Birthday Party with pianist Robert Schwartz on 3 March, when he will perform the Barcarolle in F-sharp major, the Impromptu in A-flat major, the Impromptu in F-sharp major, the Scherzo in E major, the Nocturne in B major, the Mazurka in A minor, the Mazurka in A-flat major, the Mazurka in F-sharp minor, & the Ballade in F minor (the music will be followed by a reception with champagne & birthday cake).
The San Francisco Symphony presents violinist Alexandra Conunova with pianist Tamila Salimdjanova, performing Mozart's Adagio in E major, Grieg's Violin Sonata #3 in C minor, Saint-Saëns's Introduction and Rondo capriccioso, & Franz Waxman's Carmen Fantasie, on 6 March at Davies Hall.
Chamber Music San Francisco presents pianist Rafal Blechacz on 10 March at Herbst Theater, where he will perform Mozart's Sonata in A Major, Debussy's Suite Bergamasque, Szymanowski's Variations, & Chopin's Polonaise Fantasy, his Nocturne, Opus 55 #1, & his Mazurkas, Opus 6.
Pianist Jonathan Biss continues his Echoes of Schubert series for San Francisco Performances on 14 March at Herbst Theater, when he will play a new work by Alvin Singleton along with Schubert's Impromptu in A Flat Major, #2 & his Sonata in A Major.
The San Francisco Symphony presents violinist Ray Chen with pianist Julio Elizalde at Davies Hall on 24 March, where they will play Tartini's Devil's Trill (as arranged by Kreisler), Beethoven's Violin Sonata #7 in C minor, Opus 30, #2, Bach's Partita #3 in E major, Antonio Bazzini's La Ronde des Lutins, Dvořák's Slavonic Dance #2 in E minor (as arranged by Kreisler), & Chick Corea's Spain (as arranged by Elizalde & Chen).
Early / Baroque Music
The San Francisco Early Music Society presents two concerts this month: on 1 March at First Congregational in Berkeley, you can hear La Morra in Shaping the Invisible: Italian Music from the Time of Leonardo, "including pieces by Francesco Canova da Milano, Don Michele Pesenti, and even a piece by Giovanni de’ Medici – or, as he was better known, Pope Leo X!"; & Ciaramella will explore "dance music from the courts of Savoy and Burgundy to the streets of Bergamo" on 22 March at First Presbyterian in Palo Alto, 23 March at First Congregational in Berkeley, & 24 March at Saint Mark's Lutheran in San Francisco.
Valérie Sainte-Agathe leads the San Francisco Girls Chorus in Vivaldi's Juditha Triumphans, in a new edition arranged by Adam Cockerham, with stage direction by Celine Ricci of Ars Minerva, on 9 & 10 March at Z Space in San Francisco.
Jeffrey Thomas leads the American Bach Soloists in Bach's Saint John Passion, with soloists Matthew Hill (tenor), Mischa Bouvier (bass-baritone), Hélène Brunet (soprano), Ágnes Vojtkó (mezzo-soprano), Steven Brennfleck (tenor), Jesse Blumberg (baritone), on 8 March at Saint Stephen's in Belvedere, 9 March at Saint Mark's Episcopal in Berkeley, 10 March at Saint Mark's Lutheran, & 11 March at Davis Community Church in Davis.
Voices of Music presents concertos by Bach & Vivaldi on 8 March at First United Methodist in Palo Alto, 9 March at Saint Mark's Lutheran in San Francisco, & 10 March at First Congregational in Berkeley.
The Junior Bach Festival will give concerts in venues throughout the Bay Area from 15 to 24 March; check here for dates at specific venues (I don't see a list of pieces to be performed).
On 21 March (Bach's 339th birthday) at First Congregational in Berkeley, Nicholas McGegan will lead the Cantata Collective & soloists Nola Richardson (soprano), Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen (countertenor), Thomas Cooley (tenor), & Harrison Hintzsche (bass), & solo violinists Katherine Kyme & Lisa Weiss, in Bach's Easter Oratorio, his Concerto for 2 Violins & Strings, & his Magnificat.
Modern / Contemporary Music
The Kronos Quartet continues its fiftieth-year anniversary celebration at Zellerbach Hall for Cal Performances on 2 March, where they will play two world premieres (both Cal Perf co-commissions) by Michael Gordon & Peni Candra Rini.
Left Coast Chamber Ensemble will present Butterflies, Moons, and Mirrors: A Saariaho Celebration, featuring the late composer's Sept Papillons, her Oi Kuu, her Mirrors, & her Dolce Tormento, along with Kay Rhie's Three Miniatures for Solo Piano, Prokofiev's Flute Sonata in D Major, Opus 94, & the world premiere of Monica Chew's What comes before; the pieces will be played by Allegra Chapman on piano, Leighton Fong on cello, & Stacey Pelinka on flute, & you can hear them on 2 March at the Berkeley Piano Club & 3 March at Noe Valley Ministry.
