SAN FRANCISCO COMPOSERS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
and Old First Concerts Present:

“THE DARK SERENADE”

Saturday October 15th, 2011 at 8 pm Old First Presbyterian Church
1751 Sacramento Street/Van Ness, San Francisco, CA 94109
and
Sunday October 16th, 2011 at 8 pm Chapel of the Chimes
4499 Piedmont Avenue, Oakland, CA

$17 General, $14 Seniors (65 and older), $14 Full Time Students

Tickets are available through the Old First Concerts Box Office at (415) 474-1608, online at http://oldfirstconcerts.org and at the door. For more information, please call Old First Concerts box office and at the door for Chapel of the Chimes

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 15, 2011 —- The days are growing shorter, the economy is not improving, and it’s time for The Dark Serenade. Join the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra, on either side of the Bay — at 8pm, October 15 (Old First Church, San Francisco) or 16 (Chapel of the Chimes) — in a haunted landscape of works by Philip Freihofner, David Graves, Loren Jones, Lisa Scola Prosek, Davide Verotta and Mark Alburger.

Freihofner sets the mood in Carmilla, a beautiful post-minimalist setting of Irish writer Sheridan Le Fanu’s short story of vampires and women, featuring Lisa Scola Prosek.    This talented soprano-composer will then showcase her own luminous Night at the Kremlin excerpt entitled The Goldfish Pond, where world-renowned tenor John Duykers will hold forth as Winston Churchill on Stalinesque situations.

Keeping to matters historically ominous, Verotta’s Facing Chaos illuminates a passage from Seneca the Younger’s Thyestes (“Trembling are our hearts, lest all things fall shattered in fatal ruin . . .”) in a juxtaposition of aggressive Indian talas with plangent basal melodies.  Such contrasts are perhaps even more extreme in the grave Graves Amaranthine Silence, where animated contrapuntal complexities are counterpoised with various pre-recorded “silences” from gardens, restaurants, and parking garages.

Alburger’s Regime Change takes the terror of Ancient and Contemporary civilizations through a kaleidoscope of found musics, sung by Scola Prosek and contralto Olivia Flanigan, as a prelude to Jones’s signature over-the-top outpourings in Graveyard, where the orchestra will be augmented by bouzouki and tombstones.  In the spirit of Erling Wold’s In the Stomachs of Fleas, resoundingly presented a few concerts back, be prepared for Haloweenic smoke-and-mirrors. Fog.  Strobe lights.  Maybe even a small explosion….

Be afraid.  Be amazed.  And prepare for The Dark Serenade.

CALENDAR EDITORS PLEASE NOTE:

WHO: San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra
WHAT: New Music premieres for orchestra by Bay Area composers
WHERE: Old First Church 1751 Sacramento Street/Van Ness, San Francisco, CA 94109
WHEN: 8pm Saturday October 15th, 2011
TICKETS: $17 General, $14 Seniors (65 and older), $14 Full Time Students
UPCOMING SFCCO CONCERTS: Saturday June 9th, 2011 at Old First Church & Sunday June 10th at Chapel of the Chimes

SAN FRANCISCO COMPOSERS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
and Old First Concerts Present:

“ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MINERAL“

Saturday September 25th, 2010 at 8 pm
Old First Presbyterian Church
1751 Sacramento Street/Van Ness, San Francisco, CA 94109
$17 General, $14 Seniors (65 and older), $14 Full Time Students

Tickets are available through the Old First Concerts Box Office at (415) 474-1608, online at http://oldfirstconcerts.org and at the door. For more information, please call Old First Concerts box office.

SAN FRANCISCO, August 20, 2010 —-  What is reality?  Sentient beings clamoring for existence, the wind whistling through leafy vegetation, the silence and noise of this stony planet.  Come along on musical safari with the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra in Animal, Vegetable, Mineral — a tour of the Earth’s scenic and sonic wonders, in compositions by Michael Cooke, Loren Jones, Jorge Liderman, Terry Riley, Lisa Scola Prosek and Mark Alburger.

