San Jose’s own Cliburn gold medal winner Jon Nakamatsu joins our season of stars to reprise the first work he ever played with Symphony San Jose: Grieg’s Piano Concerto. (A critic once noted that the work ‘brought smile after smile to Nakamatsu’s face.’) The program ends with Florence Price’s pioneering Symphony No. 1, skillfully incorporating spirituals, folksong and syncopated African American dance rhythms into a classical structure.
Aram Demirjian, Jon Nakamatsu
Balanchine’s distillation of Swan Lake into a single-act ballet was inspired by Lev Ivanov’s choreography for the original lakeside second act, including the luminous pas de deux between the mysterious swan at the center of the plot and her smitten swain. The ballet is also notable for its flock of black swans, a striking departure from the traditional white. Composer Mussorgsky’s most famous piano composition, Pictures at an Exhibition, became the basis for Alexei Ratmansky’s fourth ballet for the Company, a suite of dances that embrace the music’s changes in tenor and tempo as it moves between light and dark passages.
For his first full-evening work, returning after its January 2023 premiere, Resident Choreographer Justin Peck pays tribute to one of America’s foremost composers, Aaron Copland, in a collaboration with the painter and sculptor Jeffrey Gibson. Building on Rodeo: Four Dance Episodes, his first piece set to a Copland composition, Peck will draw exclusively on Copland’s music – not the scenarios or steps of the famous prior ballets set to the composer’s music – for inspiration.
Two piquantly contrasted works by Robbins are joined by a treasured Balanchine classic. Robbins dedicated three of his last four ballets to the music of Bach. His very last, Brandenburg, from 1997, is a series of delicate yet complex pas de deux set to four of the famous concertos of the title. Agon, one of Balanchine’s supreme collaborations with Stravinsky, was inspired by classic French dance steps, but reimagines and reinterprets them in the spare but powerful style of Balanchine’s historic Black & White leotard ballets. Robbins’ Fancy Free concludes the program on a note of jovial comedy with its depiction of sailors on shore leave looking for love – or just an evening of freewheeling fun.
Constant repertory renewal has always been a tradition at New York City Ballet, as this program of new and recent works illustrates. Alysa Pires, a Canadian choreographer who has been called “a dancemaker to watch,” creates her first ballet for the Company. Christopher Wheeldon’s long history with the Company continues as he makes his 23rd ballet for a new generation of dancers. Rounding out the evening is The Times Are Racing, Justin Peck’s sneaker ballet, which features innovative gender-neutral choreography for several roles and is set to Dan Deacon’s propulsive electronic score, with music and dance combining to capture the exuberance of urban life.
Justin Peck’s fondness for putting sneakers on classical dancers returns with Partita, a dynamic ballet for eight dancers. The dance rests upon an unusual score, a Pulitzer Prize-winning a cappella composition by Caroline Shaw, as well as a vibrant but simple setting by Eva LeWitt, the daughter of acclaimed artist Sol LeWitt (one of whose works, in turn, inspired Shaw’s music). This program is rounded out by recent new works, fresh from their sold-out fall premieres, by choreographers Gianna Reisen, to a commissioned free jazz score by Solange Knowles, and Kyle Abraham, featuring an intoxicating series of electronic R&B songs by James Blake.
Dances set to music from 19th-century France comprise this program. Balanchine’s La Source, set to the music of Léo Delibes, has been hailed as the choreographer’s tribute to the charm and sophistication of French dancing. Originally composed as a pas de deux, it was later expanded with the addition of an ensemble. Alexei Ratmansky turned to the lesser-known Édouard Lalo for inspiration for his Namouna, A Grand Divertissement, a ballet that likewise draws on classical French steps and style as it depicts a romantic tale of thwarted love eventually rewarded, combining pure dance, hints of drama, and lively moments of wit.
Concerto Barocco, first presented in 1941, was among the three works danced at the first performance ever given by the newly established New York City Ballet in 1948. Its formal beauty and responsiveness to the score has made it an undisputed classic of the international repertory. Kammermusik No. 2 finds Balanchine meeting the challenges of the Hindemith score with lively choreography for two principal couples and, unusually, an all-male corps de ballet. Raymonda Variations features dances of “indescribable happiness” and “simple deftness,” as one critic wrote, and includes subtle nods to the choreography of the Marius Petipa story ballet of the title, although it is a plotless work.
