Through the windshield, darkly
A forward glance at some musical events I hope will materialize in the coming months
There was an excellent editor during my time at the Chronicle who had a stylistic tic she enforced on all the department’s writers. On her watch, you were never allowed to assert that something was going to happen at a future time. It was always conditional. If you submitted a news brief that said, “Jane Doe has withdrawn from her scheduled appearance with the San Francisco Symphony, and in her place Elizabeth Roe will conduct the orchestra in Mahler’s Ninth Symphony,” the editor would change it to “…Elizabeth Roe is expected to conduct the orchestra…” Because who the hell knows what might happen between now and then, right?
Like most editors’ idiosyncratic rules, this one was sort of irksome to anyone trying to write in ordinary prose, using the language we all know and understand. (Another editor used to maintain a prohibition against the phrase died suddenly. “All deaths are sudden,” he’d declare solemnly. “One minute you’re alive and the next you’re not.”)
Yet I have to concede that I feel the sense of the stricture now, looking ahead at the musical calendar for 2025 and trying to guess how the coming months are actually going to play out. There’s the bigger societal stuff, of course; before we know it, concert life could well be the last thing on anyone’s mind. But even assuming the infrastructure of civic life continues to hold up — and let’s be honest, it usually does, until it doesn’t — it’s hard to feel as confident as we used to that the things on the schedule are actually going to take place.
Above all, there’s the turmoil surrounding the San Francisco Symphony, which remains the centerpiece of the Bay Area’s classical music life, at least when the San Francisco Opera isn’t in season. The musicians’ contract was set to expire in November, but management and the union agreed last month to extend it until Jan. 18. That kicks the can a few feet down the road, and allows us the chance to hear the world premiere of John Adams’ new piano concerto, a Symphony commission. Beyond that, though, there’s no telling. At the risk of conjuring up evils by speaking them aloud, I have to say that some kind of work stoppage, be it a strike or a lockout, currently feels more likely than not. So some of the concerts listed below may not actually occur.
Still, in the spirit of optimism, and accompanied by the apotropaic triple expectoration of my people, here are some of the musical events I’m particularly looking forward to this spring:
• John Adams’ piano concerto (Jan. 16-18) As mentioned above, Adams weighs in with a new orchestral work for the San Francisco Symphony, titled After the Fall. David Robertson is slated to conduct, with pianist Víkingur Ólafsson as soloist; memories of 2022, when Ólafsson gave a powerhouse account of Adams’ previous concerto, Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?, are sufficient to help us overlook the inclusion on the program of the odious Carmina Burana. Davies Symphony Hall. www.sfsymphony.org.
• Pivot Festival (Jan. 29-31) San Francisco Performances’ annual celebration of new and unusual music takes off this year under the guidance of curator and host Gabriel Kahane, which means that something wonderful is in store. The three programs are headlined respectively by violinist/vocalist/composer Carla Kihlstedt (unveiling her musical treatment of the Edward Gorey classic The Gashlycrumb Tinies), singer/songwriter Haley Heynderickx, and the ensemble Soundbox Percussion. Herbst Theatre. www.sfperformances.org.
• Herbert Blomstedt conducts the San Francisco Symphony (Jan. 30-Feb. 1) The Symphony’s former music director is still actively conducting at an astonishing 97, and by all accounts sounds better than ever. Local audiences haven’t heard him in far too long — he canceled his previous scheduled appearance, in 2023, after taking a fall — so this is the opportunity to witness him at work in repertoire close to his heart, the symphonies of Schubert and Brahms. Davies Symphony Hall. www.sfsymphony.org.
• Lise Davidsen (Feb. 4) It’s been a long time since an opera singer has inspired the kind of widespread and unanimously breathless acclaim that has greeted the career rise of this remarkable Norwegian soprano. There’s no telling when, or if, she’ll grace the stage of the War Memorial Opera House, but Cal Performances has stepped into the breach to bring us a recital program featuring music of Purcell, Strauss, Wagner, and more, with pianist Malcolm Martineau as accompanist. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley. www.calperformances.org.
• Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the San Francisco Symphony (Feb. 13-23) I’m especially crossing my fingers that these two subscription weeks will come to fruition. The programming is superb, with Yuja Wang in the Piano Concerto No. 1 of the Finnish master Einojuhani Rautavaara followed a week later by Daniil Trifonov playing Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto. And to speak frankly, who knows how many more chances we’ll have to hear Salonen in action? Davies Symphony Hall. www.sfsymphony.org.
• yMusic/ Gabriella Smith (March 8) I have a long-running enthusiasm for the work of yMusic, the innovative new-music sextet whose programs often include compositions written communally by members of the ensemble. But the draw in the group’s upcoming program for Cal Performances is a new work by Berkeley-born composer Gabriella Smith, whose 2023 organ concerto Breathing Forests remains one of the most thrillingly original creations to come along in years. Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Berkeley. www.calperformances.org.
• Dover Quartet and Marc-André Hamelin (March 9) A couple months ago I heard a tantalizing snippet of the Dover Quartet in action, playing a single Tchaikovsky movement with such expressive grace and tonal beauty that I rashly vowed to drop everything and be there the next time they were in the area. This is that program, with the welcome presence of pianist and composer Marc-André Hamelin making it an even more unmissable prospect. Bing Concert Hall, Stanford. live.stanford.edu.
• The Great Yes, the Great No (March 14-16) The draftsman, sculptor, filmmaker, poet, director, and all-around artistic polymath William Kentridge is set to return to Cal Performances with his latest unclassifiable creation. This one promises a dive into the wartime history of Vichy France, with fictional appearances by André Breton, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Josephine Baker, and more. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley. www.calperformances.org.
• Bacewicz Piano Concerto (March 22-23) The sinewy, inventive music of the midcentury Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz is finally beginning to appear on concert programs more frequently, and I for one am here for it. Pianist David Fung will join music director Donato Cabrera and the California Symphony for Bacewicz’s 1949 Piano Concerto in a program that also features a premiere by composer-in-residence Saad Haddad. Lesher Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek. www.californiasymphony.org.
Cryptic clue of the week
From Out of Left Field #249 by Henri Picciotto and me, sent to subscribers last Thursday:
Kick a boat (4)
Last week’s clue:
Secret movement is insufficiently pulverized? (11)
Solution: UNDERGROUND
Secret movement: definition
insufficiently pulverized: a second, punny definition
Coming up
More coming-up plugs? Well, yeah. This week’s column is, as it were, a macro survey of events over the next three months. But for the coming days, think about these:
San Francisco Tape Music Festival: The annual celebration of pre-recorded sounds, which now dates back a quarter of a century, returns to its San Francisco home for another densely packed and eclectic lineup. The music on offer ranges from the 1950s to the present day, with works by John Oswald, Julie Mondor, Carl Stone, and many more. Jan. 10-12, Victoria Theatre. www.sfsound.org/tape.
Marin Symphony: The orchestra is in flux for a season or two — living a nomadic existence while its home at the Veterans’ Auditorium undergoes a seismic retrofit, and looking for a music director to succeed its longtime leader Alasdair Neale. This week’s program brings one of the candidates for that post, Brazilian conductor Alexandra Arrieche, in a program of music by Arturo Marquez, Edward Elgar, and Edvard Grieg, with piano soloist John Wilson. Jan. 11-12, College of Marin, James Dunn Theatre, Kentfield. www.marinsymphony.org.