From the return of Hershey Felder and Renee Fleming to a world premiere at Diablo Ballet, there is a lot to see and do this weekend in the Bay Area. Here’s a partial rundown.
Felder returns to TheatreWorks
Hershey Felder is well-known in the Bay Area and beyond for his terrific shows portraying classic composers, fueled by his phenomenal skills as a pianist and as a riveting storyteller.
He returns to TheatreWorks Silicon Valley this week to present a short run of “Hershey Felder as George Gershwin Alone,” which is timed to mark the 100th anniversary of Gershwin’s beloved “A Rhapsody in Blue,” which premiered Feb. 12, 1924. The work focuses on the life, music and impact of the legendary composer (1898-1937) who helped shaped early 20th-century American music with such songs as “Fascinating Rhythm,” “I Got Rhythm,” “’S Wonderful,” and “They Can’t Take That Away from Me,” as well as the ground-breaking musicals “Porgy and Bess” and “An American In Paris.”
“Gershwin Alone” touches on all those works and includes a complete performance of the composer’s legendary “A Rhapsody In Blue.” Felder is presenting “Gershwin Alone” through Sunday, and will perform a special concert, “A Great-American Songbook Sing-Along” on Monday.
Details: “Gershwin Alone,” 8 p.m. today and Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, and 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday; “Great American Songbook Sing-Along” is 7:30 p.m. Monday; all performances at Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts; $37-$77; theatreworks.org.
— Randy McMullen, Staff
Classical picks: Renee Fleming, Pepe Romero
This week’s classical music calendar features soprano Renée Fleming in concert; the return of Chamber Music San Francisco with a full schedule; and classical guitar legend Pepe Romero.
Fabulous Fleming: With her gorgeous vocal sound and command of works from song repertoire to opera, Renée Fleming always dazzles. Accompanied by pianist Howard Watkins, the great soprano comes to Cal Performances on Friday to sing a wide range of works by composers including Faure, Handel, Liszt, Hazel Dickens, Björk, Burt Bacharach, Caroline Shaw, Nico Muhly, and others. She performs with a new video created in collaboration with the National Geographic Society, exploring humanity’s relationship with nature.
Details: 8 p.m. Friday; Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley; $81-$184; calperformances.org.
Piano magic: Chamber Music San Francisco launches its 2024 season with pianist Zlata Chochieva; the Moscow-born, Berlin-based artist brings a program of works by Chopin, Rachmaninoff, and Scriabin. As always, the series offers three performances by each artist, at the Lesher Center in Walnut Creek, Oshman Family JCC, and Herbst Theatre in San Francisco. Additional events scheduled for later in the series include cellist Steven Isserlis, the Esme Quartet, and Boccherini String Trio. Single tickets and season passes are available.
Details: Zlata Chochieva performs 2:30 p.m. Saturday in Walnut Creek, 3 p.m. Sunday in San Francisco, 7:30 p.m. Monday in Palo Alto; single tickets $21-$75; chambermusicsf.org.
Guitar Hero: Fans of classical guitar will want to be at Saturday’s concert by legendary artist Pepe Romero. Presented by the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts, the great Spanish guitarist will play works by Isaac Albéniz, Heitor Villa-Lobos, and others.
Details: 7:30 Saturday; Herbst Theatre, San Francisco; $55-$75; omniconcerts.com.
— Georgia Rowe, Correspondent
The devil of a dance company
Walnut Creek’s Diablo Ballet this year is celebrating its 30th season, a remarkable achievement for any relatively small dance company competing in an arts-rich market (and we won’t even get into dealing with an extended period of pandemic closures). And for its new performance this weekend, Diablo Ballet is presenting the kind of program for which it is revered – a mix of something old and something new. Plus a dash of “Confetti.” The something new is a world premiere commissioned work by award-winning choreographer Penny Saunders, who’s created works for companies including Hubbard Street, Cincinnati Ballet, Oklahoma City Ballet, Sacramento Ballet, and the Royal New Zealand Ballet. She’s also worked previously with Diablo Ballet, a company that she says she holds in high regard because it “has a different feel than the bigger ballet companies, everyone has to pull their weight, has to be able to do everything.” Dr. Magic,” which debuts this weekend, is her first commissioned work for the company. It’s a dance homage to a longtime fan and benefactor of Diablo Ballet who was known for her yin-yang career – as a dentist and as a performer known for her magic and clowning acts. Also on the program is the third segment of the classic ballet “Sleeping Beauty,” as well as a revival of Gerald Arpino’s “Confetti.”
Details: Performance are 7:30 p.m. Feb. 9 and 2 and 7:30 p.m. Feb. 10; Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek; $37-$48; diabloballet.org.
— Bay City News Foundation
Mehldau readies ‘Reveries’
Brad Mehldau has given listeners so much great music over the years, ranging from the amazing jazz recordings he’s crafted with his acclaimed trio to collaborations with the likes of Pat Metheny, Joshua Redman and Renée Fleming to an assortment of solo piano works.
On Saturday, music lovers will get to hear something new from the acclaimed pianist-composer as Mehldau delivers the Bay Area premiere of “Fourteen Reveries” at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall.
This new solo work was co-commissioned by Cal Performances, the same organization that is presenting the show, and reportedly finds the artist reflecting “on the interior experience we create from our own consciousness, independently of those around us.”
“Written from a similar impulse as his ‘Suite: April 2020,’ ‘Fourteen Reveries’ is a meditation on the space a composer leaves between specific directions in the score that lets the beauty of the music reveal itself as it allows for new discovery,” according to the information on the Cal Performances website.