The show features all-star line up of accomplished musicians providing high quality versions of Bob Dylan’s classics as well as the obscure. This is benefit for the Arhoolie Foundation, a group of musical archivists endeavoring to record, provide and protect some of this worlds greatest music. The evenings line up include Matt Hartle on guitar, banjo and vocals, Beverly Sills on vocals, Larry Graff on guitar and vocals , Jim Lewis on guitar, Diana Z on vocals, Jordan Feinstein on piano and vocals, Mike Owen on drums, Chad Bowen on bass and a very special guest appearance by Arhoolie Foundations own, John Leopold, who will take the stage for a special appearance of one of Bob Dylan’s classics.
Mercury Soul returns to Saint Joseph's Arts Society with a sumptuous mix of loungey DJ sets, meditative classical music, and immersive production and stagecraft. Enjoy specialty cocktails while exploring this stunning cathedral-turned-club designed by the renown Ken Fulk, with groovy alternations of DJ sets and popup classical performances. Sets by DJ Masonic (Mason Bates), DJ Justin Reed (illmeasures Chicago), and special guest DJ Gavin Hardkiss are interspersed by performances of Renaissance chorales by Gesualdo and Lotti and music by modern masters Arvo Pärt, Aphex Twin, John Cage, and Philip Glass conducted by Arun Saigal. There are a limited number of VIP Salons available for purchase.
With three Grammy wins, seven CMA Awards, and multiple national fiddle, guitar, and mandolin champion titles, Mark O’Connor’s music and career truly defy categories. Going back several decades, Mark O’Connor has been a member of legendary ensembles the David Grisman Quintet, The Dregs, and Strength In Numbers with Bela Fleck, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, and Edgar Meyer. Now his Mark O’Connor Duo with his wife and violinist Maggie O’Connor surveys his entire career along with new material. Their incredible musical chemistry led to yet another Grammy award, this time for Best Bluegrass Album Coming Home. A memoir of Mark O’Connnor’s childhood years is slated to come out in February 2023 along with an accompanying picture book of his childhood in music and a new CD. 1st set: Music from Mark and Maggie O’Connor. 2nd set: O’Connor will talk about the book, his childhood in music and take questions from the audience. Post-Concert: book and CD signing
Classical at the Freight Great chamber music, up close and personal. Join San Francisco Chamber Orchestra Music Director and violist Ben Simon for your monthly fix of classical masterpieces. These friendly and accessible 75-minute programs feature SFCO All-Stars and special guests in the intimate “chamber” of Berkeley’s iconic Freight & Salvage. Kay Stern & Friends Back by popular demand, the SF Opera’s stellar concertmaster performs a program of amazing duos with our own Ben Simon (viola). Works by Martinu, Bartok and Mozart will show off these virtuosic players and astound you with what two bows and eight strings can do!
San Francisco Bay Area vocalist, Rhonda Benin has earned a reputation for not just a good voice but showmanship, magnetic stage personality, humor, and of course her great dancing. Rhonda’s impressive resume includes performances at SF Jazz, Yoshi’s, MOAD, The Healdsburg, Sonoma, Burlingame, Sausalito, Filmore, and Calistoga Jazz Festivals. In the summer of 2012 Rhonda traveled to Hangzhou, China for a 3 month engagement at the JZ Jazz Club and was 2014 USA headliner for The Kigali Up Music Festival in Kigali, Rwanda. In addition to singing, Rhonda is producer and founder of the annual Women’s History Month show “Just Like A Woman” a tribute to Bay Area Women In Music. Benin is a 26 year member of The GRAMMY nominated vocal ensemble Linda Tillery and The Cultural Heritage. She appears on the CHC’s 7 Cd’s and has toured 30 countries performing and recording with legendary artists such as Taj Mahal, Wilson Pickett, Richie Havens, Odetta. Al Green, Keb Mo, Santana, Patti Austin, Janis Ian, Jackson Brown, Hugh Masekela & Sweet Honey In The Rock. In 2006 Rhonda produced her first solo CD, A Matter of the Heart a classic mix of jazz, blues, and soul and is currently working on her 2nd CD. Rhonda is on the teaching staff of Healdsburg Jazz ‘s Operation Jazz Band, San Francisco Arts Project, LEAP, California Conservatory of Music, Cal Performances and conducts her own school assemblies and workshops, “The Voice, The Hands The Feet” “Twist and Shout” and “Love Letters Make Me Misty Blue”.