PATHWAYS: FLORENCE PRICE QUINTET (San Francisco)
Jun
9
4:00 PM16:00

PATHWAYS: FLORENCE PRICE QUINTET (San Francisco)

Left Coast presents Florence Price’s romantic Piano Quintet alongside works by David Sanford and Chris Castro. With our new project Pathways, Left Coast champions the music of emerging Californian composers. Composers selected for the project will workshop their music with Left Coast musicians next spring, with performances to follow in June 2024. Composers will receive a professional recording of their work –– vital to progress to the next step of their careers. (Interested composers can visit the Left Coast website for application information.) Made possible with generous funding from the California Arts Council.

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PATHWAYS FLORENCE PRICE QUINTET (Piedmont)
Jun
9
7:30 PM19:30

PATHWAYS FLORENCE PRICE QUINTET (Piedmont)

Left Coast presents Florence Price’s romantic Piano Quintet alongside works by David Sanford and Chris Castro. With our new project Pathways, Left Coast champions the music of emerging Californian composers. Composers selected for the project will workshop their music with Left Coast musicians next spring, with performances to follow in June 2024. Composers will receive a professional recording of their work –– vital to progress to the next step of their careers. (Interested composers can visit the Left Coast website for application information.) Made possible with generous funding from the California Arts Council.

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CLARINET SHADOWS (San Francisco)
Jan
22
7:30 PM19:30

CLARINET SHADOWS (San Francisco)

  • San Francisco Conservatory of Music (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Featuring clarinetists Jerome Simas and Jeff Anderle, this haunting Left Coast Ensemble program pairs Brahms’ autumnal clarinet quintet with Jonathan Russell’s On Sorrow. Inspired by and quoting Tomas Luis de Victoria’s O Vos Omnes, Russell’s quintet explores mortality, consolation, and common humanity across the centuries, finding common themes with one of Brahms’ final and most profound chamber works.

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LEFT COAST AT THE CALIFORNIA FESTIVAL: THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS (Berkeley)
Nov
4
7:30 PM19:30

LEFT COAST AT THE CALIFORNIA FESTIVAL: THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS (Berkeley)

  • First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Left Coast and the San Francisco Girls Chorus team up to present a program which centers the voices of Californian women composers. The beautiful and varied program includes works by Gabriela Lena Frank, Lisa Mezzacappa, Reena Esmail, Jessie Montgomery, Gabriella Smith as well as a new work written for the occasion by Sarah Gibson. This concert is generously sponsored by Susan Shalit and Mary Logger.

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SONIC LUXURY
Jun
7
7:30 PM19:30

SONIC LUXURY

Enjoy the full spectrum of sonic luxury, from Samuel Coleridge Taylor’s joyous Clarinet Quintet to Clara Schumann’s velvety piano variations and Esa-Pekka Salonen’s haunting duo, Nachtlieder. And violist Kurt Rohde shines in Derek Bermel's concerto for viola and string quintet, the "seductive, culture-crossing" Soul Garden. (Boston Globe)

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Soft Spoken
Sep
21
7:30 PM19:30

Soft Spoken

This program stars flutist Stacey Pelinka in Soft-Spoken, a world premiere from the multi-talented artist David Dominique, Zeppelin, a duo by Laurie San Martin, and Kurt Rohde’s new remixes of songs by Hildegard and Joni Mitchell, alongside a trio for violin, viola and flute by Beethoven.

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Sheltering Music
Jun
1
7:03 PM19:03

Sheltering Music

Coming up on June 1 is Left Coast's final subscription concert of our season. Since we anticipate continued restrictions on congregating we are preparing to broadcast the concert to our audience online, either from the concert hall or our homes. One way or the other, we look forward to playing some remarkable music for you.

In the interest of health and safety, the musicians scheduled to play this concert have curated an updated program of solos and duets we can practice and rehearse at home. I'm excited about Sheltering Music, pieces picked for you by Stacey Pelinka, Phyllis Kamrin, Jerome Simas, Eric Zivian, Michel Taddei, Leighton Fong, and Loren Mach:

  • Beethoven's rarely performed Piano Sonata, Op. 78, chosen by Eric for its succinct beauty

  • Avian music: Peteris Vasks' Landscape with Birds, for flute, and Schumann's Bird as Prophet, for piano 

  • Cloisonné a film accompanied by mesmerizing double bass music by Veronika Krausas

  • Selections from Diaphonic Suite by Ruth Crawford Seeger and a baroque work by Michel Blavet that Stacey describes as "simple and haunting"

  • Leighton and I are finally getting to play some of Jörg Widmann's tiny duos for violin and cello. We have wanted to work on these for years — they are incredibly fun and full of character, also full of surprises.

  • Elliott Carter's brief and picturesque Steep Steps for bass clarinet

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Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time
Mar
1
7:00 PM19:00

Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time

The Sierra Chamber Society and Left Coast Chamber Ensemble are pleased to announce an extraordinary program of chamber music. Tanya Tomkins, cellist with the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble and principal cellist of Philharmonia Baroque, will join Stevan Cavalier, pianist and director of the Sierra Chamber Society, in Claude Debussy’s magical Sonata for Cello and Piano.  Then, an epic musical event, Olivier Messaien's mysterious, spiritual and virtuosic Quartet for the End of Time will be heard with SF Symphony clarinetist, Jerome Simas, Left Coast violinist Anna Presler, Tanya Tomkins on cello, and Eric Zivian on piano.

