Well it was inevitable. No sooner had 2025 shambled offstage than this new year burst on the scene, full of bubbly cheer and promising all kinds of restorative pleasures.
Maybe, but I’m not buying it—at least as far as local musical activities are concerned.
My dismay about the spring music schedule came on as soon as I sat down to compile a list of ten events to look forward to in the coming months (January to April). I’ve been doing this once or twice a year since forever, and just as with year-end best-of compilations, it’s always a challenge to keep the list down to a manageable length.
This spring feels different. The San Francisco Opera, which was single-handedly responsible for many of the high points of 2025, is out of action until June. The San Francisco Symphony is now fully into the ultra-drab heart of its drab 2025-26 season. Too many other arts organizations are proceeding with caution. It was all I could do to get my list up to ten.
Of course there are concerts and recitals and operatic offerings that we can look at and say “Well, that might be good.” And certainly some of them will be. But musical events that set the heart racing right now? That made me think, “Goddamn, I cannot wait for that”? They’re not too plentiful.
Here are most of them.
• Pivot Festival (Jan. 30-Feb. 1) The visionary percussionist Andy Meyerson, who together with guitarist Travis Andrews comprises the Bay Area duo The Living Earth Show, curates San Francisco Performances’ annual celebration of new and unusual music. The three programs feature collaborations with vocalist Tanner Porter, dancer-choreographer Myles Thatcher, and a variety of local composer-performers. Herbst Theatre. www.sfperformances.org.
• Emily – No Prisoner Be (Feb. 7) The luminous American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato joins forces with the instrumental ensemble Time For Three in a musical treatment of the poetry of Emily Dickinson, commissioned by Cal Performances from composer Kevin Puts (best known for the operas Silent Night and The Hours). Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley. www.calperformances.org.
• Canto Ostinato (Feb. 22) This influential minimalist work from the late 1970s by Dutch composer Simeon ten Holt gets a rare airing in a collaboration featuring the four members of Sandbox Percussion and pianists Conor Hanick and Matthew Aucoin. Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Berkeley. www.calperformances.org.
• Manfred Honeck conducts the San Francisco Symphony (Feb. 26-March 1) The Austrian conductor returns to town with a program that’s very much on the beaten track — a little Beethoven, a little Haydn, and the Mozart Requiem. But Honeck has evidently whipped up a theatrical version of the Requiem, with a narrator, dramatic readings, and who knows what else. Also, the all-star roster of vocalists is headed by soprano Ying Fang and mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, so some optimism is in order. Davies Symphony Hall. www.sfsymphony.org.
• Attacca Quartet (Feb. 27 and April 12) This venturesome and versatile ensemble is in the middle of a three-part recital series with San Francisco Performances. The spring’s two final events are a Feb. 27 collaboration with vocalist Theo Bleckmann in a monodrama by composer David Lang, and a far-reaching joint appearance on April 12 with composer-performer Caroline Shaw. Herbst Theatre. www.sfperformances.org.
• La Belle et la Bête (March 13-14) Opera Parallèle’s production of the Philip Glass opera — a phantasmagoria of sight, sound, and invention created by director Brian Staufenbiel together with a powerhouse team of collaborators — was a triumph when the company first unveiled it in 2022. The all-too-brief two-night revival at Cal Performances is cause for jubilation. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley. www.calperformances.org.
• Oakland Symphony (March 27) The Hammond organ, long a staple of jazz and rock music, takes a new stylistic turn in Brian Raphael Nabors’ concerto for the instrument, with the composer as soloist and music director Kedrick Armstrong leading the orchestra. The perfect companion piece? Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony, of course. Paramount Theatre. www.oaklandsymphony.org.
• SoundBox (April 10-11) The final installment of the San Francisco Symphony’s now-abridged experimental music series has been curated by composer Gabriella Smith. Nothing has yet been made public about what her plans are, but Smith is a marvelously inventive composer and seems to have lots of cool friends in the musical community. SoundBox. www.sfsymphony.org.
• San Francisco Contemporary Music Players (April 11) The ensemble’s season concludes with a mouthwatering program of music by Ruth Crawford Seeger, Seare Ahmad Farhat, Vivian Fung, and Steve Reich. Solo vocal duties have been entrusted to four of my favorite Bay Area singers: sopranos Winnie Nieh and Tonia D’Amelio, tenor Samuel Faustine, and baritone Sidney Chen. Taube Atrium Theater. www.sfcmp.org.
• Claire Chase (April 18) Flutist and new music impresario Claire Chase arrives with the latest fruits of Density 2036, her decades-long project to commission and perform an entirely new body of work for unaccompanied flute. The latest installment features music by Liza Lim, Marcos Balter, Terry Riley, and more. Herbst Theatre. www.sfperformances.org.
Cryptic clue of the week
From Out of Left Field #301 by Henri Picciotto and me, sent to subscribers last Thursday:
Headless trunk, roughly speaking (2,2)
Last week’s month’s clue:
In recession, ten working with a slightly smaller group? (5)
Solution: NONET
In recession: reversal
ten: TEN
working: ON
a slightly smaller group?: definition
Coming up this week
San Francisco Tape Music Festival: The annual festival includes a characteristically eclectic range of art based on pre-recorded sounds, by composers both living and not. Sunday’s finale is devoted to La Création du monde, an evening-length work from 1984 by composer Bernard Parmegiani; earlier programs include offerings by Elainie Lillios, Yasunao Tone, Matt Ingalls, and many more. Jan. 9-11, Victoria Theatre. www.sfsound.info/tape.
Nathalie Joachim: The brilliant Haitian American composer/vocalist/flutist returns to San Francisco for a live performance of Fanm d’Ayiti (Women of Haiti), her entrancing celebration of Haitian traditions. Jan. 10, Noe Valley Ministry. www.noemusic.org.
I am a little disappointed you did not list Philharmonia Baroque’s March concert Pearls of Sorrow. This concert pairs music from 17th and 18th c. Europe with American Spirituals, sung by the amazing Reginald Mobley. Considering the attacks on DEI, history, and hope I think this could be a good event. (Full disclosure I am a member of Philharmonia, and I think this will be an unusual concert for us.)
Professional musicians must be exhausted after playing non-stop Christmas music in December, so maybe that's the reason for the first three weeks of January being something of a desert. However, I remember a number of stimulating, "serious" concerts at the SF Symphony in early Januarty after a month of Christmas music, but this year the first concerts are accompanying one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. No bueno.