Green Music Center
The Green Music Center
Twenty-six top brass players from America's finest orchestras convene in the Bay Area this June to recreate the historic 1968 Grammy Award-winning recording The Antiphonal Music of Gabrielli. The National Brass Ensemble Project is a partnership between SFCM, the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Green Music Center at Sonoma State University. Players will hold a residency from June 9-14 in San Francisco and Sonoma, perform in concert at the Green Center on June 12 and produce a new CD of brass works by Renaissance master Giovanni Gabrielli. The ensemble will also premiere a commission by celebrated film composer John Williams. Conservatory faculty members Mark Inouye, trumpet, Robert Ward, horn and Tim Higgins, trombone, all principals with the San Francisco Symphony, will take part, joining colleagues from the Cleveland, Philadelphia, Boston Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony and the Chicago Symphony orchestras.

Thursday, June 12, 7:30 PM
Weill Hall, Green Music Center
Sonoma State University
Tickets and information
Baroque Ensemble
Baroque Soloist Showcase
Five winners of this year's Baroque Ensemble Concerto Competition step into the footlights on Saturday, April 19 as featured soloists in concerti by Dittersdorf, Telemann, Vivaldi and C.P.E. Bach. Violists Vijay Chalasani and Erin Kirby, cellist Adam Young, bassist Xiaoshu Hou and violinist Sarah Bleile perform with the Baroque Ensemble under the direction of Corey Jamason and Elisabeth Reed. The ensemble takes up a different palette of colors on Wednesday, April 16 with chamber works that spotlight winds, viols and voice.

Chamber Concert
Wednesday, April 16, 8 PM
Recital Hall, Free
More information

Concerti Winners
Saturday, April 19, 8 PM..................
Concert Hall, RR*
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SFCM at the Kennedy Center
Nine students from the Conservatory Wind and Brass Ensembles give a free concert at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. on April 24 as part of the Conservatory Project, a showcase of top talent from American schools of music. SFCM has participated in the series since its inception in 2004 and is one of fifteen schools appearing this spring. Two quintets will play works by Ligeti, Lorenzo and Michael Tilson Thomas, and then join forces for Holst works arranged for winds and brass by trombone faculty and San Francisco Symphony principal Timothy Higgins. San Francisco audiences can hear a preview on Wednesday, April 16.

Wednesday, April 16, 12:30 PM
Osher Salon, Free
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Nathan Campbell
Campbell at the 2013 San Francisco-Shanghai International Chamber Music Festival
Nathan Campbell '14 has won the Highsmith Award, the Conservatory's prize in orchestral composition. The Conservatory Orchestra will premiere his work Lunar Prelude at its opening concert next fall. Composers often rely on virtual orchestras embedded in computer notation programs to hear how their large works sound. But the Highsmith Award gives young composers like Campbell a rare opportunity to test drive the real thing. Read more.
An Early Music Master's Class
Jeffrey Thomas Under the direction of Jeffrey Thomas, the American Bach Soloists have garnered superlatives such as "the best American specialists in early music... a flawless ensemble" (The Washington Post). In 2013, ABS created the Jeffrey Thomas Award to commemorate his 25 years of leadership. Earlier this year, cellist and Conservatory alumna Gretchen Claassen '12 became the second musician to receive the honor, which recognizes and encourages exceptionally gifted emerging professionals in the field of early music. On Monday, April 21, Thomas returns to the Conservatory to work with students in a master class covering instrumental and vocal works by by Bach, Handel and Barriere.

Monday, April 21, 7:30 PM
Recital Hall, Free
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SFCM Joins Asia-Pacific Alliance

The San Francisco Conservatory of Music is one of two U.S. institutions to join a new alliance of music schools spanning the Asia-Pacific region. President David H. Stull and Robert Cutietta, Dean of the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music, attended the inaugural Asia-Pacific Music Summit held in Sydney, Australia in early April. They met with leaders of nine other preeminent schools from China, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, New Zealand and Australia to discuss course programs, student exchanges, industry collaborations, funding models and other issues. Participants agreed to form a new Pacific Alliance of Music Schools (PAMS) to create closer ties between the institutions and promote music education across the region. The summit comes at a time when countries such as China are experiencing a major boom in classical music. Stull called it the beginning of an important alliance, saying, "Global interchange is the future of music and education. I am tremendously enthusiastic about the potential of this initiative."

