Brahms Through the Looking Glass

about left coast 2016

Through stirring presentations of chamber music across ARTISTIC DIRECTOR 2017 the Bay Area, Left Coast dissolves boundaries between Anna Presler old and new music and connects musicians and audience. Imaginative programs offer our audiences ARTISTIC ADVISOR put SEASON multiple ways to engage with the music. Kurt Rohde Loren Founded in 1992, the ensemble includes fourteen PRESIDENT here 24 musicians; the players perform in different Will Schieber combinations, using strings, winds, guitar, percussion, voice, and piano to present a wide range of repertoire. VICE PRESIDENT Left Coast presents a season of five concert sets Lena Zentall annually, with performances in both San Francisco and Berkeley. TREASURER Brahms Through the Looking Glass Will Schieber In addition, Left Coast offers Music from the Inside Out - an education program for young musicians, SECRETARY and Intersection - a workshop for adult amateurs. Carol Christ Sam Nichols in zwei farben for violin and electronics (2017) 6 min The group has commissioned over one hundred new Anna Presler violin • Sam Nichols electronics works, sponsors an annual composition contest that BOARD draws applicants from around the world, and carries Jonathan Arons on a tradition of performing the very best that today’s Martin Cohn Jennifer Jolley The Lives and Opinions of Literary Cats (2017) 6 min composers, whether established or emerging, have Kate Knickerbocker to offer. Parker Monroe Anna Presler violin • Tanya Tomkins cello • Eric Zivian piano Laurie Pitman Left Coast gratefully acknowledges the support of San Andrea Plesnarski Francisco Hotel Tax Fund Grants for the Arts. Kenneth Lim Trio in C Flat (2017) 7 min MANAGING DIRECTOR Anna Presler violin • Tanya Tomkins cello • Eric Zivian piano LEFT COAST MUSICIANS Nick Benavides Nikki Einfeld Leighton Fong PUBLICITY Michael Goldberg Genevieve Antaky INTERMISSION Phyllis Kamrin Loren Mach MARKETING, WEBSITE, AND SOCIAL MEDIA Tom Nugent Lena Zentall Johannes Brahms Piano Trio in B Major, Op. 8 (1891) 35 min Stacey Pelinka I Allegro con brio Andrea Plesnarski PHOTOGRAPHY Anna Presler Jordan Murphy II Scherzo. Allegro molto Kurt Rohde Jeanette Yu III Adagio Jerome Simas Lena Zentall IV Allegro Michel Taddei Anna Presler violin • Tanya Tomkins cello • Eric Zivian piano Tanya Tomkins Eric Zivian

Left Coast gratefully acknowledges the support of San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund Grants for the Arts. AFTER THE Share your thoughts on music and more with the Left Coast musicians at our CONTACT US CONCERT after-concert gathering! 55 Taylor Street, San Francisco, CA 94102 415.617.LCCE (415.617.5223) Saturday, March 18, 7:30 pm www.LeftCoastEnsemble.org Following the San Francisco concert meet us for food [email protected] Berkeley Piano Club and drinks at SAUCE, located just down the street at 131 Gough, between Oak and Page. See you there! Tuesday, March 21, 7:30 pm San Francisco Conservatory of Music

