Saturday, October 29, 2011

October 29 - Student-Alumni Composition Concert


Second Annual Swarthmore College
Student and Alumni Composers Concert
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Lang Concert Hall

***



At the appointed hour (or thereabouts) -- with Debby How and Jerry Levinson --


composition students and others gather, with


Elizabeth Hoffman and I sequentially holding forth, re music for two violins, Irish pipes, and electronics; plus allusions to Psalm 6 and Suite ("Sol[ar]") and performances of The Twelve Fingers: I (live), San Fernando Hub: I (featuring audience participation), and Camino Real: Block 9 (the video produced over the summer), as the wind blows and the


snow continues to fall.


More practice thereafter (a bit of Eastern cabin fever setting in, but beats walking across campus in the snow for dinner), including one with Debby and Tom for The Inner Circles, and another for Peter Schikele's canons Dona Nobis Pacem and Swing, Swing, Swing.


At last the concert,



with


all


going


impressively


well --


warm comments all around, and particular congrats to Debby for putting all together, this the second annual event.  Many express interest in next year: in particular, thinking of excerpts from Ecclesiastes, Op. 3...

Saturday, October 15, 2011

October 15 - SFCCO - The Dark Serenade


SAN FRANCISCO
COMPOSERS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

Mark Alburger, Music Director

The Dark Serenade

8pm, Saturday, October 15, 2011, Old First Church, San Francisco, CA
8pm, Sunday, October 16, 2011, Chapel of the Chimes, Oakland, CA
Mark Alburger, John Kendall Bailey, and Martha Stoddard, conducting

Program

Phil Freihofner - Carmilla
Lisa Scola Prosek, Soprano

Lisa Scola Prosek - The Goldfish Pond
John Duykers, Tenor

Davide Verotta - Facing Chaos

David Graves - Amaranthine Silence

Mark Alburger - Regime Change (Solomon Suite)
Lisa Scola Prosek, Soprano
Olivia Flanigan, Contralto

Loren Jones - Graveyard

**

SAN FRANCISCO
COMPOSERS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Mark Alburger, Music Director

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 15, 2010

CONTACT:
SFCCO (707) 474-7273
mus21stc@gmail.com

SAN FRANCISCO COMPOSERS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA PRESENTS

"THE DARK SERENADE"

8:00PM, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15,
OLD FIRST CHURCH,
1725 SACRAMENTO STREET (AT VAN NESS), SAN FRANCISCO, CA

AND

8:00PM, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 16,
CHAPEL OF THE CHIMES
4499 PIEDMONT AVENUE, OAKLAND, CA

SAN FRANCISCO, OAKLAND, AND WORLD PREMIERES OF WORKS BY
PHILIP FREIHOFNER, DAVID GRAVES, LOREN JONES, LISA SCOLA PROSEK, DAVIDE VEROTTA, AND MARK ALBURGER

SAN FRANCISCO, May 15, 2011 -- The days are growing shorter, the economy is not improving, and it's time for The Dark Serenade. Join the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra, on either side of the Bay -- at 8pm, October 15 (Old First Church, San Francisco) or 16 (Chapel of the Chimes) -- in a haunted landscape of works by Philip Freihofner, David Graves, Loren Jones, Lisa Scola Prosek, Davide Verotta, and Mark Alburger.

Freihofner sets the mood in Carmilla, a beautiful post-minimalist setting of Irish writer Sheridan Le Fanu's short story of vampires and women, featuring Lisa Scola Prosek. This talented soprano-composer will then showcase her own luminous Night at the Kremlin excerpt entitled The Goldfish Pond, where world-renowned tenor John Duykers will hold forth as Winston Churchill on Stalinesque situations.

Keeping to matters historically ominous, Verotta's Facing Chaos illuminates a passage from Seneca the Younger's Thyestes ("Trembling are our hearts, lest all things fall shattered in fatal ruin . . .") in a juxtaposition of aggressive Indian talas with plangent basal melodies. Such contrasts are perhaps even more extreme in the grave Graves Amaranthine Silence, where animated contrapuntal complexities are counterpoised with various pre-recorded "silences" from gardens, restaurants, and parking garages.

