San Francisco Conservatory Of Music Opens Season With Eight Free Concerts

The San Francisco Conservatory of Music officially opens its 2019-20 season with its annual Kick-off Weekend, Friday, September 27-Sunday, September 29, featuring eight free concerts performed by SFCM and Pre-College students, faculty, and renowned guest artists, highlighting the Conservatory's season-long theme, "Music and Nature."

This year's Kick-off Weekend performances run the gamut. Audiences can choose from a wide variety of nature-themed concerts over a three-day period, including a guitar department performance featuring the Del Sol String Quartet alongside SFCM faculty and student musicians; a Side-By-Side concert featuring Roots, Jazz, and American Music (RJAM) students performing with SFCM faculty members; concerts and recitals featuring students in the Pre-College Division, as well as SFCM's voice, historical music, and chamber music departments; and a Saturday-evening New Music Ensemble performance conducted by Nicole Paiement.

Kick-off Weekend closes on Sunday, September 29, with a 7:30 PM concert highlighting the effects of climate change through music composed by students, faculty, and alumni musicians from the Technology and Applied Composition (TAC) department. Presented as a part of an ongoing collaboration with The ClimateMusic Project-whose mission is to communicate a sense of urgency about climate change by combining climate science with the emotional power of music to drive meaningful action-the performance features music inspired by and driven by data relating to global climate change.

Working closely with scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, SFCM musicians wrote custom software to translate historical climate data and predictive data models into electronic instruments and musical parameters. With this data as the seed, the musicians will present a range of remarkable compositions that explore the urgent issue of climate change through sound. An open Q&A with SFCM musicians and climate scientists from the Berkeley Lab follows the performance.

Further details about Kick-off Weekend appear in a listing below.

All Kick-off Weekend events are free and open to the public, though reservations are recommended. Tickets can be reserved through www.sfcm.edu or by calling the box office at 415-503-6275.

All performances-apart from the RJAM performance on September 28-take place at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, located at 50 Oak Street in San Francisco. The RJAM performance on September 28 takes place at SFJAZZ's Miner Auditorium at 201 Franklin Street in San Francisco.

The 2019-20 SFCM season theme, "Music and Nature," extends beyond the concert hall and into the classroom. Thematically linked courses, including a Proseminar that focuses on musical settings of nature and a class on ecomusicology and acoustic ecology, offer context for works ranging from the romantic era to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. With performances by composers whose works evoke a natural sensibility, such as John Luther Adams, Toru Takemitsu, and Olivier Messiaen, this season brings the outdoors inside.

"Nature is the origin of all music, and this year we celebrate our relationship between the natural world and art," says SFCM President David H. Stull. "Composers for thousands of years have been inspired, influenced, and compelled by the soundscape of the living planet. Our first accessories as early humans were bone flutes and we crafted these instruments more than 40,000 years ago. Over the course of this season, I invite you to explore the remarkable canon of work that has emerged from the most fundamental relationship of our existence-it promises to be an exciting and unprecedented journey."

SFCM Kick-off Weekend Events, September 27-29, 2019

Friday, September 27, 7:30 PM, Sol Joseph Recital Hall

SFCM Guitars with Del Sol String Quartet

Osvaldo GOLIJOV: Fish Tale (1998)

Alec Holcomb '19, guitar; Michelle Sung, flute

Ronald Bruce Smith: Tomb(er) (2017) World Premiere

David Tanenbaum, guitar

Del Sol String Quartet

Benjamin Kreith, violin; Sam Weiser, violin; Charlton Lee, viola; Kathryn Bates, cello

Sergio ASSAD: Un bouquet pour Julia (2019)

Marc Teicholz, guitar

Anna THORVALDSDÓTTIR: Rain (2010, revised 2019)

Ann Moss, soprano; Jessie Nucho, flutes; David Tanenbaum, guitar

Sebastian ROBLES: Garden (2019)

Abshir Miller, guitar; Sebastian Robles, guitar; Jakob Sonnek, guitar; Zhanxiang Shi, guitar

DEBBUSSY (arr. PRESTI-LAGOYA): Claire de Lune

Judicaël Perroy, guitar

Natalia Lipnitskaya, guitar

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Saturday, September 28, 12:00 PM, SFJAZZ Center Miner Auditorium

RJAM Side-By-Side

RJAM Side-By-Side concert features SFCM's Roots, Jazz and American Music (RJAM) students alongside SFCM faculty members Carmen Bradford, Steve Davis, Mario Guarneri, Jason Hainsworth, Simon Rowe, and SFCM faculty member and SFJAZZ Collective member David Sánchez, performing originals and jazz standards developed during a three-day residency.

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Saturday, September 28, 5:30 PM, Sol Joseph Concert Hall

Pre-College Concert

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Saturday, September 28, 2019, 7:30 PM, Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall

New Music Ensemble

Nicole Paiement, conductor

MESSIAEN: Le merle noir

TAKEMITSU: Tree Line

Laura SCHWENDINGER: Constellations

John Luther ADAMS: In a Treeless Place, Only Snow

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Sunday, September 29, 12:00 PM, Sol Joseph Recital Hall

The Music of Nature Voice Concert

"Music and Nature" celebrated in songs and arias by Schubert, Strauss, Rachmaninoff, Copland and more. Performed by SFCM voice students with Steven Bailey and Mai-Linh Pham, piano.

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Sunday, September 29, 2019, 2:00 PM, Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall

Chamber Music Concert

Works by Haydn, Grieg, and Scriabin.

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Sunday, September 29, 2019, 5:00 PM, Osher Salon

Historical Performance Concert

With fragrant flowers'

Songs, duets, trios and madrigals on nature by William Byrd, Thomas Morley, John Dowland, Thomas Campion, and other Elizabethan masters.

Performed by voice students of the SFCM Baroque Ensemble, Corey Jamason, direction, with Jon Mendle, lute, Elisabeth Reed and Alyssa Wright, viols.

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Sunday, September 29, 2019, 7:30 PM, Sol Joseph Recital Hall

Technology and Applied Composition Concert: The Climate Music Project

Listen to the sound of climate change in this performance of data-driven music and sonifications.

Working closely with scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, student, faculty, and alumni musicians wrote custom software to translate historical climate data and predictive data models into electronic instruments and musical parameters. With this data as the seed, the musicians will present a range of remarkable compositions that explore the urgent issue of climate change through sound.

This concert is presented as part of an ongoing collaboration with The ClimateMusic Project, whose mission is to communicate a sense of urgency about climate change by combining climate science with the emotional power of music to drive meaningful action.

Following the performance, we will have an open Q&A with SFCM musicians and climate scientists from the Berkeley Lab.