Museum Monday 2023/16

 

detail of The Annunciation by the Master of the Retable of the Reyes Católicos, now in the Legion of Honor, San Francisco

Friday Photo 2023/15

 

shadows

SF Conservatory of Music: Handel's Flavio

The San Francisco Conservatory of Music's Historical Performance Department presented Handel's opera Flavio, rè de’ Longobardi this past weekend; I heard it on Saturday. There were different student casts for each performance but both were led by Department Chair Corey Jamason, & the ensemble was directed by Jamason, Elisabeth Reed, & Marcie Stapp.

The staging was minimal but effective: there were two stone benches on either side of the stage, in front of the orchestra, & surtitle screens let us know what the setting was. Unlike my René Jacobs recording, or the more recent one (which I haven't heard), this performance used female singers instead of counter-tenors; the women playing men were dressed in suits, & the directors had astutely advised them on how to sit in a masculine way, but there was no ungainly effort to hide the their essential femininity, which was not a problem. The women playing women wore stylish gowns.

The opera begins where many end, with two couples singing together about how complete & perfect their happiness is. Complications, of course, ensue, due to political rivalries, social tensions, & the wayward eye of the randy titular monarch. Sometimes the tone is lightly ironic, but there are also moments of genuine anguish & surprising violence – there's a duel that I thought would end in injury but instead (OK, spoiler alert for a 300-year-old opera!) ends in death. (In case you're wondering how I can have listened to a recording & not know this: I have a bad habit, due to limited time, of listening to things without necessarily reading along in the libretto; hence one of the revelations given to me by a live performance is often the plot.) Harmony is restored at the end, thanks to the benevolent monarch, who not only causes most of the problems but acts almost as a Deus ex Machina to resolve them.

The whole performance was a delight, from beginning to the end, almost three hours later: dazzling, moving arias followed one after another, all splendidly delivered by the young cast: mezzo Jaimie Langner as the arbitrary & self-amused Flavio; tenor Seth Hanson as the elderly counselor Ugone; bass-baritone Joseph Calzada as his seething rival counselor, Lotario; & then the four lovers, mezzo MonaLisa Pomarleanu as Ugone's son Guido, mezzo Cambria Metzinger as Ugone's charmingly flirtatious daughter Teodata, soprano Alissa Goretsky as Lotario's daughter Emilia, & soprano Hyesoo Kim as the courtier Vitige, in love with Teodata – all were excellent but I was particularly impressed with the two sopranos, Goretsky & Kim, who delivered their more emotionally wide-ranging roles with great depth & beauty.

The orchestra was also excellent (& I recognized some of the players, such as Yunyi Ji on harpsichord, from the Baroque Ensemble Concerto Competition concert in February). Like that concert, the opera was free to the public; all you needed was a reservation – it was a useful reminder that the Conservatory has lots of great offerings, freely available; if BART were running better, I would definitely be there more often.

SF Jazz: Vijay Iyer, solo & Trio

Pianist & composer Vijay Iyer came to town last week, specifically to SF Jazz, currently celebrating its 10th anniversary. He gave a solo piano concert on Thursday & performed with his Trio (Linda May Han Oh on double bass & Tyshawn Sorey on drums) on Friday, Saturday, & Sunday. I was at the Thursday & Friday concerts, & would happily have gone to Saturday & Sunday as well if life had allowed.

