Program for 7:30pm Saturday 11/22/25
Nina Young, Sun Propeller for violin and live electronics
Valerie Coleman, Amazonia for flute and piano
Lois V. Vierk, Io for flute, electric guitar and percussion
*** INTERMISSION***
Elise Arancio, Rookery for flute, marimba, piano, and fixed media
Bobby Ge, You Have Entered the Public Domain for violin, percussion and video
The Performers
Jessie Nucho, Flute
Kevin Rogers, Violin
Giacomo Fiore, Electric Guitar
Margaret Halbig, Piano
James Beauton, Percussion
Program Notes
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The title, Sun Propeller, refers to the propeller-like rays of light that occur when sunbeams pierce through openings in the clouds. Scientifically, these columns of light that radiate from a single point in the sky are known as crepuscular rays. The actual phrase "sun propeller" is a literal translation of the Tuvan word for these sunbeams: Huun-Huur-Tu (also the name of a famous Tuvan folk singing group).
The ideas for this piece come from my interest in Tuvan music. Their music, particularly the practice of throat sining, is a vocal imitation of natural surroundings (the sounds of babbling brooks, wind resonating against mountains, etc.) and is used to pay respects to the spirits of nature. This type of Tuvan music is built upon a low drone-tone with overtones floating above. The music values timbre and vertical relationships over traditional western melodic and harmonic principles, and melodies are generated through vocal filtering techniques. In Sun Propeller, the violin’s sonic characteristics are altered through a D-D-A-D scordatura tuning, making for a instrument that resonates in D (the drone tone). Different bowing techniques filter the drone to create a rich tapestry of timbre and melody. The electronics, live processing and pre-recorded sounds, are diffused through four speakers. For more about Sun Propeller read Nina Young’s “Crepuscular Rays and Sun Propellers” on the SPCO’s Liquid Music blog: http://www.liquidmusicseries.org/blog/nina-young Composer and sonic artist Nina C. Young (b.1984) creates works, ranging from acoustic concert pieces to interactive installations, that explore aural architectures, resonance, timbre, and the ephemeral. Her music has garnered international acclaim through performances by the American Composers Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Phoenix Symphony, the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, the Aizuri Quartet, Sixtrum, the JACK Quartet, and others. Winner of the 2015-16 Rome Prize, Nina has received recognition from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Koussevitzky Foundation, Civitella Ranieri, Fromm, the Montalvo Arts Center, and BMI. Recent commissions include Tread softly for the NYPhil's Project 19, Violin Concerto: Traces for Jennifer Koh from the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and Nothing is not borrowed, in song and shattered light - a multimedia experience on ritual and polyphony for EMPAC’s (The Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer) High-Resolution Wave Field Synthesis Loudspeaker Array using recordings by the American Brass Quintet. Young holds degrees from MIT, McGill, and Columbia, and is an Associate Professor of Composition at USC's Thornton School of Music. She serves as Co-Artistic Director of NY-based new music sinfonietta Ensemble Échappé. Her music is published by Peermusic Classical. |
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Amazonia is a commemoration poem of what is considered to be the “lungs of the earth”. The poem describes its natural beauty that progressively becomes destroyed, as the dark aspects of human nature intrude upon vitality. The work begins at Sunrise with the sounds of nocturnal animals like frogs and insects enjoying the last parts of the night, with the sounds of croaking and leaves moving erratically throughout the foliage. Tree frogs, Tamarin monkeys, and macaws sing their sounds, while drips of dew fall from the leaves, and provides a raindrop-esque motif throughout the first part of the work. The opening motif in the flute gives a fragmented taste of the grooves and rhythms found in Brazilian music.