Alburger's Regime Change takes the terror of Ancient and Contemporary civilizations through a kaleidoscope of found musics, sung by Scola Prosek and contralto Olivia Flanigan, as a prelude to Jones's signature over-the-top outpourings in Graveyard, where the orchestra will be augmented by bouzouki and tombstones. In the spirit of Erling Wold's In the Stomachs of Fleas, resoundingly presented a few concerts back, be prepared for Haloweenic smoke-and-mirrors. Fog. Strobe lights. Maybe even a small explosion....

Be afraid. Be amazed. And prepare for The Dark Serenade.


TICKET INFORMATION
Tickets for the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra's The Dark Serenade -- on Saturday, October 15, 8:00 p.m., at Old First Church (1725 Sacramento Street @ Van Ness), San Francisco; and on Sunday, October 16, 8;00 p.m., at Chapel of the Chimes (4499 Piedmont Avenue), Oakland -- are $17 general, $14 students and seniors. Tickets for 10/15 are available through the OFC Box Office at (415) 474-1608 and for both concerts at the door. For more information, please call Old First Church Box Office, the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra (707- 474-7273), or visit the organizations' respective websites at www.oldfirstconcerts.org and www.sfcco.org. Tickets are also available at www.ticketweb.com. Other links to the show may be found at myspace.com/sfcco, sfcco.blogspot.com, and markalburgerevents.blogspot.com.

###


CALENDAR EDITORS, PLEASE NOTE:

OLD FIRST CONCERTS AND CHAPEL OF THE CHIMES PRESENT

Saturday, October 15, at 8:00 p.m.
Old First Church
1725 Sacramento Street at Van Ness
San Francisco, CA
(415) 474-1608

Sunday, October 16, at 8:00 p.m.
Chapel of the Chimes
4499 Piedmont Avenue
Oakland, CA

THE DARK SERENADE
San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra,

Program:

Mark Alburger - Regime Change
Philip Freihofner - Carmilla
David Graves - The Amaranthine Silence
Loren Jones - Graveyard
Lisa Scola Prosek - The Goldfish Pond from Night at the Kremlin
Davide Verotta - Facing Chaos

Tickets: $17 general, $14 students and seniors, available for October 15 through the Old First Church Box Office at (415) 474-1608, for both concerts at the door, and at www.ticketweb.com.

More information at sfcco.org, sfcco.blogspot.com, and markalburgerevents.blogspot.com

Saturday, June 25, 2011

June 25 - SFCCO Lost Things Found


SAN FRANCISCO
COMPOSERS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

Mark Alburger, Music Director

Lost Things Found


8pm, Saturday, June 25, 2011, Old First Church, San Francisco, CA
Mark Alburger, John Kendall Bailey, and Martha Stoddard, conducting


Program


Loren Jones
Mt. Eytan Gabriel Caves

Eytan and Gabriel Schillinger-Hyman, Piano


Bill Severson
A Simple Trifle
I. A Trifle Crazy
II. A Trifle Sad and Wistful
III. A Trifle Dancey


John Beeman
Collage
I. Phoenix
II. Other Side

Maria Mikheyenko, Soprano


Bernard Herrmann
The Twilight Zone: Little Girl Lost

Roland Kato, Viola d'Amore


Intermission


Davide Verotta
Imaginations


Samuel Ostroff
Before You Read


Martha Stoddard
Orchestral Suite for the Young of All Ages
Windsong Variations
Hop-Skip-Jump