Iyer came out, elegantly attired in a black suit & open-collared black shirt, & didn't speak much either evening, preferring, as he noted, to let the music do the talking. For the solo performance it wasn't until about halfway through that he said anything, in a somewhat hesitant, slightly gravelly voice. (Both performances I heard were over 90 minutes, maybe even closer to the 2-hour mark, with no intermission.) I am fine with the lack of stage patter, as I always feel if you're a musician, the music is, as Iyer noted, your way of communicating, & listeners can take from it what they take. (My heart always sinks at the Symphony when conductors put down the baton & pick up the microphone.) He did, of course, on Friday introduce the other members of the Trio. He noted there was "merch in the lobby"; before the concert I bought all four CDs that were offered, & some of those around me, obviously hipper than I, had bought the vinyl being offered (he did note that Universal Music had lost about a 100 of his vinyl recordings, but some of them made it through). He also noted that the Trio (&, separately, both Han Oh & Sorey) had recordings coming out in the next few months; the Trio's is titled Compassion, which, as he noted, is something our society is sorely in need of, which led him to interject "Trans rights are human rights" & in the face of the frightening & cynical attempts by the Republican Party to demonize trans people, it was nice to hear that simple acknowledgement. Most of the tunes went unnamed & there was no play list that I saw, but one number he did name was Children of Flint; social awareness & consciousness are woven into this artist's work.

Iyer did also mention how glad he was that SF Jazz was around, & provided a space for "this music", & then added, "When I say 'this music' I don't know what I'm talking about . . . " he stopped there, but of course jazz has always had a fluid & undefinable element to it, & that's its essence; as with the river that is never the same twice, even another performance of the same tunes by the same artists will have a different sound & effect on different nights (another reason I was sorry I didn't get to hear the Trio more than once on this visit). Of course for most audience members the one performance they go to "becomes" the music, & the artist, in the sense of defining them, in a way that, at least temporarily, pauses the fluid, transitory nature of the art, & this is even truer of recordings, which, through repeated listening, can become engraved on our minds as something definitive. 

The numbers often opened with a single, poetic piano line, which then developed into something alternately meditative, driven, coruscating . . . the sets, solo & Trio, never lagged; there was an astute sense of pacing, as the quieter, more reflective passages gave way to rowdier moments, often punctuated, in the Trio, by a sharp, even startling, drum thwack, as the bass danced up & down. . . . there were occasional projections during the music, random colored blobs & the occasional geometric shape wafting over stage & audience; I think this was not something that Iyer brought with him, as he looked at one & said, "What planet is that?" & someone shouted, whether authoritatively or speculatively I do not know, "It's a map of the brain", though perhaps Iyer's remark was metaphorical. . . . anyway: a wonderful two nights at the Jazz Center, & I will be on the lookout for Compassion, as well as compassion. . . .

The Triumph of Love at Shotgun Players

Marivaux, with his mixture of commedia-style tomfoolery, French philisophe musing, & subtle psychological/erotic annalysis, can be tricky to bring off, but Shotgun Players have succeeded splendidly with their current production of The Triumph of Love (in the Stephen Wadsworth translation, directed by company Founding Artistic Director Patrick Dooley).

The single set is the garden of Hermocrates, a philosopher living in the country who advocates capital-R Reason & vociferously opposes the whimsical vagaries of Love. It is a French-style garden, which means it is formal, ordered, & regular: Nature brought under control. But there are hints that Nature is not so easily controlled: the lovely fountain in the middle has a few tufts of grass growing up in the cracks, & the water is cloudy. Some of the hedges look, upon closer examination, as if they are starting to grow out of their trimming. You can see where this is going, but of course there are complications on the way to getting there.

There's no need to recite the whole plot; for one thing, there's a lot of it, & as is the case with baroque opera, it makes perfect sense as it unfolds in front of you but if you read a synopsis the story collapses into a confusing set of disguises, plots, & counter-plots. The basic story is a bit of a fairy-tale, & has some (I assume coincidental) similarities to As You Like It, which also involves usurpers, gender-swapping, & a restoration of order guided by Nature: the young Princess Leonide, heir to an usurped throne, disguises herself as a man so she can infiltrate the society of Hermocrates & his equally unmarried sister, Leontine, with the purpose of meeting & forming an alliance with the rightful heir, Agis, whom they have raised in secret, teaching him to hate both Love & the usurping Leonide. Achieving this end means Leonide, going under several different male pseudonyms as the occasions require, must verbally seduce both the spinster Leontine, who thinks she is speaking to a handsome young man, & the pompous Hermocrates, who recognizes that s/he is actually a young woman in disguise (it's surprising & refreshing to see the "no one will recognize me in these trousers" convention blithely upended like this, though throughout there are also teasing implications of confused same-sex attraction). In addition, Leonide has her maid, Corine, also disguised as a man, & there is a greedy & somewhat dim gardener, Dimas, & Harlequin, doing his Harlequin thing. That's a lot to keep spinning effortlessly in the air, in an elegant Watteau-style, but the cast beautifully keeps it all aloft.