The latter’s Animal Farm: Grand Zoological Fantasy-Variations is a dark, Orwellian spin on creatures great and small, including a visual presentation of surrealistically-altered YouTube videos.  In biological distinction, Jones will offer Banyan: an aural giving-tree of multicultural musical delights.  Answering this will be a revival of Riley’s celebrated minimalist-improvisatory anthem In C, in all of its crystalline and granitic splendor.

Also along for the journey are Michael Cooke’s deeply-felt Love Letters; Lisa Scola Prosek’s vibrant Piano Sonata; a retrospective work of the late, great Jorge Liderman.  John Kendall Bailey will join Alburger in the zoomusicological tour-guiding responsibilities.

CALENDAR EDITORS PLEASE NOTE:

WHO: San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra
WHAT: New Music premieres for orchestra by Bay Area composers
WHERE: Old First Church 1751 Sacramento Street/Van Ness, San Francisco, CA 94109
WHEN: 8pm Saturday September 25th, 2010
TICKETS: $17 General, $14 Seniors (65 and older), $14 Full Time Students
UPCOMING SFCCO CONCERTS: Saturday June TBD, 2010 at Old First Church

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SAN FRANCISCO COMPOSERS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
and Old First Concerts Present:

“RETURN TO RETURN TO SORRENTO”

Saturday February 20th, 2010 at 8 pm
Old First Presbyterian Church
1751 Sacramento Street/Van Ness, San Francisco, CA 94109
$15 General, $12 Seniors (65 and older), $12 Full Time Students

Tickets are available through the Old First Concerts Box Office at (415) 474-1608, online at http://oldfirstconcerts.org and at the door. For more information, please call Old First Concerts box office.

SAN FRANCISCO, January 22, 2010 — Ever have a tune you couldn’t get out of your head? The composers of the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra find themselves returning to Ernesto de Curtis’s Return to Sorrento (1902) in Return to Return to Sorrento — on Saturday, February 20, at Old First Church — evoking a sunny, post-El-Nino world of musical fact and fantasy from John Bilotta, Philip Freihofner, David Graves, Loren Jones, Phil Lockwood, Lisa Scola Prosek, Kit Ruscoe, Martha Stoddard, Davide Verotta, Erling Wold, and Mark Alburger.

The Return pieces — a series of variations by Jones, Scola Prosek, Ruscoe, Verotta, Wold, and Alburger — will be interwoven into a mix that will also feature Bilotta’s back-to-the-future Quantum Mechanic (semi-staged in co-operation with Goat Hall Productions / San Francisco Cabaret Opera); David Graves’s relatedly-apocalyptic Tickertape; Philip Freihofner and Phil Lockwood’s evocative Blade of Grass; Martha Stoddard’s enchanting Duo Concertante for Flute, Marimba, and Chamber Orchestra (featuring Bruce Salvisberg and Anne Szalba); Jones’s adventurous Lost Plateau; and Alburger’s frenetic-erotic-violent Salome Suite.

CALENDAR EDITORS PLEASE NOTE:

WHO: San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra
WHAT: New Music premieres for orchestra by Bay Area composers
WHERE: Old First Church 1751 Sacramento Street/Van Ness, San Francisco, CA 94109
WHEN: 8pm Saturday February 20th, 2010
TICKETS: $15 General, $12 Seniors (65 and older), $12 Full Time Students
UPCOMING SFCCO CONCERTS: Saturday June 12, 2010 at Old First Church

“HAUNTED HOUSE SCIENCE FICTION QUIZ SHOW”

Saturday November 7th, 2009 at 8 pm
Chapel of the Chimes
4499 Piedmont Ave, Oakland, CA 94611
$15 General, $12 Seniors (65 and older), $12 Full Time Students

