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1st appeared 19 October 1998 Suenos Latinos For my money the most exciting dance company in town is Smuin Ballets/SF. It is directed by Michael Smuin, former artistic director of the SF Ballet, who has won Tonys and Emmys for his innovative, high-spirited Broadway and TV choreography. Smuin Ballets/SF launches its fall season November 4 with the world premiere of a new Smuin work, Suenos Latinos/A Copland Collection, inspired by such favorites of American composer Aaron Copland as El Salon Mexico, Danzon Cubano, and Three Latin American Sketches. Smuin has described his new work as "an extraordinary Cubist vision of Latin American picadors, Dia de los Muertos skeletons, gauchos, and trick horses filling the stage." On the same program, Smuin will reprise his exuberant Carmina Burana, based on Carl Orff's robust musical score, which in turn embodies bawdy 13th-century Latin verses supposedly sung by monks. Don't delay getting Smuin tickets as there are only nine performances November 4 - 15 at the Cowell Theater in Fort Mason Center, including Saturday and Sunday matinees. For tickets call 441-3687 Cowell Theater has excellent sightlines but is not large so seats sell out quickly. There is usually plenty of free parking near the theater which is right on the Bay, entrance at Buchanan and Marina Boulevard, Muni bus #28. * * * * * Chancellor's Concert Series The second program in the Chancellor's Concert series should be on the top of your must list, after the delights of the kickoff on October 15th. On the 22nd, the gifted violinist Ian Swensen plays a sonata by the great Hungarian composer Bela Bartok. Swensen, who is of Norwegian and Japanese-Hawaiian descent, won two prestigious Naumburg Foundation violin competitions. He has appeared with symphony and chamber orchestras and is on the faculty of the SF Conservatory of Music. Seating and brown-bag lunch from 12 to 12:15, music for the next half hour. You'll return to your schedule reinvigorated. Keep these musical appointments at noon on Thursday the 22nd in Cole Hall and every Thursday thereafter through November 19. Series starts up again in the New Year. * * * * * More Joyful Noises The Gospel Choir at UCSF sings its fall concert on Wednesday, October 28, also in Cole Hall. Choir singers, who are mostly UCSF colleagues, will be joined by others from the community to raise the Cole Hall roof with the full-throated choruses and strong rhythms of hymns and gospel songs. Guest choirs from the SF Christian Center and the Neighborhood Baptist Church will also raise their voices. This is music to raise your spirits, too, and you'll find your hands and feet beating time. Gospel concert starts at 7 p.m. on October 28. Ticket holders are invited to a reception afterward. Admission is only $3 for UCSF students; $4 for staff, and $5 for the public. And best of all, a dollar will get you validated parking in the Millberry Union Public Garage. For more information, call the wonderful Wilma Batiste, Gospel's guiding spirit at UCSF, at 502-0106. * * * * * Heavenly Hildegard Go back to the Middle Ages for a different kind of group singing experience when the renowned women's quartet Anonymous 4 performs a program called "11,000 Virgins, 900 Years of Hildegard von Bingen," on Friday, October 23. Hildegard's music, written for services in her convent, will be sung in SF's large St. Ignatius Church, which has excellent acoustics, interspersed with readings from the legend of St. Ursula. The four talented singers believe that hearing Hildegard's compositions in this setting recreates the powerful impression they made on her first hearers, both in connection with the spiritual events they commemorate and as pure works of art. Anonymous 4 has performed widely and appeared on many radio and TV programs. Their numerous award-winning recordings for Harmonia Mundi have reached thousands of listeners and have taken Hildegard to the heights of popularity on the classical charts. St. Ignatius is at 650 Parker Avenue at Fulton.
Concert starts at 8 p.m. on Friday, October 23. 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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