Friday Photo

Mammillaria geminispina

Kew Gardens, Richmond (near London)

July, 2024

 

21V: Reclaiming Radical 2.0

The 21V chorus, under director Martin Benvenuto, is performing an updated version of Reclaiming Radical, the program it presented this past April. Here are all of the details:

Sunday, November 3, 2024 at 1:30 p.m.

First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco

1187 Franklin St, San Francisco, CA 94109

Tickets: FREE; donation requested. 

For more information, see the 21V web site.

This is a lovely church, though I can't recall whether I've ever heard a concert there. Congregation Sha'ar Zahav has used it for High Holy Days services in the past and might still be doing so. Please donate whatever you're able; all arts organizations have significant costs to pay.

21V has an unusual mix of singers: they're all singing in the soprano and alto ranges. And this concert brings in the Cantabile Youth Singers of Silicon Valley for part of the concert. More about the chorus:

21V is a professional ensemble of soprano & alto voices of all gender identities based in the SF Bay Area, founded in 2021 by Dr. Martín Benvenuto. 21V explores a broad identity of contemporary American music by focusing on 21st century music of the 3 Americas, and challenges existing boundaries & assumptions – both artistically & socially.

Seeking to effect change in the traditionally non-inclusive classical music industry, 21V embraces  inclusivity as its core value. Freeing the concept of treble choir from gender and gender identity, our multi-racial and multi-identity ensemble includes cis and transgender women, and cis, nonbinary, and intersex countertenors.

 

News, Tips, and the Like

Just a note that I am always open to hearing news, tips, and the like about what's going on in the Bay Area opera and classical music scene. I keep confidences, as you would expect.

My email is findable on this page, in pretty small type. I'm also reachable on Blue Sky Social (@lisairontongue.bsky.social) and Facebook. Happy to talk on the phone or set up a Zoom, also.

Harawi, AMOC at Cal Performances

 

Julia Bullock, Bobbi Jene Smith, Or Schraiber, and Connor Hanick

Messiaen's Harawi 

Photo by Brittany Hosea-Small, courtesy of Cal Performances

I reviewed the American Modern Opera Company's remarkable staging of Messiaen's Harawi, performed last week at Cal Performances, by the remarkable quartet of soprano Julia Bullock, dancer/choreographers Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber, and pianist Conor Hanick, directed by Zack Winokur.

The performance was preceded by a panel discussion with Winokur and several American academics, all currently active in California. A major focus of the discussion was Messiaen's use of Andean harawi, a poetic/musical practice, when he did not have much understanding of it and at a time when it was poorly documented by non-Andean anthropologists and other academics. That is, the discussion was largely about appropriation. For some context, this type of appropriate extends to many modernists; Boulez was mentioned, though I can't recall the tradition(s) he relied on. One of the academics, Tamara Levitz, quoted an indigenous writer on the subject of appropriation, but there were no indigenous musicians or poets on the panel. I feel that the panel––which was otherwise excellent––would have been enhanced by the participation of indigenous practitioners.

I'll note that I have more notes on the panel than I have on the performance itself, in part because the lights were very, very low in Zellerbach and I couldn't see what I was writing. I should have brought my white-ink pens and the notebook with black pages; at least my terrible handwriting would have sprawled less.

I'd also like to take note of the difficulty of addressing dance in a musical context when your expertise is in music. I reviewed two programs this year that featured dance, and I wish my dance technical vocabulary were bigger. I hope that in both I managed to at least suggest what I saw on stage and how it related to the music.

• Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle, is marvelously eloquent about this performance (and note that there are two puns in the titles).
• Lisa Hirsch, SFCV

Backstage at San Francisco Opera

 

The stage crew taking a bow at the end of Kaija Saariaho's Innocence.

Photo: Matthew Shilvock, courtesy of San Francisco Opera

June, 2024

Here's an article I've been working on for a while––perhaps since Matthew Shilvock inadvertently handed me the lede back in June. It's about everything that happens during an opera––or any theatrical performance––that you don't see, but which is vital to whatever you do see.

The photo above didn't make it into the article, but I have such admiration for what the stage crew did during Innocence.

Enormous thanks to everyone at SF Opera who helped me: Jeff McMillan and Teresa Concepcion, SFO communications; John Keene, chorus director; Andrew King, prompter/music staff; Darin Burnett, stage manager; Jeanna Parham, wig, hair, & makeup; Lori Harrison, properties head; Matthew Shilvock, general director. I also spoke with John Fulljames, who directed The Handmaid's Tale, and Poul Ruders, who composed it. I wish I had been able to speak with the late Kaija Saariaho about Innocence.

Huge respect to Chloe Lamford, who designed the sets for both Innocence and The Handmaid's Tale. The Innocence set is particularly amazing. Watching the opera from backstage––only half-hearing it, seeing the reverse of what the audience saw––was a great experience.

I want to also thank Matthew Shilvock and SFO for bringing both of these operas to the War Memorial Opera House. They are complex works on difficult subjects, but so necessary in these times.

Happy Birthday, Jimmy Carter!

Jimmy Carter, 2014

Photo courtesy of The Carter Center

Jimmy Carter, 39th president of the United States, turns 100 today. He is surely among the most decent people to ever occupy the big chair. His post-presidency life has been, with his late wife Rosalynn, one of great humanitarian achievement. Happy birthday, best wishes, and may you live to cast a vote for Kamala Harris for president.