OAKLAND AND WORLD PREMIERES

SAN FRANCISCO, October 7, 2009 –  Be afraid.  Be very afraid, when San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra presents Haunted House Science Fiction Quiz Show, an evening of electro-acoustic fantasy, nightmares, and whimsy.  In its premiere performance in Oakland (a short atomic-powered broomstick ride across the Bay) on Saturday, November 7 — emcee Music Director Mark Alburger, Associate Conductor Martha Stoddard, and compositional contestants Michael Cooke, Philip Freihofner, Loren Jones, Lisa Scola Prosek, Gerhard Samuel, Davide Verotta, and Erling Wold will conjure up works sounding particularly haunting and resonant in the Julia-Morgan-designed crematory / columbarium / mausoleum Chapel of the Chimes (4499 Piedmont Avenue).

The séance begins with Freihofner‘s Electroacoustic Music for Oboe, which provides the passage into The Secret Door, where Jones will invoke a fantasy alternative-universe San Francisco for piano four-hands.

Cooke calls forth another spirit world “…with the Spirit of the Desert,” an evocative work for violin, bassoon, and piano — inspired by Big Bend National Park in West Texas, and conjuring up in the movements the ghosts of Paul Hindemith, Igor Stravinsky, and Native American music.  Across the great divide, poet Michael McDonough reanimates the genius of Samuel (1924-2008), who set McDonough’s spare minimalist “3″, as night and trees (for clarinet, soprano, and bongos), before departing himself into that good night.

Dreams and reality collide again in Scola Prosek‘s Roma, hallucinated (on Tylenol PM) at 20,000 feet in a high-tech jet of engine roars, footsteps, lyricism (graced by sopranos Maria Mikheyenko and the composer), and the chariots of the entire orchestra and Rome’s fiery Vittorio Emanuele Monument.  Staying in the surrealist, subalpine, soprani sequence — Verotta‘s Verrà la Morte e Avrà i Tuoi Occhi (Death Will Come and Have Your Eyes) reminds us that there is nothing wrong with your ears, but that, for the evening, we are in control.

Meanwhile, Wold notes in Sweet Encumbrance that bondage-and-discipline can be fun, particularly when the ball-and-chain is the beloved other, in one of his trademark post-minimalist lovelies; while Alburger takes the theme literally for Elijah Ghost, in seven movements drawn from his opera-oratorio Elijah Rock, a twisted techno-take on the scientific fantasies of the Biblical Books of First and Second Kings.

But yet, as it turns out, fear ye not: this is not a test.  This is the Haunted House Science Fiction Quiz Show.

CALENDAR EDITORS PLEASE NOTE:

WHO: San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra
WHAT: New Music premieres for orchestra by Bay Area composers
WHERE: Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave, Oakland, CA 94611
WHEN: 8pm Saturday November 7th, 2009
TICKETS: $15 General, $12 Seniors (65 and older), $12 Full Time Students

SAN FRANCISCO COMPOSERS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
and Old First Concerts Present:

“DREAMS OF THE RESTLESS”

Saturday June 13th, 2009 at 8 pm
Old First Presbyterian Church
1751 Sacramento Street/Van Ness, San Francisco, CA 94109
$15 General, $12 Seniors (65 and older), $12 Full Time Students

Review

Tickets are available through the Old First Concerts Box Office at (415) 474-1608, online at http://oldfirstconcerts.org and at the door. For more information, please call Old First Concerts box office.

SAN FRANCISCO, May 13, 2009 — Inspired by abstract ponderings, restless fears, and childlike hope, San Francisco’s one and only composers’ orchestra will explore the world of suggestion and dreams on June 13, 2009 at Old First Concert. This concert will bring to fruition new works by Mark Alburger, Michael Cooke, Allan Crossman, Philip Freihofner, Loren Jones, Lisa Scola Prosek, Davide Verotta plus a collaboration between Erling Wold and fognozzle. This final concert of the 08-09 season includes exotic and unique instruments, tribal rhythms, a fog and light show and great soloists!

