A glittering display case of rare and historically significant guitars now graces a quiet alcove off the Conservatory atrium. Guitar Department Chair David Tanenbaum and L. John Harris, founder and president of the Harris Guitar Foundation (above center), formally unveiled the new home of the Harris Guitar Collection at a special event on Sunday, April 27, joined by President David H. Stull and renowned guitarist Pepe Romero. The collection of nineteenth and twentieth-century instruments by master builders illuminates the evolution of the modern guitar. Romero, who inspired Harris and Tanenbaum to launch the Conservatory's regular Guitarrada celebrations,spoke of the instruments as "magnificent teachers"that will help train the nextgeneration of artists.
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The collection, to be used as much as admired, offersConservatory students unique opportunities for study, performance and recording, and cements the school's leading position as a center for the study of classical guitar. Look for more on the Harris Guitar Collection in the next issue of Take Note.
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 Orchestra's Grand FinaleTianYang Liu '13 has had quite a run with A Carmen Fantasy by Frank Proto, a jazz- inflected work that loosely transcribes Bizet's famous opera melodies for virtuoso double bass. The piece helped Liu win top honors at the 2013 International Society of Bassists solo competition and he reprised it recently on public radio's Performance Today. Liu brings the work home in a performance with the Conservatory Orchestra on May 3. Music director Scott Sandmeier also conducts two sketches by iconoclastic American composer Charles Ives, The General Slocum and The Yale-Princeton Football Game, while Tyler Catlin '15 steps to the podium for the overture to Oberon by Carl Maria von Weber. The season closes with The Firebird, the piece that rocketed Igor Stravinsky to fame and ignited his historic collaboration with the Ballets Russes. Liu studied with Scott Pingel and Catlin is a student of Michael Morgan. Saturday, May 3, 8 PM...............  Concert Hall, $20/$15 More information Purchase tickets |
 Composer, venture capitalist and philanthropist Gordon Getty will receive an honorary Doctor of Music degree at Conservatory Commencement ceremonies on May 23. For more than 30 years, Getty has pursued a career in classical composition while leading business ventures and giving millions of dollars in support of the arts and sciences through the Ann & Gordon Getty Foundation. His song cycles, operas and chamber and orchestral works have been presented around the world by ensembles including the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, London's Philharmonia Orchestra, the Bolshoi Ballet and many others. Getty, himself a former Conservatory student, will deliver the commencement address to the class of 2014, offering insights gleaned from a lifetime practicing and fostering the musical arts. Read more.
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A YouTube video featuring the orchestral rock band The Family Crest garnered a half million views in its very first week. (See the Featured Video above right.) The group has been in the spotlight recently with an interview on National Public Radio and a show at the South by Southwest festival. For its new video, The Family Crest teamed up with GoPro, the Bay Area maker of small, mountable high-definition cameras, in a savvy bit of collaborative marketing that's growing the audience for both brands. Laura Bergmann '09, one of four SFCM alumni in the band's core, spoke with Take Note about lessons learned as The Family Crest enjoys what could be a breakthrough year. Read more |
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National Brass Ensemble
 Tickets are now on sale for the inaugural concert of the National Brass Ensemble on June 12 at Sonoma State University's Green Music Center. Leading players from the country's top orchestras perform a program inspired by the 1969 Grammy Award-winning recording The Antiphonal Music of Gabrieli, including excerpts from the Venetian composer's Sacrae symphoniae arranged for the ensemble by San Francisco Symphony principal trombonist and SFCM faculty member Tim Higgins. The concert also features the premiere of a commission by Academy Award and Grammy Award-winning film composer John Williams. A joint project of the Green Music Center, Oberlin Conservatory of Music and SFCM, the National Brass Ensemble holds its first Bay Area residency from June 9-14 with plans to combine teaching and performance in similar residencies in future years. Tickets and information
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Cello Street Quartet Performs as Musical Ambassadors
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The Cello Street Quartet is embarking on a musical goodwill tour of Hungary, Kosovo and Russia as one of ten acts chosen to participate in the U.S. State Department's American Music Abroad program. With geopolitical tensions spiking over the future of Ukraine, it's an interesting moment for the group to visit the region as cultural ambassadors. Cello Street members Matthew Linaman '13 and Andres Vera '13 told Take Note their first international tour is sure to be an education for performers and audiences alike. Read more
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Puccini or Menotti? Bizet or Bernstein? Weber or Weill? There's plenty to savor in the Opera Program's final performances of the season. Two sumptuous programs of opera scenes span the repertoire with delectable duets, tasty trios and (for dessert) favorite ensembles like the Libiamo chorus from La traviata and the sextet from Lucia di Lammermoor. Friday, May 2, 7:30 PM and Sunday, May 4, 2 PM Concert Hall, Free More information
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 It lies outside the purview of Conservatory training and requires no particular technique to play. Nevertheless, the theramin, the Model T of electronic instruments, is terribly difficult to master - as a soloist, let alone in an ensemble. That hasn't prevented enthusiasts including composer and performer Paul Bergel '09 (above right) from banding together to create the New York Theramin Society's Theramin Orchestra, whose open workshop and Brooklyn debut caught the attention of The Wall Street Journal. The 12-person ensemble waved hands in concert (the left controls volume and the right, pitch) for an ethereal evening of music, including original compositions, performed to a sold-out crowd. Bergel scores music for film and video while holding down a night job as music director of Phantom Creep Theater, a company that hosts spooky film and theater shows and monthly "Midnite Monster Hop" dances at Otto's Shrunken Head, an East Village tiki bar.