As the Amazonia scene is set, a simple melody emerges representing the carefree children of the Amazon, who innocently play throughout the jungle and river, immune to the dangers that lurk around them. The melody itself is a sweet dance that turns to a more mature stance that describes the peaceful pride of the tribal adults. Theirs is an intentional way of life that is unimpeded by technology and urban landscape, greed and crime. Following a brief flute cadenza, the section ends with a still life Sunset of reds, oranges and yellows. As the work unfolds, darker elements soon cloud the landscape, in a section called “Menacing”. The piano ominously marks the entrance of poachers and mercenaries into the rainforest, with an aggressive yet stealthy march. Their job is to drive out the tribes from the forest through intimidation and assault. Here the flute becomes the aggressor as its lower register articulates the word, fire in Morse code, as an impending signal to the burnings that will soon occur. Elements of Samba emerge within the following più mosso section, with the piano part dancing a macabre dance that symbolizes greed, as corporate interests circle the forest like vultures about to feast on the defenseless. Shouts, run, and anger precede the start of fire trickling through the rainforest, signified by a single note shared between the flute and piano that chromatically undulates and becomes more intense as the fires build and consume. Amazonia ends on an intense panic of shrieks and screams. As the fires in the Amazon rainforest have decimated thousands of acres, we must remember the beauty of what once was. Valerie Coleman is regarded by many as an iconic artist who continues to pave her own unique path as a composer, GRAMMY®-nominated flutist, and entrepreneur. Highlighted as one of the “Top 35 Women Composers” by The Washington Post, she was named Performance Today’s 2020 Classical Woman of the Year, an honor bestowed to an individual who has made a significant contribution to classical music as a performer, composer or educator. Her works have garnered awards such as the MAPFund, ASCAP Honors Award, Chamber Music America’s Classical Commissioning Program, Herb Alpert Ragdale Residency Award, and nominations from The American Academy of Arts and Letters and United States Artists. Umoja, Anthem for Unity was chosen by Chamber Music America as one of the “Top 101 Great American Ensemble Works” and is now a staple of woodwind literature. |
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Io (1999) features virtuoso performances on amplified flute, amplified marimba, and electric guitar. After an introductory section, a tumultuous, high energy middle section begins with short, dynamic phrases. As the work progresses, each phrase develops materials from the one before, gradually producing longer and longer phrases, and dense textures of interlocking tremolos and glissandi, with sharply articulated sounds in all instruments. A lyrical statement ends the piece.
The work is titled after Jupiter's innermost moon, which in turn is named for the mythological beautiful maiden Io, beloved of Zeus but tormented by Zeus' wife, Hera. The moon Io was discovered by Galileo in 1610. In the 1970's it was discovered to have over 100 active volcanoes, the only known volcanoes outside the earth. At times the volcanoes shoot huges plumes of sulfur up to 300 kilometers into the sky. Io is caught in a gravitational tug of war. It is periodically nudged out of regular orbit by two nearby moons, Europa and Ganymede, then pulled back by the massive gravitational field of Jupiter. Io is constantly squeezed and distorted, like a rubber ball held in the hand. The friction produced by this action produces enormous heat – enough to melt the rock deep within and cause the great volcanoes and lava flow. Lois V. Vierk, from Lansing Illinois, in suburban Chicago, was born in 1951. She studied composition at California Institute of the Arts with Mel Powell, Leonard Stein, and Morton Subotnick. For ten years she studied Gagaku (Japanese Court Music) with Mr. Suenobu Togi in Los Angeles, and for two years she studied in Tokyo with Mr. Sukeyasu Shiba, the lead ryuteki flutist of the emperor's Gagaku Orchestra. Ms. Vierk has spent most of her career in New York City. Her music has achieved an impressive international reputation. Recently it was presented in "composer's portrait" concerts at German Radio, Cologne and by other German and Swiss ensembles. Commissions include Silversword for the Lincoln Center Festival, where it was performed by the Reigakusha Ensemble of Tokyo, River Beneath the River, commissioned by the Barbican Center, London, for the Kronos Quartet, which has played it many times. |
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The piece Rookery draws inspiration from "Rookery," a set of prose poems by Traci Brimhall,
that are narrated throughout the work. The poems take the form of definitions: they begin in the realm of concrete fact before unfolding into poetic descriptions—nuanced, emotionally charged, and at times even nightmarish. Though they depart from literal truth, they arrive at something equally real. While the music engages directly with Brimhall’s text, it also explores shifting relationships between the synthetic and the organic—between electronics and live musicians, and between human and computer-generated voices. In the first movement, Colony of Rooks, the boundaries blur: synthetic sounds merge with organic ones until the two become nearly indistinguishable. The electronic track weaves together samples of ravens and crows, human voices, AI-generated voices, and modular synthesizer material, all intertwined with bird-like gestures from the live instruments.In the second movement, A Breeding Place, the organic and synthetic coexist more distinctly, placed side by side in a kind of duet. The third movement, A Crowded Tenement House, begins with the modular synthesizer attempting to imitate a drum, prompting the percussionist to answer with the real instrument. Here, the music evokes the feeling of an overfull tenement: the artificial and the human pressed into the same space, wrestling for presence, each trying to overtake the other. Elise Arancio is a composer from Atlanta, Georgia currently based in New Haven, Connecticut. Her music is driven by conversation, made up of dialogues between and within different instruments as well as acoustic and electronic mediums. As a lover and writer of words, much of her music draws inspiration from poetry and literature, and she is always playing with the sounds of objects around her. Elise completed her undergraduate studies at the Curtis Institute of Music and has received a Master’s Degree from the Juilliard School as a recipient of a Kovner Fellowship. Her mentors include Nina Young, Amy Beth Kirsten, Steve Mackey, Jennifer Higdon, Richard Danielpour, Nick DiBerardino, and David Serkin Ludwig. |
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No art exists in a vacuum. Everything owes its existence to something earlier, and this cycle forms the backbone of creativity. The public domain - the body of work free from copyright restriction - is one of the most important fixtures of today’s creative landscape, providing a rich library of source material for artists of any medium.
