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What I did on my summer vacation, pt. 1

Thank you for following this blog. Please keep up with us on facebook and our new website.

New website coming next week!

It is only fitting for our 100th blog entry that we announce a new, redesigned website. Starting Monday, our homepage will look a bit more like this:

Loyal blog readers: Please be aware that our blog will also be shifting to this new site. Updates to this blog will cease at the end of August.

What I did on my summer vacation: Pt. 1

'What have your musicians and singers have been up to all summer?' you ask? Well, let's find out!

In June, Music Librarian and violist David Daniel Bowes (left) went on vacation with his partner Brian to the Pacific Northwest, where Brian was sick with flu the entire time! When David started to get sick too, “we paid the piper and came home early.” However, after all that, “bliss!” They planted heirloom tomatoes and the dahlias came up in full force and beauty. As he has for nearly 25 years, David played under George Cleve in the Midsummer Mozart Festvial. He is often working from home this summer since he is painting the walls of their Santa Rosa house, with Brian on “food and errand duty.” David says he is “looking very much forward to the start of the Philharmonia Baroque season!”

Angela Arnold, a soprano joining the Chorale this fall, made her first appearance with Open Opera in June, in a free, open-air concert of popular arias at Berkeley's Live Oak Park and has been preparing for a number of recitals in September. She has had a few brief getaways this summer: the Texas Panhandle, where she met some in-laws for the first time (!); her hometown Chicago, where she enjoyed “real summer weather,” including beautiful thunderstorms; and Washington, D.C., where she “baked for hours in the sun” for the chance to catch Gladys Knight and Reba McIntyre performing live on the Capitol's West Lawn for the 4th of July.

Violinist Carla Moore (left) performed with her chamber group, Music's Re-creation, and her new string band, Archetti Baroque Strings, at the Berkeley Festival. Soon after, she went camping in Canyonlands National Park, southeastern Utah with her family. “It was pure bliss-red rocks and hot sun!” After that she actually had to get back to work – performing J.S. Bach's Orchestral Suites at the Oregon Bach Festival with Monica Huggett and the Portland Baroque Orchestra and teaching at the Amherst Early Music Festival on the East Coast. She’s looking forward to her second camping trip to the Sierras in August, but first she is teaching the “wee ones” violin at the SFEMS Music Discovery Workshop in Berkeley.

Also new to the chorale, alto Jean-Paul Jones worked at a summer camp in the Mendocino Mountains for about three weeks with troubled youth from the Bay Area. “It was an interesting and rewarding experience, but also exhausting.” He is back in San Francisco playing viola with Bay Area Rainbow Symphony (and seeking employment as a bartender).

After what violinist Kati Kyme calls the “whirl-wind of Berkfest concerts,” she took a few days to unwind at Stinson Beach. Her family rented a house, where they were “spoiled to have only a few steps to the beautiful views of Stinson.” Since then, she’s been back working for upcoming performances of Don Giovanni with Open Opera and preparing two weeks of youth orchestra camps. “I am able to sneak in only a little pre-season practicing, but I'm almost ready, psychologically, for the new season to start.”

Meet Courtney

This past July, we were lucky to be joined by Courtney Stredder, who interned for us through Career Explorations. Soon to be a senior at Nampa High School in Idaho, Courtney helped us prepare for the upcoming 30th Anniversary Season. While with us, she wrote press releases, dove into the archives to research our history, helped with the season ticket mailing, and attended the Association of California Symphony Orchestra's Conference. Last year's #1 state finalist in the Keyboard Percussion category for marimba and also an alto saxophone player, Courtney is looking forward to her last year in high school and excited about pursuing music in college. Good luck Courtney and thank you for all of your hard work!

A needed change of perspective

Most of our staff will be attending the Association of California Symphony Orchestras 42nd Annual Conference this Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Much like the League of American Orchestras earlier this summer, ACSO is sounding notes of a minor key: "Orchestras and choruses are struggling. Slashed funding, declining attendance, and increased costs are just a few of the problems we have to wrestle with as a community. Join your colleagues... to learn new techniques and acquire new tools that are necessary to remain competitive and viable in this ever-changing world."

We recently read two articles that suggest that we need to shift our perspective a bit to realize just how vital classical music is to our world today.

FREE-harmonia Baroque Orchestra...