“A Baby Sleeps”, by Michael Cooke, will showcase Gangqin Zhao and the composer playing traditional Chinese instruments, the sheng and guzheng, in a variation on a Taiwanese lullaby. The Sonoglyph, an invention of featured soloist Tom Nunn’s, will be introduced by Allan Crossman’s composition “Plasticity”. Bay Area New Music giants will emerge with Lisa Scola Prosek‘s “Voodoo Storm” featuring clarinetist Rachel Condry and Philip Freihofner‘s monologue “Obelisk” featuring Rova saxophonist Steve Adams.

Loren Jones’ “Eagle Bear Woman” and “Two Islands” will pay homage to his wife and Indonesian traditions respectively. Mark Alburger‘s “King David Suite (The Young and the Restless)” will portray three angst-ridden youths (David, Jonathan, and Absalom). Davide Verotta‘s sketch “Verso l’Immagine Feroce” (Toward the ferocious image), follows the ascent toward an incomprehensible force. Finally, the much anticipated collaboration between Erling Wold and fognozzle will rise above the fog (machine); “In the Stomachs of Fleas” will depict various outbreaks of the bubonic plague before and after the great San Francisco Earthquake in sonic and visual form.

Don’t miss the dramatic and innovative season show (s)topper!

CALENDAR EDITORS PLEASE NOTE:

WHO: San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra
WHAT: New Music premieres for orchestra by Bay Area composers
WHERE: Old First Church 1751 Sacramento Street/Van Ness, San Francisco, CA 94109
WHEN: 8pm Saturday June 13th, 2009
TICKETS: $15 General, $12 Seniors (65 and older), $12 Full Time Students

SAN FRANCISCO COMPOSERS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
and Old First Concerts Present:

“FREE FOR ALL, (but for you $15)”

Saturday February 28th, 2009 at 8 pm
Old First Presbyterian Church
1751 Sacramento Street/Van Ness, San Francisco, CA 94109
$15 General, $12 Seniors (65 and older), $12 Full Time Students

Tickets are available through the Old First Concerts Box Office at (415) 474-1608, online at http://oldfirstconcerts.org and at the door. For more information, please call Old First Concerts box office.

SAN FRANCISCO, February 2, 2009 – If you are looking for an invigorating new musical experience ranging from new through-composed gems to electronic music and free improv with graphical scores; have we got a deal for you! SFCCO, the only orchestral ensemble comprised of compsers, has the largest selection of new and pre-owned new-music premieres.

There is great value! in new music by: John Beeman, Michael Cooke, Philip Freihofner, Gary Friedman, David Graves, Loren Jones, Lisa Scola Prosek, David Sprung, Clare Twohy, Davide Verotta, Erling Wold, and Mark Alburger.

      Michael Cooke considers quantum mechanics and general relativity in “String Theory” utilizing graphical notation and free improvisation for the entire ensemble. Philip Freihofner‘s “What Are You Going to Dream Tonight” presents technology-driven free writing for oboe, clarinet, electric keyboard, and viola. From the dreamy to the hallucinogenic with Davide Verotta’s “Yanitl”. David Graves and Clare Twohy team up for a fire sale in the collaborative “Fireproof Winds” Lisa Scola Prosek’s “Serenade for Trumpet” is based on a melody by her son Eduard Prosek (who is also the soloist) and the drive-in movie side of film noir. Loren Jones’ “February’s Children” expands the ensemble with electric guitar and bass, harp, synthesizer, and percussion. David Sprung’s “Serendipities” is an ambitious piece for large ensemble. Special deals for you thrill seakers with Erling Wold‘s bawdy “Two Orchestral Waltzes for Lynne” and Mark Alburger‘s deliciously inappropriate “Sex and the Orchestra”. If more traditional means are your thing, consider “Wind Sextet” by Gary Friedman and “Adago and Dance” by John Beeman.