Pacific Alliance of Music Schools

Musical Theatre's Bernarda Alba
Bernarda Alba Following her second husband's funeral, the matriarch Bernarda Alba locks down her household, much to the dismay of her five daughters. As the girls seek to nourish their dreams and desires, they challenge their mother's rule... and the outside world slowly begins to creep in. Michael John LaChiusa (Marie Christine and The Wild Party) gives musical voice to Federico García Lorca's final masterpiece La Casa de Bernarda Alba with pulsing castanets, trilling guitars, resounding rhythms and dance. Michael Mohammed directs and Byan Nies conducts.

Saturday, April 26, 8 PM and
Sunday, April 27, 2 PM
Concert Hall, RR*
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Orchestra's Grand Finale
Scott Sandmeier and Conservatory Orchestra The Conservatory Orchestra ends its season with a tour de force program as music director Scott Sandmeier conducts sketches of Charles Ives' The General Slocum and The Yale-Princeton Football Game and Stravinsky's first major success The Firebird. Double bassist Tian Yang Liu '13 takes a solo bow, performing A Carmen Fantasy by Frank Proto, the piece that helped lead him to victory at the 2013 International Society of Bassists' Solo Competition.

Saturday, May 3, 8 PM...................
Concert Hall, $20/$15
More information  Purchase tickets
Ackerley's Knockout
Mark Ackerley Composer Mark Ackerley is a winner of the 2014 Zvi Zeitlin Memorial International Composition Competition. His string quartet TKO received the contest's Award for North America and receives a performance by the Cuatro Puntos chamber ensemble later this year. The work summons an emotion Ackerley calls "God-like jubilant rage," the kind of feeling an athlete might experience upon winning a hard-fought victory, or, perhaps, that a composer might feel upon winning an international composition competition.

Upcoming Concerts

Tuesday, April 15, 8 PM  FREE
New Music Ensemble | Student Compositions
Nicole Paiement, director
 
Tuesday, April 15, 8 PM  FREE
Cello Department Recital
 
Wednesday, April 16, 12:30 PM
Kennedy Center Preview Concert

Wednesday, April 16, 8 PM  FREE
Voice Department Recital
 
Wednesday, April 16, 8 PM  FREE
Baroque Ensemble | Chamber Music
Corey Jamason & Elisabeth Reed, directors
 
Thursday, April 17, 8 PM  FREE
Percussion Ensemble
 
Thursday, April 17, 8 PM  FREE
String and Piano Chamber Music
 
Friday, April 18, 12 PM  FREE
Master Class | Carol Jantsch, tuba

Friday, April 18, 8 PM  FREE
Accompanying Department Recital
 
Saturday, April 19, 8 PM  RR*............      
Baroque Ensemble | Concerto Competition Winners
Corey Jamason & Elisabeth Reed, directors

Monday, April 21, 7:30 PM  FREE
Master Class | Jeffrey Thomas, conductor

Monday, April 21, 8 PM  FREE
Brass Chamber Music

Tuesday, April 22, 8 PM  FREE
String and Piano Chamber Music

Wednesday, April 23, 8 PM  FREE
Composition Department Recital

Wednesday, April 23, 8 PM  FREE
Violin Recital | Students of Bettina Mussumeli

Thursday, April 24, 4 PM  FREE
String and Piano Chamber Music

Thursday, April 24, 8 PM  FREE
Guitar Department Recital

Thursday, April 24, 8 PM  FREE
String and Piano Chamber Music

Friday, April 25, 8 PM  FREE
Accompanying Department Recital

Saturday, April 26, 8 PM  RR*
Musical Theatre | LaChiusa Bernarda Alba

Sunday, April 27, 2 PM  RR*
Musical Theatre | LaChiusa Bernarda Alba

Monday, April 28, 8 PM  FREE
Voice Department Recital

Monday, April 28, 8 PM  FREE
Woodwind Chamber Music Recital

Tuesday, April 29, 8 PM  FREE
String and Piano Chamber Music

Wednesday, April 30, 1 PM  FREE
Baroque Cello Class Concert

Wednesday, April 30, 8 PM  FREE
Accompanying Department Recital

View our performance calendar for complete information including concert changes and updates.

