Illustration by Gail Machlis

Your almost-monthly e-newsletter from The Maestro!

2009-10 Highlights:

• 37 performances in 14 concert venues in San Francisco, Berkeley, Palo Alto, Vallejo, San Mateo, Oakland, Burlingame, and Fallbrook.
• Three Home Series Concert programs, each performed five times, including our new Community Concert Series venue in Vallejo.
• Three Family Concert programs, each performed three times with side-by-side collaborations with local youth orchestras
• Three Very First Concerts at the Crowden Music Center in Berkeley and at least one at the Whitney Child Development Center in the Bayview/Hunter’s Point neighborhood in San Francisco
• Nine brand new Classical at the Freight programs, featuring our wonderful SFCO musicians in a chamber music setting, performed at the brand new Berkeley Arts District home of the venerable Freight and Salvage coffee house.
• A planned expansion of our MAGIC in school program
• Two world premieres, two Debut Artists, & eight Home Season soloists
• Plus house concerts and other fundraising events

The SFCO is also pleased to introduce our first-ever Composer in Residence, Gabriela Lena Frank. Gabi, who lives in Berkeley, is one of this country’s most exciting young composers and a rising star in the classical music firmament. Gabi has written works for Yo Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, the Brentano String Quartet, Chanticleer, and soon the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra: on our May concert set we will be presenting the world premiere of her new violin concerto, written for our concertmaster Robin Sharp. Scored for four flutes, two percussionists, and ten string players, it promises to be a highlight of our season.

Please read our exclusive, in-depth interview with Gabi below.

Who said it?
There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn’t give a damn what goes on in between. {answer below}

Commissioning Circle
The SFCO Commissioning Circle is an exciting new “donor club” for those of you who’d like to play a role in bringing new works of classical music to SFCO audiences. Gifts to the Commissioning Circle will help the SFCO continue our work of commissioning important local composers and will give you an inside peek at the process of creating a new work! We’re thrilled to be able kick this new program off with a Matching Commission Grant from the San Francisco Foundation’s Fund for Artists. All contributions to the Commissioning Circle will be matched by the Fund up to $4500!

Please join us for a Circle kickoff event! Here’s your perfect chance to meet Gabi in an intimate salon, hear her talk about her music and play works on the piano at one of three house concerts:

Sunday, September 13: Berkeley (1 – 3pm)
Sunday, September 20: Palo Alto (2 – 4pm)
Sunday, October 18: San Francisco (1 – 3pm)

Seating will be limited, and current SFCO Members and Donors will be given priority. For more information about the Commissioning Circle, or to make a reservation for one of the above house concerts featuring Gabi Frank and music director Ben Simon, please email Colleen at colleen@sfchamberorchestra.org.

We’re almost there!
Our recent annual fund campaign has raised over $10,000 towards the $15,000 we need to match a gift by our Board of Directors. Please help us reach our goal; contributions small and large are greatly appreciated. If you’ve enjoyed our performances this year, gotten a giggle from Simon Says, love the idea of “free”, and can afford to put your money where your ears (and heart) are, make a donation now and keep our first-class concerts admission free forever.

Don’t have your Labor Day gifts lined up yet?
We’re all members of the union, Local 6 American Federation of Musicians. Show your solidarity with the labor cause, solve an unusually difficult gift decision, and support your favorite chamber orchestra in one easy step: Click here to get all your union friends a gift they’ll enjoy all season long, a membership in the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra.

Ask the Maestro
Dear Maestro,
We’ve heard all the jokes, but what’s the REAL difference between a violin and a viola?
Confused in Cotati

Dear Confused,
The viola burns longer.

Got questions? Need some musical advice? Guitar hero got you down?
Ask the Maestro at SimonSays@sfchamberorchestra.org

Who said it?
There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn’t give a damn what goes on in between.
Sir Thomas Beecham, famous British conductor and wit

An interview with Gabriela Lena Frank
Simon Says caught up with our composer-in-residence recently near her home in downtown Berkeley. Short with a shock of wiry black hair, eyes that are bright and intelligent, and a completely disarming manner, Gabi speaks passionately about a wide range of subjects, from politics to art to the latest episode of The Wire.

Simon Says: What were your earliest musical experiences? Did you grow up in a musical household?