20162017 season 24, program 4 - march 2017 notes and biographies contributors

Sam Nichols Jennifer Jolley SERAPHIM / $2,500 + SUPPORTING PARTNERS / FRIENDS / up to $124 ORGANIZATIONS in zwei farben for violin and electronics (2017) The Lives and Opinions of Literary Cats (2017) Jonathan Arons and $250–$499 Ross Bauer Arts for Oakland Kids n zwei farben translates as “in two colors”, was asked by the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble to Claire Max Stan Adler and Lynn Jacobs Linda and Gilbert Benavides ia phrase Brahms used in an 1890 letter to I write a piece that imagines the Brahms’s B Major Trio Carol Christ Nick and Maggie Benavides Alberto and Eva Bertoli Aaron Copland Fund Heinrich von Herzogenberg, the husband of his being heard through the looking glass, and all I could Martin and Kathleen Cohn Margaret Dorfman Hendrik Bluhm and Ina Stahl for Music friend Elizabet von Herzogenberg. Brahms was hear were cats. Philanthropic Fund Tom and Judith Dunworth Charlie Bowen Judith Flynn Janie Green in honor of Colleen Brent ACMP The Chamber interested—actually, obsessed—with ambiguity. Let me explain: there was a time when John and Paula Gambs Music Network As a composer he was keenly attuned to context Johannes Brahms signed his musical works with the Martin Cohn John and Mary Caris Kate Knickerbocker Anne Kamrin Jamie and Alan Carlson and nuance, able to pull many different strands of moniker “Johannes Kreisler,” a fictitious composer found Therissa McKelvey and Sally Landis Bliss and Gita Carnochan Alice M. Ditson Fund music together to create richly detailed webs of in E.T.A Hoffman’s novel The Life and Opinions of the Heli Roiha Laurie Pitman Louise George Clubb Columbia University associative meanings. At several points in his letters, Tomcat Murr. In this novel, a printer’s error accidentally Parker Monroe and Henry Presler Alice Corning however, he describes his fear that his words will be splices and mixes the Tomcat Murr’s autobiography – Tere Darragh Louise Shalit Arthur Davis Ann and Gordon misconstrued. The possibility that his reader might yes, an autodidact cat wrote his own autobiography Will and Linda Schieber Donald and Mary Shively Beth and Norman Edelstein Getty Foundation have her own interpretation of his intended meaning – with a book about the composer Johannes Kreisler, Anonymous Mary E. Wilson and Jo Floyd seemed to pain him. In this particular letter Brahms and the reader has a hard time figuring out who is the Harvey V. Fineberg Charles and Liz Fracchia Amphion Foundation acknowledges that one of his earlier messages to cat and who is the composer. Anonymous John Gates Herzogenberg was deliberately ambiguous and And if one cat isn’t enough, at the beginning ANGELS / $1,000 - $2,499 Chris and Patty Gilbert The Bernard Osher potentially confusing. In my short piece for violin of Through the Looking-Glass, Alice is playing with her Tim Allen Eric and Paula Gillett Foundation and electronics I try to capture the playful delight Bernice Green PARTNERS / $125–$249 Christina and John Gillis kittens Snowdrop and Kitty, one of which is behaving Richard Fabian Fromm Music in ambiguity that I find in both the music and the badly (it’s the black one), right before she steps Nancy Axelrod Margot Golding Faye Hinze Norman Bookstein and Kay Sprinkel Grace Foundation writing of Brahms. It’s dedicated (with straightforward through that infamous looking-glass. Thomas Laqueur and Gillian Kuehner Krista Gullickson gratitude) to Anna Presler. This ultimately begs the question: is this cat Carla Hesse Patricia Bourne Kurt Hauch Grants for the Arts; - Sam Nichols music or composer music? Is Johannes Brahms now Elizabeth Theil and Patricia Brison Barbara Heroux City and County of Johannes Kreisler, or even Tomcat Murr, Snowdrop, Brian Kincaid Frances Kendall Siegfried and Sarah Hesse San Francisco omposer and sound artist Sam Nichols creates or Kitty? Millicent Tomkins Marty and Pamela Krasney Philip Hicks Cwork that brings together a sensitive exploration - Jennifer Jolley Anonymous in honor of Elkhanah Pulitzer Richard Hutson and New Music USA of sound with an interest in ambitious, large-scale Mildred Oliva and David Salem Kathleen Moran structures. He’s received commissions from a number ennifer Jolley is a composer and sound artist Marilyn Shaw Laurie San Martin and Barbara Imbrie San Francisco Arts of ensembles and organizations, including the Fromm Sam Nichols David Jaffe Commission Jinfluenced by urban environments and nostalgia. Cultural Equity Music Foundation at Harvard University, the Left She is the co-founder of North American New Opera June Schneider Cary and Elaine James BENEFACTORS / $500–$999 Frances Singer Martha Jones Grants Program Coast Chamber Ensemble, Earplay, the Empyrean Workshop (NANOWorks Opera), a chamber opera M. Catherine McGuire Ensemble, and the Composers Conference at Ross Armstrong Randolph and Frances Starn company devoted to developing and staging short Andrew Clason and Lena Zentall G.A. Mendelsohn Vendini Wellesley College. His string quartet Refuge, a Left contemporary operas by emerging North American Sherrod Blankner Marian Parmenter (Mark Tacchi, CEO) Coast commission, was selected for performance at composers, and also authors Why Compose When You Chris and Diane Davies Janet Pelinka the ISCM’s “World Music Days 2014” in Wracłow, Can Blog?, a web log about contemporary composing. Jennifer Howard and Elizabeth Pena Zellerbach Family Poland. Refuge has been performed by a number Originally from Los Angeles, Jolley is an Anthony Cascardi William and Ann Putnam Foundation of groups, including ACME, the Left Coast Chamber Assistant Professor of Music at Ohio Wesleyan Dan Joraanstad and Ryan Rey Ensemble, the Lutosławski Quartet, and the Mivos University. She earned both her D.M.A. and M.M. at Bob Hermann Horizons Bill and Carol Rohde Quartet. He’s received awards from Composers, the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory Foundation Richard Rogers Inc. (Lee Ettelson Prize), the League of Composers, of Music and her B.M. at the University of Southern Andrea Plesnarski in honor of Sondra and Recent contributions Milton Schlesinger may not yet be the University of Illinois (3rd prize, 2010 Salvatore California Thornton School of Music. She teaches Louis Hinze reflected. Francoise Stone Susan Shalit and Martirano Memorial Composition Prize), and the Third various music composition courses including computer Mary Logger Millennium Ensemble, among others. Recent projects Sean Varah music programming and sound art. Anonymous Kate Stenberg include This Is Not a Toy for a Child, a cello concerto Michel Taddei for David Russell and the UC Davis Symphony Bruce Tarter and Orchestra. Upcoming projects include a new piece for Gabriela Odell composer/violist Kurt Rohde, and a collaboration with We gratefully acknowledge Alicia Vaccaro artist Robin Hill and ensemble mise-en. Sam teaches Mary Wildavsky in the UC Davis Department of Music, where he co- the generous individuals and Alex Zwerdling directs the Sound Lab, and co-organizes a biennial music festival in collaboration with the Mondavi foundations whose contributions Center for the Arts. make Left Coast concerts possible.

