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1st appeared 12 October 1998 Chancellor's Concert Series Begins Charles Darwin said that if he had had his life to live over again, "I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once a week..." UCSF students, staff members, researchers, and faculty have the chance to follow Darwin's precept, as far as music is concerned, in the most enjoyable and effortless way imaginable: simply by going to Cole Hall at noon on Thursdays. While he was Chancellor, Dean Haile Debas established a new campus music series: this week brings the first of its live concerts on Thursday, October 15. What makes these concerts exceptional, not-to-be-missed, is the fact that quite a few of the Bay Area's most accomplished and acclaimed professional musicians are coming to UCSF to play for us. The range of music to be performed is a voyage through the centuries -- a chance to hear a variety of instruments, styles, periods, and take your choice without paying your money. All concerts are free. Cole Hall doors open for Chancellor's Concerts Thursdays at noon. Music from 12:15 to 12:45 p.m., allowing time for seating and lunch. Dean Debas introduces the inaugural concert on October
15, devoted to French music of the Baroque period, which dates from mid-16th to late 18th
centuries, and to a trio by Francis Poulenc, a French composer of witty, melodic works who
died in l963. Chancellor's Inaugural Concert soloists are all members of the SF Symphony: Stephen Paulson, bassoon; Eugene Izotov, oboe, and Robin Sutherland, piano. For more about Paulson, for 21 years the Symphony's principal bassoon and the new conductor of the UCSF Orchestra, see Daybreak's Artists Among Us from 8 September l998 . Eugene Izotov was trained in his native Russia where he won the Russia Wind-Players' Competition, and then at Boston University. In l995, after taking second prize at the New York International Competition for Solo Oboists, he was appointed principal oboist of the Kansas City Symphony. He appeared in the "Wynton Marsalis on Music" project, available on SONY Classics, and has been associate principal oboist of the SF Symphony since l996. Robin Sutherland is not only a virtuoso at the piano but also at almost every other kind of keyboard instrument -- clavicembalo, harpsichord, you name it. He has been the regular keyboard player of the SF Symphony since l973. Most recently, if you saw the PBS telecast of the Symphony's Gershwin concert opening the Carnegie Hall season, you saw Robin from the back seated at the piano, his elegant blond ponytail reaching almost to the bench. * * * * * Violinist Ian Swensen is soloist at the second concert in the Chancellor's Series. From a musically gifted family of Norwegian and Japanese-Hawaiian descent, Swensen was trained at New York's Juilliard School and at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, where he later became a faculty member. He has won two Naumburg Foundation competitions as soloist and as chamber player, and has appeared with symphonic and chamber orchestras on several continents. Swensen now teaches at the SF Conservatory of Music. On Thursday October 22, Swensen will play the Sonata for Solo Violin by the Hungarian composer Bela Bartok. This is one of Bartok's late works, written in l944, the year before he died in New York, broke and neglected. In many of his works he created a new musical language and drew inspiration from the folk music he sought out in Hungary, North Africa, America, and elsewhere. Bartok's major works include the Concerto for Orchestra, Bluebeard's Castle, and The Miraculous Mandarin. "My idea," Bartok wrote, "is the brotherhood of peoples, brotherhood despite all wars and conflicts. I try to serve this idea in my music." Make it a rewarding habit to attend these free Chancellor's Concerts in Cole Hall every Thursday at noon through November 19. They will start again in January 1999. * * * * * The Great Russians Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin is one of the greatest silent films ever made. It becomes a much more exciting experience by hearing some of the titanic works of Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich played live by a great orchestra while you watch the film. The SF Symphony offers this rare chance this week when associate conductor Alasdair Neale leads the orchestra in four showings of Battleship Potemkin in Davies Hall, October 14, 15, 16, and 17, at 8 p.m. Get there by 7:15 p.m. to hear an illuminating pre-concert talk for ticket holders by Inside Music speaker Robert Hughes. And following Potemkin, the delights of great Russian music continue with a one-night stand Tuesday, October 20 -- but what a fabulous one-night stand! -- by the St. Petersburg Philharmonic playing two of the most beloved suites by Rimsky-Korsakov, the Tsar Sultan and the Golden Cockerel, plus a dance to France for the Ravel Daphnis and Chloe Suites 1 and 2, all conducted by Yuri Temirkanov, who won ovations last season at both the