nicole PAIEMENT
conductor

BluePrint
building a new music for the city
Artistic Director, Nicole Paiement

EVENTS SUMMARY

Event: Fertility Rites
When: Saturday, October 14, 2006 – 8:00 p.m.
7:15 p.m. pre-concert talk with composers Robert Cogan and François Rose
Where: Recital Hall, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, 50 Oak Street
Tickets: $15 general/$10 students, seniors, Friends of the Conservatory
415.503.6275 for tickets
Program information: Lose yourself in the perfectly resonating space that is the San Francisco Conservatory’s new Recital Hall while guest sopranos Joan Heller and Patrice Pastore perform Robert Cogan’s dramatic and spatial work Polyutterances. Let the music take you there in Hans Werner Henze’s contemplative evocation of dusk on the Mediterranean, L’heure bleue, for large chamber ensemble. Also on the program is a recent work by modern master George Crumb entitled Quest. One of the composer’s few works to feature the guitar so prominently, Quest is a poetic journey towards ecstasy and transfiguration, full of rich images and Crumb’s signature use of gesture and quotation. The New Music Ensemble (NME) creates a rich display of sound and timbre in Le temps scintille, a newly commissioned work by Stockton composer François Rose, himself a specialist on the components of sound. We are also pleased to welcome Canadian percussionist Mario Boivin for a performance of Greek-Canadian composer Christos Hatzis’ Fertility Rites, a primordial work for five-octave marimba and processed recordings of Inuit throat songs. Based on the mating calls of Arctic Inuit tribes, Fertility Rites moves with uninhibited abandon through a celebration of sexuality and life.

Event: Volupté
When: Saturday, November 18, 2006 – 8:00 p.m.
7:15 p.m. pre-concert talk with composers Bruce Mather and Jacques Desjardins
Where: Old First Church (1751 Sacramento and Van Ness)
Tickets: $15 general/$12 students, seniors
For tickets go to www.oldfirstconcerts.org or call 415.474.1608.
Program information: Join BluePrint at Old First Church (1751 Sacramento and Van Ness) for a sensuous program with no less than two world premieres of BluePrint-commissioned works. Canadian composer Bruce Mather’s Music for San Francisco features renowned cellist Jean-Michel Fonteneau alongside Ensemble Parallèle in a work shimmering with microtonal beauty and imagination. San Francisco Conservatory faculty member Jacques Desjardins’ Volupté promises a rich musical journey full of luscious harmonies seeking to challenge one’s sense of pitch and time—a veritable “disruption of the space-time continuum” performed by NME. Darius Milhaud’s last compositions, Études op. 442 (sur des thèmes liturgiques du Comtat Venaissin) for string quartet, is a mystically lyrical work, which is appropriately paired with Uzbek composer Dmitri Yanov-Yanovski’s highly introspective tribute to Edison Denisov, Lux aeterna for solo violin and chamber ensemble. Selections from Gavin Bryars’ deeply moving song cycle for soprano and chamber ensemble, Adnan Songbook, close the program.

Event: Thick Skin
When: Saturday, March 10, 2007 – 8:00 p.m.
7:15 p.m. pre-concert talk with composers Jay Lyon and Ryan Brown
Where: Concert Hall, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, 50 Oak Street
Tickets: $15 general/$10 students, seniors, Friends of the Conservatory
415.503.6275 for tickets
Program information: We end the season with a program full of movement and pure visceral energy, featuring thick-skinned music that knows how to bring you to the very edge of your seat. Chou Wen-chung’s Windswept Peaks depicts the movement of sound over mountain tops like the swift brushwork of Chinese calligraphy. Violent eruptions alternate with moments of quiet contemplation. Similarly inspired, Toru Takemitsu’s Tree Line vividly evokes the play of birds and leaves in a row of acacia trees. The restless energy of Luciano Berio’s Points on the Curve to Find… features Conservatory faculty pianist Mack McCray conjuring machine-gun style blasts of notes up and down the instrument as the New Music Ensemble spins off in a myriad of alternating directions. The punch and vitality of Jay Lyon’s Voyelles stems in part from an innovative juxtaposition of elements, including rapper alongside a mixed chamber ensemble and vocalists, with texts by French symbolist Arthur Rimbaud. Thick Skin, a world-premiere commissioned work by Ryan Brown, features the composer on electric guitar amid an energetic web of pulsating rhythms in a unique ensemble including drum kit, electric bass, and amplified bassoon. The ever-imaginative sounds of modern music’s most controversial iconoclast, Frank Zappa, are given new life in this performance of his narrative ballet, The Perfect Stranger, performed with dancer. Come witness this surreal and often hilarious piece, created by a true original.

Event: The World Premiere of Lou Harrison’s Opera Young Caesar
Co-presented by BluePrint and the University of California, Santa Cruz
When: February 16 & 17, 2007 – 8:00 p.m.
Where: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Tickets: For ticket information call Yerba Buena Center at 415.978.ARTS (2787).
Program information: Originally conceived as a puppet opera, Young Caesar explores the early life of Julius Caesar and his historical meeting, and subsequent love affair, with King Nicomedes of Bithynia. East meets West in this unique project inspired in large part by the composer’s years studying Chinese opera. Planned for February 2007 to coincide with what would be his 90th birthday, this is the definitive production of a work Harrison revised for over 20 years, and whose many final revisions were edited before his death in close collaboration with conductor Nicole Paiement. Don’t miss this landmark performance of a brilliant and important opera by one of the Bay Area’s most notable composers.

Event: BluePrint: Composers Talk Shop
Don’t miss this rare opportunity to get the inside scoop on the creative process and witness firsthand how some of today’s most significant living composers view their and each other’s work. Peek into these creative minds as they discuss their featured works in a forum with notable composers from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music community and the public.

When: Friday, October 13, 2006, 3:00 p.m., Free admission
Where: Recital Hall, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, 50 Oak Street
With composers Robert Cogan from New England Conservatory and François Rose from University of the Pacific Conservatory

When: Friday, November 17, 2006, 3:00 p.m., Free admission
Where: Recital Hall, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, 50 Oak Street
With composers Bruce Mather from Montréal and Jacques Desjardins from San Francisco Conservatory of Music

When: Friday, March 9, 2007, 3:00 p.m., Free admission
Where: Recital Hall, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, 50 Oak Street
With composer Chou Wen-chung.