Our 2022-2023 Season
We invite you to join our adventurous and stimulating 2022-23 season by becoming a Member!
Our 52nd season contains ancillary events thematically linked such as our popular How Music is Made program, contemporary music masterclass, and community events. An exceptionally rich and colorful array of composers fills the season calendar.
OCTOBER 2022
“Image and Memory”
Monday OCTOBER 10, 2022
6:45 pm Artwork Viewing | 7:00 pm Concert
The Lab, 2948 16th St, San Francisco
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TICKETS General: $35, Student: $15
This season, we embrace the Contemporary Players’ roots as a performing presence in the museums and gallery spaces of San Francisco, by highlighting the individual artistry of our musicians in a space surrounded by contemporary visual art. This intimate concert experience offers the chance to encounter and discuss music and art in simultaneity, with time before the concert to view art pieces and engage in conversation about the connection points between visual and auditory elements, followed by a performance from featured artists in our all-star cast of Contemporary Players virtuosi.
Featuring: Susan Freier, violin and Stephen Harrison, cello
Program:
Augusta Read Thomas – Silent Moon for violin and cello (2006)
Gabriela Lena Frank – Suite Mestiza for Violin Solo (2017)
Sofia Gubaidulina – Rejoice! Freue dich! Sonata for Violin and Cello (1981)
Libby Larsen – Scudding for solo cello (1980)
Julia Adolphe – Smile Softly, Softly Smile for solo violin (2021)
Erwin Schulhoff – Duo for Violin & Cello (1925)
NOVEMBER 2022
“Re-Tuning and Refiguration”
Saturday NOVEMBER 5, 2022
7:00 pm ‘How Music is Made’ Pre-Concert Talk | 8:00 pm Concert | Post-concert Party
Barbro Osher Recital Hall, The Bowes Center, SF Conservatory of Music, 200 VanNess Avenue, San Francisco
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TICKETS General: $35, Student: $15
The parameter of fixed pitch becomes a fluid concept in a program that surveys different tuning systems and their juxtapositions with each other, and emerging composers from SF Conservatory’s Technology and Applied Composition Program respond with new works seeking innovative approaches to pitch. Pieces by American mavericks Ben Johnston and Sky Macklay inhabit the ‘notes between the notes’ and alter our perceptions of how certain instruments are supposed to sound, while Korean-born composer Unsuk Chin further disguises instrumental identities in a musical exploration of pantomime.
Program:
Ben Johnston – Somewhere I Have Never Traveled (1949)
Chris Brown – Epimoric Quiverings, for Ptolemy Duple metallophone (2021)
Willie Winant, percussion
2 Selections from the SFCM Technology & Applied Composition Program, New Work(s) (2023)
Ben Johnston – Sonata for Microtonal Piano (1964)
Kate Campbell, piano
Unsuk Chin – Cosmigimmicks (2011-2012)
Sky Macklay – Microvariations (rev. 2017)
DECEMBER 2022
“Sound Encounters III” – in collaboration with CNMAT, UC Berkeley
Sunday DECEMBER 4, 2022
3:00-4:30 pm
The Lab, 2948 16th St, San Francisco
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TICKETS General: $35, Student: $15
For a third season, we continue our highly successful partnership with local sound artists in the presentation of works in collaboration with UC Berkeley’s Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT). As a part of our mission of identifying and fostering emerging talent and creativity in the Bay Area new music scene, we invite and host a group of CNMAT-affiliated artists and encounter their works in an installation-style setting, tailored to create unique sonic environments, with the involvement of a soloist from the Contemporary Players’ roster as a featured performer. Accompanying the program, mingling, light snacks and drinks enliven the atmosphere.
Featuring: Richard Worn, double bass
Program:
Hans Werner Henze – San Biagio 9 Agosto Ore 12:07 (1977), for solo bass
Eda Er – Too Much of a Woman (2022) for solo voice, electronics, amplified objects and video
Kevin CK Lo – The Audience Plays Itself (2022) for solo bass, electronics, cameras & projection
Iannis Xenakis – Theraps (1976), for solo bass
Richard Worn – Apocoletric (2022), for solo double bass & electronics
Aine Nakamura – Kusottare! for solo voice & electronics
FEBRUARY 2023
SPECIAL EVENT
Sound & Wine: Annual Benefit Event
Sunday FEBRUARY 26, 2023, 3:00 PM
Proposed Venue: Kanbar Center for the Arts
44 Page Street, San Francisco
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TICKETS $75
Sound & Wine is an evening dedicated to our biggest fans: our supporters, donors, subscribers, and members, and an opportunity to connect intimately with our Contemporary Players musicians to hear their personal perspectives and unique interpretations of pieces that inspire them as artists. We invite you to bring your music-loving friends and join in conversation and performance as we celebrate in style with the most ardent members of our tight-knit community of contemporary music enthusiasts.