The annual Hot Air Music Festival, "a student-led celebration of contemporary and expansive classical music from the last 50 years", will take place at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music on 3 March; the program has not yet been announced, but you can check here for updates.
Cal Performances presents Wild Up, conducted by Christopher Rountree, in Julius Eastman’s Femenine at Zellerbach Playhouse on 9 March (check here for Lisa Hirsch's review of Wild Up's recent Eastman concerts at Bing Hall at Stanford).
On 11 March at the Center for New Music, Dan Flanagan will present The Bow and the Brush, part of his project of commissioning & composing music inspired by paintings & sculptures; this program will include music by Flanagan as well as Libby Larsen, Nathaniel Stookey, Cindy Cox, Edmund Campion, Peter Josheff, Jose Gonzalez Granero, Evan Price, Shinji Eshima, & Jacques Desjardins; each piece will be performed with a projection of the art that inspired it.
Tuple (bassoonists Rachael Elliott & Lynn Hileman) will present Mappa Mundi at the Center for New Music on 15 March, a program featuring two new pieces – Les Blindes by JP Dreblow & Earth by Jessie Cox, as well as works by Sofia Gubaidulina, Dan Becker, Julius Eastman, & others.
At Old First Concerts on 18 March, Earplay presents Life Cycle, a program featuring the world premiere of a new work by Chris Castro, the American premiere of Haris Kittos's Dyades, the west coast premieres of Koh Cheng Jin's Flower Mantis & Toshio Hosokawa's Threnody, & Erik Ulman's Skamandros.
Other Minds presents a Dennis Russell Davies 80th Birthday Keyboard Benefit Concert on 22 March at McCarthy Art Studio in San Francisco's Mission District; Maki Namekawa & Davies will perform solo & four-hand piano music by Ravel, Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, John Cage, & selections from Smetana’s Má vlast (My Fatherland) arranged for two pianos.
On 28 March at the Curran Theater, all-around artist Laurie Anderson will perform material old & new in Let X = X.
See also West Edge Opera's Snapshot program under Operatic.
Jazz & Klezmer
Branford Marsalis & his quartet (pianist Joey Calderazzo, bassist Eric Reevis, & drummer Justin Faulkner) play the SF Jazz Center from 29 February to 3 March.
Cosa Nostra Strings play the SF Jazz Center on 1 March.
The San Francisco Symphony will celebrate Purim on 4 March at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco with their klezmer quartet, featuring violinist David Chernyavsky, Ben Goldberg on clarinet, Rob Reich on accordion, & Daniel Fabricant on bass.
OKAN, an Afro-Cuban / Latin jazz ensemble led by vocalist & violinist Elizabeth Rodriguez & percussionist Magdelys Savigne, plays Zellerbach Playhouse for Cal Performances on 8 March.
On 9 - 10 March at the SF Jazz Center, Brandee Younger pays tribute to Alice Coltrane; joining Younger are the other members of her quartet (keyboardist Marc Cary, bassist Rashaan Carter, & percussionist Makaya McCraven), along with special guests: saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, fluntist Nicole Mitchell, & a string ensemble conducted by De'Sean Jones.
The Electric Squeezebox Orchestra, Resident Artists at the California Jazz Conservatory in Berkeley, will be led by Erik Jekabson & joined by guest vocalist Jamie Zee on 10 March.
At the SF Jazz Center on 28 March, trombonist / vocalist Natalie Cressman & Brazilian guitarist / singer Ian Faquini will perform music from their forthcoming album, their 2022 release Auburn Whisper, & what are described as "other favorites".
The Orrin Evans Trio (Evans on piano, Robert Hurst on bass, & Mark Whitfield Junior on drums) plays the SF Jazz Center on 29 March.
Saxophonist Ravi Coltrane will be in residence at the SF Jazz Center at the end of the month: he opens on 28 March with the other members of his Trio, taken from his Cosmic Music project (Gadi Lehavi on keyboards & Elé Howell on drums) along with the other members of his acoustic quartet (now named Coltraxx: David Virelles on piano, Dezron Douglas on bass, & Johnathan Blake on drums); on 29 March, he is joined by the other members of Coltraxx, with special guests Joe Lovano (on tenor and soprano saxophone) & Tomoki Sanders (on tenor saxophone) to pay tribute to the late Pharoah Sanders; on 30 - 31 March, along with special guests to be announced, he will explore the music of his celebrated parents, John & Alice Coltrane.
The Ethan Iverson Trio (Iverson on piano, Reuben Rogers on bass, Gerald Cleaver on drums) plays the SF Jazz Center on 30 - 31 March.
Dance
San Francisco Ballet presents A Midsummer Night's Dream (choreography by Balanchine, music by Mendelssohn), from 12 to 23 March.