20162017 season 24, program 4 - march 2017 20162017 season 24, program 4 - march 2017 announcing season 25 notes and biographies

Kenneth Lim Though an early work, the first of his three Join a community of adventurous VISIONS DE L’AMEN Trio in C Flat (2017) piano trios is unmistakably Brahms. Lasting nearly half Olivier Messiaen’s towering Visions de l’Amen reated as a companion piece to Brahms’ Trio of its total duration, the first movement is a massive listeners for Left Coast’s 25th season. for two pianos, performed by keyboard Cin B, Trio in C Flat makes allusions to the original sonata beginning with a beautiful theme in the cello, champions Eric Zivan and Sarah Cahill. Brahms piece in ways that can be readily heard – in jarred by violent contrast and escalating into a Subscribe today to the figurations, the clear but distorted scales, and mountain of dramatic development. A restless, dark Colorful, mystical, and glorious, it sometimes subtle hints at the tonic. While this piece is neither character dominates most of the trio from the first guarantee your seats. sounds like all the church bells in Paris ringing on nor about Brahms, I took the opportunity to movement’s secondary themes to the brooding march at once! explore and reconstruct the narrative arc that I find of the scherzo to the wind-blown sweep of the finale in the composer’s work, with a particular interest in rondo. While the light of B major frequently breaks A GARLAND FOR WEINBERG Thursday, February 1, 2018, 7:30 pm how effortlessly the thematic material lends itself to through, the majority of the Trio gravitates to minor We celebrate the distinctive Polish composer Berkeley Piano Club geometric dis-/reassembling. I conceived of this piece related keys, ending, despite the suggestions of its as a kind of musical prelude, a piece that would set title, on a solid b minor chord. Typical of Brahms, the Mieczysław Weinberg with a performance of the stage and lead to the main event to come. textures are thick, frequently juxtaposing the heavy his Clarinet Sonata and new works written in Saturday, February 3, 2018, 7:30 pm - Kenneth Lim romantic piano with the strings, violin and cello unified tribute to this neglected musician. Berkeley Piano Club in a variety of parallel harmonies and symmetric The delicate purity of his music points to an enneth Lim is an emerging composer currently counter motions. indestructible human substance. Monday, February 5, 2018, 7:30 pm Kstudying composition at UCLA. Born in Indiana, To counterbalance such weight, Brahms offers -Frankfurter Rundschau San Francisco Conservatory Lim started lessons in violin at an early age, soon the third movement adagio, a slow movement of such after followed by the piano. He studied math as an repose that it seems to hover, nearly motionless, an undergraduate, and linguistics at the graduate level. introspective intermezzo from another world. The Sunday, October 8, 2017, 7:30 pm SONNETS TO ORPHEUS Lim’s music has been performed by Ensemble Aventure lightest movement in multiple senses of the word, it is Berkeley Hillside Club Why do we love the Orpheus myth? It has and Viccenium Void, among others. Lim is also an perhaps the most emotionally compelling, certainly, intrigued composers from every century accomplished jazz pianist. the most peculiar. The soft musical meditation focuses Monday, October 9, 2017, 7:30 pm because music is the story’s true hero, defeating primarily on the piano with echoing commentary by San Francisco Conservatory an ethereal chorus of strings. The central section of death and despair. Left Coast presents its ternary form gathers into a tender, melancholy works about Orpheus by Eric Moe, Claudio song first in the cello, passing to the piano and Monteverdi and others. the violin across interludes that are somber, even DEATH AND A KNIGHT Johannes Brahms haunting. Ephemeral, the concrete diffuses again into Left Coast presents a double feature: Saturday, March 17, 2018, 7:30 pm Piano Trio in B Major, Op. 8 (1891) the abstract, the reappearance of the now familiar The West Coast premiere of Never was a Berkeley Hillside Club n 1854, laboring under the “curse” of Schumann’s beginning transforming the