Explorations of Music

Lazy posting: a chunk of information from email sent by San Francisco Performances. But try to catch some of these broadcasts, because the Alexander series is classical programming at its best and most imaginative.

San Francisco, CA – San Francisco Performances’ collaboration with KALW (91.7 FM) continues beginning October 6 when the radio station begins a third season of "Explorations in Music," broadcasts of SFP’s Saturday Morning Series featuring resident artists the Alexander String Quartet and lecturer Bob Greenberg. As a bonus, the station will also air recordings of two SFP concerts last May with pianist Garrick Ohlsson and Greenberg exploring Russian piano music.

This season’s two-hour long broadcasts, which air at 9 p.m. Monday nights from October 6 through November 17, feature last season’s “Inspirations” Series in which Greenberg and the Alexander Quartet explore the connections between contemporary composers and classic string quartet repertoire. Broadcasts of the Ohlsson/Greenberg concerts will be the final two installments of the seven-part radio series.

In addition to tuning in to KALW at 91.7 FM, the broadcasts can be live-streamed at www.kalw.org. Here is the complete schedule of the programs, which will once again be introduced by radio host Alan Farley:

-- October 6: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet paired with Lou Harrison’s “Quartet Set”

-- October 13: Joseph Haydn’s “String Quartet in G Major, Op. 76, No. 1” and Elliott Carter’s “String Quartet No. 2”

-- October 20: Béla Bartók’s “String Quartet No. 1” and Robert Greenberg’s “String Quartet No. 3 ‘Among Friends (for the Alexander String Quartet)’”

-- October 27: Bartók’s “String Quartet No. 5” and Wayne Peterson’s “String Quartet No. 2”

-- November 3: Franz Schubert’s String Quartet No. 14 “Death and the Maiden” and George Crumb’s “Black Angels (Images I) for electric string quartet”

-- November 10: Garrick Ohlsson and Robert Greenberg: “The Russian Piano: Rachmanioff and Scriabin”

-- November 17: Ohlsson and Greenberg: “The Russian Piano: Prokofiev and Scriabin”

In January, the Alexander Quartet and Greenberg will begin a new Saturday Morning Series at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco featuring works by Felix Mendelssohn, in honor of the 200th anniversary of his birth. That series of five concerts begins on January 17, 2009 with the remarkable Octet for Strings, followed by performances on January 31, February 14, March 14 and April 11.