The commedia elements were, to me, surprisingly successful: I love the look of commedia, & I love the thought that I'm watching something that I could have seen in 18th-century Naples, but honestly, as theater, it doesn't quite work anymore: scheming servants getting beaten, attempts to swindle "old" people out of their money so young people can get married . . . they may have worked when the theater audience was made up of frivolous young people while the old people stayed home counting their money, but nowadays the theater audience has reversed, & is mostly made up of the prosperous & aged – don't they see where they fall in this schemata? OK, bit of a digression there on my commedia issues, so let me bring it back to the Ashby stage by saying that Jamin Jollo as Harlequin (complete with facial half-mask, the only one in the cast, & the traditional diamond-patterned outfit) is, unlike most Harlequins, genuinely funny, both in his actions & his line readings, & Dimas the somewhat dim gardener (Wayne Wong) also goes beyond the stereotypical low-comic countryman to achieve a genuine personality. Susannah Martin as Corine the maid mostly gets to provide exposition & otherwise move the plot along with Harlequin & Dimas but she manages all that so that it seems effortless & natural, rather than mere plot scaffolding.

The central quartet is also strong. As Hermocrates, David Boyll brings humanity to the overly self-certain philosopher, a role that could easily become too much of a caricature. Mary Ann Rodgers as his sister brings off a difficult role with aplomb: there's a touching longing (or longing to touch) in her slowly opening to the unexpected love she thinks is being offered to her by the handsome young stranger. Both of these roles, but particularly that of the sister, could come dangerously close (in the commedia manner) to callously mocking an "older" (read: middle-aged) person for daring to think that Love might still be a possibility for them. As the end of the play approaches, it becomes clear that there isn't going to be an overly neat solution: too many people are in love with one person. There is just the right amount of bittersweet at the end: Hermocrates has been embarrassed, as is to be expected from the Enemy of Love in a play called The Triumph of Love, but his situation is not irreparable, & perhaps his philosophy will be broadened by the chastisement. The last moments of the play are Leonide apologizing for misleading the sister, realizing that her necessary plot has upset the sister's quiet life, but also acknowledging that perhaps Leontine will not be entirely unhappy to have her life upset. It's a poignant, ambiguous finale.

But I've leapt ahead to the ending without mentioning the other two members of the central quartet! Veronica Renner, looking dashing & convincingly androgynous in her masculine attire, keeps the whole thing running with clarity & warmth, switching seamlessly from one persona to another. By the end, she too has learned something about the power of Love, as we can see in her final remarks to Leontine. Edward Im as Agis, the isolated, therefore socially awkward, rightful heir, is both funny & ultimately deeply touching as a lonely young man desperately trying to find friendship & then love.

The set is by Malcolm Rodgers, & I wished I had booked one of the seats on stage, in the garden, even over my front-row seat. Ashley Renee designed the handsome costumes, basically 18th-century in style with modern touches. Spense Matubang designed the lighting & Michael Kelly the sound. The show runs through April & is well worth seeing (even more than once), though Shotgun often extends their shows so it's worth keeping an eye out for that.

(The mural outside the Ashby Stage is by graphic artist R Black; the painting right above is a detail of Watteau's The Foursome at the Legion of Honor.)

