2002-01-28 
Jean-Louis LeRoux Congratulates Gordon Mumma 
on the successful world premiere of his work, Tile

Ting & Randy Vogel
Previous Home Previous

020128-2029-09

Well some nights you just don't feel like taking photos, or maybe you have a bad sightline or something. Tonight must have been one of those nights...

Nonetheless, I can tell you a little about the show. First off, here's the abbreviated program listing:

The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players present:
Echoes and Reveries
Monday, January 28, 2002
8 pm, pre-concert talk 7:15 pm
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, 700 Howard St. at Third

Schoenberg, Nono, Boulez... No excuses, as SFCMP leaps to the very heart of
20th-century European "modernism."  Programmed by maestro Jean-Louis LeRoux,
this evening presents a rarely-heard chamber version of Arnold Schoenberg's
exquisite Five Pieces for Orchestra, traces flowerings through the
revolutionary Italian and French masters, and finally heralds a grand new
opus from Berkeley's Edwin Dugger.  Gordon Mumma offers a memorial to
longtime Player's oboist, William Banovetz.

The program:
Edwin Dugger: A Summer's Reverie
Luigi Nono: sofferte onde serene
Gordon Mumma: Tile, in memoriam William Banovetz (World Premiere)
Pierre Boulez: Anthemes 1
Arnold Schoenberg: Five Pieces for Orchestra, op.16, chamber version

Featuring:
Roy Malan, violin
Thomas Schultz, piano
Jean-Louis LeRoux, conductor

Next, I can relate that after taking Caltrain up from Stanford and then riding my bike over to Yerba Buena from the train station, I arrived early enough to change out of my biking attire and into natty threads for the show and pre-concert talk. The talk featured Jean-Louis LeRoux, Edwin Dugger and Gordon Mumma discussing the night's program. Talking first about the composer's own pieces, then going on to analyze the pieces by Nono, Boulez and Schoenberg, with the discussion punctuated by reveries about the participant's personal interactions with these masters.

Just before the show, Carl Wescott and Martha Horst joined me in the fourth row to enjoy the music. The performance was fun, with the highlights being the new Mumma piece in the first half, and the Schoenberg in the second half. Afterwards, Carl graciously offered to give me a ride back to Montclair, thereby saving me the trouble of riding my bike from Rockridge BART through the cold and windy night up into the hills. Thanks Carl!