San Francisco Symphony at Davies Symphony Hall, February 11, 2022

Perry So conducts the San Francisco Symphony with soloist Wu Man
Davies Symphony Hall
201 Van Ness, San Francisco, CA 94102 USA
7:30 PM, Friday, February 11, 2022

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[7:31 PM] {pre-show noodling by the performers onstage}
[7:35 PM] {announcements}
[7:36 PM] {Perry So entrance, then talk}

1. [7:38 PM] Texu Kim (b.1980): Bounce! (2014)
   [7:45 PM] {work ends; pause to reset the stage for the next piece}
   
   Lou Harrison (1917-2003): Concerto for Pipa with String Orchestra (1997)
   program notes or program notes
2. [7:48 PM] Allegro
3. [7:53 PM] Bits and Pieces. Troika
4. [7:56 PM] Bits and Pieces. Three Sharing
5. [7:58 PM] Bits and Pieces. Wind and Plumb
6. [8:01 PM] Bits and Pieces. Neopolitan
7. [8:02 PM] Threnody for Richard Locke
8. [8:07 PM] Estampie
   [8:14 PM] {set ends; all off after a minute or so}

[8:32 PM] {concert tuning}
[8:33 PM] {Perry So entrance, then talk}

1. [8:34 PM] Younghi Pagh-Paan (b. 1945): NIM (1987)
   [8:47 PM] {work ends; pause to reset for the next work}
   
   [8:50 PM] {concert tuning}
   
   Takashi Yoshimatsu (b. 1953): the Age of Birds, Op. 25 (1986)
2. [8:51 PM] Sky
3. [8:58 PM] Trees
4. [9:02 PM] the Sun
   [9:09 PM] {work ends; pause to prep for tonight's final segment}
   
   [9:11 PM] {concert tuning}
   
   Zhou Long (b. 1953): the Rhyme of Taigu (2003)
5. [9:12 PM] Andante »
6. [9:18 PM] Lento and Accelerando »
7. [9:20 PM] Presto
   [9:23 PM] {show ends; applause for a few minutes, then we're done for the night}

• Symphony members vary by program; see the current list.

• Perry So: conductor;
• Wu Man: pipa.

After last night's shooting, I wasn't too sure that it was a safe to commute to tonight's show by BART, but pre-show traffic was typically heavy – hey, it's Friday night, whaddaya expect? – and so operating on the fallacy that “lightning doesn't strike twice…”, Ting and I decided that Rockridge <> Civic Center was the way to go, despite the risk. The train ride over was medium-crowded (hey, it's still Friday night!), with an interesting mix of folks heading home from work and others headed out to party in their Friday night glam outfits. I love that the Bay Area is full of folks who know how to get their freak on and aren't ashamed to express that in their attire!

We arrived safely at Civic Center, exited the station, wended our way through the congregation of ne-er-do-wells along Market between 9th & 10th, and continued on up the street to the Marketplace in the Twitter Building to sit down and share a big poke bowl for dinner. It's nuts how hands-off the police have gotten with street people: just too many to deal with? Nowhere to send them? Or no help to offer those who clearly need it? This on-going tragedy says a lot about the lack of virtue of our current society: that our so-called leaders turn a blind eye to these issues and get away with it, because the collective outcry isn't loud enough to bring change. Except for folks headed this way and that for Friday merriment, the street scene is much quieter as we walk from the Marketplace over to Davies Hall.

At vax check, I was surprised to note that the attendents well asking all patrons to upgrade to N95 masks – and giving out freebies to those wearing anything that didn't pass muster. I suppose that's wise: it seems more than a little crazy to me that the local counties are all dropping indoor masking requirements while the COVID-19 case rate is still 10x higher than it was last summer. Inside Davies it's not nearly as gay as it appeared from the outside a week or two ago, and there are just a few Chinese New Year's decorations left up. Back to the same old hum-drum, in fact!

As we walk to our seats, I'm happy to spot Genevieve Sowa sitting nearby. We say hello and make a quick plan to hang out at set break.

Curiously, all of tonight's works were San Francisco Symphony premieres. New music! Exciting!!

The show opener, Texu Kim's Bounce!, was OK – perfectly fine as tonight's appetizer. To my ear it was at least half-way effective at creating the sound-world expressed by the composer in the program (to evoke the sounds of a busy basketball gym), but not particularly interesting as music. In his pre-performance talk, Perry So made a cryptic comment that the piece evoked Mario Brothers for him: I didn't hear that in the performance, but not having played that video game, I didn't have a sonic reference to attach other then a hazy memory of Mario and Donkey Kong bouncing about an arcade video screen.

Wu Man's appearance as featured soloist for the Harrison concerto was the hook that prompted me to buy tickets to tonight's show, and that part of the night was a first-rate plate to continue our musical dinner. I love hearing her play pipa! And Lou's compositions are so full of joy and wit that I'll attend pretty much any concert that puts one on the program. The Pipa Concerto was interesting to me in that it seemed to offer the least amount of percussion of any of Lou's pieces I could recall: pretty much none, except for the instrument-tapping of the third movement. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed this work. Double plus good! I'd hoped that we might get a solo piece from Wu Man as a sort of mid-show encore, but apparently the crowd response wasn't enough to stimulate it. Maybe next time.

Moving on to the second half of the show, both NIM and Taigu were quite loud – not what I really wanted to hear tonight, but interesting enough for setting a variety of sounds on the table. I'm sure that if I'd been in a more rocking mood, I would have appreciated Taigu better. Maybe next time! The the centerpiece of the second course tonight, Takashi Yoshimatsu's Age of Birds, featured excellent use of bird sounds – similar to Messiaen, but less imitative and more impressionistic. I really enjoyed it tonight, and I'd love to hear it again sometime in the future.

Our friend Genevieve was kind enough to offer us a ride back to the east bay, so we got some extra time for chit-chatting, as well as getting home considerably earlier than if we'd stuck with BART. Thanks Gev!

Emily Wilson posted a promo article and interview with Wu Man for the show at SFCV.

Program Notes

Big thanks to Ting for the photo gallery!

Whoa! This section is incomplete for now, sorry!

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2022 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2022 event list! ☸ On to the next event!