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French Sublime
Feb
2
7:30 PM19:30

French Sublime

Lili BoulangerNocturne (from Deux Morceaux)

Claude DebussyPremiere Rhapsody

Olivier MessiaenQuartet for the End of Time

Kurt RohdeOne Wing WORLD PREMIERE

Left Coast explores the French sublime, earthly and divine, first with music of Lili Boulanger and Claude Debussy, and then Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time. Written while the composer was held in a prisoner-of-war camp, it begins with the sound of an improvising nightingale surrounded by a shimmer of sound and transports us through multiple universes. Completing the program is the World Premiere of One Wing, a new work from Kurt Rohde reflecting Messiaen's enduring influence.

Anna Presler, violin • Jerome Simas, clarinet • Eric Zivian, piano • Tanya Tomkins, cello

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Air From Other Planets
Nov
2
7:30 PM19:30

Air From Other Planets

  • San Francisco Conservatory of Music Recital Hall (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Schoenberg's Second String Quartet, an exquisite work from 1908, broke new ground in a variety of ways. The most striking innovation is the addition of a soprano for the last two movements. The texts are Stefan George's poems "Litany," about faltering faith, and "Rapture," about transcendence, which begins "I feel air from another planet." To explore how Schoenberg was influenced by Mozart, one of his favorite composers, we're pairing the work with the C Major String Quartet, K. 465. Complementing these masterworks are newly commissioned pieces from Jamie Sampson and John Schott.

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Dorothea and Artemisia
Jun
1
7:30 PM19:30

Dorothea and Artemisia

Christopher Stark From the Field  WORLD PREMIERE

Laura Schwendinger Artemisia WORLD PREMIERE

We focus on the art and milieu of Italian painter Artemisia Gentileschi and Depression Era photographer Dorothea Lange, in two chamber operas with projected images that come to life. Laura Schwendinger’s new opera tackles Gentileschi’s struggles and triumphs as she battles inequality and reveals hidden stories. Christopher Stark’s micro opera explores the lives of migrants fleeing the Dust Bowl.

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Olly Wilson Memorial Symposium
Feb
16
4:30 PM16:30

Olly Wilson Memorial Symposium

  • UC Berkeley Department of Music (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

OLLY WILSON MEMORIAL SYMPOSIUM

Performing Arts - Music | February 16 | 12:30 p.m. | 250 Morrison Hall

12:30-1 Gather and Greet ; 1:00-1:15 Call to Order and Welcome with Professors Cindy Cox and Edmund Campion Department of Music, UC Berkeley;1:15 Candace Johnson — Department of Music, UC Berkeley
There is a Need; 1:30 Robert Greenberg — Historian, Composer, Pianist, Speaker, Author; 1:45 Anthony Kelly — Composer, Associate Professor of the Practice of Music, Duke University; 2:00 Trevor Weston — Composer, Professor of Music, Drew University; 2:15 Laurie San Martin — Composer, Professor and Chair of the Department of Music, UC Davis; 2:30 Tom Swafford — Violinist, Composer and Arranger

3:00 Professor Ben Brinner and Emeritus Professor Bonnie Wade, Department of Music, UC Berkeley; 3:15 Anthony Brown — Composer, Percussionist, Educator, and Ethnomusicologist; 3:30 Steve Pond — Professor of Ethnomusicology, Cornell University 3:45 Vijay Iyer — Franklin D. And Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts, Harvard University; 4:00 Olly Wilson Video; 4:15 Shannon Dudley — Professor of Ethnomusicology, University of Washington

4:30 Performance of Olly Wilson’s Trio for violin, cello & piano, 1976 
Anna Presler – Violin
Leighton Fong – Cello
Allegra Chapman – Piano

4:45-6 reception / Co-sponsored by the Townsend Center for the Humanities

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Nov
19
7:30 PM19:30

Volti + Left Coast Premieres: The Tower and the Garden

  • San Francisco Conservatory of Music Recital Hall (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Left Coast Chamber Ensemble and Volti join forces for three premieres, including Gregory Spears’ The Tower and the Garden, with texts by Thomas Merton and others. World premieres Witches from Laurie San Martin and Murmurations from Addie Camsuzou feature the notable oboists Andrea Plesnarski and Tom Nugent. Benjamin Britten's Phantasy Quartet Op. 2 rounds out the program.

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Oct
14
12:30 PM12:30

AUDITION PREPARATION WORKSHOP

College Auditions • CODA and Youth Symphony Auditions • Competitions (Solos and Ensembles) • Orchestra Seating Auditions….. Is audition preparation stressing you out?

Help is on the way… Join us at the School of Music at Sacramento State for an audition prep workshop! Whether your audition is right around the corner, or you’ve just started planning for it, this workshop will help you take the next step toward a successful performance. REGISTER HERE

To help students learn how to get ready for this unique type of performance, my colleagues and I are offering a workshop on audition preparation. Participants are coached by School of Music faculty in small masterclasses and attend an Insider's Guide to Auditions session and reception. Students may also choose to play a mock audition at the end of the day, a brief excerpt of audition material in front of a small jury.

If you are a student string player, please join us and take the next step toward a successful audition. We hope you can join us at the workshop. Because this event is underwritten by the Sacramento State School of Music, it is available free of cost to participants.  

 

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Oct
8
8:00 PM20:00

Singing the Gamut

  • San Francisco Conservatory of Music Recital Hall (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Left Coast Chamber Ensemble performs Singing the Gamut: From Jon Deak's tongue-in-cheek Big Bad Wolf to arias from Bellini, Bachelet, and others, this program explores music that amplifies human emotions. Other works include Mario Davidovsky’s Festino, capturing the fun of the party, and Sheila Silver’s tender song cycle, On Loving.

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