Museum Monday 2023/15

 

detail of Ceylon, a cyanotype by Anna Atkins from around 1850, now in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Friday Photo 2023/14

 

a doorway in Berkeley

Museum Monday 2023/14

 

detail of The Crucifixion by the Le Nain Brothers, as seen in the special exhibit The Brothers Le Nain: Painters of 17th-Century France at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco

Friday Photo 2023/13

 

springtime street, San Leandro, California

Another Opening, Another Show: April 2023

For some reason it's not an international holiday, but 23 April is the day Shakespeare's birth is commemorated, so obviously you need to celebrate in some way. Or you could wait a week & go to UC Shakespeare Trial 2023: A Witches' Brew, in which Erwin Chemerinsky of Berkeley Law & Bernadette Meyler of Stanford Law argue a case based on Macbeth, as enacted by actors from UC Irvine’s New Swan Shakespeare Festival (you as an audience member get to be part of the jury); that's at Freight & Salvage on 30 April. Not sure why this isn't being held on the actual date of his birth (& death) except that the Berkeley Bluegrass Festival is already at Freight & Salvage from 21 April to 23 April.

Theatrical

Z Space and Word for Word present Home by George Saunders, directed by Sheila Balter, from 5 to 29 April at Z Below.

Theater Rhinoceros presents Tina D’Elia's The Rita Hayworth of This Generation, directed by Mary Guzmán, the "story of Carmelita Cristina Rivera, a queer Latina whose love of Rita Hayworth and desire for movie stardom lead her to Las Vegas, where she labors to win the heart of Jesus Antonio Atano, the Latino Transgender Blackjack King of Vegas", & that runs 6 to 23 April.

Aurora Theater presents Rostand's Cyrano, adapted & directed by Josh Costello, from 7 April to 7 May.

The New Conservatory Theater Center presents Locusts Have No King by C Julian Jiménez, directed by Richard Mosqueda, about two closeted gay couples & a dinner party that deteriorates, & that runs 7 April to 14 May.

BroadwaySF presents Come From Away, the musical by Irene Sankoff & David Hein, directed by Christopher Ashley. about passengers stranded in Newfoundland after 9/11, at the Golden Gate Theater from 11 to 23 April.

Cutting Ball in association with In the Margin presents W Fran Astorga's Exhaustion Arroyo: Dancin’ Trees in the Ravine, about three friends in Santa Cruz taking mushrooms in the wild, & that's from 13 April to 21 May.

The San Francisco Conservatory of Music's Musical Theater showcase will be A... My Name Will Always Be Alice, by Joan Micklin Silver & Julianne Boyd, on 29 April.

Talking

Cal Performances presents An Evening with Robert Reich on 24 April in Zellerbach Hall.

Operatic

Festival Opera, in conjunction with the Diablo Symphony Orchestra, presents Tales from the Briar Patch, a new mini-opera with music by Nkeiru Okoye & libretto by Carman Moore, conducted by Matilda Hofman & directed by Omari Tau, based on the African folk tales that were also adapted & popularized by Joel Chandler Harris & his Uncle Remus stories; the cast features Marcus J Paige, Omari Tau, Shawnette Sulker, Aisha Campbell, & Leberta Lorál; the concert also features Bernstein's Candide Overture & Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, & that's 2 April at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek.

The San Francisco Conservatory of Music Historical Performance Department presents Handel's Flavio on 8 - 9 April.

Philharmonia Baroque presents Handel's Amadigi di Gaula, conducted by Richard Egarr & directed by Louisa Muller, with countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, sopranos Deanna Breiwick & Nicole Heaston, & mezzo-soprano Briana Hunter, at the Taube Atrium Theater from 20 to 22 April (please note that for some reason it's open seating).

Pocket Opera presents Albert Herring, its first work by Britten, conducted by David Drummond & staged by Nicolas A Garcia, on 23 April at the Hillside Club in Berkeley, 30 April at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, & 7 May at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts.

Cal Performances presents the west coast premiere of Michel van der Aa’s Blank Out, a "chamber opera about tragedy, memory, and loss"; soprano Miah Persson appears live & interacts with recordings & films of others, including baritone Roderick Williams as her son; that's 28 - 29 April in Zellerbach Hall.

