SFCM Hosts Merola
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Photo: Kristen Loken
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As the first step in a budding partnership, the Conservatory is hosting special events this summer for the Merola Opera Program and its supporters. These include master classes with this year's young artists and renowned performers including soprano Jane Eaglen, bass-baritone Eric Owens and collaborative pianist and SFCM alumnus Warren Jones '77. On July 10 and 12, Merola features SFCM alumna and soprano Julie Adams '13 as the antiheroine Blanche DuBois in Merola's production of A Streetcar Named Desire with baritone Thomas Gunther as Stanley Kowalski in performances at San Francisco's Everett Auditorium. It will be the opera's first San Francisco performance since its premiere at San Francisco Opera in 1998. Adams is a student of César Ulloa. More information
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A Gathering of Sorts
Is it a conference or a festival? Yes and yes. Is it a trade show? Definitely not. Whatever it is, the New Music Gathering is coming to SFCM from January 15 through 17, 2015 for three days of performances, presentations and discussions. Focusing on "Artist-led Ensembles," the event will feature leading performers and composers, with a particular spotlight on San Francisco Bay Area artists. Students, fans and professionals alike are encouraged to gather. For more information, see this month's featured video [at right] and visit New Music Gathering. Look for further details later this summer.
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Telegraph Debut: A Strong Transmission
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Just months after joining forces as an ensemble and with only a handful of private concerts under their belt, the Telegraph Quartet surprised themselves by winning the 2014 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition in May. But a combination of training, individual experience and personal chemistry primed Telegraph for success. Advice from their former teachers at SFCM helped, as well. Violist Pei-Ling Lin '12 spoke with Take Note about lessons Telegraph learned and applied on their way to winning one of the world's top chamber music contests. Read more
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SFCM Soloists Anchor SF Symphony's Britten Celebration | Photo: Stefan Cohen |
Two SFCM musicians commanded the spotlight last month while helping the San Francisco Symphony celebrate the centennial of Benjamin Britten's birth. Soprano Elza van den Heever '04 appeared as Ellen Orford in the Symphony's semi-staged production of Peter Grimes opposite tenor Stuart Skelton in the title role, leading what the San Francisco Chronicle called "as perfect a cast as one could hope for." Reviewer David Wiegand wrote that van den Heever "continues to show why she is a singer to watch and hear at any opportunity." Earlier in June, horn faculty and San Francisco Symphony principal Robert Ward joined tenor Toby Spence to give Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings the "performance of a lifetime" according to the Chronicle. Reviewer Joshua Kosman wrote that it was possibly the finest performance he had heard from Ward, saying, "The horn can be a recalcitrant, unpredictable beast, and on Thursday, Ward was its genial master."
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 During one week in early June, 26 players from nine major American orchestras met in Marin County to perform a historic concert and to record their work for posterity. The debut concert of the National Brass Ensemble at Sonoma State University's Green Music Center was called "epochal" by Classical Sonoma, a description that fit not only the group's sound, but the spectacle of having so many top players perform on one stage. The next epoch may come soon. With a CD recorded at Skywalker Sound planned for release and with future Bay Area residencies in the works, the National Brass Ensemble's debut is likely to be the start of a beautiful and long-lasting relationship between players and co-presenters. Read more
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Summer Music West's 30th Anniversary  For thirty years, budding musicians have spent summers at the Conservatory studying and writing music, learning to play in chamber ensembles and, for the past twelve years, stretching their wings on stage in full productions of Gilbert & Sullivan scenes, all thanks to Summer Music West. This year's crop of young stars shines from July 18 through August 1 in concerts featuring strings and piano, new compositions and chamber music. On July 25, Summer Music West throws itself a party with a special 30th Anniversary Concert featuring student and faculty performances - and even a bit of audience improvisation - followed by a special reception. Admission is free at all events! More information (also see listings below)
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Composers, like all entrepreneurs, face a daunting task trying to sell the fruit of their labor. Publishers have historically handled the job of marketing and, of course, printing music - in exchange for taking ownership of composers' work and reaping the lions' share of profits. In the digital age, self-publishing and self-marketing allow composers to control the process, but at a steep cost in time and effort. Swirly Music, a new website developed by composer and SFCM Pre-College faculty member, Michael Kaulkin '96, offers a new way for composers to publish on their own - without breaking a sweat. Read more
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Dallas Opera Picks Paiement
 The Dallas Opera has appointed faculty member and New Music Ensemble Director Nicole Paiement as its first-ever principal guest conductor. Paiement will conduct the company's world premiere of Everest by Joby Talbot and Gene Scheer in January, 2015. She received critical praise last season for conducting Dallas Opera's technologically audacious production Death and the Powers, which included an interactive simulcast broadcast to sites around the world including SFCM.