The Disney Corporation has long had a difficult relationship with the public domain. Most famously, when their copyright on Steamboat Willie was set to expire, Disney aggressively lobbied the US government to pass the Copyright Act of 1976 (derisively called the Mickey Mouse Protection Act by its critics) to dramatically extend copyright term limits for all intellectual property. The law’s worst effect was to cast the public domain as a villain to be guarded against, a stance that could not have been less prescient. The world was on the cusp of the digital era, a time of unprecedented availability of information, and such a newly protectionist approach to IP would eventually lead to the kinds of headaches artists of all kinds face today - from remixes getting ‘copystruck’ by content monitors to exclusivity restrictions that vary confusingly from country to country. In 2024, Steamboat Willie finally ran out its copyright limit. Hundreds of thousands of memes sprang up to crassly mock Disney, and this piece - a joyous celebration of the public domain - is proudly suffused with that same kind of over-the-top, meme-worthy contempt. It was an absolute delight to create this piece, and I must also give credit to Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky, and John F. Kennedy for providing such wonderful source material to supplement Mickey with. Finally, this piece is dedicated to Nicolas Berge, whose work inspired me with its wild humor, creative use of visual media, and brilliant musicianship. Bobby Ge is a Chinese-American composer and avid collaborator whose work, often collaborative in nature, focuses on themes of home, communication, and hybridity. Winner of the 2022 Barlow Prize, Ge has received commissions and performances by groups including the Minnesota Orchestra, Alarm Will Sound, the New York Youth Symphony, the Albany Symphony, the U.S. Navy Band, Music from Copland House, the Bergamot, Tesla, and JACK Quartets, and many more. He has created multimedia projects with the Space Telescope Science Institute, painters collective Art10Baltimore, the Cape May Bird Festival, and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D at Princeton University, and holds degrees from UCBerkeley and the Peabody Conservatory. |
The Performers
San Francisco-based flutist Jessie Nucho is passionate about sharing both traditional and contemporary music as a chamber musician, soloist, and educator. She performs regularly with the new music ensembles After Everything and Ninth Planet, where she also serves as Co-Artistic Director. She is a founding member of Siroko Duo, a flute duo dedicated to commissioning and presenting new works in creative spaces. As a soloist, Jessie has performed at San Francisco’s Center for New Music, the Berkeley Arts Festival, the Hot Air Music Festival, and the Legion of Honor. Jessie holds an MM from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Tim Day. Previous instructors include Alberto Almarza and Jeanne Baxtresser at Carnegie Mellon University.
Pianist Margaret Halbig is in high demand as a collaborative artist in both the instrumental and vocal fields. She is currently Associate Chair of the Voice Department and Principal Vocal Coach at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she also frequently collaborates with faculty and student instrumentalists. During the summer, Halbig is Collaborative Piano Coordinator of Interlochen Arts Camp where she coordinates vocal, instrumental, and dance pianists, collaborates on faculty recitals, teaches both solo and collaborative piano, as well as plays with students in competitions, master classes, and lessons.An advocate of new and contemporary music, Halbig is the pianist for Ninth Planet, a San Francisco-based new music collective where she also serves on the board. In 2020, Halbig became the primary pianist for Ensemble For These Times, a group that focuses on 20th and 21st century music that resonates with today yet speaks to tomorrow. She is also a member of Frequency 49, a wind and piano sextet, which performs all over the Bay Area. Halbig earned her D.M.A. from the University of California Santa Barbara under the tutelage of Robert Koenig and also holds performance degrees from the University of Missouri, Kansas City Conservatory and University of Evansville, Indiana.