It’s a beautiful program folks and a real Free-for-all (but for you, $15)!

CALENDAR EDITORS PLEASE NOTE:

WHO: San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra
WHAT: New Music premieres for orchestra by Bay Area composers
WHERE: Old First Church 1751 Sacramento Street/Van Ness, San Francisco, CA 9410
WHEN: 8pm Saturday February 28, 2009
TICKETS: $15 General, $12 Seniors (65 and older), $12 Full Time Students
UPCOMING SFCCO CONCERTS: Saturday June 13, 2009 at Old First Church

SAN FRANCISCO COMPOSERS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
and Old First Concerts Present:

“VARIATIONS ON THE GHOST OF SOUSA DANCING”

Saturday June 7, 2008 at 8 pm
Old First Presbyterian Church
1751 Sacramento Street/Van Ness, San Francisco, CA 94109
$15 General, $12 Seniors (65 and older), $12 Full Time Students

Tickets are available through the Old First Concerts Box Office at (415) 474-1608, online at http://oldfirstconcerts.org and at the door. For more information, please call Old First Concerts box office.

SAN FRANCISCO, May 8, 2008 – It’s an election year and the 4th of July is fast approaching. What better way to celebrate than with an evening of cheeky variants on the State of our Union?  San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra will present “Variations on the Ghost of Sousa Dancing” on Saturday June 7th at 8pm at Old First Concerts.

The centerpiece will be an eight-composer collaboration, The Sousa Variations, based on John Philip Sousa’s The Stars and Stripes Forever, which will be given a topsy-turvy treatment — literally turned upside-down — in Michael Cooke’s Stripes and Stars.  “I like it better inverted,” notes the composer, and you may, too.  Meanwhile, Loren Jones brings the march to Iraq with the addition of Middle Eastern modes and doumbek drum. Other works featured on this concert will include: Allan Crossman’s Coastal Ghost, exploring northern chills and thrills on a Nova Scotian legend; Gary Friedman’s timely Olympian Concerto for Erhu and Orchestra and the latest installments of Loren Jones audible history of San Francisco Dancing on the Brink of the World.

Program:

Allan Crossman……………….Coastal Ghost

Gary Friedman………………….Olympian Concerto for Erhu and Orchestra

Loren Jones……………………..Dancing on the Brink of the World: Haight-Ashbury and The Castro

*The Sousa Variations *   an eight-movement collaboration consisting of

Mark Alburger…………………Variations on Americana

Michael Cooke…………………Stripes and Stars

David Graves……………………Sousa Variance

Loren Jones……………………..Stars and Stripes for Desert

Erling Wold……………………..On the Death of David Blakely

and variations from Alexis Alrich, and John Beeman

* Funded in part through Meet The Composer’s MetLife Creative Connections program. 

CALENDAR EDITORS PLEASE NOTE:
WHO: San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra
WHAT: New Music premieres for orchestra by Bay Area composers
WHERE: Old First Church 1751 Sacramento Street/Van Ness, San Francisco, CA 94109
WHEN: 8pm Saturday June 7, 2008
TICKETS: $15 General, $12 Seniors (65 and older), $12 Full Time Students

Program:

Mark Alburger…………..The Wind God
                                          Harriet March Page, Mezzo-Soprano

Michael Cooke………….Symphony No. 3 “Shadows of Japanese Children”

Phil Freihofner…………..The Bell Field & Camlilla 
                                        Lisa Scola Prosek, Soprano

Erik Jekabsen……………The Jungle
                                        Erik Jekabsen, Trumpet

Lisa Scola Prosek……..Dream Morphine from the Opera Trap Door 
                                        Maria Mikhenyenko, Soprano & Clifton Romig, Baritone

Jonathan Russell……….Double Bass Clarinet Concerto
                                         Squonk Duo