indefinite into knight... Kurt Rohde’s new work about the Iglowing predictions for Germany’s new rising star, the transcendent. a young twenty-one year old Brahms decided to - Kai Christiansen interior life of Don Quixote. Monday, March 19, 2018, 7:30 pm publish his first chamber composition, the Piano Trio in Christiansen is the founder of the chamber music PLUS San Francisco Conservatory B major, Op. 8. This was no small undertaking: Brahms exploratorium at earsense.org A new production of Kurt Rohde and Tom was a fierce self-critic and is known to have consigned Laqueur’s Death With Interruptions. In this tale several early chamber works to the fire. Thirty-five by José Saramajo, death falls in love with a A RARE SERENADE years later, in 1890, with all but a few final works cellist. Difficult and fascinating complications Saturday, May 19, 2018, 7:30 pm ahead, the mature, master Brahms returned to the same trio compelled to revise. With his characteristic ensue. Berkeley Hillside Club humor, Brahms claimed, “I didn’t provide it with a new wig, just combed and arranged its hair a little”. His The original production sold out two weeks Monday, May 21, 2018, 7:30 pm changes were in fact substantial: he shortened the work in advance. Don’t miss these two 21st San Francisco Conservatory by about one-third, significantly modifying all but the century masterpieces. scherzo. It was around this time that Brahms decided A rare live performance of Arnold to retire, after which he was coaxed momentarily by a late affair with the clarinet into a final small Saturday, November 4, 2017, 7:30 pm Schoenberg’s Serenade, a witty and deeply set of compositions. This piano trio therefore has a Z Space, San Francisco satisfying work for guitar, mandolin, two special significance for Brahms the chamber composer: clarinets, strings and baritone. it began his public career and it preoccupied his Sunday, November 5, 2017, 2 pm attentions again at the end of an astonishing series of Z Space, San Francisco masterpieces. In its final form, the B major piano trio bears the hand, the mind and the heart of both the young and the elder Brahms. 20162017 season 24, program 4 - march 2017 20162017 season 24, program 4 - march 2017 musician biographies season 24 final concert ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, VIOLIN Anna Presler, a longtime Set 5: FRANCOPHILIA member of Left Coast, teaches at the Sacramento French music stands apart - distinctively State School of Music and was a member of New sophisticated, refined, brutal, and ravishing. In Century Chamber Orchestra for twenty years. Ms. this program of music for soprano, flute, cello and WHEN LESS IS MORE Presler was a fellow at Banff Art Centre, International piano, listen and consider the question: “What Music Seminar at Cornwall, and Tanglewood Music defines the French sound?” Center. She holds degrees from Yale University, San Francisco Conservatory of Music and North Carolina Music of School of the Arts. Claude Debussy • Aaron Copland • Kurt Rohde Chamber Maurice Ravel • Henri Dutilleux CELLO Tanya Tomkins, the first cellist to win the International Bodky Competition for Early Music Soloists, is currently one of Philharmonia and Portland Tuesday, May 30, 7:30 pm Music Baroque’s principal cellists. An ABS Academy faculty San Francisco Conservatory of Music member, Ms. Tomkins also teaches regularly at the San WITH MEMBERS OF THE Francisco Conservatory. She has recorded the Bach Thursday, June 1, 7:30 pm Suites and performed all six in one day at the Library Berkeley Piano Club SF SYMPHONY of Congress. PIANO Eric Zivian is a graduate of Curtis Institute, redwood grove concert Juilliard School, and Yale School of Music. He studied composition with Ned Rorem, Jacob Druckman, and Martin Bresnick, and piano with Gary Graffman and Redwood Grove Summer Concert Peter Serkin. Mr. Zivian has performed new music with Listen to music in the magical outdoor amphitheater at Earplay and Empyrean Ensemble, and Beethoven and the Botanical Garden! Mozart with Santa Rosa Symphony, Toronto Symphony, and Philharmonia Baroque. Music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart • Arvo Pärt Caroline Shaw • Maurice Ravel

