Google's Japan Earthquake Person Finder

Google has put up a person-finder page for those looking for people or with knowledge of people's locations following the 8.9 earthquake that hit Japan last night. It is available in English and Japanese. All information posted is public and searchable.

If you know where someone is - including yourself - or you are looking for someone, post about it on the people finder.

Rolling of the Eyes 2

Today I got yet another email from someone associated with a link-farm operation, telling me about an essay they'd published about the benefits of music in the schools - I should feel free to use my discretion about linking to this essay so that my readers could see it.

No way. I am not giving you the link, which would increase your PageRank and possibly push you up in search engine rankings. Anyway, the "reasons" you list could apply to just about any activity that individuals or groups commit themselves to.

Not to mention, your "essay" never mentioned music's intrinsic value.

Miya Masaoka at the Berkeley Art Museum's L@TE Series

Email received yesterday from Sarah Cahill:

Dear friends- Please join us this Friday evening at 7:30 pm for a special solo performance by  composer and koto player Miya Masaoka as part of the Berkeley Art Museum's popular L@TE series.

Using difference tones, sine waves, and captured sound from the resonance of the museum, Miya Masaoka and her trusty koto will create new work specifically responding to the sonic qualities of Gallery B. The New York Times calls her “an explorer of the extremes of her instrument,” and she continues to delve into new areas of sound, light, and social and musical interaction. An acknowledged koto pioneer and a brilliant composer, Masaoka has created works for So Percussion, Bang on a Can, sfSound, Alonzo King?s LINES Ballet, Volti, and the Piedmont East Bay Children?s Choir. She is the recipient of the Alpert Award in the Arts and her work has been supported by the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, among many others. She currently teaches in the M.F.A. program of the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College, New York.

This coming Friday, March 11
Doors 5 p.m., DJ Citizen Zain 6:30 p.m.

Miya Masaoka performance 7:30 p.m.; Gallery B

2626 Bancroft Way, below College Avenue, in Berkeley

$7 admission (free for museum members)

Fantasy Opera, Season 4

You didn't think I was done, did you??

• Salinen, Kullervo. I have a recording of this; I've heard some of his music live and on record, and I'd love to see a production of this one.
• Monteverdi, L'Orfeo
• Krenek, Jonny Spielt Auf
• Weill, Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny
• Leoncavallo, La Boheme
• Reyer, Sigurd
• Hindemith, Mathis der Maler
• Adamo, Lysistrata
• Verdi, Les V

  ê

  pres Sicilienne
• Saint-Saens, Henry VIII
• Ponchielle, La Giaconda (So sue me - I love this one, at least on record. I have more recordings of Giaconda than I have of all Rossini operas put together.)
• Dvorak, The Devil and Kate
• Weber, Oberon
• Dukas, Ariane et Barbe-Bleu
• Zandonai, Francesca da Rimini
• Martin, Le Vin Herbe

Cast Change Advisories

Well, it's been quite a week for the Metropolitan Opera. How many cast change advisories have we received?

• The lovely and reliable Hei-Kyung Hong replaces Angela Gheorghiu, who is ill (we're told), in all upcoming Met performances of Rome et Juliette.
• Marina Poplavskaya replaces Angela Gheorghiu in the initial run of next season's new production of Faust. Gheorghiu has withdrawn for "artistic reasons." (Poplavskaya was already scheduled for the second run of performances.)
• Show of hands: Does anyone believe Gheorghiu will turn up for her scheduled performances in Tosca at Covent Garden? 
• Speaking of Covent Garden, they fired Micaela Carosi, who was an adequate, not-great, Aida this past fall in San Francisco.
• Alan Held replaces Matthias Goerne in all performances of Wozzeck; Goerne is having knee surgery. Sigh. This is the one that gets me. Held is an excellent singer and a fine Wozzeck, but Goerne is in a class of his own among currently-active baritones. I've seen him live only once, singing the solos in the Brahms Requiem, and it was like nothing I've heard before, either in person or on record from the greats. Where other baritones tend to go big in this music, he sang introspectively and intimately, and had enormous impact as a result. Also, stating the obvious: what a voice. He seems absolutely ideal for Wozzeck, given his intensity, which even in the Brahms nearly reached the wild-eyed.
• Pavel Smelkov replaces the jet-setting Valery Gergiev, who evidently wasn't up for conducting Boris at the Met while in the midst of a run of Ariadne in Russia. If you thought Levine's Wagner/Mahler weekend was more than a little crazy.... 

