2019-20 Highlights

2023-24 | 2022-23 | 2021-22 | COVID TIME | 2019–20 | 2018–19

June 15–18, 2020 / Betsey Biggs’ MELT: The Memory of Ice (POSTPONED)
March 24–26 / MELT: The Memory of Ice (POSTPONED)
New York City

Rehearsals and recording sessions for MELT, a meditation on the meanings and memories of ice. An evening-length multimedia performance, a feature-length experimental music-film, and an immersive four wall installation sung to life by members of The M6 vocal ensemble using ice core data, archival footage and sounds, images, and stories collected through fieldwork in Greenland. 

June 6 / SLOrk in the Bing: The Furies (CANCELED)
April 30 / SLOrktastic: The Furies (CANCELED)
March 15, 16 / Anne Hege’s The Furies (POSTPONED)
CCRMA Stage (Stanford), Bing Concert Hall (Stanford)

Premiere of The Furies: A Laptopera—an opera for laptop orchestra— by Anne Hege, performed with with SideLObe, the elite ensemble of the Stanford Laptop Orchestra (SLOrk). Voice, movement, ritual, and laptop ensemble are merged in Hege’s version of the Electra story. Cast: Shauna Fallihee, Alice Del Simone, Anne Hege, Sidney Chen.

May 3 / Candlelight Concerts: Clerestory (CANCELED)
May 1 / Clerestory sings Into the West (CANCELED)
April 18, 19 / Clerestory sings Into the West (CANCELED)
David Brower Center (Berkeley), St. Mark’s Lutheran Church (SF), Center for Spiritual Living (Santa Rosa), The Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin (SF)

Composers of all kinds have been drawn to the big sky, crashing surf, and boundless opportunity of our Pacific coast. Into the West includes works by artists who have been drawn to the energy and majesty of America’s furthest frontier. Performed by the nine men of Clerestory.

April 24, 25, 26 / Volti: Politically Charged (CANCELED)
Herbst Theatre (SF), First United Methodist Church (Palo Alto), First Congregational Church (Berkeley)

A musical collaboration between Volti and the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, this program features the premiere of a major new work by Pulitzer Prize finalist Michael Gilbertson. Denial, written for the SFCO, Volti, and Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir, is based on current writings on climate change.

March 2 / Volti: Recording Session
25th Street Recording (Oakland)

February 28, 29 / Volti: Almost Speechless
Noe Valley Ministry (SF), Hillside Club (Berkeley)

Volti explores the voice as an instrument, premiering Mark Winges’s worlds “Tomorrow’s Dream Not the Same” and Tonia Ko’s “Starting Places,” which uses fragments of text generated by members of Volti about places we’ve called home. Program includes Zibuokle Martinaityte’s “Chant des Voyelles” and Danny Clay’s improvisatory “Playbook Choruses.”

February 16 / Compline with Endersnight
The Episcopal Church of St. John the Evangelist (SF)

Compline, or Night Prayer, is sung by the voices of Endersnight, an a cappella ensemble specializing in choral repertoire of the 14th–16th centuries. The free candlelit event is held on the third Sunday of each month at 8:30 p.m. All are welcome regardless of religious affiliation.

February 1, 2 / Clerestory sings Suffragist
David Brower Center (Berkeley), St. Mark’s Lutheran (SF)

Clerestory begins 2020 by celebrating the centennial year of the 19th Amendment. Suffragist is all about trailblazing women, from innovative female perspectives in modern composition, to suffrage songs that women sang beginning in the late 1800s as they fought for the right to vote. Featuring music by Ethel Smyth, Clara Schumann, Minna Choi, Volary, Stacy Garrop, Teodora Ginés, Ann Callaway, Diana Saez, Anne Hege, Amy Beach, Edie Hill, Katherine Saxon, Kitty Brazelton, Florence Price, Alma Mahler, Fanny Hensel.

January 29 / #we: a talk and performance series of queer perspectives
Pro Arts Gallery and Commons (Oakland)

A bi-monthly talk and reading series of queer perspectives hosted by Richard Loranger, featuring writers and performers from various segments of the queer spectrum, who each give a half-hour presentation on their perspective on or experience of queerness, including a reading or performance of their creative work. Presenting Mother Tongues: Reclaiming a Discarded Self, a talk on language attrition and queerness, interwoven with performances on a DIY music box.

January 25 / San Francisco Boys Chorus: Recording Session
San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SF)

Recording Gordon Getty’s opera Goodbye, Mr. Chips

December 16, 2019 / Clerestory: A Ceremony of Carols with SF Girls Chorus
Davies Symphony Hall (SF)

The nine men of Clerestory join SF Girls Chorus in their holiday concert, performing Benjamin Britten’s masterpiece A Ceremony of Carols and The Fayrfax Carol by Thomas Adès.

October 14 / Jónsi & Alex Somers: Riceboy Sleeps
Golden Gate Theater (SF)

In celebration of the album’s 10th anniversary, Sigur Rós vocalist Jónsi and his partner, musician Alex Somers perform Riceboy Sleeps live with Wordless Orchestra and a 12-voice choir.

September 21–22 / Clerestory sings War and Peace
St. Mark’s Lutheran (SF), Chapel of the Chimes (Oakland)

Marking the 150th anniversary of Tolstoy’s epic and also 80 years since the start of WWII, the eight men of Clerestory present works on the theme of war and peace.

August 30 / Kronos Quartet: Terry Riley’s Sun Rings (CD Release)

Volti joins the Kronos Quartet on the first full recording of Sun Rings, Kronos’ 2002 collaboration with composer Terry Riley for string quartet, chorus, and pre-recorded space sounds, released on Nonesuch Records.