Tuesday, April 17
Stanford Department of Music
“Corellipalooza!” Anthony Martin & Owen Dalby, violins; Herb Myers, viola; Robert Howard, cello; John Dornenburg, violone; Kelly Savage, keyboards; and Kevin Kishimoto, chitarrone, perform sonatas, Trios, and Concerti from every opus of Arcangelo Corelli.
7:30 PM
Stanford Memorial Church
FREE
More information
Wednesday, April 18
San Francisco Recorder Society
Monthly playing session with guest conductor David Hogan-Smith. New members and guests welcome.
7:30 PM–9:30 PM
Christ Church Lutheran
1090 Quintara St. (at 20th Ave.), San Francisco.
Non-members $10 fee applied to membership.
For more information contact Florence Kress: 415-731-9709, arssanfrancisco.org/
Thursday, April 19
Cal Performances presents The Tallis Scholars
“War and Peace,” a program of choral works commemorating the fallen of World War I. Exemplars of Renaissance polyphony the world over, the magnificent Tallis Scholars present War and Peace, a collection of 16th- and 17th-century works united by shared themes of conflict and consolation. To commemorate the fallen of the First World War, which concluded 100 years ago, artistic director Peter Phillips has compiled a complete mass from diverse and relevant musical sources, from the Kyrie of Josquin’s famous Missa L’homme armé, to the Gloria of Guerrero’s Missa de la batalla, the peaceful strains of Victoria’s superb six-voice Missa pro defunctis, and funeral motets by Tavener, Mouton, and Lobo.
8 PM
Cathedral of Christ the Light
2121 Harrison St, Oakland
$56–$86
Tickets online, [email protected], or 510-642-9988
Friday, April 20
Cal Performances presents Apollo’s Fire, Jeannette Sorrell, conductor and harpsichord
Claudio Monteverdi, L’Orfeo, semi-staged production. Cleveland’s dynamic period-music ensemble Apollo’s Fire returns with a semi-staged production of Monteverdi’s beloved and timeless L’Orfeo. Director Jeannette Sorrell leads her superb instrumentalists and vocalists on a dramatic journey to Hades and back, following the mythic Orpheus on his tragic mission—including a reconstruction of the work’s original ending, in which our hero perishes at the hands of Bacchus’ followers. With featured soloists Karim Sulayman as Orfeo and Erica Schuller as Euridice.
8 PM
Zellerbach Hall
UC Berkeley campus
$18–$76
Tickets online, [email protected], or 510-642-9988
California Bach Society, Paul Flight, Director
“Handel in Rome” Artistic Director Paul Flight leads the award-winning California Bach Society in stunning works from GF Handel’s 1707 Vespers service at the Carmelite church of Santa Maria in Montesanto in Rome. We perform three magnificent psalm settings: Nisi Dominus, Laudate Pueri Dominum, and Dixit Dominus. The 30-voice chorus will be joined by soloists Phoebe Rosquist and Caroline Jou Armitage, soprano; Paul Flight, countertenor; James Hogan, tenor; Jeffrey Fields, baritone; and a baroque ensemble of strings, oboes, and organ. Read more . . .
8 PM
St. Mark’s Lutheran Church
1111 O’Farrell Street, San Francisco
$35, with discounts for advance, senior, SFEMS members, and under 30
www.calbach.org/tickets or 650-485-1097
Sonoma Bach, Robert Worth, Artistic Director
“Early Music Uncorked: Musica Transalpina.” The flowering of the Italian madrigal is one of the great stories of music history. Beginning modestly in the early 16th century, the movement accelerated with the revival of the poetry of Petrarch, inspiring an avalanche of poetry and music which continued unabated into the 17th century. Enthusiasm in England for this intimate, expressive form was kindled by a 1588 publication entitled Musica Transalpina, containing ‘Englished’ madrigals by Luca Marenzio and others. The ensemble Circa 1600 explores the music of Marenzio, its passage to England, and madrigals by English composers, including Thomas Morley, Thomas Weelkes and Peter Philips.
8 PM Bachgrounder pre-concert talk at 7:25
Schroeder Hall, Green Music Center
1801 E. Cotati Ave., Rohnert Park
$25/$15
Tickets online
www.sonomabach.org or 877-914-2224
Saturday, April 21
California Bach Society, Paul Flight, Director
“Handel in Rome” Artistic Director Paul Flight leads the award-winning California Bach Society in stunning works from GF Handel’s 1707 Vespers service at the Carmelite church of Santa Maria in Montesanto in Rome. We perform three magnificent psalm settings: Nisi Dominus, Laudate Pueri Dominum, and Dixit Dominus. The 30-voice chorus will be joined by soloists Phoebe Rosquist and Caroline Jou Armitage, soprano; Paul Flight, countertenor; James Hogan, tenor; Jeffrey Fields, baritone; and a baroque ensemble of strings, oboes, and organ. Read more . . .
8 PM
All Saints Episcopal Church
555 Waverly, Palo Alto
$35, with discounts for advance, senior, SFEMS members, and under 30
www.calbach.org/tickets or 650-485-1097
Foothill Community Concert Series
“Flauti Dolci & Amici II” A delightful collection of chamber music from ensembles representing the Bay Area’s vibrant Early Music scene. These recorder and mixed ensembles will perform music from the Renaissance and baroque eras, as well as modern compositions. Featured groups include The Belmont Consort, Seedy Jail, Quartetto Paradiso and the Peralta Consort.
3 PM
Foothill Presbyterian Church
5301 McKee Road, San Jose
$10; children 12 and under are free.