Opera and the Symphony. Then, on October 28, 29, 30, 31 and November 1, four precious opportunities to hear the Symphony and its fine chorus, conducted by Libor Pesek, performing the tremendous score written by Sergei Prokofiev in connection with another Eisenstein classic, Alexander Nevsky. On the same program, you will hear the renowned contralto Ewa Podles; the symphony's first performance of Olivier Messaien's Un Sourire (A Smile) and violinist Pamela Frank as soloist in the Mozart Concerto No. 5, K 219. Pre-concert Inside Music speaker is Russell Merritt. SF Symphony box office 864-6000, fax 554-0108, email www.sfsymphony.org * * * * * P.S. Nina's Thoughts re: SFS Fortunately we don't have to wait until the orchestra goes on tour and reaps raves from out-of-town and overseas critics to realize what a superb group of musicians we have in the SF Symphony. More and more people have become subscribers and concert-goers, so these days it's wise to plan quite a while ahead to get seats in Davies Hall, but you can always get lucky and it pays to keep trying. Music director Michael Tilson Thomas has raised the showmanship quotient since he arrived in l995 and no one would deny his accomplishments nor his great versatility. But under guest conductors as well, the quality of musicianship and the immense vitality of the Symphony's players are producing unforgettable concerts. At the beginning of October, MTT conducted a particularly brilliant concert with the amazing Martha Argerich as soloist in the Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Major (repeated three times, as is the custom) which brought the audience surging instantly to its feet with roars of enthusiasm. On the same program was a new setting by SF's Gordon Getty, a skilled composer as well as a patron of music, of Poe's famous poem Annabel Lee, performed by the orchestra with men of the excellent SF Symphony Chorus. A sweeping rendition of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 2, Little Russian, concluded the evening. Get a copy of the season program so you can plan to be
there on other great evenings. See above for ordering tickets. * * * * * Magic Season Opening the 31st season of Magic Theatre, SF's outstanding presenter of new plays, is a wrenchingly powerful drama called Mules, the name given to young black women recruited from poverty to carry drugs between London and Jamaica. These couriers, or "mules," take impossible risks on their perilous journeys which can end in betrayal, imprisonment, or worse. To Reggae and rock beats, British playwright Winsome Pinnock, himself of Caribbean background, tells the stories of a dozen of these women, all played by three actresses: Dawn-Elin Fraser, Andrea Kate Harris, and Tina Marie Murray. Director is Diane Wynter. Pinnock's play was commissioned by Clean Break Theatre Company, a British group which provides a voice for women prisoners and ex-offenders. Said Britain's respected Guardian, "Pinnock writes with searing honesty about problems of cultural and individual identity." Mules opens October 13 and continues through November 8 at the Magic Theatre, Building D in Fort Mason Center, on the Bay at Laguna and Marina Boulevard. Free parking. For information 441-8822. Tickets 441-8001. Later in the season, the Magic presents Neena Berber's A Common Vision, a humorous play about a young woman in therapy who finds herself digging up tales of alien abduction, and Sam Shepard's Eyes for Consuelo, adapted from a story by the great Mexican writer Octavio Paz. * * * * * Dame Edna Hits Town At the other end of the theatrical spectrum sits, stands, or rather flounces, Dame Edna. If you've ever seen Dame Edna Everage on TV or even if you haven't, you're in for a wildly different one-person show. Dame Edna, the alter-egotist of Australian actor Barry Humphries, comes to SF complete with wisteria hair, sparkle-sequined harlequin glasses, and outlandish drag to sing her trademark gladiola song, among others, and dish England's Royals, among many others. On her TV shows, Dame Edna has insulted the likes of Jane Fonda, Liza Minnelli, Charlton Heston, Mel Gibson, and even Germaine Greer. Who knows what she'll do during this, her first descent upon San Francisco. Don't ask me if this is really art. Whatever it is that Dame Edna does, you won't find anything quite like it. The North American stage premiere of Dame Edna's The Royal Tour runs at Theatre on the Square, 450 Post Street near Union Square, until November 8. Performances are Tues/Wed/Thurs at 8, Fridays at 8:30, Saturdays at 3 and 8:30, Sundays at 3 and 7. Phone charge 433-9500 or any Bass outlet. A San Francisco resident for 20 years, Nina Beckwith is a longtime arts writer and music critic and a former Time magazine overseas correspondent. She was founding editor of the UC Berkeley Library newsletter Bene Legere and worked for six years with the late Dr. Peter Ostwald, Director of the UCSF Health Program for Performing Artists. |
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