Mehldau will also be performing material from “Suite: April 2020,” a 15-track album that the pianist recorded in Amsterdam early on during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Details: 8 p.m.; tickets start at $42; calperformances.org.
— Jim Harrington, Staff
All out of love? These chaps will help
If you’re looking for a tuneful way to celebrate Valentine’s Day, our top suggestion is to spend the evening with the act that Time magazine reportedly once called “the most romantic band in the world.”
Yes, of course, we’re talking about Air Supply, the ’80s hitmakers who are set to perform on Wednesday at the San Jose Civic.
The tremendous Australian pop-rock duo, consisting of vocalist Russell Hitchcock and vocalist-guitarist Graham Russell, is sure to to deliver just the right soundtrack for the occasion as it draws from a songbook that includes such romantic fan favorites as “Lost in Love,” “All Out of Love,” “The One That You Love” and, best of all, “Making Love Out of Nothing at All.”
Yes, that’s a lot of love. But what else do you want on Valentine’s Day? And, really, the chance to hear the incredible Jim Steinman-penned “Making Love Out of Nothing at All” is reason enough to attend this show.
And you won’t be alone, given that Air Supply boasts such incredibly devoted fans — lovingly dubbed “Airheads” — who will turn out in droves to see their favorite band in San Jose.
Details: 8 p.m. Wednesday; tickets start at $52 (subject to change); ticketmaster.com.
— Jim Harrington, Staff
Kicking it on Lovers’ Lane
With Valentine’s Day arriving mid-week this year (it’s next Wednesday, but you knew that, right?) it’s a good idea to take advantage of the pre-V-Day weekend to get yourself in the proper celebratory mood. And a good opportunity to do just that arrives Saturday with Lovers Lane SF, a Mission District celebration full of music and poetry, dancing, food and art that makes a lovely day-date for a couple or just a fun time for those who are not currently romantically attached. The event runs 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday along Balmy Alley (off Balmy Street and 25th Street, between Harrison and Treat streets), and features all kinds of amusements, from live music and poetry readings, dancing, scads of local artists and muralists (including several who will be creating works live), arts and craft vendors (and we can only imagine they will have plenty of romantic trinkets on sale) and lots of yummy food for sale. Among the musical and poetry performers are Wray Velez, The Soulestics, Aleja Ajela, Miss Nanaa, Louie El Ser, Alien Mac Kitty, and such DJs as The Frisco Gang Vinyl Collective, Thee Homegirls of Soul, DJ West Carolina, Brown Amy, Isaias Martinez and more.
Details: 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Feb. 10; Balmy Alley (off Balmy Street and 25th Street, between Harrison and Treat streets, San Francisco; fee but tickets are recommended; www.eventbrite.com/e/lovers-lane-sf-tickets-801970414097.
— Bay City News Foundation
A Cuban hotshot visits SF
The always terrific Festival Napa Valley returns this year from July 6-20 with its usually packed lineup of concerts, fine-dining and other events. But the organization stages events throughout the year, including this weekend, when its Winter Season brings Cuban-born pianist Harold Lopez-Nussa to the St. Regis San Francisco on Friday, as part of the Olivia Decker Power of Music series. And Lopez-Nussa will have some new music to share. The jazz pianist and composer is celebrating his new album “Timba a la Americana,” his first release since signing with the revered Blue Note label. The 10-song collection (all originals) was produced by his longtime pal, Snarky Puppy bandleader Michael League, and reportedly features a new sound that reflected his desire, as festival organizers put it, “to escape the conventional thinking about song form and structure that has defined Latin jazz since the 1950s.” His website describes the resulting album as “teeming with joy and pathos that was inspired by the pianist’s recent decision to leave his Cuban homeland and begin a new life in France.” The pianist will be joined with a topnotch band including Grammy-winning harmonica player Grégoire Maret, Latin jazz bass great Luques Curtis, and his brother, drummer Ruy Adrian López-Nussa.
Details: Wine-and-light-snacks reception at 5:30 p.m.; concert at 6:15 p.m.; 125 3rd St., San Francisco; $85; festivalnapavalley.org.
— Bay City News Foundation
Looney Tunes goes highbrow
“Eh (munch, munch), what’s up, Doc?” Get that question answered, to hilarious effect, in Davies Hall Saturday afternoon as conductor George Daugherty marshals the forces of the San Francisco Symphony to give live accompaniment to the antics of Bugs Bunny and his various cartoon cohorts: Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Wile E. Coyote, et. al. “Bugs Bunny at the Symphony,” co-created by Daugherty and tour conductor David Ka Lik Wong, opens with the overture to Rossini’s “Barber of Seville” and dives right into the “The Warner Bros. Fanfare” and the “Merrie Melodies Theme” before launching more than a dozen cartoons and cartoon excerpts projected onto a giant onscreen stage. So you’ll witness such endearing classics as “Baton Bunny,” “Long-Haired Hare,” “One Froggy Evening,” “Fur of Flying,” “Coyote Falls” and “Duck Amuck” while listening, in many instances, to music from original longhairs such as Rossini, Wagner, Johann Strauss, Smetana and Donizetti. And yes, you will get to hear Elmer Fudd sing “Kill the Wabbit!” to the tune of the “Ride of the Valkyries,” as the Chuck Jones-animated 1957 smash hit cartoon “What’s Opera, Doc?” is one of the selections.
Details: 3 p.m.; $87.50-$250; sfsymphony.org or 415-864-6000.
