Jeffrey Zeigler leads the New Century Chamber Orchestra
Herbst Theatre
Veterans' Building, San Francisco War Memorial Performing Arts Center, 401 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94102-4522 USA
7:30 PM, Saturday, November 6, 2021

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2021 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2021 event list! ☸ On to the next event!

• Paola Prestini: From the Bones to the Fossils (postponed, according to the Gerberen promo),
  replaced by Prestini's arrangement of Tanya Tagaq: In Me
• Mark Adamo: Last Year (World Premiere, New Century Co-Commission)
• William Grant Still: Phantom Chapel
• Andy Akiho: Oscillate

[7:35 PM] {lights down, announcements}
[7:39 PM] {performers out, no JZ at first}

1. [7:40 PM] William Grant Still (1895–1978): Phantom Chapel, from Bells (1943)
   [7:46 PM] {work ends}
   [7:47 PM] {talk from JZ}

[7:49 PM] {talk from MA}

Mark Adamo (b.1962): Last Year, Concerto for Solo Violoncello with Harp, Piano, String Orchestra and Percussion (2019) (World Premiere, New Century Co-Commission)

1. [7:57 PM] I. Autumn: Dismissing Eunice
2. [8:02 PM] II. Winter: La Triangle Noir »
3. [8:10 PM] III. Spring: Zephaniah 1:14-15 »
4. [8:19 PM] IV. Summer: For Julia, born 2045
   [8:27 PM] {set ends}

[8:48 PM] {pre-set tunning from piano & cello}
[8:51 PM] {everyone onstage and ready}
[8:52 PM] {talk from JZ}

1. [8:55 PM] Tanya Tagaq (b.1975) (arr. Paola Prestini (b.1975)): In Me for Solo Violoncello and String Orchestra (2021) (World Premiere)
   [8:58 PM] {work ends}
   [8:59 PM] {thanks and additional talk from JZ}

1. [9:05 PM] Andy Akiho (b.1979): Oscillate (2012)
   [9:23 PM] {show ends}

No Encore

New Century Chamber Orchestra

• Hrabba Atladottir: violin I;
• Stephanie Bibbo: violin II;
• Ivo Bokulic: viola;
• Robin Bonnell: co-principal cello;
• Michelle Djokic: cello;
• Bill Everett: principal contrabass;
• Eric Gaenslen: cello;
• Elizabeth Hall: percussion;
• Dawn Harms: violin I;
• Divesh Karamchandani: percussion;
• Jon Keigwin: contrabass;
• Julie Kim: violin II;
• Caroline Lee: viola;
• Robin Mayforth: violin I;
• Kayo Miki: violin II;
• Mika Nakamura: percussion;
• Deborah Tien Price: principal violin II;
• Elizabeth Prior: principal viola;
• Cassandra Lynne Richburg: viola;
• Nicole Sauder: violin II;
• Iris Stone: concertmaster, violin I;
• Brenda Vahur: piano;
• Sarah Voynow: harp;
• Michael Yokas: violin I;
• Jeffrey Zeigler: cello, guest leader.

Good show!

Not too well attended: maybe folks are still too worried about gathering indoors? My feeling is that I'm safe because (1) I'm vaxxed, (2) I'll be masked, and (3) everyone else present should be too! Hopefully attendance will improve as time goes on.

Still's Phantom Chapel was a nice appetizer to start things off. Not too meaty, at only six minutes, but pleasant enough to make me wonder why they didn't program the other parts of the larger work it's drawn from.

It was a treat to have Mark Adamo present for the World Premiere of his piece, and extra special for him to give us a detailed preview of the work in his remarks. On the other hand, like many “reaction” works by other modern composers that I've heard over the past twenty years, this one didn't make an especially strong impression on me. I liked it, but it didn't grab me in the way that Piazzolla's Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas did when NCCO brought that out (xref TBD).

Prestini's arrangement opening the second set was another amusing bite of sound. Not long enough to make much of an impression: I spent most of my listening wondering how the piece was to evoke the “mouth music” of the original work. Probably should have done better prep for that one: after I tried listening to Tanya Tagaq's original recording, the connection in my memory to tonight's work was considerably stronger… and then I realized that I'd listened to a completely different work. Alright then. I'll revise my comment to say that Prestini did a great job of evoking the same sonic world that Tagaq explores on her latest album, Tongues, and the video for the title track is really out there!

Akiho's piece grabbed my attention best. A recording of the world premiere performance, Dec 21, 2012, by the New York Philharmonic can be heard via Soundcloud. Some (or all?) of the score parts are available to examine via the NYPhil archives, and via study there, I decided that the programmatic description of a “Day 1”, “Day 2”, and “Day 3” is probably an after-the-fact description stamped onto the piece: there's certainly no such labeling in any of the parts that I looked at!

You can read the Program Notes for free, and you can purchase a recording of tonight's show via City Box Office at $30. Seems a little steep to me, but hey, you don't want cheap art, do you?

Janos Gereben published a promo article for the show at SFCV.

Joshua Kosman reviewed tonight's show for the SF Chronicle, emphasizing the Adamo piece.

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2021 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2021 event list! ☸ On to the next event!