Introducing Left Coast's New Managing Director

Nick Benavides. photo by Valentina Sadiul

Nick Benavides. photo by Valentina Sadiul

The Left Coast Chamber Ensemble (LCCE) is pleased to announce the hiring of Nick Benavides as the company’s managing director. Mr. Benavides will be responsible for directing all aspects of the operations and administration of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, including support for development, grant research and writing, concert and special event management, along with providing oversight for marketing and communications.

"Nick is an eclectic musician whose experience includes composing classical music, touring with a funk band, teaching composition to kids, playing ranchera music with his grandfather in New Mexico, serving as a recording engineer, editing music videos, and more; and on top of all that, he is a gifted and personable administrator, " says Anna Presler, LCCE artistic director.  "With his wide musical experience and knowledge, efficiency, imagination, and commitment to our mission, he is a perfect fit for Left Coast."

As one of the original founders and the artistic director of the Guerrilla Composers Guild (GCG), Mr. Benavides brings experience in promoting new composers and their works by presenting unique performances and listening parties. Through GCG, he has overseen dozens of new music premieres and been called a “new music impresario of San Francisco” (Cy Musiker, KQED Arts). Mr. Benavides is also an accomplished composer, performer, and conductor, and is currently the composer in residence with Elevate Ensemble. Next year, he will hold residencies in Visby, Sweden, and Marfa, Texas.

Benavides has studied composition with David Conte, Jack Perla, Pamela Quist, and Kurt Rohde and has received degrees in music at Santa Clara University (BA) and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (MM). He is on faculty at the Academy of Art University, and is also a teaching artist with the San Francisco Opera. His music has been described as “wonderfully structured and harmonically imaginative…” (Brian Rosen, Music vs Theater) and “… sadly reflective… not a note was wasted” (Jeff Dunn, San Francisco Classical Voice). His music has been featured all over North America and Europe at festivals as well as on the radio. Commercially, he scored and recorded the music for The Trouble with Bread, and wrote the music for Zoo Runner, an iOS game. As a freelance engineer he has recorded prominent classical artists in the Bay Area and his work with the choir Cappella SF has been featured on Classical KDFC.

2015-16 Left Coast Chamber Ensemble Season Announced

photo credit: Jeanette Yu

photo credit: Jeanette Yu

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1 WITH YOU IN MIND

MILL VALLEY 142 Throckmorton Theatre • Sunday, October 25, 2015 7PM
SAN FRANCISCO SF Conservatory of Music • Monday, October 26, 2015 8PM 

Eric Zivian • The Swan Takes Flight for Bass Clarinet and Piano written for Jerome Simas
Johannes Brahms • Clarinet Trio in A minor, Op. 114 written for Richard Mühlfeld
Francis Poulenc • Flute Sonata written for Jean Pierre Rampal and dedicated to Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge  
John MacCallum • NEW WORK for Flute and Cello written for Stacey Pelinka and Leighton Fong
Kaija Saariaho • Miroirs for Flute and Cello written for Camilla Hoitenga and for Anssi Karttunen
Kaija Saariaho • Sept Papillons for Cello written for Anssi Karttunen 

Sometimes a composer is inspired by the compelling voice of a particular performer. Brahms had stopped composing but was enticed out of retirement when he heard the playing of a remarkable clarinetist; Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, who will be in town for our October 26 concert, has written many works for cellist Anssi Karttunen. Other composer/performer pairs include Eric Zivian/Jerome Simas, Francis Poulenc/Jean Pierre Rampal, John MacCallum/Stacey Pelinka. With You in Mind takes us to the intersection of composer and muse.

2 BROKEN CONSORTS

MILL VALLEY 142 Throckmorton Theatre • Sunday, December 6, 2015 7PM  
SAN FRANCISCO Dennis Gallagher Arts Pavilion • Monday, December 7, 2015 8PM  

Iannis Xenakis • Dmaathen for Oboe and Percussion
Gioachino Rossini • Duetto in D Major for Cello and Double Bass
Richard Chowenhill • NEW WORK for English Horn and Double Bass
Richard Chowenhill • Arrangements of Ancient Songs for Baritone, Oboe, Cello, and Guitar
George Crumb • The Ghosts of Alhambra for Baritone, Guitar and Percussion 

In early English baroque music Broken Consorts were ensembles that combined contrasting instruments and voices; in a modern take on this idea, this Left Coast program presents unlikely combinations of instruments that let each voice be heard distinctly. We welcome guests Daniel Cilli and Loren Mach––who also performed in our recent opera production––for these concerts. Music includes Dmaathen by the revolutionary Iannis Xenakis (for oboe and percussion), George Crumb’sGhosts of Alhambra (for baritone, guitar and percussion), Rossini’s duo (for cello and double bass, unobscured by higher instruments) as well as Robert Chowenhill’s new arrangements of ancient music, and a companion work by the same composer.