Tickets online or at the door
MUSA, Derek Tam, Director
Candlelight Concert, “Art Inspiring Art IV” MUSA (Addi Liu, violin; Gretchen Claassen and Laura Gaynon, violas da gamba & cellos; Derek Tam, director and harpsichord) in the fourth installment of its critically-acclaimed series “Art Inspiring Art,” pairing newly commissioned works with Baroque masterpieces. This year, we feature Bay Area composer Nicolas Lell Benvaides’s The Color Festivals (2016), inspired by children’s tales from the past century.
7 PM
Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin
2325 Union St., San Francisco
Donation
https://smvsf.org/concerts/ or 415-921-3665
Sonoma Bach, Robert Worth, Artistic Director
“Early Music Uncorked: Musica Transalpina.” The flowering of the Italian madrigal is one of the great stories of music history. Beginning modestly in the early 16th century, the movement accelerated with the revival of the poetry of Petrarch, inspiring an avalanche of poetry and music which continued unabated into the 17th century. Enthusiasm in England for this intimate, expressive form was kindled by a 1588 publication entitled Musica Transalpina, containing ‘Englished’ madrigals by Luca Marenzio and others. The ensemble Circa 1600 explores the music of Marenzio, its passage to England, and madrigals by English composers, including Thomas Morley, Thomas Weelkes and Peter Philips.
3 PM Bachgrounder pre-concert talk at 2:25
Schroeder Hall, Green Music Center
1801 E. Cotati Ave., Rohnert Park
$25/$15
Tickets online
www.sonomabach.org or 877-914-2224
Sunday, April 22
Albany Consort
“Goldberg Variations Orchestrated” Bach modestly described his fourth publication of Keyboard Practice pieces as an Aria with Diverse Variations for the Harpsichord Composed for Music Lovers to Refresh their Spirits. 277 years later, the piece easily holds its place as the greatest ever work of its kind. The story that it was written for the young J.G. Goldberg, one of Bach’s occasional students, to play at night when his boss, the sickly Count Keyserlingk, could not sleep, is probably not true. But it remains a lovely story. The music is satisfying on so many levels that it could probably help anyone to do anything, not limited to sleeping. The work has been arranged various times, and this program is Jonathan Salzedo’s new, original version for five-part string ensemble, with one variation scored for the Rubinstein-Salzedo family (recorder, violin, and harpsichord). Partial performance with the church choir.
3 PM
First Presbyterian Church
Cowper and Lincoln, Palo Alto
www.albanyconsort.org/next-concert or 408-480-0182
California Bach Society, Paul Flight, Director
“Handel in Rome” Artistic Director Paul Flight leads the award-winning California Bach Society in stunning works from GF Handel’s 1707 Vespers service at the Carmelite church of Santa Maria in Montesanto in Rome. We perform three magnificent psalm settings: Nisi Dominus, Laudate Pueri Dominum, and Dixit Dominus. The 30-voice chorus will be joined by soloists Phoebe Rosquist and Caroline Jou Armitage, soprano; Paul Flight, countertenor; James Hogan, tenor; Jeffrey Fields, baritone; and a baroque ensemble of strings, oboes, and organ. Read more . . .
4 PM
First Congregational Church
2345 Channing Way, Berkeley
$35, with discounts for advance, senior, SFEMS members, and under 30
www.calbach.org/tickets or 650-485-1097
Coro Ciconia, Asher Davison, Director — CONCERT POSTPONED TO MAY 6
“Praise Band” Musical paeans rarely damn with faint praise. Our spring program is organized around Du Fay’s joyous late Ave Regina cælorum Mass setting, a self-parody which takes his immodest motet even a step further in mingling abject piety with a plea for his own immortal soul. Along the way, Ockeghem’s rondeau D’un autre amer insists that self-subjugation to courtly love protects one’s honor; Josquin writs this stance large by quoting the chanson while extolling the divine in his Tu solus qui facis mirabilia. We next pair Machaut’s rarely sung, nearly textless Hoquetus (to King David) with his effusive Biauté parée de valour, an ode to the patroness the mere thought of whom sustains him. Obrecht’s flamboyant setting of the Magnificat aptly renders unto all the Marian trust in the divine; Landini’s isorhythmic motet, the homage-piece Sì dolce non sonò, honors the great composer de Vitry as seemingly mythological in stature. Finally, Ciconia’s O felix templum conjures a stuffy fanfare to a bishop into a playful romp, while his Una Panthera shamelessly flatters a visiting noble from Lucca by depicting him as the armored leopard who cofounded that city along with, obviously, Mars. Singers are Cheryl Koehler, Dorothy Manly, Jean McAneny, Ralph Prince, Scott Robinson, and Helen Wolfe-Visnick. [Program to be repeated as part of the BFX Fringe at 2 PM, Tuesday, June 5, at the Berkeley City Club.]
7 PM — CONCERT POSTPONED TO MAY 6
Good Shepherd Episcopal Church
1823 9th Street, Berkeley
Suggested donations at the door: $20 general, $15 senior, $10 student
For information: 818-331-7504
MusicSources
Trio Ignacio (Katherine Heater, harpsichord; Anthony Martin, violin; and Adaiha MacAdam-Somer, cello) perform “Early Keyboard Trios with Harpsichord.” The modern keyboard trio was born in the mid-eighteenth century as an often dazzling keyboard display, augmented by the sonorities of violin and cello. Trio Ignacio has selected trios by Joseph Haydn, Ignaz Pleyel, and a divertimento by W. A. Mozart.
5 PM
St. Mary Magdalen Church
2005 Berryman St., Berkeley
$30 non members, $25 MusicSources members and seniors, $10 students 18 yrs. or younger
510-528-1685 or
[email protected]
www.musicsources.org
Continue reading next week’s calendar . . .
