sfSoundSeries: 2003-2004 season

Archive: 2003-2004 season

Our first concert season displays the breadth of our ambitions, with programs and works representing the Bay Area's fusion of musical traditions. We survey American ideas and traditions including experimental music, performance art, live electronic music, and structured and free improvisation. We also connect with European trends like the live diffusion of tape music and "the new complexity," devoting concerts to the cultural anatomies of Helmut Lachenmann and the feverish collages of Luciano Berio. Avant-garde classics appear alongside emerging composer-performers, all performed with vivid musicianship.

Saturday, October 18, 2003, 8 pm
Community Music Center San Francisco
544 Capp Street (between 20th and 21st in the Mission)
admission $10

A program juxtaposing different kinds of music and different kinds of music-making. New transcriptions of John Cage's Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano for ensemble rethink the orchestrational and rhythmic innovations of this classic work. Iannis Xenakis' Charisma rigorously notates extreme performance techniques in an outburst for cello and clarinet, while James Tenney's Critical Band uses hyper-precise notation of pitch to create a contemplative environment. Meanwhile, a free improvisation and David Bithell's conceptual A View of the Santa Rosa Mountains, as seen from the Borrego Badlands, Spring 1999 display the liberating potentials of music beyond notation.

Sunday, November 23, 2003, 8 pm
Community Music Center San Francisco
544 Capp Street (between 20th and 21st in the Mission)
admission $10

Two recitals in a single program: sfSoundGroup director Matt Ingalls and guest performer Mark Menzies present works about reflections, echoes, and proliferations. Ingalls' performance features Pierre Boulez's Domaines, a series of excursions and detours for solo clarinet. Menzies and Christopher Burns perform Luigi Nono's La Lontananza Nostalgica Utopica Futura, an hourlong journey for violin and electronics in which the live performer engages in dialogue with layered recordings of Gideon Kremer.

Saturday, January 10, 2004, 8 pm
Community Music Center San Francisco
544 Capp Street (between 20th and 21st in the Mission)
admission $10

A survey of the "new complexity" on the west coast and beyond, featuring works by Brian Ferneyhough, Michael Finnissy, Roger Reynolds, and the younger generation of composers they have influenced. From California we present Ferneyhough's Bone Alphabet for solo percussion, and Reynolds' ...the serpent-snapping eye... for trumpet, piano, percussion, and electronics. From England, Finnissy's Yvaroperas are a nostalgic and atmospheric tour of the history of opera, as well as an homage to Yvar Mishkakoff and John Cage.

Saturday, February 7, 2004, 8 pm
Community Music Center San Francisco
544 Capp Street (between 20th and 21st in the Mission)
admission $10

An investigation into the theatrical possibilities in contemporary music and the musical potentials of contemporary theater. Featured works include Samuel Beckett's Ghost Trio, Kenneth Gaburo's Mouthpiece, and Vinko Globokar's Dos a Dos, along with performances of music by David Bithell, Rick Burkhardt, Petros Ovsepyan, and members of the Fluxus group.

Friday - Sunday, February 20-22, 2004, 8:30 pm
CELLspace
2050 Bryant Street
admission $10 / evening

The new San Francisco Tape Music Center is California's foremost exponent of the live diffusion of tape music. They present a three-day festival of new and classic audio art, distributed in real-time across a sixteen-channel surround sound system.

Friday, March 19, 2004, 8 pm
Community Music Center San Francisco
544 Capp Street (between 20th and 21st in the Mission)
admission $10

Helmut Lachenmann is one of the most important composers working in Europe today; his music challenges our received notions of culture via stunning reconceptions of traditional forms, materials, and even the musicians' instruments. This program showcases some of his most powerful chamber music, including Allegro Sostenuto, for clarinet, cello, and piano, and Salut für Caudwell, for guitar duo. Guest performers include Geoffrey Gartner (cello), Derek Keller (guitar), and Colin McAllister (guitar).

Saturday, June 5, 2004, 8:30 pm
Community Music Center San Francisco
544 Capp Street (between 20th and 21st in the Mission)
admission $10

Luciano Berio (1925-2003) was one of the extraordinary voices of the Darmstadt generation. Perhaps the most historically-minded member of that group, some of his greatest compositions are postmodern collages and recontextualizations of older works (including Mahler's 2nd Symphony in Sinfonia and Schubert's Unfinished Symphony in Rendering). We remember Berio through performances of works like his brilliant Sequenza IV for solo piano and the moving O King (dedicated to Martin Luther King). In addition, the program highlights new refashionings of Berio's music; the composer's interpretations of music history become the inspiration for transformations of his own work.