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Italian-born guitarist and musicologist Giacomo Fiore has premiered more than three dozen new works for justly-tuned, electric, and classical guitars, and released several recordings for Other Minds, Populist, Cold Blue, Pinna, Spectropol, Paper Garden Records, and his own impressum. As a scholar his research focuses on U.S. experimental music, intonation, and performance; he has published articles in Music Theory Spectrum, the Journal of the Society for the American Music, and TEMPO, and writes occasionally for Classical Guitar and SFCV. He teaches a wide range of historical and practical music courses at the University of San Francisco and UC Santa Cruz. Giacomo is a member of experimental doom trio Harjo, and of chamber music group Wild Rumpus; he also performs regularly with New Music Works, sfSound, and other Bay Area organizations. He has served as a curator for the Center for New Music since 2019, and as the vice-president of the Northern California Chapter of the American Musicological Society from 2015 to 2019.
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Kevin Rogers is a passionate advocate for new music, a violinist, and improviser who has dedicated his career to the discovery and wonder of art for our time. He founded Friction Quartet, whose mission is to expand the modern chamber music experience. Kevin is also a member of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Northern California’s most long standing and largest new music ensemble. With a deep foundation in classical and contemporary music training, Kevin studied under renowned musicians, including Bettina Mussumeli at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and William Terwilliger at the University of South Carolina. Kevin fulfills his vision of new music advocacy by shaping the landscape of modern classical music, actively inspiring others to explore the profound, mysterious, humorous, and ultimately deeply touching possibilities of art from our time.
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As a concert percussionist, James Beauton was the grand prize winner of the 2012 Southern California International Marimba Competition, and performed as a member of Steven Schick’s renowned percussion ensemble, red fish blue fish, from 2015-2020. As a soloist, James has performed some of the most demanding music in the percussion repertoire, including works of Stockhausen, Lachenmann, Manoury, Xenakis, Donatoni, Ferneyhough, and Grisey, among others, and has been a concerto soloist with the Michigan State University Philharmonic and Symphony Orchestras, the Contemporary Chamber Players, and at the Stony Brook Day of Percussion. As a chamber musician, he has performed as a part of Monday Evening Concerts and the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Noon To Midnight Festival and is a founding member of the percussion trio Tala Rasa, where they commissioned several composers, including Alejandro Vinao. James earned his Doctorate in Contemporary Music Performance from UC San Diego, a Masters in Percussion from SUNY Stony Brook, and a Bachelors of Music from Michigan State University.
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ALL UPCOMING CONCERTS
FALL CONCERT: 7:30PM SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22nd 2025
Little Mission Studio, 445 Hampshire St, San Francisco
The Performers
Jessie Nucho, Flute
Kevin Rogers, Violin
Giacomo Fiore, Electric Guitar
Margaret Halbig, Piano
James Beauton, Percussion
The Program
Elise Arancio, Rookery
Valerie Coleman, Amazonia
Bobby Ge, You Have Entered the Public Domain
Lois V. Vierk, Io
Nina Young, Sun Propeller
Our program contemplates the intersection of nature, technology, and humanity: humankind’s impact on the planet, the inspiration of nature in both electronic and acoustic music, and our changing relationship to technology in the digital era.
Nina Young’s Sun Propeller is electronic music for the human body, taking inspiration from both the Tuvan word for crepuscular rays as well as Tuvan throat-singing style, which itself is a human mimicry of nature’s sounds. Solo violin and electronics come together to become both body and environment. Valerie Coleman’s Amazonia is a commemoration poem of the Amazon rainforest, which is often referred to as the “lungs of the earth.” The poem describes its natural beauty that progressively becomes destroyed as the dark aspects of human nature intrude upon vitality. The presence of electronics in Lois V. Vierk’s Io is more subtle, featuring only simple amplification. The work is titled after Jupiter's innermost moon, which in the 1970s was discovered to have the only known volcanoes outside of earth.
Elise Arancio’s Rookery explores the contentious relationship between what is real and what is artificial, asking important questions about how we distinguish between human and machine creations and the role of artificially generated material in the mode era. Bobby’s Ge’s You Have Entered the Public Domain—the winning composition of the 2025 Suzanne & Lee Ettelson Composer’s Award—is a joyous celebration of the public domain. Bobby writes: “No art exists in a vacuum. Everything owes its existence to something earlier, and this cycle forms the backbone of creativity. The public domain - the body of work free from copyright restriction - is one of the most important fixtures of today’s creative landscape, providing a rich library of source material for artists of any medium.
