Charles Ives's A Concord Symphony and Shubert's Mass No. 2

Description

ymphony performances of Charles Ives’s A Concord Symphony, orchestrated by Henry Brant, and Schubert’s Mass No. 2 with the SF Symphony Chorus at Davies Symphony Hall, February 3-6. A Concord Symphony is Brant’s orchestral arrangement of Ives’s Sonata No. 2 for Piano. Brant’s 2001 composition Ice Field, commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony, won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize in Music.



On Saturday, February 6, the Symphony and Michael Steinberg’s friends and colleagues will pay tribute to the late program annotator and former SFS Artistic Adviser, who died in July at 80. One of the country’s most respected and loved music historians, Steinberg enlightened and entertained Symphony audiences for three decades. The preconcert program in Davies Symphony Hall, which is open to the public, will include chamber music and shared memories, and begins at 5:30 p.m. in Davies Symphony Hall. Jorja Fleezanis, Michael’s widow and former SFS Associate Concertmaster (the position she held when she and Michael were married in 1983), will host and perform, along with Symphony musicians and friends Principal Oboe William Bennett, Principal Keyboard Robin Sutherland, pianist Garrick Ohlsson, and others. The musicians will perform a chamber version of the Adagietto from Mahler’s Symphony No. 5, and Ohlsson will perform the second movement (Largo e mesto) from Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 7, Opus 10, No. 3.



About the Artists



Soprano Leah Crocetto, a first-year Adler Fellow with the San Francisco Opera, recently appeared with the San Francisco Symphony in July 2009, in Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy. She sang the role of Estelle in Hugo Weisgall’s The Stronger with the San Francisco Opera Center. As a 2008 member of the Merola Opera Program, Crocetto performed scenes as Norina (Don Pasquale) and the title role of Manon in the Schwabacher Summer Concert. Her other credits include The Baker’s Wife/The Witch (Into the Woods) and Flower Girl (Naughty Marietta). She has worked with Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony on Verdi’s Requiem, and performed this piece with Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic in November 2009.



Thomas Cooley’s concert and opera repertoire encompasses a wide range of works, but centers around the great works of Monteverdi, Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Britten. His engagements have included the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, Philharmonia Baroque, Tafelmusik, and the Akadamie für Alte Musik Berlin. He spent four years in residence at the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz in Munich. These are his first San Francisco Symphony appearances.



Bass-baritone Patrick Carfizzi performed in the San Francisco Symphony’s Messiah in 2007. Other recent notable engagements include Paolo in Simon Boccanegra with San Francisco Opera, Brander in Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust with the Metropolitan Opera, Nourabad in Les pêcheurs de perles with Seattle Opera, Taddeo in L’italiana in Algeri with Dallas Opera, and Papageno in Die Zauberflöte with Houston Grand Opera. At the Metropolitan Opera, he has performed such roles as Schaunard in La bohème, the Mandarin in Turandot, Masetto in Don Giovanni, Haly in L’italiana in Algeri, and Peter Quince in Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This season, Carfizzi returns to the Metropolitan Opera in La Damnation de Faust, Le nozze di Figaro, Turandot, Gianni Schicchi, and La bohème. Future engagements include Houston Grand Opera, Dallas Opera and a debut with Opera Cologne.



WHO:

Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor

Leah Crocetto, soprano

Thomas Cooley, tenor

Patrick Carfizzi, bass-baritone

San Francisco Symphony

San Francisco Symphony Chorus,

Ragnar Bohlin, Director



WHEN & WHERE:

Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, February 3, 5 and 6 at 8:00 p.m.

Thursday, February 4 at 2:00 p.m.

Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco



PROGRAM:

Schubert / Mass No. 2 in G major, D.167

Ives (orch. Henry Brant) / A Concord Symphony



PRE-CONCERT TALK:

James Keller gives “Inside Music” talks one hour prior to each concert. Free to all concert ticket holders; doors open 15 minutes before.

More Info

Call

(415) 864-6000 (Box Office)