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by
Nina Beckwith
FEATURED UCSF
ARTIST| NINA'S ARTS NOTES
1st appeared 11
January 1999
FEATURED UCSF ARTIST
Art by Celia Rabinovitch at Faculty/Alumni House
 "I am drawn to mood, colors, and poetic abstraction
in the environment of the Pacific Northwest," the painter Celia Rabinovitch has said.
"The Buddhist understanding of the interpenetration of form and formlessness is a
theme in my work. Images such as ships or figures become interchangeable as ephemeral
forms that draw one from afar, advancing and receding in a vast empty atmosphere that is
still charged and active."
Rabinovitch is based in San Francisco and an exhibit of her paintings, called Industrial
Romance: Visions of the Pacific Northwest can now be seen in the UCSF
Faculty/Alumni House on the Parnassus campus.
Her is work is realistic, at times almost photographic. In A Rift in the Earth
three figures stand near the jagged rift looking off in other directions. In After the
Flood one figure is seen alone on railroad tracks in a blustery pale landscape.
Working in pastels as well as oils, Rabinovitch isolates most of her human figures in
their space, such as the blue-hooded rider on a bicycle coming toward us down a green
slope with a tall menacing white tower rising behind him in Pacific Highway.
 On the Freighter
(illustrated) is the only painting in this show where one sees a figure who is looking at
viewers, in this case from under his yellow slicker hood, while the other figures on the
greasy greenish-wet deck are moving away from us. As Rabinovitch has said, there is
"visual and psychological ambiguity...Images of movement, passage, energy and loss
express an industrial romance that is the core of this work. The physicality of work, the
transformation of materials, the raw commodities sent to distant ports for transformation
embodies the alchemical transformation of matter into meaning that is art's process."
Rabinovitch is also an art historian, holding a PhD in art history from McGill University
in Montreal. Her work has been seen in exhibitions across America and Canada and she has
received many awards. She has taught at the SF Art Institute and the California College of
Art & Design and is currently Program Director for Fine Arts and Graphic Design at UC
Berkeley Extension in SF.
Celia Rabinovitch's Industrial Romance
paintings can be seen at the Faculty/Alumni House, 745 Parnassus. Hours are 9 to
5, Monday to Friday. Show closes February 26.
NINA'S ART NOTES
The Big Bong
Wishing everyone Health and Peace and All Kinds of Good Things in this last year
of the century!
Hope you saw our announcement
in Daybreak of December 21 and went to the ringing of the great bronze Japanese temple
bell in the Asian Art Museum on the sunny morning of New Year's Eve. Anyone and everyone
could and did join the many groups of ringers and wonderstruck children gathered round for
the l08 big bongs, which in Buddhist belief will liberate us from the old year's ills and
the l08 temptations besetting mankind -- a beautiful way to start a New Year and, next
year, a New Millennium.
 It was also an occasion to revisit the fascinating exhibition of
exquisite Japanese woodblock prints by the great master Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858.)
They tell vivid stories of life in the cities and villages and varied landscapes of
l9th-century Japan. (Our review
is retrievable in Daybreak of November 23.)
Great Japanese Prints by Hiroshige are on view only until January 17th. Don't miss
this special show -- give yourself a lunchhour treat. At the Asian Art Museum, Golden Gate
Park. Tuesday-Sunday 9:30 to 5. Information about related cultural programs at
379-8879.
* * * * *
Thursday Concert
This week's Chancellor's Concert in the popular weekly classical series founded by former
Chancellor and current Medical School Dean Haile T. Debas is devoted to piano music
written over two centuries. Featured each week in this free concert series are
distinguished Bay Area musicians and music of many different styles and periods.
Cole Hall doors open for Chancellor's Concerts Thursdays at
noon, allowing time for seating and brown bag lunch. Music from 12:15 to 12:45 p.m.
January 14, l999
Steven Bailey, piano
D. Scarlatti (1685-1757)
Sonata in B-minor
Sonata in D-major
Mozart (1756-1791)
Variations on a theme by Gluck
Debussy (1862-1918)
Selections from Preludes, Book I
Wagner (1813-1883)
Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde
Piano transcription by Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
Steven Bailey has performed with the SF Concerto Orchestra and the
Midsummer Mozart Festival Orchestra, among others, and in chamber music concerts with
members of American Bach Soloists, and the Alexander, Arlekin, and Sausalito String
Quartets. He is a vocal and instrumental coach at the SF Conservatory of Music.