The Left Coast Chamber Ensemble presents an opera double bill, both world premieres: 4:30 Movie is a new micro-opera by Kurt Rohde about two sisters, one dead from cancer & the other mourning & remembering; the opera is performed along with Rohde’s Sonic Tunic & credo petrified, Bach’s Chaconne, & Sarah Hennies’s Psalm I; the second opera, Tenderhooks, is by Anthony R Green & tells "the story of Nora and Sebastian, housemates struggling with enforced isolation during the pandemic"; the opera opens with a performance of Sarah Hennies’s Everything Else, & you can hear all that on 29 - 30 April at the Bayview Opera House in San Francisco.

Choral

The UC-Berkeley Symphony Orchestra & the UC-Berkeley Choral Program present Mozart's Mass in C minor on 8 April at Hertz Hall.

Cal Performances presents Peter Phillips & the Tallis Scholars at First Congregational on 27 April, when they will perform works by Orlando Gibbons, the eponymous Tallis, Nico Muhly, William Byrd, Palestrina, John Rutter, Nicolas Gombert, Josquin des Prez, & Arvo Pärt.

The San Francisco Choral Society presents its spring concert on 29 - 30 April at Calvary Presbyterian in San Francisco, where they will perform Stacy Garrop’s Terra Nostra & Morten Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna.

Vocalists

San Francisco Performances presents guitarist Jason Vieaux & mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke at Herbst Theater on 8 April, performing works by Manuel de Falla, Pat Metheny, Peter Scott Lewis, Jayme Ovalle, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Antonio Carlos Jobin, Schubert, Sondheim, & Lennon/McCartney.

The next Schwabacher Recital takes place 12 April at the Taube Atrium Theater, when countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen & pianist Carrie-Ann Matheson perform songs by Max Janowski, Erroll Garner, Ravel, & Handel, & others.

On 28 April in Herbst Theater, San Francisco Performances presents mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges & percussionist Ulysses Owens Jr in a program they call Notes on Hope, including works by Debussy, Ravel, Duparc, Satie, Poulenc, & Duke Ellington, along with traditional spirituals & original works.

Orchestral

The Bay Area Rainbow Symphony, led by Music Director Dawn Harms, offers its spring concert on 1 April in the Taube Atrium Theater, when they will perform Schoenberg's Fanfare for a Bowl Concert on Motifs of Die Gurrelieder, Florence Price's Violin Concerto 2 (with soloist Samuel Vargas), Saint-Saëns' Introduction et Rondo Capriccioso in A minor (again, with soloist Samuel Vargas), & the Tchaikovsky 3, the Polish.

Edwin Outwater leads the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Orchestra in two concerts this month: on 1 April, the program includes Ginastera's Variaciones concertantes, Opus 23, Henriette Renié's Concerto for Harp and Orchestra (with soloist Emmanuel Ceysson), & the Tchaikovsky 4; on 28 April, student conductor David Baker leads Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Overture & then Outwater takes over for Richard Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra &, joined by pianist Aaron Diehl & his Trio, Mary Lou Williams's Zodiac Suite.

On 2 April in Zellerbach Hall, Music Director Joseph Young leads the Berkeley Symphony in Juan Pablo Contreras's Mariachitlán, Duke Ellington's New World A-Comin' & Billy Strayhorn's A Lovesome Thing: Billy Strayhorn Suite (arranged by Walden, though the site doesn't give any details on who that is; the Ellington & Strayhorn pieces feature pianist Lara Downes), & Elgar's Enigma Variations.

Cristian Măcelaru leads the San Francisco Symphony on 21 - 23 April in the SFS premiere of selections from Blues Symphony by Wynton Marsalis, the American premiere of SFS commission Milky Ways by Outi Tarkiainen (featuring Russ de Luna on English Horn), & the Shostakovich 1.

