SAN FRANCISCO CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC ANNOUNCES 2015-16 SEASON Weekend Festival of Free Music Kicks Off New Season of Performances and Events

The San Francisco Conservatory of Music this year presents a fresh selection of festivals, curated concert series and special events that invite audiences to experience music through the prism of a top collegiate music program. The season starts September 11 with Classical Kick-off Weekend, three days of concerts, recitals and presentations celebrating Mozart, Haydn and a few of their unjustly neglected contemporaries. In January, the Maurizio Biasini International Guitar Competition and Festival features master guitarists and their protégés in performances that include the Conservatory Guitar Ensemble and New Music Ensemble. The spring series Transformations examines the time-honored practice among composers of “borrowing” others’ work for inspiration. Noted stage director Jose Maria Condemi leads a season of three full opera productions including a West Coast premiere. And top international artists like the Borromeo String Quartet, conductor Patrick Summers, violinist Midori and composer John Adams visit throughout the year for performances, master classes and informal discussions. Concert series in orchestra, chamber music, contemporary music and historical performance plus a lineup of faculty and alumni recitals given by favorite Bay Area performers complete the season. Performances are held at 50 Oak Street and most are free of charge. Find details at sfcm.edu/performances.

SFCM begins the year in classical style with a festival of free music. Classical Kick-off Weekend, held September 11-13, showcases Classical period standard bearers Mozart and Haydn and the endlessly inventive music they composed for orchestra, chamber ensembles, voice and piano. Conductor Scott Sandmeier leads the Conservatory Orchestra in performances that grant recognition to overlooked composers Joseph Martin Kraus and Josef Mysliveček. Guests include pianist Eric Tran ’15, faculty violist Jodi Levitz and the Thalea String Quartet, an ensemble of SFCM graduate student fellows. Guitar, piano and voice students of the Historical Performance program demonstrate the art of vocal improvisation in a concert of works by Mozart and J.C. Bach that include dazzling embellishments penned by Mozart himself. Scott Foglesong ’77, chair of music theory and musicianship and a favorite Bay Area lecturer, sheds light on the Classical style in a multimedia presentation titled “Music of the Enlightenment.” A faculty voice and chamber music recital, Haydn piano sonatas and a concert by prodigies from SFCM’s Pre-College Division round out the weekend.

The Borromeo String Quartet is known for employing technology, scholarship and exquisite skill to reveal the power of great music. From March 14-17, the Borromeo holds a teaching residency at SFCM that includes a marathon performance of Bartók’s six quartets and “Paths Not Taken,” a rare presentation of rediscovered alternate movements from the quartets. SFCM’s chamber music series also hosts members of the Kronos Quartet, Danish String Quartet and Takács Quartet for chamber music master classes, and welcomes back violinist Geoff Nuttall, the dynamic co-founder of the St. Lawrence String Quartet, for a performance with Conservatory students. Other internationally known artists offering master classes at SFCM this season include acclaimed opera conductor Patrick Summers, violinists Midori and Pinchas Zukerman, and guitarists Alvaro Pierri and Manuel Barrueco.

Aside from the spectacle of two operatic blockbusters and a West Coast premiere, SFCM’s opera series offers the thrill of watching talented young singers meet the challenges of music’s most demanding art form. New Director of Opera Jose Maria Condemi, known for his work at San Francisco Opera and other major companies, directs Mozart’s Don Giovanni, this year’s annual spring opera production. In December, four singers present a tour de force performance of opera’s most famous melodies in La tragédie de Carmen, Peter Brook’s distillation of Bizet’s famous work, scored for chamber orchestra. And next May, SFCM presents the regional premiere of Mansfield Park by Jonathan Dove. This 2011 adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel was praised by Opera Today for its “sparkling score” written for two pianos and a libretto of “meaty, intelligent roles” ideally suited to young singers.

Two of contemporary music’s most revered composers grace SFCM’s new music series. The alumni-founded Del Sol String Quartet and guitarist Gyan Riley ’01 present a world premiere by Terry Riley in a special performance on December 6. On December 13 the Conservatory Library and Archives hosts former faculty member John Adams for a discussion with faculty pianist Mack McCray about his years working and composing at SFCM during the 1970s. Current composition department chair David Conte celebrates his 60th birthday in November with a concert featuring tributes written by former students. Guest artists include conductors Michael Morgan, Jeffrey Thomas and members of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra. Faculty composer David Garner ’79 premieres a vocal chamber work in the spring. And the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players visit SFCM for a three concert mini-series featuring Conservatory students. (Information and tickets available at sfcmp.org.)

