https://sfcmp.org/news/rss.xml News, Events and Articles by and about San Francisco Contemporary https://sfcmp.org/news/fall-2026-bay-areas-best-classical-music-and-dance-performances/ https://sfcmp.org/news/fall-2026-bay-areas-best-classical-music-and-dance-performances/ Fall brings plenty of reasons to return to the concert hall, opera house and theater, from grand opera and orchestral concerts to contemporary dance and multimedia spectacles. https://sfcmp.org/news/sf-contemporary-music-players-hit-next-season-with-new-music-and-a-new-name/ https://sfcmp.org/news/sf-contemporary-music-players-hit-next-season-with-new-music-and-a-new-name/ After 55 years, one of the West Coast's longest-running and largest new-music ensembles has decided that its own name is too long. Beginning with the 2026–2027 season, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players will go by sfCONTEMPORARY. https://sfcmp.org/news/sfcmp-announces-plans-for-56th-season/ https://sfcmp.org/news/sfcmp-announces-plans-for-56th-season/ SFCMP Annpiunces Pans for 56th Season https://sfcmp.org/news/artzenter-announces-next-world-premieres/ https://sfcmp.org/news/artzenter-announces-next-world-premieres/ Readers may recall that, this past June, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players (SFCMP), led by Artistic Director & Conductor Eric Dudley, presented a concert of world premiere performances made possible by the Emerging Composer Grant Program presented by the ARTZenter Institute. https://sfcmp.org/news/this-years-emerging-composer-concert/ https://sfcmp.org/news/this-years-emerging-composer-concert/ The ARTZenter Institute joined forces with the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players (SFCMP), led by Artistic Director & Conductor Eric Dudley for another concert of world premiere performances made possible by the Emerging Composer Grant Program. https://sfcmp.org/news/next-artzenter-emerging-composer-concert/ https://sfcmp.org/news/next-artzenter-emerging-composer-concert/ Once again, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players (SFCMP), led by Artistic Director & Conductor Eric Dudley, will present a concert of world premiere performances made possible by the Emerging Composer Grant Program presented by the ARTZenter Institute. https://sfcmp.org/news/one-of-the-gang/ https://sfcmp.org/news/one-of-the-gang/ Joshua Kosman reviews "American Reflections: Full Circle" https://sfcmp.org/news/sf-contemporary-music-players-step-up-and-down/ https://sfcmp.org/news/sf-contemporary-music-players-step-up-and-down/ A rewview by Jeff Kaliss of "American Reflections: Steps Toward Ascent" in San Francisco Classical Voice, April 14, 2026 https://sfcmp.org/news/prodigal-daughter/ https://sfcmp.org/news/prodigal-daughter/ In the early 1990s, for a short and wonderful period, the composer Chen Yi was a fixture on the musical landscape of the Bay Area. She had a joint residency with the Women’s Philharmonic of blessed memory and the men’s chorus Chanticleer, and once or twice a year local audiences would get to savor the products of her incredible musical imagination. Chen Yi’s work draws a lot on the traditions of her native China, but the integration of Asian and European/American models, which can often devolve into a tired trope in less gifted hands, always sounds fresh and alive with her. Her music is surprising and unpredictable, but always accessible. (At one point the Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll attended a concert of her music on my recommendation, and pronounced it “modern, but in a nice way.”) We haven’t heard much of Chen Yi’s music around these parts in the ensuing decades, but Saturday’s engaging program by the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players brought all the happy memories rushing back. The concert, led by artistic director Eric Dudley, included offerings by a range of composers (living and not), before culminating with Fire, Chen Yi’s brief and fiercely powerful evocation of the title element. The piece, which is scored with translucent vivacity for a dozen instruments, bolts out of the gate and proceeds to consume everything it touches. Rapid bursts of melody fly upwards, only to be overtaken by a new strand from elsewhere in the ensemble. Instrumental sparks strew themselves across the stage. The experience is brilliant, vivid, and frankly just a little scary. And then, just like that, it’s over, leaving what feels like a backdraft of silence in its wake. Fire offered the evening’s most intense delight, but not the only one. Elizabeth Ogonek, a composer who inspires ever-greater admiration with each encounter, opened the program with Lightenings, a luminous set of variations on a Byzantine hymn with inspiration from the poetry of Seamus Heaney. By turns light-footed and elegiac, each of these short movements creates a distinctive world full of beauty and grace. I also enjoyed the expansive sinew of Justin Weiss’s through depths and shadows (one day soon composers will realize what’s what and bring capital letters back to their titles, but evidently not quite yet), and the roisterous stomp of Viet Cuong’s Electric Aroma, a fast jittery tango for clarinet and soprano saxophone accompanied by piano and percussion. On a Pacific Aisle - Joshua Kosman https://sfcmp.org/news/sfcmp-more-american-reflections-next-month/ https://sfcmp.org/news/sfcmp-more-american-reflections-next-month/ The first month of the New Year will conclude with the second program planned for the 2025–2026 Concert Season of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. The title of the season is American Reflections, and the title of this program will be Fire & Lightning. The featured offering on the program will be the West Coast premiere of Elliott Carter’s “Mosaic,” composed in 2004 for harp and ensemble. Harpist Amy Ahn will be the guest artist. There will also be West Coast premiere performances of “through depths and shadows,” composed by Justin Weiss in 2023 and Chen Yi’s “Fire,” completed in 2019. The opening selections on the program will be Elizabeth Ogonek’s “Lightenings” (2016) and “Electric Aroma” (2018) by Viet Cuong. This performance will begin at 8 p.m. on Saturday, January 31. The performance will take place in the Taube Atrium Theater, located on the top (fourth) floor of the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue. Tickets may be purchased online through a City Box Office Web page, which will also include tickets for the Sound & Wine fundraising event. This will precede the performance, beginning of 5 p.m. in the Education Studio of the Wilsey Center, which is also in the Veterans Building. Photo: Stephen Hahn