 Biasini Guitar Competition and Festival Arrives Next Week
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 SFCM Welcomes New Piano Faculty and Artist-in-Residence SFCM is expanding its piano faculty with the appointment of new faculty members Jon Nakamatsu, a winner of the Van Cliburn Competition, and acclaimed Australian pianist Corey McVicar. SFCM also named legendary pianist Leon Fleisher as artist-in-residence for 2016-17. A renowned performer who overcame a mid-career battle with a debilitating physical condition, Fleisher will teach group lessons, hold master classes, and share his unique experience with students in other forums. Read more.
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 Symphony and Opera Principals Join Woodwind Faculty
Carey Bell, principal clarinet with the San Francisco Symphony, and Mingjia Liu, principal oboe with the San Francisco Opera, will begin teaching at SFCM in the fall of 2016. The appointments cement already strong ties between SFCM and its two neighbors. Students now have the opportunity to study with a faculty that includes 34 members and principal players from two of San Francisco's top orchestras. Read more.
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Alumni Honors
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SFCM alumni have won numerous honors in recent months for achievements beyond the concert stage:  The National Endowment of the Arts granted Hector Armienta '97 a $15,000 award to compose, develop, and present the Mexican-American opera Bless Me, Ultima, based on the epic novel by Rudolfo Anaya. Armienta is founder and director of Opera Cultura, a community-based opera company and training program which has performed works in San Jose, New York, and Mexico.  Guitarist John Britton '12 has released an arrangement of Shubert's famously dark lieder Erlkönig with a Canadian publishing house as a teaser for a larger anthology of music for voice and guitar. The recent graduate is on something of a quest to breathe new life into the traditional pairing of voice and guitar. Read more.
 A forthcoming book by composer and author Jack Curtis Dubowsky '01 applies musical scholarship and queer theory to interpret iconic films like Bride of Frankenstein, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Blazing Saddles, Brokeback Mountain, and Thelma & Louise. Intersecting Film, Music, and Queerness will be published by the international academic press Palgrave Macmillan this spring.
 The League of American Orchestras appointed Mi Ryung Song '03 as director of strategic initiatives, a newly created senior position. She'll manage artistic activities, new partnerships, and other strategic goals for the organization. Song studied flute at SFCM and also graduated from the League's Orchestra Management Fellowship Program.
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Calling All Music TeachersPrivate and in-school music teachers will spend a day at SFCM on Sunday, January 10, discussing core issues in music education, from adapting innovative curricula and reaching underserved communities to establishing and funding new programs, schools, and private studios. Panelists will include experts in teaching, administration, foundation support, and tech. Gift of Music: Educators' Exchange is free with a reservation for students and alumni and $50 for general admission. |
 Café Crème offers a menu including beer and wine two hours before most performances and during intermission. Order in advance at 415.503.6295 or cafecreme@sfcm.edu.
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The SFCM Guitar Ensemble is featured in the upcoming Biasini Guitar Competition and Festival. Here, they perform Brouwer's The Sky, the Air and a Smile at the guitar department's 50th Anniversary Concert in October 2014.
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The Conservatory's Oral History Project preserves stories - and voices - spanning nearly 100 years of Conservatory history. Take a behind-the-scenes look at the project with archivist Tessa Updike, who has coordinated all (and conducted some) of the 29 interviews recorded to date. Read more
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Thalea String QuartetJanuary 10, 2:30 pm The Thalea String Quartet, SFCM's graduate quartet-in-residence, recently won the Barbara Fritz Chamber Music Award, an annual prize granted to emerging ensembles by the Berkeley Piano Club. They perform a winners concert in Berkeley featuring music by Terry Riley, Paul Hindemith and Beethoven. Admission is free. Details
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SF Contemporary Music Players
January 19, 7:30 pm
SFCMP proudly partners with SFCM for the series X-SCAPE: New Spaces for New Music, exploring space in the physical, metaphorical, and poetic sense. Xeri from Greek ξηρός means "dry." Scape means "space." Xeriscape invokes climate change and poses the question: is there a cultural and musical counterpart to climate change? Are there important artistic statements that resonate in new arid spaces? SFCM students join SFCMP in performance at the Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall. Details
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Kenneth Renshaw violin January 30, 8 pm Pre-College alumnus Kenneth Renshaw, winner of the Menuhin International Violin Competition and numerous other prestigious awards, returns to SFCM for a solo recital. Renshaw has appeared as concert soloist with orchestras throughout the world and been featured on radio broadcasts including NPR's From the Top. Admission is free. Details
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Champion: An Opera in Jazz
February 19-28
Presented by SFJAZZ and Opera Parallèle, Champion is an opera by Terence Blanchard based on the real-life story of Emile Griffith, a world champion boxer who killed rival Benny Paret in their 1962 welterweight title match after Paret had mocked him as a closeted homosexual. Tormented by the death of Paret, Griffith spent his life questioning his place in a society that would accept his accidental killing of a fellow athlete, but not his sexuality. SFCM faculty member and Opera Parallèle artistic director Nicole Paiement conducts a cast including Conservatory alumni and students in performances at SFJAZZ. Details |
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