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Chessa's Night at the Museum |
Photo: SRGF/Chad Heird
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New York's Guggenheim Museum invited faculty member and composer Luciano Chessa to accompany its installation of Italian Futurism with an oration of Futurist poetry. Chessa impressed one reviewer with his vocal and dramatic dexterity, alternately whispering, wielding a bullhorn and "jumping around the stage, yelling and playfully mimicking the onomatopoeic sounds of early 20th-century industry." His program "PAAAAAAroooooooooooole in Libertà Futuriste (Futurist Wwwwwwoooooords-in-Freedom)" demonstrated how Futurism, a twentieth-century utopian art form, sought to "free our voices from the rigid strictures of language." Chessa was also mentioned recently in Architectural Digest as a contributor to a new book of essays published by Venice's Fondazione Prada complementing its show Art or Sound, an examination of noise-making objects, from elaborate instruments to clocks and sculptures.
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Upcoming Concerts
Friday, July 18, 12:30 and 2 PM Summer Music West | String and Piano Academy
Thursday, July 24, 7 PM Summer Music West | Composition Concert
Friday, July 25, 5 PM Summer Music West | 30th Anniversary Concert
Thursday, July 31, 3 PM Summer Music West | Chamber Music Ensembles
Friday, August 1, 11 AM Summer Music West | Piano Duo Academy
Friday, August 1, 2 PM Summer Music West | Chamber Music Ensembles
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 | The New Music Gathering comes to SFCM in 2015
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Together with her long and storied career, acclaimed cellist and faculty member Bonnie Hampton has also enjoyed a long and storied history with SFCM. She first taught lessons at the Conservatory in 1950 when she was just 16 years old (in a closet beneath a stairwell in the building on Sacramento Street). Hampton's interview with Archivist Tessa Updike can be found on SFCM's Oral History page.
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American Bach Soloists Festival and AcademyJuly 11-20 The Conservatory proudly hosts the American Bach Soloists Festival and Academy once again this summer. This year's festival, titled "Bach's Inspiration," traces how earlier composers such as Vivaldi, Pergolesi and Buxtehude influenced the music of J.S. Bach. Concert highlights include Handel's oratorio L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato and Bach's monumental Mass in B Minor conducted by ABS Music Director Jeffrey Thomas. The public can also attend lectures, master classes and performances that are part of the Academy, a training program for students and emerging professionals co-directed by Corey Jamason, himself the director of the Conservatory's own historical performance program.
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Fiore Releases ivJuly 31 Guitarist and faculty member Giacomo Fiore '09 releases his fourth solo album this month, a collection of four works for electric guitar by contemporary American composers. Fiore won grant funding for the album, aptly titled iv, from New Music USA. It features the first-ever recordings of two works, hair of the thing that bit you by SFCM alumnus Anthony Porter '11 and freeHorn by Larry Polanksy. While the record is available as a digital download, Fiore chose to release it physically only on vinyl to offer a different aural experience, showcase the artwork and satisfy "those of us who are into musical artifacts." An album release party takes place July 31 at the Center for New Music at 7:30 PM.
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