     ”and the sea the sea in Harriet March Page’s The Wind God set by Mark Alburger crimson sometimes like fire in Michael Cooke’s Symphony No.3 “Shadows of Japanese Children” and the glorious sunsets of two movements entitled “Where has the Shadow’s Father Gone?” and “The Mountain of One Thousand Good Fortunes is Ablaze!” and filigree of two works by Philip Freihofner as a garden of sound design in The Bell Field yes and you shall die-sweetly die- into lustrous eye of Carmilla sung by Lisa Scola Prosek and pink and blue and yellow flashes of house jazz for Erik Jekabsen’s rosegardens in The Jungleand the musical jessamine and geraniums and cactuses of Dream Morphine from Trap Door as Flower of Lisa Scola Prosek with Maria Mikheyenko and Clifton Romig yes when Jonathan Russell put the bass clarinet in his mouth as half of the Squonk Duo for his Double Bass Clarinet Concerto or shall we say yes and how we listened at 8pm, Friday, December 7, and we thought well at Old First Church in San Francisco and then we asked them with our ears to ask again yes with the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra and then we asked them would they say yes to new music and first we put our ears around the music yes and drew it in so we could feel our minds all expanding all perfume yes and our hearts were going like mad and yes we said yes said yes we will Yes” [with apologies to James Joyce].    

SAN FRANCISCO COMPOSERS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
and Old First Concerts Present:

“HOW SUITE IT IS”

Saturday September 15, 2007 at 8 pm
Old First Presbyterian Church
1751 Sacramento Street/Van Ness, San Francisco, CA 94109
$15 General, $12 Seniors (65 and older), $12 Full Time Students

Tickets are available through the Old First Concerts Box Office at (415) 474-1608, online at http://oldfirstconcerts.org and at the door. For more information, please call Old First Concerts box office.

SAN FRANCISCO, August 14, 2007 –On Saturday September 15, 2007, the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra presents “How Suite It Is” — part escapist fantasy and part heavy-duty grappling with the issues of our day — at Old First Church(1725 Sacramento Street) in San Francisco.  As always, SFCCO will be premiering new music by the Bay Areas most talented composers.

September’s concert will feature several suites, including: the diabolical “Mordake”, a new work by Erling Wold and “The Pied Piper of Hamelin ” by Mark Alburger; an apolitical screed derived from Robert Browning’s poem by the same name with George W. Bush filling in for the man who leads others astray.  David Grave will be presenting “Life Is Like That”, a cynical yet respectful look at day to day reality, featuring an ensemble augmented with the surreal sounds of synthersizeric “Filmscape,” “Crystals,” and “Metal Box.”.  Lisa Scola Prosek delivers music from her Iraqi operatic fantasy “Trap Door” and John Beeman searches for freedom as he tries his hand at “Free Form”.  Loren Jones brings three more movements from his 14-movement historical-sociological meditation on all things San Franciscan: Dancing on the Brink of the World (“Earthquake/Fire,” “North Beach,” and “Haight Ashberry”)while violist composer Beeri Moalem and violinist composer Clare Twohy round out this sweet array of sonic sensibilities for our time with new works hot off the presses.  Don’t miss out on another chance to have your pulse on the sweetest trends in new music with the talented and innovative San Francisco Composers Orchestra.

Program:

Erling Wold                         Mordake Suite

Beeri Moalem                      Desires

David Graves                       Life is Like That

Clare Twohy                        tba

Mark Alburger                      The Pied Piper of Hamelin

John Beeman                       Free Form, featuring Michael Cooke, Alto Sax

Loren Jones                          Dancing on the Brink of the World

Lisa Scola Prosek                 Trap Door

CALENDAR EDITORS PLEASE NOTE:

WHO: San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra
WHAT: New Music premieres for orchestra by Bay Area composers
WHERE: Old First Church 1751 Sacramento Street/Van Ness, San Francisco, CA 94109
WHEN: 8pm Saturday September 15, 2007
TICKETS: $15 General, $12 Seniors (65 and older), $12 Full Time Students