And speaking of James Levine, if you haven't read the insanely long comment thread at Parterre Box about him and Voigt (and, parenthetically, Terfel), you should. In general, you should be reading Parterre Box!

Apologies

I owe many people responses to accumulated email. I've had a lousy couple of weeks and am just getting myself pulled back together. I got sick on Feb. 20 with whatever it is that's going around; I had a bit of a cough, but mostly a fever and tiredness that would not go away. It was March 1 before I went back to work, and on Feb. 28 I was still taking a couple of naps during the day. I missed some rehearsal time with Chora Nova (sigh), two-thirds of a three-day weekend (one-third of which I spent at a long rehearsal), and five days of work. Oh, and the Vienna Philharmonic, Rothko Chapel at SFS, and Glass's Orphee. Grump.

Worse, this past Friday my dog died. Molly B. was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer in January, so we knew her time was limited, but she was our beloved companion, a charming, smart, alert, and sweet dog, for more than eleven years.

Friends palmed her off on us back in September, 1999; neighbors of theirs had found her in a laundromat in Berkeley, left her at the Berkeley animal shelter, then hastily pulled her out the next day when they realized it was not a no-kill shelter. She was an adorable puppy and would have been adopted quickly, but who knows how long she would have lasted? By about age two, she had become unpredictably dog aggressive. She was fine with most dogs, but terrible with some, and liked fighting way too much. We stopped taking her to dog parks and learned a lot about introducing her carefully to other dogs. As one of her trainers said - Nancy Frensley at Berkeley Humane, who liked Molly very much - she was lucky to have us because she probably would have been euthanized by some people.

Luckily, she was Miss Perfect Dog with people, never the slightest bit aggressive; the worst she would do would be to shrug and ignore you. (Okay, she did bark insanely at an infant the couple of times she visited, but by the time this child was eleven months old, Molly was rolling over submissively at her feet.) Even the few times she was in pain at the vet's, she'd poke you with her nose to show her discomfort.

She was not an effusive or slobbery dog, always more interested in her own species than in people. (We have fond memories of her attempts to go home with a gardener who had a couple of dogs.) She liked us fine, but we also knew that she would be a comparatively easy do to rehome if need be, because she wasn't that deeply attached to any particular humans. This was fortunate, because we had a renovation project going on for much too long during the winter and spring of 2009-10, and she spent a lot of time at friends' houses.

We miss her more than I can say; it is weird to come home and not have her trot up to you with a toy or sock in her mouth, or pester you for a walk or breakfast, or break up a fight between the cats. Rest in peace, Molly B., you were a wonderful, wonderful dog.

Molly Bloom the Dog of Doom

(photo by Cynthia Dyer-Bennet)

And....It's Official

James Levine resigns as Music Director of the BSO, effective September 1, 2011. Search committee being formed; everybody wishes him the best, etc. The orchestra will be working with Levine to define a new artistic role for him. The link above is to the BSO's own announcement; Dan Wakin has the story at the Times.

I've got to say, this makes me sad. By all accounts, he has reinvigorated the orchestra and accomplished a great deal since joining seven years ago. I am glad he will have some kind of continuing role with the orchestra, though.

Levine: Breaking Rumor

La Cieca reports that she "hears from a generally reliable source that James Levine has resigned from his post as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Expect an official announcement later today."