Don't miss a FREE performance by a small ensemble of musicians from the orchestra. On Sunday, September 26,  at 5 p.m. the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra Ensemble performs at Hertz Hall on the UC Berkeley Campus. Part of the Cal Performances Open House "Free For All," the ensemble performs Haydn's Quartet for Oboe and Strings in C major and String Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 64, No. 6, as well as Mozart's Quintet for Oboe and Strings in C minor. The event is free and open to the public. This will be the perfect way to warm up for our all-Mozart concert with fortepianist Robert Levin later that evening.

TRIVIA: Austrian composers Haydn and Mozart were contemporaries – though there was a substantial age difference (Haydn being 24 years older than Mozart). Were the two friends? Find out here.

Hint: The above engraving is supposed to be a portrait of Mozart & Hadyn in Mozarteum, Salzburg.

Gonzalo in the Wall Street Journal

One of the volunteers who is helping us with our season ticket mailing mentioned this morning that Gonzalo Ruiz is featured in today's Wall Street Journal. He talks about transcribing Bach's "Orchestral Suite No. 2," with it's famous flute solos, for oboe. We played this back in October 2008 to rave reviews.


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Kick off the year with Intrada

We are pleased to announce “Intrada,” the our 30th Anniversary Opening Night Celebration, which takes place on Friday, September 24, 2010, in the Green Room at the War Memorial Veterans Building (401 Van Ness Avenue), across from City Hall. The Opening Night Celebration begins at 6:00 p.m. with a delicious strolling supper and concludes with the first concert of our 2010/11 Season, an evening of music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart featuring fortepianist and Mozart scholar Robert Levin.

Wines are provided by board member Randall Grahm, founder and owner of Bonny Doon Vineyard.

Tickets are $85 per person (event only) or $110 per person (includes balcony seating for the concert performance in Herbst Hall). Purchase tickets now using PalPal:

Intrada

Intrada Event $85.00 Intrada Event + Concert Balcony Seat $110.00

Or contact Jeff Thomas, Associate Director of Development, (415) 252-1288 x312.

If you're wondering what an "intrada" is, we'll quote our Grove for you: "an instrumental piece used to accompany an entrance, to inaugurate some festive event or to begin a suite [of dance music]" that was very popular in the Baroque era. What a great name for our 30th Season kick off party!

John Prescott leads SFEMS summer adult course

On August 2-6, our pre-concert lecturer John Prescott (right) will once again lead a series of morning classes for adults in Berkeley at the Crowden Center for Music in the Community. The theme this year will be the music of one of the most prolific and influential of Baroque composers (he's also one of our favorites): G. F. Handel. Presented by the San Francisco Early Music Society, this interactive course entitled "Handel and his World" is intended for curious adults who want to broaden their musical horizons and deepen their listening pleasure. Learn more.

Historically-informed summer camp!

Our friends at the San Francisco Early Music Society just let us know that there is still space in their summer youth day camp program. At this year's "Music Discovery Workshop," youths ages 7-15 can "swashbuckle their way through life and music in 17th century France and England," learning recorder, harpsichord, strings, chamber music and musicianship, while also participating in other activities like crafts, costume making, and outdoor games. The camp takes place in Berkeley at the Crowden Center for Music in the Community from August 1-6, 2010. Download a brochure.

Meet Scott!

Scott broke the news last week and now it's our turn: We have engaged Scott Foglesong to write all of our program notes for our 30th Anniversary Season, as well as give three of the eight sets of pre-concert lectures. Chair of the Department of Musicianship and Music Theory at the San Francisco Conservatory and one of the San Francisco Symphony's program annotators and pre-concert lecturers, Scott will also serve as our Scholar in Residence, assisting in our artistic planning.

Why is this so exciting for us? Well, not only is Scott a respected musicologist and a great writer whose name many of our staff members look for in the concert hall and on the web, but his roots are entangled deeply with the orchestra's – Scott was a student of Laurette Goldberg, the founder of our orchestra!

Congratulations Nic!

What does Graham William Nash, co-founder of Crosby, Stills and Nash, and our Music Director Nicholas McGegan have in common? Both were named Officers of the British Empire in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list published this weekend. Congratulations Nic!

Thank you to our BFX volunteers!

Thank you to our board members Kit Leland, Adam Arthur Bier, and Marie Bertillion Collins, who helped out this weekend at our table at the Berkeley Early Music Festival and Exhibition. Our Marketing Director was particularly thankful he could escape for two hours on Saturday to watch the USA/England game. We enjoyed meeting our neighbor baroque string instrument maker Gabriela Guadalajara and, of course, seeing scenes like this:

Congratulations Hanneke!