3 OBOE BLISS

MILL VALLEY 142 Throckmorton Theatre • Sunday, January 31, 2016 7PM  
SAN FRANCISCO SF Conservatory of Music • Monday, February 1, 2016 8PM  

Kurt Rohde/Manuel De Falla • Suite Populaire Espagnole for Flute, Oboe, and String Quartet  
Elinor Armer • NEW WORK for Flute, Oboe, and String Quartet
Anthony Porter • Five, Six, Heaven for String Trio
Arthur Bliss • Quintet for Oboe and String Quartet, Op.44, F.21 

Left Coast’s own Tom Nugent is featured in a program that includes an Arthur Bliss quintet.  Nugent describes this idiosyncratic piece, “the quintet is lush, with French impressionistic and English pastoral sonorities that combine as a counter point to 20th century outburst.  It would seem that Bliss in this 1927 work is entering the 20th century kicking and screaming but always coming back to his tonal and stylistic roots.”  Kurt Rohde is making a new arrangement of Manuel De Falla’s 1926 Suite Populaire Espagnole especially for this program. We revisit Anthony Porter’s Five, Six, Heaven, a work commissioned by the LCCE Intersection Workshop.

4 MENDELSSOHN AND NEW VOICES

MILL VALLEY 142 Throckmorton Theatre • Sunday, March 20, 2016 7PM  
SAN FRANCISCO SF Conservatory of Music • Tuesday, March 22, 2016 8PM  
BERKELEY Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, 17 Gauss Way  • Thursday, March 24, 2016 5:15pm

Sean Varah • NEW WORK for Piano Trio
Craig Walsh • Neshanic Wanes
Jeremy Podgursky • Nonsense and Sorcery ?%#*!
Felix Mendelssohn • Piano Trio in D Minor, Op. 49 

Reviewing Mendelssohn’s D Minor Piano Trio, the composer Robert Schumann praised his colleague to the skies: “He is the Mozart of the 19th century, the most brilliant of musicians, the one who most clearly perceives the contradictions of the age, and the first to reconcile them.” Hearing this piece, a work both energetic and lyrical, it is easy to understand why it delighted Schumann and has continued to enchant audiences in ensuing decades.  Contemporary works by Craig Walsh, Jeremy Podgursky and Sean Varah provide brilliant 21st century perspectives on the piano trio.

5 NIKKI EINFELD + LEFT COAST

MILL VALLEY at Millicent Tompkins art studio • Sunday, June 5, 2016 7PM  
SAN FRANCISCO SF Conservatory of Music • Monday, June 6, 2016 8PM  

Richard Strauss • Ophelia Songs
Charles Ives • The Housatonic at Stockbridge
Paul Hindemith • Sonata for Clarinet and Piano
Francis Poulenc • La dame de Monte-Carlo
Franz Schubert • Shepherd on the Rock
Franz Schubert • Lieder 

Aptly described in The New York Times as “…dazzling…” and praised for her“…melting beauty and purity of tone…" soprano Nikki Einfeld will also be remembered by area audiences for her leading role in Left Coast’s recent production of Death with Interruptions and her appearances with West Edge Opera and the San Francisco Symphony and Opera. For Left Coast’s season finale Einfeld is joined by Jerome Simas and Eric Zivian in Schubert’s Shepherd on the Rock and works by Strauss, Poulenc, and Ives. If you haven’t heard this flawless and expressive singer, come find out why critics and audiences both rave about her. Completing the program is Hindemith’s Clarinet Sonata. 

All programs are subject to change

Events for Death with Interruptions: On Making Opera & Saramago

Image: Kirk Richard Smith, Naissance Inc.

Image: Kirk Richard Smith, Naissance Inc.

FREE events! Coming soon -- several great opportunities to learn about what goes into making an opera, and to discover the challenges of translating Saramago.  