Featuring a fun and engaging program of music, food, beverages, and auction items.
APRIL 2023
“Temporal Excursions”
Thursday APRIL 13, 2023
7:00 pm ‘How Music is Made’ Pre-Concert Talk | 8:00 pm Concert | Post-concert Party
Taube Atrium Theater, Wilsey Center, SF War Memorial, 401 Van Ness Ave, San Francisco
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TICKETS General: $35, Student: $15
In celebration of a special project on our 52nd season, we present a live performance experience around musical strands unfolding independently in time. A revisitation of the work of Conlon NANCARROW affords a realization for chamber ensemble, along with the Bay Area premiere of a virtuoso work by SF Symphony Music Director Esa-Pekka SALONEN. The second half of the of the program features the world premiere of BAUMBUSCH’s Polytempo Music, a multi-year project, first conceived in the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, for a flexibly designed ensemble to take shape in a variety of temporal modes: as a composite of separately-tracked recordings, a Virtual Reality audiovisual experience, and a live performance with real-time mixing in which our musicians occupy individualized streams in musical time.
Program:
Conlon Nancarrow/arr. Evan Ziporyn – Study No. 3a, arranged for ensemble (2013)
Esa-Pekka Salonen – Catch & Release (2006, Bay Area premiere)
Brian Baumbusch – Polytempo Music (2023, *world premiere)
“Fire and Water, Shadows and Dust”
Monday APRIL 24, 2023
7:30 pm Concert
Noe Valley Ministry, 1021 Sanchez Street San Francisco
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TICKETS General: $35, Student: $15
Sounding off numerous sources, both visual and literary, this program for flute and harp in both solo and duo repertoire exploits the full range of virtuosity on both instruments, while creating a powerful array of imagery at the same time. Centering on themes of mythology and mortality, pieces by Jennifer Higdon and Suzanne Farrin explore the intensities of sonic production suggested by contemplations on violence and disintegration, while works by Marcus Norris, Salvatore Sciarrino, Toru Takemitsu and Roberto Sierra inhabit the spaces of softer expressivity through imagistic references. The first two installments of Luciano Berio’s Sequenza series – the Italian composer’s landmark contribution to the solo repertoire of several instruments – anchor the program in a display of musical athleticism and sound painting.
Featuring: Tod Brody, flute and Meredith Clark, harp
Program:
Jennifer Higdon – rapid fire for solo flute (1992)
Suzanne Farrin – Polvere et Ombra for solo harp (2008)
Luciano Berio – Sequenza I for solo flute (1958)
Salvatore Sciarrino – Fauno che Fischia a un Merlo for flute and harp (1980)
Luciano Berio – Sequenza II for solo harp (1963)
Marcus Norris – New Work (2022, *world premiere) (SF Search for Scores Commissioning Prize), for solo harp
Toru Takemitsu – Toward the Sea III, version for alto flute and harp (1989)
Roberto Sierra – Selections from Flower Pieces for flute and harp (1994)
MAY 2023
“Power Duos, Power Dynamics”
Thursday MAY 11, 2023
7:00 pm ‘How Music is Made’ Pre-Concert Talk | 8:00 pm Concert | Post-concert Party
Herbst Theatre, SF War Memorial, 401 Van Ness Ave, San Francisco
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TICKETS General: $35, Student: $15
This season’s concluding program features powerful pieces by powerful duos – either husband and wife, or father and son – while creating a generational and collaborative dialogue between composers known for charting their own courses along cross-genre trajectories. With Anthony Braxton as the elder voice in the mix, his son Tyondai combines his own experience as a rock musician and sensibilities for orchestral music into a dance-inspired musical tapestry, while Miya Masoaka and George Lewis offer contrasting viewpoints on group virtuosity and the nature of the performer and audience dynamic. Another winner of our annual SF Search for Scores commissioning prize delivers a new composition for instrumental duo, inspired by one or more of this coterie of interconnected artists and thinkers.
Program:
Miya Masaoka – The Dust and the Noise (2013)
Aiyana Braun – New Work (TBD) (2023, *world premiere)
George Lewis – Anthem (2011)
Anthony Braxton – Composition No. 152 (1991)
Tyondai Braxton – Fly by Wire (2014)
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