I wish him improved health, of course. And I hope he visits here with the BSO next season.

Congratulations are in Order!

Fellow blogger Steve Hicken is a featured composer at Western Illinois University's New Music Festival, which is on March 7 and 8, 2011. Way to go, Steve!

Eugene Fodor Dies at 60

Remember Eugene Fodor, the American wunderkind violinist who tied for second - with two Soviet violinists - in the 1974 Tchaikovsky Violin Competition? He has died, age 60, of cirrhosis of he liver. It is a sad story, told by the Times obit.

More Levine/BSO News

Not the good kind, either. Parterre Box reports that James Levine has cancelled his remaining performances this season with the BSO. Those are concerts through March 19 and included performances in NY and at the Kennedy Center.

This is following last week's cancellation of performances of Mahler's 9th, which were taken over by the young assistant conductor Sean Newhouse. A friend who was there says the first performance was just fine. (My own aside: I appreciate Jeremy Eichler's care in writing his review; he is scrupulously fair to Newhouse and places the debut in the appropriate context.)

Happy Birthday, Baby!

Back in December, San Francisco Symphony released a few details of the upcoming centennial season (2011-12). I posted a bit, just a bit, because while the scheduled visits by other great American orchestras were certainly enticing, the two commissions (Adams, Bates) and return of American Mavericks seemed...well...ho-hum.

Now I must eat my words. The schedule has been released, and it is absolutely staggering. You can see the full schedule on the SFS web site; I'd like to list the whole season, because there is something great on almost every program, but...well, if you're reading this, click the link.

There are a few items of little interest to me (Pinchas Zukerman's all-Mozart program, the odd Baroque program...not my thing in the vastness of Davies; the opening concert, repertory TBD, with Lang Lang), but, seriously, I'm glad I decided to stick with my balcony subscription to the opera: more money to spend on SFS concerts.

There's a cornucopia of new music, by Adams and Gubaidulina, Lindberg and Ades, Saariaho and Carter and more; a pair of programs each by the six visiting American orchestras (Chicago, NY, Philadelphia, Boston, LA, Cleveland), fabulous guest appearances by many conductors, visiting singers galore, masterpieces rare and not so rare (Organ Symphony! more than one, in fact) and, finally, a local great-orchestra presentation of Duke Bluebeard's Castle. American Mavericks turns out to be anything but ho-hum. If you're looking for standards, they're there as well, but for me this mostly a season of the new and exciting.

After the jump, I'm listing the programs that most excite me. There's plenty I didn't list that's worth seeing, so look for the full schedule at the SFS web site.

Hell Weekend, Redux

Pulling it all together, not quite an even dozen. I must be missing something.

• Merce Cunningham Dance Company's final tour is at Cal Performances, March 3-5.
• Other Minds is at the Jewish Community Center, March 3-5.
• 2011 Music and the Brain conference is at Stanford, March 4-5
• California Bach Society performs music of Buxtehude and Tunder, March 4-6, in San Francisco, Palo Alto, and Berkeley
• Volti performs exciting new choral music, March 4-6,  in San Francisco, Mill Valley, and Berkeley
• Steven Mackey, Rinde Eckhardt, and eighth blackbird perform Slide at Stanford, one night only, March 5
• Trio Voce performs Jonathan Berger's new work Memory Slips, one night only, March 4
• San Francisco Conservatory of Music Baroque Ensemble presents Handel's Alcina, March 5 and 6. FREE! But you need to reserve tickets in advance; just call the conservatory.
• Berkeley West Edge Opera presents The Carmen Fixation, March 5, 9, 11, and 13
•  Philharmonia Baroque performs on March 4, 5,  6, 8 and 9. The program features mezzo-soprano Zheng Cao and works by Rebel, Handel, Gluck, Stookey, and Rameau.
• Anne Sofie von Otter at San Francisco Symphony; MTT conducts. Hindemith (!), Brahms First Serenade (a lovely piece!), and a nice helping of Scandinavian songs, not all by the usual suspects.

