Freebie of the week: The San Francisco Chamber Orchestra is presenting three free live shows this week, every highlighted by a composition born out of affection and friendship. At heart is Grammy-winning Bay Space composer-violinist Evan Value, who was approached by all-world mandolinists (and companions in music and life) Mike Marshall and Caterina Lichtenberg to jot down a bit for them. As Value places it, the composition needed to mirror the total scope of their relationship, from the apparent affection they present one another on and off the stage, to the complementary method they take to their performances. “What makes their performances so engaging is that we have the pleasure of watching two masters of the same instrument,” Value says, “albeit from seemingly disparate cultures and musical traditions, inspiring and delighting in each other.” The outcome was titled “A Game of Cat and Mike,” which received its world premiere in San Jose final yr. It will likely be carried out once more, by the SFCO – with Marshall and Lichtenberg, after all – at 7:30 p.m. Friday at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, 1111 O’Farrell St., San Francisco; 7:30 p.m. Saturday at First United Methodist Church, 625 Hamilton Ave., Palo Alto; and three p.m. Sunday at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Approach. Additionally on this system is “Strum for String Orchestra” by Jessie Montgomery, and Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings, Op. 48. There is no such thing as a admission, however seats could also be reserved at www.thesfco.org.
Tenor Bernard Holcomb is among the many performers in Opera Parallèle’s premiere of “The Pigeon Keeper” at Cowell Theater in San Francisco on March 7-9. (Picture courtesy www.mattsimpkinsphotography.com)
Fable of kindness: For 15 years, San Francisco’s Opera Parallèle has been recognized for presenting new and distinctive modern works, and this weekend’s world premiere of “The Pigeon Keeper” is not any exception. Billed as “a modern fable of kindness in a fractured world,” the 75-minute magical realist opera composed by David Hanlon with a libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann tells the story of younger lady and her fisherman father who endeavor to discover a house for a refugee boy they encounter adrift at sea. On their journey, they meet the Pigeon Keeper, a mysterious outcast who in the end teaches them about love and compassion and the goodness of strangers. The solid options soprano Angela Yam, tenor Bernard Holcomb and baritone Craig Irvin in addition to members of the San Francisco Ladies Refrain. The opera, co-commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera’s Opera for All Voices Initiative, Opera Omaha and Opera on the Avalon, is onstage at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and a pair of p.m. Sunday within the Cowell Theater at San Francisco’s Fort Mason. Tickets are $46.45 to $172.83 at https://operaparallele.org/thepigeonkeeper/.
Bay Space jazz/blues icon Faye Carol performs with a trio led by famed drummer Dennis Chambers at SFJAZZ Middle on March 6-7. (Courtesy Faye Carol)
Dynamic duo: Faye Carol, higher often called “The Dynamic Miss Faye Carol,” has been wowing music followers within the Bay Space since she moved from Mississippi to Pittsburg within the Sixties and started belting blues numbers in native nightclubs. Her mastery of jazz and blues stays as spectacular as ever, and her efficiency schedule has hardly slowed a beat. This week, Carol co-stars in a collection that may thrill jazz followers. She’ll be performing with the revered jazz/rock/fusion drummer Dennis Chambers, who has turned in memorable studio and dwell periods with artists starting from Santana to John Scofield to Maceo Parker and Stanley Clarke. The pairing of Carol and Chambers was final seen throughout a memorable live performance collection titled “Give the Drummer Some” that unfolded at SFJAZZ Middle throughout the 2022-23 season. On Thursday and Friday, Carol and Chambers will carry out with pianist Joe Warner and bassist Essiet Essiet. Present occasions are 7 and eight:30 p.m. every night time. Tickets are $25. Go to www.sfjazz.org.
Conductor Edwin Outwater leads musicians from the San Francisco Symphony and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in a profit live performance for reduction for victims of the Los Angeles fires on March 9 in San Francisco’s Davies Corridor. (Courtesy Daniel J. Kim)
Music with a mission: Tickets are going quick for a implausible fundraising live performance that musicians of the San Francisco Symphony, becoming a member of forces with a few of their counterparts within the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Orchestra, are mounting this weekend to carry much-needed reduction to victims of the devastating fires within the Los Angeles space. They’ve enlisted the help of each Edwin Outwater, former resident conductor of SFS and present music director of the Conservatory’s orchestra, and one in all San Francisco’s favourite sons, pianist Garrick Ohlsson. Below Outwater’s baton, Ohlsson would be the featured soloist for the ultra-popular Piano Concerto No. 2 by Sergei Rachmaninoff. Antonin Dvorak’s nice Symphony No. 9, “From the New World,” can be on this system, which can open with Aaron Copland’s “The Promise of Living,” a hymn from his opera “The Tender Land,” with vocals from the San Francisco Symphony Refrain. The live performance takes place at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday in Davies Corridor. Tickets, $50-$100, can be found at (415) 864-6000 or sfsymphony.org. Internet proceeds from all ticket gross sales might be evenly break up between two Los Angeles organizations, the Leisure Neighborhood Enjoyable and Habitat for Humanity of Larger Los Angeles.
Xavier Prado previews his upcoming title function in Opera San José’s “Zorro” in performances March 11-13, 2025 on the Filoli property in Woodside. (Courtesy Opera San José’)
A sneak peek: Composer Héctor Armienta’s “Zorro,” an opera primarily based on the adventures of the swashbuckling masked man, isn’t set to make its Northern California premiere till mid-April, however the presenting group, Opera San José, will carry its star, Chilean-born tenor Xavier Prado, and a number of others from the solid to a particular preview on the historic Filoli property for performances March 11-13. The previews will happen within the newly restored ballroom at Filoli, 86 Cañada Street in Woodside. Different artists who might be singing embody Maria Brea, Deborah Martinez Rosengaus, Courtney Miller, Jesús Vicente Murillo, Eugene Brancoveanu (March 11 and March 13) and Michael Jesse Kuo (March 12). Efficiency time is 7:30 p.m. on all three dates. Tickets, $75-$105, can be found at filoli.org. The opera will make its run from April19-Might 4 in San Jose’s California Theater.