Dalia Stasevska leads the San Francisco Symphony in the SFS premiere of Anna Meredith's Nautilus, the Sibelius Violin Concerto with soloist Joshua Bell, & the Sibelius 2, & that's 27 - 30 April at Davies Hall.

Cal Performances presents George Hinchliffe’s Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain in Zellerbach Hall on 26 April.

Chamber Music

San Francisco Performances presents the Chiaroscuro Quartet on 1 April at Herbst Theater, performing works by Schubert, Beethoven, & Mendelssohn.

Chamber Music San Francisco presents the Tetzlaff Trio (Christian Tetzlaff on violin, Tanja Tetzlaff on cello, & Kiveli Doerken on piano) at Herbst Theater on 2 April, where they will perform works by Beethoven, Dvořák, & Schubert.

On 2 April at the Noe Valley Ministry, Lieder Alive! presents soprano Heidi Moss Erickson & pianist Paul Schrage (with special guests Joel Pattinson on violin & Peter Myers on cello) performing Ned Rorem's Aftermath & Richard Strauss's Vier letzte Lieder.

Violinist Alisa Rose & cellist Michael Graham perform works by Zoltan Kodaly, Jessie Montgomery, & Handel for Noontime Concerts on 4 April at Old Saint Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco.

San Francisco Performances presents the Modigliani Quartet on 5 April at Herbst Theater, with a program of works by Puccini, Beethoven, & Schubert.

The Emerson String Quartet's farewell tour comes to San Francisco Performances & Herbst Theater on 14 April, with music by Purcell (arranged by Britten), Haydn, Mozart, & Beethoven.

Cal Performances presents the Danish String Quartet at First Congregational on 14 April, where they will perform pieces by Schubert & the Bay Area premiere of an as-yet unnamed Cal Performances co-commission by Anna Thorvaldsdóttir.

The San Francisco Symphony will field a chamber group playing works by Mendelssohn, Timothy Higgins, Andrés Martin, & Ravel in Davies Hall on 16 April.

San Francisco Performances presents violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen & pianist James Baillieu performing music by CPE Bach, Schubert, & Schumann on 18 April at Herbst Theater (this is SFP's annual gift concert for subscribers & donors but tickets are also available to the general public).

Berkeley Chamber Performances presents clarinetist Deborah Pittman & Friends (the friends being flutist Maquette Kuper, bassoonist Shawn Jones, & pianist Joanne DePhillips) in "a multimedia evening featuring African American composers" (the composers being Valerie Coleman, Bill Douglas, Jimmy Rowles, & Pittman herself), & that's at the Berkeley City Club on 25 April.

On 26 April in Herbst Theater, San Francisco Performances presents pianist Benjamin Grosvenor & the Doric String Quartet, performing works by Beethoven, Haydn, & Frank Bridge.

Chamber Music San Francisco presents the Arod Quartet at Herbst Theater on 29 April, performing works by Haydn, Mendelssohn, & Schubert.

Instrumental

Chamber Music San Francisco presents pianist Jon Nakamatsu at Herbst Theater on 16 April, playing works by Chopin, Schubert, & Brahms.

San Francisco Performances presents pianist Lise de la Salle at Herbst Theater on 19 April, with a program of works by Albéniz, Liszt, & Ginastera.

Chamber Music San Francisco presents piano duo Greg Anderson & Elizabeth Joy Roe at Herbst Theater on 22 April, performing piano duos by Mozart & Dvořák as well as their own arrangements of (more) Mozart, (more) Dvořák, Holst, Bach/Gounod, & Leonard Bernstein.

Early / Baroque Music

Cal Performances presents harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani at Hertz Hall on 2 April, when he will play music by William Byrd, Bach, Brett Dean, & Domenico Scarlatti.

Jane Glover leads the San Francisco Symphony in Bach's Magnificat & his Concerto for Oboe and Violin in C minor, Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks, & the first SFS performance of a contemporary piece, Stacy Garrop's Spectacle of Light, & that's at Davies Hall on 13 - 15 April.