I can't get to all of this, obviously. Currently likely, Merce Cunningham, Other Minds, Cal Bach, and if I can squeeze it in, SFS.

To be in Boston

Upcoming at the BSO:

Friday, March 25, 7 p.m.

Saturday, March 26, 8 p.m.

Thomas Adès, conductor

Anthony Marwood, violin

Hila Plitmann, soprano

Kate Royal, soprano

Toby Spence, tenor

Christopher Maltman, baritone

TCHAIKOVSKY The Tempest

ADÈS Violin Concerto, Concentric Paths

SIBELIUS Prelude and Suite No. 1 from The Tempest

ADÈS Scenes from The Tempest

(Concentric Paths is a great, great piece that I've been lucky enough to hear in concert twice, once at Cabrillo, once at SFS. It was written for and has been recorded by Mr. Marwood, who take the solo at the BSO.)

"Comment," Unedited

I have a "comment" in today's NY Times Arts & Leisure section, about Charles McGrath's mostly-very-good article on Wesley Stace and Stace's new novel. Apparently there are no letters to the editor in A&L these days.

Here's the unedited letter I sent last week, two minutes after I finished the article:

To the Editor:

In his otherwise excellent article on novelist/musician Wesley Stace and his new book ("Musical Whodunit From a Musician Most Literary," http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/20/books/20stace.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Charles%20Jessold&st=cse, Feb. 20, 2011) Charles McGrath twice uses the term "cowpat" to refer to some English composers of the era from about 1900 to World War II. I object to this: it's a pat term to haul out, lumping together quite different composers while simultaneously dismissing them as worth consideration as individuals. The specific composers he lists, Vaughn Williams, Warlock, and Bantock, had rather different career trajectories and musical styles. Bantock, in particular, was influenced as much by Wagner and other German Romantic music as by English folk songs. The RVW of the symphonies is more musically complex and interesting than his most popular music might indicate.

Mr. McGrath must surely be aware, also, that Warlock and Bantock might be "half-forgotten" in the United States, but that's not the case in Great Britain. I, for one, would love to hear live performances of just about any of Bantock's works, especially his lengthy oratorio, Omar Khhayam, which could easily be staged as an opera.

March Madness

I'm going to outsource to Patrick the horrifyingly long list of programs I would ideally like to get to in March. He missed a couple of things, including Cal Bach's Buxtehude concert (first weekend of the month)  , the Philharmonia Baroque program, and a few tasty SFEMS concerts.

Then again, there are the goings-on in Los Angeles. I am tentatively planning a trip, which would include the following:

• Turn of the Screw at LA Opera, with Patricia Racette's role debut as the Governess
• Ahknaten at Long Beach Opera, because when will I get another chance to see this one?
• Ernest Fleischmann memorial concert at the LAPO, conducted and with works by Esa-Pekka Salonen and Pierre Boulez (!); Lionel Bringuier and Anne Tomlinson also conduct.

The VPO and Its Discontents, or Bravo, Joshua!

Back in 2009, Joshua Kosman took a trip to Dresden, where he heard the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra play Sibelius and Shostakovich under Valery Gergiev. He blogged about the trip, and among other things said this:

My God, it was magnificent. There's no way to listen to the VPO without feeling some tinge of moral unease at that unbroken sea of white male faces (some of my fellow critics amused themselves during the applause by scanning for the two or three women that are now scattered among the orchestra's ranks). But it's just as hard to resist the magical sound of this orchestra — the warm, fluid string textures, or the glowing, utterly distinctive brass.

This past week, he went into more detail, this time in the San Francisco Chronicle, about why, exactly, the white-male-makeup of the orchestra is such a problem and why it's worthy of our consideration. The headline has the short version: Vienna Philharmonic must answer for exclusion. Because, of course, until the grudging agreement some years ago to admit women - not that that agreement has made much of a dent - it was an explicit policy of excluding people who were not white and male. (I'm not sure whether anyone has tried to figure out whether you also have to be a Christian. Exclusion of Jewish people would raise a few hackles too.) 