Little Mission Studio, 445 Hampshire St, San Francisco
The Performers
Jessie Nucho, Flute
Kevin Rogers, Violin
Giacomo Fiore, Electric Guitar
Margaret Halbig, Piano
James Beauton, Percussion
The Program
Elise Arancio, Rookery
Valerie Coleman, Amazonia
Bobby Ge, You Have Entered the Public Domain
Lois V. Vierk, Io
Nina Young, Sun Propeller
Our program contemplates the intersection of nature, technology, and humanity: humankind’s impact on the planet, the inspiration of nature in both electronic and acoustic music, and our changing relationship to technology in the digital era.
Nina Young’s Sun Propeller is electronic music for the human body, taking inspiration from both the Tuvan word for crepuscular rays as well as Tuvan throat-singing style, which itself is a human mimicry of nature’s sounds. Solo violin and electronics come together to become both body and environment. Valerie Coleman’s Amazonia is a commemoration poem of the Amazon rainforest, which is often referred to as the “lungs of the earth.” The poem describes its natural beauty that progressively becomes destroyed as the dark aspects of human nature intrude upon vitality. The presence of electronics in Lois V. Vierk’s Io is more subtle, featuring only simple amplification. The work is titled after Jupiter's innermost moon, which in the 1970s was discovered to have the only known volcanoes outside of earth.
Elise Arancio’s Rookery explores the contentious relationship between what is real and what is artificial, asking important questions about how we distinguish between human and machine creations and the role of artificially generated material in the mode era. Bobby’s Ge’s You Have Entered the Public Domain—the winning composition of the 2025 Suzanne & Lee Ettelson Composer’s Award—is a joyous celebration of the public domain. Bobby writes: “No art exists in a vacuum. Everything owes its existence to something earlier, and this cycle forms the backbone of creativity. The public domain - the body of work free from copyright restriction - is one of the most important fixtures of today’s creative landscape, providing a rich library of source material for artists of any medium.
WINTER CONCERT: 7:30PM SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7th 2026
Featuring works by George Crumb & Ursula Kwong-Brown
SUMMER CONCERT: 7:30PM SATURDAY, JUNE 13th 2026
Featuring works by Coles Reyes & Emma Logan
All concerts are at Little Mission Studio in San Francisco
Featuring works by George Crumb & Ursula Kwong-Brown
SUMMER CONCERT: 7:30PM SATURDAY, JUNE 13th 2026
Featuring works by Coles Reyes & Emma Logan
All concerts are at Little Mission Studio in San Francisco
PAST CONCERTS
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Sunday, February 2, 2025 // 3:00 pm
Morrison Hall, UC Berkeley The Performers Jessie Nucho, Flutes Sophie Huet, Clarinets Kevin Rogers, Violin Evan Kahn, Cello Margaret Halbig, Piano The Program Eda Er, Always Welcome; Never Invited (World Premiere) Paul Novak, entwining Kaija Saariaho, Light and Matter Olivier Messiaen, selections from Quartet for the End of Time Adrian Wong, Glass Flowers Ursula Kwong-Brown, Awakenings Program Notes |
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Saturday, November 2, 2024 // 7:30 pm
Little Mission Studio 445 Hampshire Street, San Francisco, CA Macabre meets whimsical on the Day of the Dead in our season opener. Featuring Natasha Bogojevich's The Ephemeral Orphanage, Nicole Lizée's Music for Body-Without-Organs, Eda Er's I took a train to mars, and the premiere of a new version of Ursula Kwong-Brown's Sunrise, unique animations will bring enhance the experience. We'll also present additional audiovisual works by guest artist Eda Er for a fun evening not to be missed.
Featuring: Eda Er, vocals Jessie Nucho, flutes Sophie Huet, clarinets Kevin Rogers, violin Griffin Seuter, cello Margaret Halbig, piano Elizabeth Hall and Divesh Karamchandani, percussion Giacomo Fiore, electric guitar |
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Join us for a glass of wine and an evening of improvised music, featuring Pauline Oliveros' "Four Meditations for Orchestra," Giacomo Fiore's "Morning," and Carl Testa's live processing environment Sway.
Featuring: Jessie Nucho, flutes Brendan Lai-Tong, trombone and conch shell Giacomo Fiore, electric guitars Eugene Theriault, double bass |
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Saturday, May 18, 2024 // 7:30 pm
First Unitarian Universalist Church 1187 Franklin Street, San Francisco, CA Join us as we celebrate the rebirth and growth of spring and leave behind the harshness of winter in our spring concert, “Awakening.” We begin with some intense groove and crunch via Guillaume Connesson’s "Techno-Parade" and Viet Cuong’s "Lacquer and Grit". From there we share a brand new arrangement of devon osamu tipp’s "study of a bull 1991", inspired by Francis Bacon’s painting of the same name. With this sonic contemplation of dust, we are invited to acknowledge the heaviness of whatever weight we may be bearing this year. From here, we enter a gentler place with Angélica Negrón’s "La Isla Mágica", a lovely piece for solo bass and electronics that explores the composer’s relationship to two islands dear to her: Bali and Puerto Rico. Finally, we leave you with the peaceful sonorities of Patrick Burke’s "Awake" and together move to a position of hopeful imagining for the future.