Gabriela Frank: I started playing piano when I was 2 or 3 years old.  My older brother Marcos had started lessons, and I naturally gravitated to the instrument. The interesting thing is that I was born with a hearing loss, which was not diagnosed until I was five years old.  So, although my first perception of music was largely silent, I could feel the vibration of the piano keys through my fingers. Just as little kids learn languages quickly, I probably acquired my perfect pitch at this time.  We believe that I got my music ability from my Jewish grandmother, Lucy Frank, who could improvise beautifully.  My first songs were those that I picked up from sitting close during my brother’s lessons, changing and improvising around them.

SS: Where were you born?

GF: In Berkeley, CA, and I grew up here. After Berkeley High School I went to Rice University in Houston, and then the University of Michigan for my doctorate.  I flirted briefly with the idea of moving to New York but am very happy that I decided to move back to my hometown.  I’m on the road quite a bit for concerts, so having a home base that is familiar to me is healthy.

SS: What were some of your formative musical experiences?

GF: My mama is from the beautiful country of Peru, and in the 70’s and 80’s, the Bay Area welcomed many folkloric musicians from Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia, Chile… As a little girl, I loved those concerts and would go home and try to make my piano sound like panpipes, charango guitars, and quena flutes. I’ve had three main piano teachers who have all influenced me greatly: Babette Salamon who mentored me from the time I was five until I went to college, Jeanne Fischer at Rice University who introduced me to my first Latin American classical music composer Alberto Ginastera from Argentina, and Logan Skelton at the University of Michigan, who introduced me to the beauties and rigor of Bela Bartok’s study and incorporation of Eastern European folk music. Another very important person was my composition teacher at the University of Michigan, the brilliant William Bolcom.  Bill encouraged me to travel in Latin America, and this is when my composing really took off.

SS: When did you get “serious”, and think about music as a profession?

GF: Although I was privately very much in love with music all through my childhood, I am one of those composers who didn’t know that it was possible to have a career in music.  On a whim, I took a summer composition program taught by Dan Becker, at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, before my senior year in high school. It took me only one day to realize that this was what I wanted to do.  It was a huge leap of faith because I didn’t know any professional musicians, and didn’t know anything about what the life was like.

SS: So how did your composing career get started?

GF: I got an early break writing for the award-winning Chiara Quartet (comprised of peers I went to school with), and then unexpectedly catching the attention of a major publisher/agent at G. Schirmer.  Schirmer then brought my name to such organizations as the Kronos Quartet and the Seattle Symphony, who commissioned early works.  From there, it was a very quick trajectory over just a few years to writing for Chanticleer, the King’s Singers, the Brentano Quartet, Yo Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, the Indianapolis Symphony, guitarist Manuel Barrueco, and being performed by San Francisco Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Atlanta… It’s been a crazy ride, and I’m terribly blessed.

SS: How you see the future of classical music evolving?

GF: I’m biased — I think new music is: Where. It’s. At.  That, and the fact that classical musicians are genuinely trying to make connections to their communities without pandering or dumbing down what they do.  One strong aspect of this is recognizing how diverse we are, ethnically and culturally, and responding with repertoire that reflects that.  Like me, Dios — I’m a crazy mutt of Jewish-American and Peruvian-Chinese heritages who is hearing-impaired.  You can’t get more Berkeley than that!

SS: Any words of wisdom for young composers?

GF: Work hard.  Don’t pray to false gods. Try a lot of things at least once.  Know more than just classical music. Stay up on current events.  Travel.  Volunteer.  Stick with your instrument, or pick up a conducting baton.  And learn to speak well so you can render composers/artists less scary to the general public!

SS: What do you do for fun?

GF: I love to cook and collect cookbooks of all kinds.  I also enjoy making my own face creams, soaps, etc.  I love video/computer games, and spend way too much on history books.  I used to train in Aikido but my new hobby is Taiko drumming!

Simon Says:
Like a cork tossed on a stormy sea, your small but unsinkable San Francisco Chamber Orchestra is riding out this recession with big plans, overflow audiences, appealing programs, great reviews, and a determination to expand our first-class and admission-free performances to more audiences around the Bay Area.

We’re very excited about our upcoming 2009-10 season, and hope to see you often at one of our concerts.

For those of you with an adventurous spirit (and ear), please join our Commissioning Circle to help us bring exciting new music to our ever-expanding audiences… and get a chance to meet Gabriela Frank up close and personal at one of upcoming house concert events.

Musically yours,

Ben Simon