The heart of Joshua's Chron article is this:

Perhaps there's no problem here. For all we know, there may be some musical performances that can only be produced by an orchestra of white men; and it may also be that those performances are so illuminating, so transcendent, that they trump the fundamental American values of equal opportunity and fairness. I'd love to hear someone make that case.

What we can't do, though, is pretend that the VPO is an orchestra just like any other. It's not. It's the living embodiment of an exclusionary philosophy that should, at the very least, give any thoughtful person pause.

I would also love to hear someone attempt to make the case that some musical performances can only be given by an orchestra composed of white men. Because I have not noticed any lack of technical skill or spirit in the playing of any other orchestra I've heard, and they all contain women and non-Euro-Americans.


You might or might not want to read the comments to the Chron article, which run the gamut from thoughtful to eye-rolling. But Joshua has at least temporarily revived his blog to post some material that didn't make it into the Chron article, and you'll definitely want to read that. He goes into some detail about why the racial situation in United States orchestras differs from that of the VPO and other European orchestra. (Briefly, there's plenty of demand in U.S. orchestras, but no supply because so few African American and Hispanic kids play classical music, so that there are almost no African American and Hispanic kids going into and graduating from American conservatories.)


I want to add one thing. Blind auditions are the only way to ensure that an orchestra is hiring based on a performer's playing rather than on the performer's skin color or sex. We know this because when U.S. orchestras started using blind auditions in the 1970s, the number of women with orchestra jobs immediately began to rise. The string sections of quite a few orchestras are around 50% women now, because women are not automatically excluded based on being, you know, female. And given the makeup of other European orchestras, we know that the VPO isn't using blind auditions.


Related: Anthony Tommasini addressed the all-white-men issue in the Times in 1999; Joshua Kosman in the Chron in 1997.

Zaide

Over at Out West Arts, Brian has posted a review of a production of Mozart's Zaide, which he aptly terms "the one that got away." What interests me most is that the opera he saw, styled as a rescue-from-the-Turks comic opera, differs so greatly from what I saw at the Mostly Mozart Festival in NYC in 2006. That production was directed by none other than Peter Sellars, who modernized it and set it in a third-world sweatshop. Just a small twist, and you get something quite different!

I didn't write a contemporaneous blog posting but I will say in retrospect that the performance was stylishly played by the Concerto Koln, with Louis Langree at the helm, and well-sung as well. Lots of lovely music, indeed, and more convincing to me than to Allan Kozinn. I liked Norman Shankle a great deal when he was an Adler Fellow in SF; his roles included the soon-to-be-dead husband of Lucia in the eponymous opera and one of the smaller parts in the legendary Poppea with LHL. I'm happy to see that he has a good career going now. I also recognized a certain red-headed coloratura soprano and said hello to her during the intermission. Wish we could get her back to S.F. Opera!

That First Weekend in March

As if you didn't already have enough to sort through, Philharmonia Baroque performs on March 4, 5,  6, 8 and 9. The program features mezzo-soprano Zheng Cao and works by Rebel, Handel, Gluck, Stookey, and Rameau.

Yes, one of those things is not like the others. The Stookey work sets poems by none other than the great Frederica von Stade. Flicka was originally scheduled to sing this program but unfortunately withdrew a couple of weeks back. Cao is also a wonderful singer, so you might want to check out the program despite Flicka's absence.

Hell Weekend

I know you don't have enough to do on March 3, 4, 5, and 6, so I offer the following possibilities. Good luck!