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Saturday, October 14, 2023 // 7:30 pm
Noe Valley Ministry 1021 Sanchez Street, San Francisco, CA 94109 We’re excited to announce our season opener, “Snapshots,” featuring the music of 2023 Ettelson Award Winner Pascal Le Boeuf. Coming to San Francisco on Saturday, October 14 at 7:30 PM, the program also showcases Danny Clay’s “Turntable Drawing No. 16,” originally for solo electric guitar and now reimagined for larger ensemble with Giacomo Fiore as soloist. The program takes inspiration from retro audio tropes: from turntables in Shiva Feshareki’s “Zohra” and Danny Clay’s music to the 80s synth quality of Alex Temple’s genre-bending “This Changes Everything!” The delicately rhythmic groove of Gabriella Smith’s “Anthozoa” rounds out the evening for an edgy and upbeat show you will not want to miss!
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EXPEDITION #8: Prospero's Island
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Beyond Shakespeare. At the bottom of the world. At the limits of love. The world premiere of Prospero's Island, a major new chamber opera by acclaimed creators Allen Shearer and Claudia Stevens, is set for March 25, 2023 at San Francisco's Herbst Theater. A production of Ninth Planet and InTandem, the opera, based on The Tempest, is about power, deception, terrible secrets and new beginnings. With stunning imagery and richly orchestrated music, Prospero's Island brings Shakespeare's great play to new life, its story transported to the Falkland Islands in the 1950's and action that takes place from dawn to dusk on one momentous day. Audiences will meet the all-powerful Prospero, reimagined as a war criminal with a dark past; paratrooper Andy and lovely Mandy as they fall in love (but is it magic or true?); teenage Caliban, as he tussles with the island's cheeky penguins; the comedy team of paratroopers Steffi and Trish; and the faithful Ariel, half bird and half woman, whose devotion to Prospero is put to the ultimate test. What will these newly imagined beings do when they learn the truth?
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EXPEDITION #7: Home
Program
Nico Muhly, How About Now Allison Loggins-Hull, Homeland Gabriel José Bolaños Chamorro, nosotros hemos puesto los muertos (Ettelson Award 2022) Jessie Montgomery, Duo for violin and cello Missy Mazzoli, Magic With Everyday Objects |
Ninth Planet’s fourth season opens with a program examining our relationships to home and comfort, featuring the winning composition of the 2022 Suzanne and Lee Ettelson Composer’s Award nosotros hemos puesto los muertos by Gabriel José Bolaños, the composer’s anguished response to political violence in his home country Nicaragua. Paired with this is Allison Loggins-Hull’s Homeland, which asks what home means during domestic tragedy or violence, when the very concept of home has disintegrated. On the lighter side is friendship and the comfort of the everyday: Jessie Montgomery’s Duo for violin and cello is an ode to friendship, while Nico Muhly describes his piece How About Now as “a sort of thrown-together meal with close friends.” Missy Mazzoli’s Magic With Everyday Objects is about finding beauty and rapture in the midst of chaos, and about acknowledging the chaos that lies just beneath the surface of beauty.
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InterMusic SF - SF Music Day
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Sunday, October 9, 20222 // 3:45pm
War Memorial Veterans Building 401 Van Ness Avenue San Francisco, CA 94102 Celebrate Bay Area music in all its diversity at SF Music Day, with the return of the live, in-person version of the Bay Area’s free annual music festival in downtown San Francisco, presented by InterMusic SF. From chamber music to jazz, contemporary works to global sounds—SF Music Day showcases extraordinary musicians from across the Bay, with music that spans continents and centuries. Come for the artists you know and love, and stay to discover new talents, enjoy fresh takes on familiar repertoire, and bask in the wealth of creativity from the world-class composers and ensembles of our region.
