Into the Lunar New Year
Dear Friends,
Happy New Year! January is not quite over and soon we will celebrate the Lunar New Year, so the exploration and discovery of 2016 is only beginning as we move into a new semester, prepare for new concerts and collaborations and have experiences we might never have imagined before.
In the next few months we’ll be taking several journeys, physically and artistically, to new places in the arts community near and far. Our premiere ensemble performs on February 5 with the Kronos Quartet, as part of the Kronos Festival 2016: Explorer Series, at the SFJazz Center, where we will sing the West Coast premiere of a powerful new work, Sound, Only Sound Remains, by Iranian-American composer Sahba Aminikia.
On March 18 we will hold our 37th season gala benefit, “Celebrating Strong Women’s Voices,” at the City Club, performing collaboratively that evening with beloved mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade. Then on April 10 the extraordinary cellist and TED fellow Joshua Roman travels to San Francisco to work with SFGC on more familiar pieces by Haydn, Franck, and Brahms, as well as a new work for the Chorus he has written for this concert. In previous postcards, Lisa Bielawa has mentioned Joshua Roman, and he continues to expand his artistic horizons in every way—utilizing technology to reach new audiences, curating performances in Seattle, composing, and collaborating with a wide range of artists, from chamber orchestras to playwrights.
In May we’ll go boldly where we haven’t been before, performing new arrangements of songs by the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in a program commemorating the legendary San Francisco concert promoter Bill Graham!
And finally, and perhaps most boldly this spring, our premiere ensemble will travel to New York City to take part in the New York Philharmonic’s second Biennial Festival at Lincoln Center. Our performance there on June 9, with The Knights chamber orchestra, will feature the world premieres of works by Pulitzer-prize winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis, Gabriel Kahane, and others.
What a marvelous adventure! I invite you to come along with us.
In anticipation, Melanie Smith Executive Director
“Still round the corner there may wait, a new road or a secret gate."
—J. R. R. Tolkien