Mills Music Now presents Barbara Strozzi, Venetian Virtuosa, in which Paul Flight leads a small ensemble in a number of Strozzi's vocal works, on 16 April at the Jeannik Méquet Littlefield Concert Hall at Mills College.

San Francisco Performances presents Trio Mediæval at Saint Mark's Lutheran on 20 April, with Lumen de Lumine, a program including "French medieval music from Notre Dame, Scandinavian traditional religious folk songs, and contemporary works written for Trio Mediæval".

Richard Egarr leads Philharmonia Baroque in a program that includes the world premiere of Mason Bates's Appalachian Ayre as well as Schmelzer's Lamento sopra la morte di Ferdinandi III, Biber's Mensa Sonora Pars III in A minor, C 71, & Muffat's Missa in labore requies, with sopranos Maya Kherani & Nola Richardson, countertenors Siman Chung & Reginald Mobley, tenors Spencer Britten & James Reese, & bass-baritones Cody Quattlebaum & Jonathan Woody, & that's 27 April at Herbst Theater in San Francisco, 28 April at Bing Concert Hall at Stanford, & 29 - 30 April at First Church in Berkeley.

See also Handel's Flavio at the SF Conservatory of Music & PBO's production of Handel's Amadigi, listed under Operatic.

Modern / Contemporary Music

Cal Performances presents the Kronos Quartet with pipa virtuoso Wu Man at Zellerbach Hall on 1 April, when they will perform arrangements of traditional pipa music (by Man & Danny Clay) as well as pieces by Terry Riley, Steve Reich, & Tan Dun.

At the San Francisco Conservatory of Music on 11 April, the Golden Gate Men's Chorus joins an instrumental ensemble led by Joseph Piazza in an evening of works by David Conte.

The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players perform Conlon Nancarrow's Study No. 3a, arranged for ensemble (arranged by Evan Ziporyn), the Bay Area premiere of Esa-Pekka Salonen's Catch & Release, & the world premiere of Brian Baumbusch's Polytempo Music, & that's 13 April at the Taube Atrium Theater.

On 15 April, Ensemble for These Times collaborates with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music's TAC Department (I have no idea what "TAC" stands for) & guest artists Adrienne Anaya (vibraphone) & Mia Nardi-Huffman (violin) to present world premiere / E4TT-commissioned work by Juhi Bansal, inti figgis-vizueta, Marcus Norris, & Michael Robert Smith, an SF premiere from Pamela Z, & works by Salina Fisher, David Garner, & Angelica Negron.

On 15 April at Herbst Theater, San Francisco Performances presents a tribute to Bay Area composer Ingram Marshall; Edwin Outwater will conduct members of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in Fog Tropes, & others will present works he dedicated to them: Libby Van Cleve (English Horn) gives us Dark Waters, guitarist Benjamin Verdery gives us Soe-pa, John Adams (conducting Conservatory students & Timo Andres on piano) gives us Flow, & Sarah Cahill on piano gives us Authentic Presence.

On 20 April in Zellerbach Hall, Cal Performances presents Sō Percussion with singer/composer Caroline Shaw in the west coast premiere of Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part (written by the ensemble & Shaw) & Jason Treuting's Amid the Noise.

On 23 April, Old First Concerts presents the Wooden Fish Ensemble in celebration of 120 years of Korean immigration to the USA, in a concert featuring traditional Korean music & several pieces by Hyo-shin Na, including the world premiere of From Korea to America – 120 Years and Beyond. & just a couple of days earlier, on 21 April, Old First presents Hyunchae Kim playing Hyo-shin Na’s music for solo kayageum.

On 30 April, Old First Concerts presents Quinteto Latino in a performance of music by Cuban-American composer Orlando Jacinto García.

Jazz / Folk

Pianist & composer Vijay Iyer comes to the SF Jazz Center this month, first with a solo piano performance on 6 April & then with the Vijay Iyer Trio (the other two are bassist Linda May Han Oh & drummer Tyshawn Sorey) on 7 - 9 April.