March 8: Kurt Rohde on the radio with Sarah Cahill
Kurt Rohde will be talking about Death with Interruptions on Sarah Cahill's show Revolutions Per Minute on Sunday March 8 at 9pm on KALW (91.7 FM). A great chance to hear Kurt's thoughts on composing the music for his first opera and working with the talents of Thomas Laqueur (librettist), Majel Connery (director), Nikki Einfeld (soprano) and the whole ensemble. You can also listen live at http://kalw.org/listen-live.

March 16: Free performance at UC Berkeley
Free performance of excerpts from Death with Interruptions only: 12:15pm, Monday, March 16, 2015 at Hertz Hall, UC Berkeley campus

In conjunction with the opera's premiere, UC Berkeley's Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities will host two discussions with noted scholars and artists. These talks are free of charge and all are welcome to attend.  For detailed updates check the Townsend Center websites.

March 18: The Art and Craft of Translation
Wednesday, March 18, 5-7pm
UC Berkeley Campus: 308A Doe Library

The longtime translator of José Saramago's work, Margaret Jull Costa, joins in a discussion with other noted translators: Paula Varsano (Chinese), Dennis Washburn (Japanese), and Robert Alter (Hebrew).

March 19: Making an Opera
Thursday, March 19, 12-2 pm
UC Berkeley Campus: 3335 Dwinelle Hall

Mary Ann Smart (UC Berkeley, Music) leads a discussion about the new opera, Death With Interruptions, with librettist Thomas Laqueur, composer Kurt Rohde, director Majel Connery and Shalom Goldman (co-librettist of the Philip Glass opera Akhnaten).

Find out more about the new opera Death with Interruptions and info on buying tickets: http://www.leftcoastensemble.org/death/

Left Coast Chamber Ensemble 2014-15 Season Announced

We've lined up a provocative season of tantalizing music for you starting in September 2014.
Please join us!

1 FILMS AND INTERLUDES

SAN FRANCISCO SF Conservatory of Music • Monday, September 29, 2014 8PM
MILL VALLEY 142 Throckmorton Theatre • Thursday, October 2, 2014 8PM  

FILM: A Trip Down Market Street • scored by Gabriel Bolaños Chamorro
VIDEO: Klatka Still • scored by David Sanford
FILM: Borderline • scored by Sean Varah
FILM: Marcia Scott’s Bolinas • music by John Cage
Claude Debussy • Sonata for Cello and Piano in D Minor, L.135  
Henri Dutilleux • D’ombre et de silence  (In Shadow and Silence)
Felix Leuschner • Krieg ohne Schlacht for Tenor and Cello (2008) 2014 LCCE COMPETITION WINNER
Philippe Bodin • Métal

Left Coast screens silent films, beginning with early 20th century footage of a trip down San Francisco's Market Street, accompanied by a live score by Gabriel Chamorro, and continuing with films scored by Sean Varah. We'll also present the winner of the LCCE 2014 Composition Contest Felix Leuschner's Krieg ohne Schlacht a theatrical duet for cello and tenor. Serving as abstract foils for these dramatic works are French compositions; we feature favorite works chosen by the Left Coast players.

2 SUNG AND STRUMMED

MILL VALLEY 142 Throckmorton Theatre • Sunday, December 7, 2014 7PM
SAN FRANCISCO Dennis Gallagher Arts Pavilion • Monday, December 8, 2014 8PM

Hans Werner Henze · Carillon, Récitatif, Masque: Trio for Mandolin, Guitar, and Harp
Dominick  Argento · Letters from Composers for Voice and Guitar
John Anthony Lennon · Ghostfires for Voice, Flute, Guitar, and Harp
Frank  Martin · Quatre pièces brèves for Guitar
Amadeus Regucera · New Work for Bass Flute and Harp WORLD PREMIERE
Sam Nichols · New Work for Voice, Flute, Guitar, and Harp WORLD PREMIERE
Igor Stravinsky · Four Songs for Voice, Flute, Guitar, and Harp

In a concert curated by Left Coast guitarist Michael Goldberg, the timbral possibilities presented by an unusual collection of plucked instruments mandolin, harp, and guitar are combined with flute and voice. Stravinsky's delightfully off-kilter folk song settings and John Anthony Lennon's setting of text by James Joyce are complemented by a companion commission from the Bay Area composer Sam Nichols. Left Coast is delighted to welcome guest artists Ann Moss, Meredith Clark, and Travis Andrews, and guest composer Amadeus Regucera. 