RR* = Reservations required.

Call the Box Office for tickets and reservations at 415.503.6275.

Conservatory Supporters
To reserve tickets, please contact June Hom at 415.503.6201 or jhom@sfcm.edu. To become a Conservatory supporter visit our website.
SFCM
April 15, 2014
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Featured Video
10-year-old violinist Pierce Wang meets the legendary Sir James Galway
Pre-College violinist Pierce Wang plays (and whistles) a Telemann sonata with Sir James Galway at a taping of NPR's From the Top

Dan Becker's Fade

Warm Words for Becker's Fade

Composition Department Chair Dan Becker '89 trains students in traditional methods and then goads them to break the rules. His new CD Fade shows a master's ability to balance the new and the familiar in works written over fifteen years. A programmed Disklavier rattles off energetic "reinventions" of Bach's two-part staples for keyboard while the New Millenium Ensemble and the Common Sense Ensemble perform more meditative chamber works. Examiner.com critic Stephen Smoliar cites the "infectious joyousness" of Gridlock from 1994, one of Becker's most performed works, while the new music website Sequenza 21 writes, "Becker's brand of post-minimalism is brightly colorful and rhythmically incisive. And it sounds as if it would be great fun to play."
Other Events
Jarring Sounds

 

Jarring Sounds for Guerilla Composers

Thursday, April 24

 

Vocal jazz with theorbo? Quarter tone compositions for lute? Experiments in cross-pollination bear fruit when Jarring Sounds, the duo of plucked string master Adam Cockerham '13 and mezzo-soprano Danielle Reutter-Harrah '11, breaks the seal on seven world premieres presented by the Guerilla Composers Guild. Works by Guerilla leaders Nick Benavides '14 and Danny Clay '13 and several other Conservatory composers are featured.  

More information  

 

Opera Parallele Opera Parallèle's
Surreal Pair
Friday-Sunday, April 25-27

The award-winning Opera Parallèle, SFCM's professional opera company in residence, presents a unique double bill of Kurt Weill's Mahagonny Songspiel and Francis Poulenc's Les mamelles de Tirésias. Brian Staufenbiel's production seamlessly melds the two works into one enjoyable, if surreal, operatic experience: a theater troupe travels through the desert in search of water singing Weill's jazz-infused melodies and discovers not paradise, but an audience for their performance of Poulenc's outrageous satire. Nicole Paiement, Artistic Director of the Conservatory's BluePrint Project and the Jean and Josette Deléage Distinguished Chair in New Music, conducts performances at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. For 10% off on tickets, use discount code SFCM.
Julienne Walker '12

An American in Geneva

Breaking into the European opera scene and talking on Wagner are bold moves for a young singer, but the strategy is working for soprano Julienne Walker '12. She appears at the Grand Théàtre Genève from April 23 to May 2 as one the Norns in Wagner's Götterdämmerung, having sung Brünnhilde there in a reduced version of Siegfried earlier this spring. In August, she joins the company as artist in residence for its entire 2014-15 season. Walker also made an impression at Semperoper Dresden last fall in her European debut as the first lady in Die Zauberflöte. The company has invited her back to sing the leading soprano role of Micaela in Carmen this September. Walker studied with César Ulloa.

Terry Riley

Ragas and Riley
Tuesday, April 22

Iconic composer Terry Riley will appear with Indian vocalist Pandit Pran Nath in a program that juxtaposes Riley's pioneering minimalist works with the highly codified but still spontaneous practice of North Indian classical vocal music. The event, hosted by the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, will feature demonstrations and discussions by both master musicians.
More information
 Café menu with beer and wine now available from Café Crème two hours before performance and during intermission. Order in advance at 415.503.6295 or cafecremesf@gmail.com.
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