The 15th SF Music Day features more than 25 ensembles performing short sets over eight hours on four stages in the ornate War Memorial Veterans Building. SF Music Day is presented annually by InterMusic SF, supporting the Bay Area music community since 1998. For up-to-date event COVID safety protocols, visit sfmusicday.com. |
EXPEDITION #6: Discovery
Program:
Allen Shearer, Eastbound Traveler (world premiere) Ursula Kwong-Brown, In Transit Darian Donovan Thomas, We only want to fly because we're tethered to the earth (world premiere) João Pedro Oliveira, Dark Energy Eve Beglarian, From the Same Melancholy Fate |
Friday, June 10, 2022 // 7:30pm
First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco 1187 Franklin St, San Francisco, CA 94109 Ninth Planet closes its third season with a program of recent works by Ursula-Kwong Brown, João Pedro Oliveira, Allen Shearer, and Eve Beglarian, as well as a new commission by Darian Donovan Thomas. Each work on the program is about discovery: from voyage into the unknown, to the exploration of the dark energy that fills the universe, to the journeys of the thousands of people riding BART trains every day, to the universal tug of war that exists in each of us, simultaneously propelling us to fly and keeping us tethered to the earth.
IMAGE CREDIT: Graphic from score for "We only want to fly because we're tethered to the earth" |
EXPEDITION #5: Spirals & Echoes
Program:
Selim Goncu, Widerklang (Ettelson Award 2020) Jee Seo, Four Pieces Daijana Wallace, Shades Jack Frerer, Spiral Sequences (Ettelson Award 2019) |
Saturday, March 19, 2022 // 7:30pm
Center for New Music 55 Taylor Street, San Francisco, CA 94102 Ninth Planet journeys through sonic shape and texture in a program featuring 2019 and 2020 winning compositions of the Suzanne and Lee Ettelson Award. Selim Göncü’s “Widerklang” for bass clarinet, percussion, piano, violin, and cello (Ettelson 2020), presents a distorted, noisy, and quasi-improvisational sound world, exploring the connection between noise and pitch. Written for violin and viola, Jee Seo’s “Four Pieces” presents four self-portraits, each centered around one of four words: Sigh, Fever, Groove, and Song. Daijana Wallace’s “Shades,” for solo cello, is centered around a single note as the vehicle to explore a whole range of textures, from mystery, aggression, and heaviness to melodic, soft, and sultry. Ending the program is Jack Frerer’s “Spiral Sequences” for string quartet (Ettelson 2019). The first movement, fast and driven by spiraling fragments and sequences, presents an ever-tightening inward spiral that the slower second movement unravels.
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EXPEDITION #4: Everyone Became A Trail
Friday, October 1, 2021 // 8pm
Old First Concerts, 1751 Sacramento Street, San Francisco, CA 94109
Ninth Planet returns for its third season with a program exploring themes of realism and surrealism, featuring the world premiere of a commissioned work by Bay Area resident Assaf Shatil entitled "Everyone Became a Trail." A song cycle for the full Ninth Planet ensemble, "Everyone Became a Trail" is based on poems that Shatil wrote in response to life during the COVID-19 pandemic. This work reflects on the bewilderment, anxiety, and bittersweet beauty experienced during uncertain times of isolation and quarantine. The concert will also feature chamber works by inti figgis-vizueta, Yaz Lancaster, and Amy Beth Kirsten. Please join us for this evening of reflective and innovative artistry as we process together, through music, our experience of the last 18 months.
Old First Concerts, 1751 Sacramento Street, San Francisco, CA 94109
Ninth Planet returns for its third season with a program exploring themes of realism and surrealism, featuring the world premiere of a commissioned work by Bay Area resident Assaf Shatil entitled "Everyone Became a Trail." A song cycle for the full Ninth Planet ensemble, "Everyone Became a Trail" is based on poems that Shatil wrote in response to life during the COVID-19 pandemic. This work reflects on the bewilderment, anxiety, and bittersweet beauty experienced during uncertain times of isolation and quarantine. The concert will also feature chamber works by inti figgis-vizueta, Yaz Lancaster, and Amy Beth Kirsten. Please join us for this evening of reflective and innovative artistry as we process together, through music, our experience of the last 18 months.
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Program:
Yaz Lancaster, Intangible Landscapes inti figgis-vizueta, a bridge between starshine and clay Amy Beth Kirsten, World Under Glass #2 Assaf Shatil, Everyone Became a Trail (world premiere) This concert is supported in part by a grant from the InterMusic SF Musical Grant Program. This concert is also made possible by the generous support of all our donors. Give to Ninth Planet today. |
EXPEDITION #3: Tides
Saturday, June 26, 2021 // 7pm
YouTube Live Link
Here on the edge of North America, we are tuned to the cycles of the ocean. We are bound together by ebb and flow as they carve out the contours of our daily lives. So, at this time of flux and transition, we look to music to pull us back towards equilibrium. Tides is a livestream concert featuring six works performed by members of the Ninth Planet ensemble. Curated by new co-artistic director Jessie Nucho and composer Ursula Kwong-Brown, each piece explores the need for connection at a time when our lives are being shaped by forces beyond our control. Featuring a world premiere collaboration with Japanese video artist and live painter Akiko Nakayama.