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Upcoming Concerts
Wednesday, April 30, 8 PM FREE Accompanying Department Recital Thursday, May 1, 4 PM FREE String and Piano Chamber Music Thursday, May 1, 8 PM FREE String and Piano Chamber Music Friday, May 2, 7:30 PM FREE Opera Program | Opera Scenes Saturday, May 3, 8 PM $15/$20....... Orchestra | Scott Sandmeier conductor with Tyler Catlin '15, conductor, Tian Yang Liu '13, double bass Sunday, May 4, 2 PM FREE Opera Program | Opera Scenes Monday, May 5, 8 PM FREE Woodwind Chamber Music Wednesday, May 7, 8 PM FREE Brass Ensemble Thursday, May 8, 4 PM FREE String and Piano Chamber Music Saturday, May 10, 8 PM FREE Composition Department | Choral Competition
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Call the Box Office for tickets and reservations at 415.503.6275. Conservatory SupportersTo reserve tickets, please contact June Hom at 415.503.6201 or jhom@sfcm.edu. To become a Conservatory supporter visit our website.
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The Family Crest, featuring SFCM alumni, in a video by GoPro Music. See article below.
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Pre-College prodigies perform in weekly recitals at the Conservatory, as generations have before them. Archives student assistant Anna Bush '15 recently came across several programs circa 1930 showing the repertoire played by a promising ten-year-old Conservatory violin student named Isaac Stern.
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San Francisco Symphony Features Mark Inouye
May 1-4
After trading riffs with pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet last week in the bantering solos of Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 1, San Francisco Symphony principal trumpet and SFCM faculty member Mark Inouye has another chance to shine alongside soprano Carolyn Sampson in J.S. Bach's Cantata No. 51, Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen, under the baton of leading Bach interpreter Ton Koopman. The piece is Bach's only cantata for trumpet and solo soprano.
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 Faculty Trio at Old FirstFriday, May 2
Beethoven's abilities as a pianist were in steep decline due to hearing loss when he premiered his "Archduke" trio in 1814. But the vigorous interplay among instruments and surprising harmonies and textures show he was at the top of his game as a composer. Faculty members Bettina Mussumeli, violin, Bonnie Hampton, cello, and Mack McCray, piano, perform "Archduke" and other chamber masterworks by Beethoven and Mozart at Old First Concerts on May 2.
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Camerata Pacifica
May 4-9
Mezzo-soprano Kate Allen '12 joins the chamber ensemble Camerata Pacifica performing Jake Heggie's song cycle Winter Roses in concerts around Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. The group is comprised of a core of internationally acclaimed chamber musicians, including pianist and Conservatory alumnus Warren Jones '77, joined by featured guest artists. In June, Allen debuts at the Castleton Festival in Virginia, performing the role of Suzuki in Puccini's Madama Butterfly under the baton of Lorin Maazel.
Allen studies with César Ulloa.
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Burlingame Music Club Competition Winners
Monday, May 12
Conservatory students won gold and silver in the Burlingame Music Club Young Musicians Competition for voice. Sydney Kucine, a freshman studying with Ruby Pleasure, received the first place award while sophomore Ashley Valentine, student of Catherine Cook, took second place. Both perform in a winners' concert held at the club's next meeting on Monday, May 12 at noon. In addition to awarding cash prizes to young singers and instrumentalists through annual competitions, the group hosts student and professional performers in recital at its monthly meetings.
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Café menu with beer and wine available from