We are pleased to announce a recent appointment to the membership of Philharmonia Baroque. Effective next season, Hanneke van Proosdij has been named First-Call Member of the Laurette Goldberg Keyboard Chair, endowed by Anne and David Oliver. Our long time fans will surely recognize Hanneke, who has often played harpsichord, organ, and recorder in the orchestra for the last 13 years.

Hanneke performs regularly as soloist and continuo specialist with Philharmonia Baroque, FestspielOrchester Göttingen, Voices of Music, Concerto Palatino, Magnificat and American Bach Soloists. She has appeared as a guest artist with Hesperion XX, Concerto Köln, Chanticleer, Orchestre dAmbronnay, Gewandhaus Orchester and the Arcadian Academy. She received her solo and teaching diplomas from the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, where she studied recorder, harpsichord and composition.

Together with her husband David Tayler, Hanneke cofounded and codirects Voices of Music. Hanneke is a cofounder of the Junior Recorder Society in the East Bay and was the director of the SFEMS Medieval Renaissance Workshop for seven years and now directs, together with Rotem Gilbert, the SFEMS Recorder Workshop. She has recorded over forty discs for Magnatune, BIS, Koch, Musica Omnia, Carus, AVIE and Delos.

Please join us in congratulating Hanneke on her appointment!

Our new favorite blogger...

Judge Marie!

Our board member The Hon. Marie Bertillion Collins has your "Survival Guide" for all you BFX10 bound Early Music lovers. Read Tip 1 and Tip 7... We hope the BFX blog fills us in as to what 2 through 6 are (how else will we survive)!

Our Marketing Director, who lived in Berkeley until just two months ago, can tell you how he'll survive the long days at the Philharmonia Baroque exhibition table – besides visits from you! – in just two words: Triple Rock.

Hey, Marie, when this is all over. Want to be our guest blogger?

An inspiring model?

Annalisa Pappano, a viol player in town for BFX10 from Cincinnati, wrote on her group's blog today:

What I find especially intriguing [in San Francisco] is the culture for early music here. This city boasts the [San Francisco Early Music Society] series, the Berkeley Early Music Festival, an astonishing number of professional viol players (last count was 16!), a full-time professional baroque orchestra (Philharmonia Baroque) with the superstar conductor Nicolas [sic] McGegan, and a whopping 43 early music organizations. This city is an inspiring model... What does it take for a city to become such an exciting center for early music?

So, we ask you the same question Annalisa asked: "What do you think?" Why and how did the Bay Area become a hub for early music? We'll be answering that all summer ourselves as we explore our own history as we approach our 30th Anniversary Season concerts.

Closing out 20 years: Nic and the Göttingen International Handel Festival

Today, our Music Director Nic (left) conducted the final performance of the Göttingen International Handel Festival – the dark opera Tamerlano (HWV 18). Nic has led the Festival as its Music Director for the last 20 years. In 1991, he was passed the baton (figuratively of course, Nic doesn't use a baton as you may remember) by Sir John Eliot Gardiner. Next year, Nic will pass the honors of leading the Festival to (fittingly) yet another British conductor – Laurence Cummings. This year was the Festival's 90th year – to learn more about the festival, watch this video.

In related news, SFCV gave the Festival's new recording of Mendelssohn's arrangement of Handel's Dettinger Te Deum (left) a rave review today! This disc features Nic conducting many of Philharmonia Baroque's musicians in the FestspielOrchester Göttingen, as well as frequent collaborators Dominique Labelle and William Berger and recent guests Thomas Cooley (.pdf) and Colin Ainsworth (.pdf).

Congratulations SFRV!

Have you picked up your issue SF Weekly's "Your San Francisco?" We just wanted to take a minute to congratulate our early music colleagues San Francisco Renaissance Voices for winning "Best Classical Music – 2010." A few of our Chorale singers sing with SFRV, including Jeff Fields, Raymond Martinez, Kathy McKee (who is also the Assistant Music Director of SFRV - pictured) and Helene Zindarsian.

Glorious sounds of centuries past

On June 10-12, come say hello to us at our table at "BFX TEN" – the 10th bi-annual early music festival, conference and exhibition in Berkeley.

Presented by San Francisco Early Music Society and Early Music America, there will be beautiful performances both as a part of the festival and on "The Fringe" in conjunction with the main stage events. Don't miss members of the orchestra perform in their smaller chamber groups – Magnificat, Music’s Re-creation, Voices of Music, New Esterhazy Quartet, Harmonia Felice, Ensemble Vermillian, Les Violettes, Galax Quartet, Barefoot Chamber Concerts and many more. Click here for the full schedule of events.