YouTube Live Link
Here on the edge of North America, we are tuned to the cycles of the ocean. We are bound together by ebb and flow as they carve out the contours of our daily lives. So, at this time of flux and transition, we look to music to pull us back towards equilibrium. Tides is a livestream concert featuring six works performed by members of the Ninth Planet ensemble. Curated by new co-artistic director Jessie Nucho and composer Ursula Kwong-Brown, each piece explores the need for connection at a time when our lives are being shaped by forces beyond our control. Featuring a world premiere collaboration with Japanese video artist and live painter Akiko Nakayama.
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Program:
Ursula Kwong-Brown, Finding Bliss (world premiere) Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate, Inchokkillissa Shiva Feshareki, Zohra Lila Meretzky, All mute things speak today Yaz Lancaster, little song (world premiere) Danny Erdberg/Ursula Kwong-Brown, Here Come the Warm Clouds (world premiere) Admission: FREE FOR ALL. This concert is made possible by the generous support of all our donors. Give to Ninth Planet today. |
EXPEDITION #2: On Being
Saturday, Dec. 12, 2020 // 7pm
YouTube Live Link
Ninth Planet returns digitally in a virtual program curated by ensemble flutist and artistic committee member Jessie Nucho. On Being is an exploration of the nature of our existence, from the intersection of the physical and spiritual to existence in the present moment. Featuring the music of Angelica Negrón, Jessie Cox, inti figgis-vizueta, and Darian Donovan Thomas.
YouTube Live Link
Ninth Planet returns digitally in a virtual program curated by ensemble flutist and artistic committee member Jessie Nucho. On Being is an exploration of the nature of our existence, from the intersection of the physical and spiritual to existence in the present moment. Featuring the music of Angelica Negrón, Jessie Cox, inti figgis-vizueta, and Darian Donovan Thomas.
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Program:
Angelica Negrón, La Isla Mágica Jessie Cox, Spiritus inti figgis-vizueta, Form the Fabric Darian Donovan Thomas, Fluid, "I. Fluid" Admission: FREE FOR ALL. This concert is made possible by the generous support of all our donors. Give to Ninth Planet today. |
(CANCELLED) EXPEDITION #2: Spiral Sequences
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This concert was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Friday, Mar. 27, 2020 // 8pm Old First Concerts, 1751 Sacramento Street, SF, CA 94109 Ninth Planet performs the 2019 Ettelson Award-winning composition Spiral Sequences, and more! Program: Jack Frerer, Spiral Sequences Viet Cuong, Naica Daniel Godsil, Aeropittura Andrew Norman, Mine, Mime, Meme Nicole Lizée, Music for Body-Without Organs |
EXPEDITION #1: Reflect, Respond
Saturday, Nov. 2, 2019 // 8pm
Osher Salon @ San Francisco Conservatory of Music
Join Ninth Planet for our debut performance at the Osher Salon. Featuring works by Jenny Olivia Johnson, Eve Beglarian, Kaija Saariaho, Dan VanHassel, and Ursula Kwong-Brown.
Admission: $20 General, $10 Students/Seniors/Persons with disabilities. Tickets available online or at the door.
Program:
Dan VanHassel, Balance of Power
Kaija Saariaho, Cendres
Ursula Kwong-Brown, Unwinding III
Eve Beglarian, Play Like a Girl
Eve Beglarian, Until it Blazes
Jenny Olivia Johnson, Reflect Reflect Respond Respond
Osher Salon @ San Francisco Conservatory of Music
Join Ninth Planet for our debut performance at the Osher Salon. Featuring works by Jenny Olivia Johnson, Eve Beglarian, Kaija Saariaho, Dan VanHassel, and Ursula Kwong-Brown.
Admission: $20 General, $10 Students/Seniors/Persons with disabilities. Tickets available online or at the door.
Program:
Dan VanHassel, Balance of Power
Kaija Saariaho, Cendres
Ursula Kwong-Brown, Unwinding III
Eve Beglarian, Play Like a Girl
Eve Beglarian, Until it Blazes
Jenny Olivia Johnson, Reflect Reflect Respond Respond