* * * * *
New Shoes, Old Souls
"I'm 41 and I sure as hell can dance," said Mark Morris, one of America's most
famous and exciting choreographers. He added, "and so can the people who are in this
company."
 New Shoes, Old Souls is the very special
Bay Area dance company Morris was talking about; he is directing a new work called Morris
Dances for their fifth annual program this month. It will also feature the world
premieres of dances created by Bay Area choreographers Carlos Carvajal, Cecilia Marta,
Priscilla Regalado, and Michael Smuin.
New Shoes, Old Souls was formed in l993 by Linda
Rawlings in order to sustain and celebrate the knowledge that comes to dancers from their
years of experience. The 20 dancers in the company, all over 40, show the continuing
physical vitality of artists unwilling to bow to age or give up their way of life. They
are all veteran performers from ballet, modern dance, and jazz companies and they all
remain active in dance as choreographers, teachers, and administrators.
"We all come together annually because we love to dance, to express ourselves through
our bodies, and to continue to hone our craft," said Linda Rawlings. "As older
dancers, we have all discovered a greater sense of depth and passion in our performances,
a new maturity that is very rewarding."
Tony- and Emmy-Award-winning choreographer Michael Smuin has created a new piece entitled My
First Love for three mature women, set to music performed by Sinatra, Artie Shaw, and
Glenn Miller. Carlos Carvajal's romantic work is set on three couples to the poignant Valses
Nobles et Sentimentales of Maurice Ravel.
Priscilla Regalado's new work celebrates her own Latino heritage with a suite set to an
original score by Wayne Wallace and performed by a nine-piece salsa band, and Panama-born
Cecilia Marta has created a new solo dance for herself set to numbers by the singer
formerly known as Prince.
Six performances by New Shoes, Old Souls will be given January 13 through 23,
including a Sunday matinee January 17, at the Cowell Theater, right on the Bay in Fort
Mason Center. Good sightlines from all seats. Discounts for students and seniors.
Lots of free parking; Muni bus #28. Box office 441-3687.
* * * * *
Butterfly
Just when you thought the opera season was over, SF Opera returns to the War Memorial for
eight performances of Puccini's Madama Butterfly, one of the most beloved operas
of all time.
Two casts of highly accomplished young singers have been enlisted for this run. Artists
making SF debuts include African-Belgian soprano Isabelle Kabatu, Metropolitan Opera mezzo
soprano Wendy White, tenor James Cornelison, Native American baritone Grant Youngblood,
and French conductor Emmanuel Villaume.
Excellent pre-curtain lectures are presented free of charge to patrons with tickets to
that performance. Opera Box Office at 199 Grove Street, corner Van Ness, Mon-Sat
10-6; phone 864-3330 or www.sfopera.com. Some
performances are already sold out.
* * * * *
Opera on the Air
Most of the opera fans in this country heard their first operas over the airwaves from New
York on the regular Metropolitan Opera Saturday broadcasts, which have been going on for
more than 50 years.
In the Bay Area, the Met operas are aired every Saturday during the season, which lasts
until April, over KDFC-FM at l02.1. Broadcasts usually start at 10:30 a.m. but check
newspaper listing or call the station at 974-6072.
Broadcast of January 16 is Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor (her
Mad Scene is stunning) with soprano Ruth Ann Swenson, a graduate of SF Opera's training
program who is now an international star, in the title role.
On January 23, you can hear the beautifully sad Werther by Jules
Massenet, conducted by Donald Runnicles, music director of SF Opera. The principals are
two more artists now world renowned who studied in SFO's Merola Program: mezzo soprano
Susan Graham as Charlotte, and baritone Thomas Hampson as Werther.
* * * * *
MTT and Guests
Just before the SF Symphony takes off on its European winter tour of 16 concerts in 14
cities, music director Michael Tilson Thomas takes the players to Three Places in New
England, by Charles Ives, then to Leonard Bernstein's A Quiet Place, and
finally through Sergei Prokofiev's stirring Symphony No. 5. Concerts are January
14 and 15 in Davies Hall.
While the local musicians are away, we can hear the superb French pianist Jean-Ives
Thibaudet in a program of Debussy, Rachmaninoff, and Liszt on January 30.
The pianist/singer Michael Feinstein, often heard at New York's Carlyle, will give his
unique interpretations of Porter, Gershwin, Berlin, and Kern songs, with his six-piece
band on February 5.
The prodigious young Russian pianist Evgeny Kissim is the Great Performer on February
12.
SF Symphony box office 864-6000; fax 554-0108; www.sfsymphony.org.
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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