• Merce Cunningham Dance Company's final tour is at Cal Performances, March 3-5.
• Other Minds is at the Jewish Community Center, March 3-5.
• 2011 Must and the Brain conference is at Stanford, March 4-5
• California Bach Society performs music of Buxtehude and Tunder, March 4-6, in San Francisco, Palo Alto, and Berkeley
• Volti performs exciting new choral music, March 4-6,  in San Francisco, Mill Valley, and Berkeley
• Steven Mackey, Rinde Eckhardt, and eighth blackbird perform Slide at Stanford, one night only, March 5
• Trio Voce performs Jonathan Berger's new work Memory Slips, one night only, March 4
• San Francisco Conservatory of Music Baroque Ensemble presents Handel's Alcina, March 5 and 6. FREE!
• Berkeley West Edge Opera presents The Carmen Fixation, March 5, 9, 11, and 13

I'm exhausted just looking at that list.

New Music, New York

Some great things happening in contemporary music this weekend, one-third of which, more or less, I'm spending in an all-day chorus rehearsal, at least if you are in New York:

Avant Music Festival

I managed to miss blogging this festival, which started on the 11th, and it is probably too late for you to make tonight's performances. However, there's always tomorrow, February 19! Here's what's on:

The Avant-Premiere of Apparitions of The Four Pillars with Their Lowest Additive Primes as limited to the 3rd, 7th, 9th, and 11th New Primes chosen Cyclically, The Toll of Premonition, The Memorial Connector over the Outlying Primal Abyss, and The Mid-Winter Ending by Randy Gibson

Performed by Randy Gibson, William Lang, and The Apparitions String Ensemble (Drew Blumberg: Conductor, Violin; Catherine McCurry: Violin; Mariel Roberts: Cello), with video by Oscar Henriquez.

8 p.m.
The Wild Project
195 East 3rd
New York, NY

More details are here.

Tune In Festival

Again, should have gotten this up earlier, considering that it's been on for several days. Sunday's program looks like a don't-miss (as did tonight's). Bring earplugs: I assume that 70 (seventy!) percussionists in one place make an unholy racket. Details here. H/T Alex for the pointer.

Season Announcement Season: Metropolitan Opera

If you read Parterre Box - c'mon, you do, you know - you've already seen some of the highlights and a lot of the bitching. I'm just going to highlight a few things, including items buried surprisingly deeply in the press release.


Let's start with the new commissions! Yes, the Metropolitan has commissioned a few new works, hooray, in addition to Nico Muhly's upcoming Two Boys and Michael Torke's Senna. Today, they announced the following (quoted directly from the press release):

• Composer Michael John LaChiusa and librettist Sybille Pearson are collaborating on an original story loosely based on the Scheherazade tale. 
• Composer Jeanine Tesori and playwright Tony Kushner are collaborating on a project based on an original story by Kushner. 
• Composer Scott Wheeler is working on an adaptation of Romulus Linney’s play The Sorrows of Frederick, adapted by the playwright before his death in January. 

Note that the Met has commissioned a woman. Yay! The last opera they performed that was written by a woman was very likely Ethel Smythe's Der Wald, back in 1903. Let's hope they also pick up an opera, any opera, by Kaija Saariaho, hmmm? Or perhaps Peggy Granville-Hicks's Nausicaa?

The LaChiusa piece looks like a lot of fun too!

Now, I feel especially pleased to see Scott Wheeler's name up there. He was among my theory lab teachers when I was at Brandeis, and is a nice guy as well as a good composer. I gotta say, The Construction of Boston, which I have on CD, doesn't sound much like what I remember of his works from the 70s. It sounds a lot better and much more individual; it's stylish, with good vocal and text settings, and plenty of humor.  Congratulations, Scott, on this important commission! I am thrilled to see it.

(That's actually not my only one-degree-of-separation connection to the upcoming commissions: I went to high school with Michael Korie, librettist of the Torke commission, and his sister.)

The Met will have seven new productions:

• Siegfried
• Gotterdammerung
• Faust (intriguing concept, great cast, even Jonas Kaufman would not get me in the door for this turkey)
• Manon
• Anna Bolena
• Don Giovanni (great casts, could possibly get me in the door)
• The Enchanted Island (amusing-sounding and well-cast pastiche)

Netrebko is in both Manon and Anna Bolena. 