Quinteto Latino gives the premiere of their commission The Spanglish Dances by Victor Márquez-Barrios, along with Puzzle-Tocas by Gabriela Ortiz, multiple winds in the distance by Orlando Jacinto Garcia, & another of their commissions, Felipe Nieto-Sáchica’s C U Z A, on 7 April at the Center for New Music.

On 15 April, Old First Concerts presents a Centennial Tribute to Maestro Ali Akbar Khan, featuring his two sons, Alam & Manik Khan, on sarod, joined by Swapan Chaudhuri on tabla.

Cal Performances presents Latin jazz master Paquito D’Rivera & his sextet, performing music inspired by his Jazz Meets the Classics release (the classics in this case being Chopin, Beethoven, Mozart, & others), in Zellerbach Hall on 21 April.

Singer Dee Dee Bridgewater & pianist Bill Charlap perform at the SF Jazz Center from 27 to 30 April (& they will be recording these performances for a forthcoming live album).

The Alaya Project. joining "the intricate Carnatic style of Indian classical music and contemporary jazz and funk", plays at the Center for New Music on 29 April.

Dance

The San Francisco Ballet closes its season with two story ballets, both with scores by Prokofiev: from 31 March to 8 April we have Cinderella, with choreography by Christopher Wheeldon, & from 21 to 30 April we have Romeo & Juliet, with choreography by Helgi Tomasson.

Voices of Music collaborates with Balam Dance Theatre in Metamorphosis, which director & choreographer Carlos Fittante has set to a new composition by Hanneke van Proosdij & pipa virtuoso Yihan Chen, & that's 30 March at the Oshman Family JCC in Palo Alto, 1 April at Saint Mark's Lutheran in San Francisco, & 2 April at First Congregational in Berkeley.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater makes its annual visit to Cal Performances & Zellerbach Hall from 11 to 16 April with three different programs: Program A gives us Roy's Joys (choreography by Twyla Tharp, music by Roy Eldridge), Duet (choreography by Paul Taylor, music by Haydn), For Four (choreography by Robert Battle, music by Wynton Marsalis), & Revelations (choreography by Alvin Ailey, of course, set to traditional spirituals); Program B gives us In a Sentimental Mood (choreography by Jamar Roberts, set to Depuis le Jour from Charpentier's Louise, sung by Leontyne Price), Survivors (choreography by Alvin Ailey & Mary Barnett, music by Max Roach), & Are You in Your Feelings? (movement by Kyle Abraham, set to a mixtape of soul, hip-hop, & R&B); Program C gives us Night Creature (choreography by Alvin Ailey, music by Duke Ellington), Cry (choreography by Alvin Ailey, music by Alice Coltrane, Laura Nyro, & Chuck Griffin), For Four, & Revelations.

The Alonzo King LINES Ballet presents a collaboration among King, vocalist Lisa Fischer, & photographer Richard Misrach at the Yerba Buena Theater from 15 to 23 April.

The Smuin Ballet presents Dance Series 2, made up of Swipe (choreography by Val Caniparoli, music by Gabriel Prokofiev (grandson of Sergei), the company premiere of Sextette (choreography by Katarzyna Skarpetowska, music by Bach), Dream (choreography by Michael Smuin, music by Chopin), & a world premiere by choreographer Amy Seiwert, & that's 28 - 29 April at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek, 5 - 14 May at the Yerba Buena Theater, & 25 - 28 May at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts.

Visual Arts

MOAD presents Black Venus, surveying Black women in visual culture from colonial caricatures to present-day works by Black women artists, & that opens on 5 April & runs through 20 August.

Ansel Adams in Our Time, examining the great environmentalist & photographer in the light of those who came before & those who came after him, opens at the de Young Museum on 8 April & runs through 23 July.

Cinematic

BAM/PFA launches the series Odessa’s Uncompromising Eccentric: The Films of Kira Muratova on 1 April, running through 14 May.