3 CIRCA 1945

SAN FRANCISCO SF Conservatory of Music • Monday, February 2, 2015 8PM
MILL VALLEY 142 Throckmorton Theatre • Thursday, February 5, 2015 8PM

Bohuslav Martinů · Quartet for Oboe, Violin, Cello, and Piano, H.315
Igor Stravinsky · Elegy for Violin
David Coll · Remix: Take the A-Train WORLD PREMIERE
Olivier Messiaen · Quartet for the End of Time

What did the world sound like in the 1940s? Music of that era straddled the old and new, as Left Coast shows with Martinů's neo-classical oboe quartet and a meditative elegy by Stravinsky. The ensemble revisits Messiaen's ground-breaking Quartet for the End of Time, last featured on our series in 2008, when Jerome Simas' sound was described as "clear, splendidly liquid, agile, mysterious, remote," and Eric Zivian's "bright-toned playing showered fistfuls of glittering notes" and with his "slow, serene pulse... he was, as ever, alert to the music's every gesture." (SF Classical Voice) And David Coll's new remix of the Ellington/Strayhorn classic "Take the A-Train" reflects on the WWII era from a 21st century vantage point.

4 DEATH WITH INTERRUPTIONS

MILL VALLEY 142 Throckmorton Theatre • Thursday, March 19, 2015 8PM
SAN FRANCISCO SF Conservatory of Music • Sunday, March 22, 2015 7PM
Additional free performance of Death with Interruptions only:  12:15pm, Monday March 16, 2015, (Hertz Hall, UC Berkeley Campus) 

Franz Schubert · Andante con moto from String Quartet No.14 in D Minor, D.810, “Death and the Maiden”
Kurt Rohde · Death with Interruptions adapted by Thomas Laqueur from the novel by José Saramago, presented in collaboration with Volti SF · WORLD PREMIERE

Left Coast presents a new dramatic musical work based on Nobel Prize winner José Saramago's novelDeath with Interruptions. With music composed by Kurt Rohde and a libretto by the distinguished UC Berkeley historian Thomas Laqueur, the story recounts what happens when death, who lives in an unnamed Iberian country with her taciturn scythe, falls in love with the principal cellist of a local orchestra and fails to claim his life. Soprano Nikki Einfeld and cellist Leighton Fong are joined by Left Coast Chamber Ensemble and Volti San Francisco the noted chamber choir as well as other collaborators.  The concert opens with a contrasting take on the imagined embodiment of death, Schubert's, from his famous string quartet.

Support provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Distinguished Achievement Award granted to Professor Thomas Laqueur.

5 LEFT COAST GOES TO THE MUSEUM

MILL VALLEY 142 Throckmorton Theatre • Sunday, May 31, 2015 8PM
SAN FRANCISCO SF Conservatory of Music • Monday, June 1, 2015 8PM

Robert Schumann · Impromptus sur une romance de Clara Wieck for Piano, Op. 5
Thea Musgrave · Impromptu No. 2 for Flute, Oboe, and Clarinet
Jon Deak · Lady Chatterley’s Dream for Violin, Viola, Cello, Double Bass, and Piano
NEW WORKS by Jean Ahn · Nick Benavides · Jonathan Holland · Emily Koh · Mei-Fang Lin · Ryan Suleiman

Two exquisitely contrasting artworks, one black and one gold, displayed in Gallery 16 of the de Young Museum, serve as inspiration for the six emerging composers commissioned to write new works for this program. Both sculptures create art out of leftovers: Learning of an arson attack on a church that had a predominantly African American congregation, Cornelia Parker collected the charred remains of the building and constructed Anti-Mass, which seems to float in the gallery, defying gravity. On the opposite wall is El Anatsui's Hovor II; he transformed discarded bottle tops into an enormous opulent wall hanging. Completing this program are impromptus by Thea Musgrave and Robert Schumann, and the uproariousLady Chatterly's Dream, composed by New York  Philharmonic bassist Jon Deak. 

Support for this project was provided by the San Francisco Arts Commission Cultural Equity Grants Program.

PROGRAMS SUBJECT TO CHANGE

 

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