My favorite revivals would be The Makropolos Case, with the winning team of Mattila and Bělohlávek and Satyagraha; also Rodelinda and Khovanshchina. I'm not a Barber of Seville fan, but I am a Peter Mattei fan. Hmm. Ernani looks strongly cast (and it is a terrific opera, or, well, it has a ton of terrific music despite the weak plot). I love the Pelly Fille du Regiment, a charmer if ever there was one, and if I could stand Elisir, Damrau, JDF, and the divine Mariusz would get me there. There's a revival of the Welsh National Opera's production of Hansel und Gretel, the greatest opera Wagner never wrote, with a fine cast that includes Robert Brubaker as the Witch. The brilliant Stefan Margita takes over Loge in Das Rheingold, yay, and you get the fabulous Eva-Marie Westbroek in  Die Walkuere.

Meanwhile, let's slap Robert Lepage around for this:

“Götterdämmerung is different from the other Ring operas because it is about society,” Lepage says. “The more the story progresses, the more it moves away from the realm of the gods to focus on the power and ambition of human beings. Götterdämmerung is about Brünnhilde in society, her journey as a character, and her role as the heroine who must restore balance to the world.”

Uh, did you notice the realm of the humans in Die Walkuere? I sure hope so.

Stupidest Idea I Have Ever Heard

Monopoly with a computer dictating moves, money, etc.

PLEASE. Half the fun is mayhem games where you make up your own rules, usually at random and as you go along.

Dear LA Opera:

Please spare my sanity and get the choose-your-own-seat module of Tessitura already. Please.

Sunday Miscellany

Powerhouse percussionist Steven Schick has been appointed artistic director of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. I saw him in Los Angeles in 2007, playing Kaija Saariaho's Six Japanese Gardens; he was tremendous. This is a great thing for SFCMP, and for us, if we get to hear him locally....Speaking of SFCMP, their next concert is on Monday, February 28, 8 p.m., at Herbst Theater in S.F. They are playing works by Ligeti, Du Yun, Ronald Bruce Smith, and Brian Current; Donato Cabrera conducts....LA Opera presents two performances of Britten's Noye's Fludde, at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Saturday, March 19, at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, which is not far from the opera house. Richard Paul Fink, just off a run as Henry Kissinger at the Met, and Kate Lindsey lead the cast; James Conlon conducts. Tickets go on sale tomorrow...Stanford Lively Arts presents the Bay Area premier of Steven Mackey and Rinde Eckert's Slide; eighth blackbird joins them. Slide is just another thing to try to get to on what I am casually calling Hell Weekend: it's on Saturday, March 5, 8 p.m., at Dinkelspiel Auditorium on the Stanford campus....Opposite this and several other don't-miss performances is the Other Minds Festival, which is chock full of new music. It's on March 3, 4, and 5 at the San Francisco Jewish Community Center. Featured composers include Kyle Gann, Louis Andriessen, Agata Zubel, and others.

American Bach Soloists plays a tasty program of Handel and Purcell on February 25, 26, 27, and 28 in Belvedere, Berkeley, SF, and Davis. I'm not linking to their web site because it plays music at you whether you want it to or not; that music also has nothing to do with the upcoming program....More for Hell Weekend: California Bach Society, whose web site is more polite than ABS's, performs music of Buxtehude on March 4, 5, and 6, in San Francisco, Palo Alto, and Berkeley. Paul Flight conducts; I'm sure it will be great....And last but far from least, over the same damn weekend, the bravura contemporary music chorus Volti sings music of Kui Dong, Diesendruck, Hearne, and Lang, in San Francisco, Mill Valley, and Berkeley....If you don't have enough to do the first weekend of March, go see the Merce Cunningham Dance Company on its valedictory tour, at Cal Performances.