Lisa Scola Prosek
Churchill in the Bath

John Duykers, Tenor


Allan Crossman
Arriving at Loch Lomond

Saturday, November 13, 2010

November 13 - Opera and Song



Opera and Song
November 13, 2010
Community Music Center
San Francisco, CA
 

Job: A Masque, with Harriet March Page (God / Bildad the Shuhite),



Heather Klein (Elihu / Servant I),




Marilyn Pratt (Job), Kate Bautch (Job's Wife / Servant III),




Suzanna Mizell (Eliphaz the Temanite / Servant II), and Maria Mikheyenko (Satan / Zophar the Naamathite / Servant IV), on John Bilotta's Opera and Song program, also featuring
his




Yeats Songs and



Trifles, plus




Ed Knight's Life Is Fine and




Sylvia Rickard's Three Cabaret Songs.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

September 25 - SFCCO Animal, Vegetable, Mineral



SAN FRANCISCO
COMPOSERS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Mark Alburger, Music Director

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 15, 2010

CONTACT:

SFCCO (707) 474-7273
mus21stc@gmail.com

SAN FRANCISCO COMPOSERS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA PRESENTS
"ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MINERAL"
8:00PM, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, OLD FIRST CHURCH,
1725 SACRAMENTO STREET (AT VAN NESS), SAN FRANCISCO, CA

OLD FIRST, SAN FRANCISCO, AND WORLD PREMIERES OF WORKS BY
MICHAEL COOKE, LOREN JONES, JORGE LIDERMAN, TERRY RILEY,
LISA SCOLA PROSEK, ERLING WOLD, AND MARK ALBURGER

SAN FRANCISCO, August 15, 2010 -- What is reality? Sentient beings clamoring for existence, the wind whistling through leafy vegetation, the silence and noise of this stony planet. Come along on musical safari with the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra (8pm, Saturday, September 25, Old First Church, SF) in Animal, Vegetable, Mineral -- a tour of the Earth's scenic and sonic wonders, in compositions by Michael Cooke, Loren Jones, Jorge Liderman, Terry Riley, Lisa Scola Prosek, Erling Wold, and Mark Alburger

The latter's Animal Farm: Grand Zoological Fantasy-Variations is a dark, Orwellian spin on creatures great and small, including a visual presentation of surrealistically-altered YouTube videos. In biological distinction, Jones will offer Banyan: an aural giving-tree of multicultural musical delights. Answering this will be a revival of Riley's celebrated minimalist-improvisatory anthem In C, in all of its crystalline and granitic splendor.

Also along for the journey are Michael Cooke's deeply-felt Love Letters; Lisa Scola Prosek's vibrant Piano Sonata; a retrospective work of the late, great Jorge Liderman; and an exciting new work by Erling Wold. John Kendall Bailey will join Alburger in the zoomusicological tour-guiding responsibilities.

***

TICKET INFORMATION:

Tickets for the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra's "Animal, Vegetable, Mineral" -- on Saturday, September 25, 8:00 p.m., at Old First Church (1725 Sacramento Street @ Van Ness), San Francisco, are $17 general, $14 students and seniors. Tickets are available through the OFC Box Office at (415) 474-1608 and at the door. For more information, please call Old First Church Box Office, the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra (707) 474-7273, or visit the organizations' respective websites at www.oldfirstconcerts.org and www.sfcco.org. Tickets are also available at www.ticketweb.com. Other links to the show may be found at myspace.com/sfcco, and markalburgerevents.blogspot.com.

###

CALENDAR EDITORS, PLEASE NOTE:

OLD FIRST CONCERTS PRESENTS
Saturday, September 25, at 8:00 p.m. Old First Church
1725 Sacramento Street at Van Ness
San Francisco, CA
(415) 474-1608

ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MINERAL
San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra,

Program:

Mark Alburger - Animal Farm: Grand Zoological Fantasy-Variations (Part I)
Michael Cooke - Love Letters
Loren Jones - The Banyan
Jorge Liderman - Flautando
Terry Riley - In C
Lisa Scola Prosek - Piano Sonata

Tickets: $17 general, $14 students and seniors, available through the Old First Church Box Office at (415) 474-1608, at the door, and at www.ticketweb.com.

More information at sfcco.org and markalburgerevents.blogspot.com