Thursday, June 29, 5:30pm UC Berkeley Botanical Garden Ticket includes Garden admission before 5 pm. Picnics welcome. Shows will sell out – buy your tickets in advance! http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu/education/public- programs/summer-concerts/ Four concerts, FEB 19 APR 30 music from the inside out Brahms Clarinet Quintet Works by Martinů, Britten, Sundays at 2pm and More Dvořák, & Gaubert Left Coast’s education program, Music From the Inside MAR 19 MAY 28 Music by Schubert, Works by Barber, Harrison, Out, provides composition workshops to students at Prokofiev, Brahms Goosens, & Poulenc Oakland School for the Arts, San Francisco Community Music Center, and French American International School, working in consort with their musician teachers sfsymphony.org/chamber 415-864-6000 Nick Kanozik, Alex Keitel, and Phillip Lenberg.

SECOND CENTURY PARTNER SEASON PARTNERS If you are interested in attending one of the workshops Concerts at Davies Symphony Hall unless otherwise noted. Programs, artists, and prices subject to change. to observe composition work in progress, please Box Office Hours Mon–Fri 10am–6pm, Sat noon–6pm, Sun 2 hours prior to concerts contact us at [email protected]. Walk Up Grove Street between Van Ness and Franklin Inaugural Partner Official Airline 20162017 season 24, program 4 - march 2017