Composers have long appreciated the virtues of recycling. This spring, theTransformations concert series focuses on composers, arrangers and virtuosos who have adapted others’ work (and sometimes their own) to create new masterpieces. Curated by faculty and integrated with the college curriculum, concerts span the breadth of performance at SFCM. The Conservatory Orchestra and lecturer Scott Foglesong begin the series in February with Luciano Berio’s Rendering, based on an uncompleted Schubert symphony, and music by Richard Strauss. In the program ‘Round Midnight, the guitar department plays standards by Thelonius Monk and Villa-Lobos in stunning arrangements by faculty member Sérgio Assad and others. The Baroque Ensemble, directed by Corey Jamason and Elisabeth Reed, explores early Handel works later woven into his great masterpieces and proves even Handel wasn’t above pinching from other composers. Faculty violist Jodi Levitz and the Thalea String Quartet perform Bach transcriptions by Kodály, Rachmaninoff and Busoni, while the piano department plays tunes from opera and other genres in virtuosic adaptations by Liszt and Thalberg.

Twelve young guitarists from around the world compete for a $12,000 prize when SFCM hosts the Third International Maurizio Biasini Guitar Competition and Festival from January 14-17. Under artistic director and SFCM guitar department chair David Tanenbaum ’78, the festival celebrates the tradition and evolution of classical guitar. Tanenbaum conducts the Conservatory Guitar Ensemble and faculty member Nicole Paiement directs the New Music Ensemble in an opening concert that features a world premiere by the multifaceted composer Clarice Assad. Other events include a command performance by previous Biasini winner Emanuele Buono, a concert by the competition’s panel of acclaimed jurors, a demonstration of the Harris Guitar Collection of rare and historic guitars housed at SFCM, and the competition finals in which contestants will perform Joaquin Rodrigo’s classic Concierto de Aranjuez backed by a Festival Orchestra of Conservatory musicians conducted by Scott Sandmeier. Information and tickets are available at omniconcerts.com.

In addition to contributing highlights to the Classical Kick-off Weekend and Transformations series, SFCM’s Historical Performance program presents a complete series of its own. Henry Purcell’s masque The Fairy Queen contains some of the English composer’s best theater music. Faculty members Corey Jamason and Elisabeth Reed lead the Baroque Ensemble in a concert version of the work next March. The Ensemble also presents cantatas by Vivaldi and Handel, a concert celebration devoted entirely to Vivaldi and its popular annual Concerto Competition winners’ showcase. Harpsichordist Jamason hosts three faculty recitals featuring works by Bach, Biber, Corelli and others, joined by faculty members Elisabeth Reed, viola da gamba, and Elizabeth Blumenstock, violin, as well as guest violinists Margaret Faultless and Catherine Mackintosh. And in cooperation with American Bach Soloists, SFCM offers unique insights into early music in master classes led by oboist Debra Nagy, flutist Sandra Miller and conductor and ABS Artistic and Music Director Jeffrey Thomas.

As always, SFCM is proud to present its own acclaimed professionals in a season-long series of faculty artist recitals. San Francisco Symphony principal violist Jonathan Vinocour and principal trombonist Tim Higgins make their SFCM solo recital debuts. Violinists Bettina Mussumeli and Ian Swensen, violist Jodi Levitz, cellist Jean-Michel Fonteneau, pianists Mack McCray and William Wellborn, and other faculty often featured on Bay Area stages, offer programs that span chamber music, solo performance art song and world premieres.

The Conservatory also welcomes back its own for Artist Insights, a concert series in which alumni discuss the journey from student to professional performer. Pianist Christopher Basso ’04 plays final works by Beethoven and Schubert, the guitar duo One Great City presents music by SFCM composers, and soprano Ann Moss ’05 sings famous melodies by Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and others in an appearance with Emil Miland, cello, SFCM staff pianist Steven Bailey, composer Jake Heggie and award-winning music producer and visiting faculty member Leslie Ann Jones.

For details of the year’s events and to purchase or reserve seats online, visit sfcm.edu/performances. Search events by date and find the most updated schedule at calendar.sfcm.edu. Ticketed concerts are $20 general admission, $15 for students, seniors and Conservatory members. Concerts are held at 50 Oak Street, San Francisco.

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