The Oakland Ballet Company presents the Dancing Moons Festival 2024, featuring Layer Upon Layer by Caili Quan, Ballet des Porcelaines or The Teapot Prince by Phil Chan (original 1739; reimagined 2021), & highlights of Exquisite Corpse by Elaine Kudo, Seyong Kim, and Phil Chan, along with excepts from the Oakland Ballet Angel Island Project, a work-in-progress based on Huang Ruo’s composition, Angel Island, which was inspired by the poems carved by detainees into the walls of the west coast immigration station; you can see the festival at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center from 14 - 16 March & at the ODC Theater in San Francisco on 5 - 6 April.
Cal Performances presents the Joffrey Ballet in Anna Karenina, with choreography by Yuri Possokhov to an original score by Ilya Demutsky, performed by the Berkeley Symphony under Scott Speck, & that's at Zellerbach Hall on 15 - 17 March.
On 16 March at Herbst Theater, San Francisco Performances presents the Calder Quartet in collaboration with deaf choreographer Antoine Hunter & his Urban Jazz Dance Company, who will express "his experience in a hearing world through dance" in a program titled The Mind’s Ear: Motion Beyond Silence, with music by John Cage (Quartet in 4 Parts), Beethoven (String Quartet Opus130 with Grosse Fuge), Jessie Montgomery (Strum), Caroline Shaw (Entr’acte), & Julius Eastman (Joy Boy).
The Margaret Jenkins Dance Company presents the world premiere of Unstill Life, a collaborative evening-length creation by Jenkins, Rinde Eckert, Risa Jaroslow, Jon Kinzel, & Vicky Shick, at the Dresher Ensemble Studio in Oakland on 21 - 24 March.
ODC/Dance returns to the Yerba Buena Center for Dance Downtown; Program A will feature Brenda Way's A Brief History of Up and Down, Kimi Okada's Inkwell (both of these are premieres), & KT Nelson's Dead Reckoning, & that's on 27, 29, & 31 March; Program B features Sonya Delwaide's goutte par goutte (in its premiere performance), Brenda Way's Collision, Collapse and a Coda, & KT Nelson's Dead Reckoning, & that's on 28 & 30 March.
Art Means Painting
SFMOMA opens New Work: Mary Lovelace O’Neal on 16 March, running through 20 October; the artist will appear in conversation with Eungie Joo on 21 March.
Two new exhibits are opening at the de Young this month: starting 16 March, you can see Contemporary Painting in Papua New Guinea: Mathias Kauage and His Family; also starting 16 March, you can see Irving Penn, a retrospective of the celebrated photographer's long career.
Unruly Navigations, exploring "the urgent, disorderly, rebellious, and nonlinear movements of people, cultures, ideas, religions, and aesthetics that define diaspora", opens at MOAD on 27 March & runs through 1 September.
Cinematic
BAM/PFA launches its spring film series this month: Edward Yang’s Taipei Stories, exploring the great Taiwanese filmmaker's works, starts 1 March & runs through 20 April; Tell No Lies: Decolonizing Cinema in Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, and Mozambique, featuring works about the revolutionary & liberation struggles of the former Portuguese colonies in Africa, starts 2 March & runs through 24 April; Sembène 100, celebrating the centennial of the great Senegalese filmmaker, starts 3 March & runs through 21 April; In Focus: The Fatal Alliance—A Century of War on Film, a lecture / screening series featuring film historian David Thomson, based on his latest book, The Fatal Alliance: A Century of War on Film, starts 6 March & runs through 27 March; Barry Jenkins Presents The Underground Railroad, for which the filmmaker will be there in person to present his adaptation of Colson Whitehead's acclaimed novel The Underground Railroad, runs 15 - 17 March; Nicolás Pereda Selects: Recent Films from Mexico runs from 20 March through 2 May; Viva Varda!, which is also the title of a new documentary by Pierre-Henri Gibert that launches the series, includes highlights from the filmography of the great Agnès Varda, & that launches 23 March & runs through 5 May, & let me say that one of the very best blind-buys I ever made was the Criterion box set of her complete films.
At the Curran Theater on 7 March, as part of their Unscripted series, William H Macy will introduce Fargo, with an audience Q&A after the film.
Carol Reed's greatly celebrated film The Third Man, with Orson Welles & Joseph Cotten, comes to the Roxie in San Francisco on 15 & 18 March.
On 25 March at the Roxie in San Francisco, you can see Anna May Wong in E A Dupont's Piccadilly, with a scenario by the novelist Arnold Bennett (if you haven't read The Old Wives' Tale, I recommend it highly); there will also be an intro, book talk & signing with Katie Gee Salisbury, author of Not Your China Doll, a new biography of Wong (copies of the book will be available to purchase).
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