By Paul Hertelendy 
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of June 26-July 3, 2011
                                                                  Vol. 13, No. 112
            No, it’s not a motley crew, and I resent your comment. But the concert was decidedly a mixed bushel of wheat and chaff that might have you overlooking  the quality music rising to the top of the heap.
            Such was the latest overabundant package of nine world-premiere pieces by the nine-year-old San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra presented June 25 at Old First Church. Its very  unorthodoxy was itself appealing---an ensemble in which nearly half the players were either harpists or flutists, with only one violin (Monika Gruber), and no brass at all.
            Of greatest interest was a theatrical aria “Churchill in the Bath” rendered by the veteran tenor John Duykers, a master at opera-theater. This offered a sardonic look at the world leader back in the 1940s, harking back to a historic visit when he marveled at the luxuries proferred by his Soviet hosts. Composer Lisa Prosek created this for  her forthcoming opera, “Night at the Kremlin”---with Duykers as Winston Churchill, of course---which involves an all-night drinking bout for the British prime minister with Joseph Stalin.
            At the most economical extreme of the night came a piano solo by composer-pianist Davide Verotta, “Imaginations,” very much influenced by Ravel with its impulsiveness and incomplete cadences. The 15-minute composition was one of the night’s best and longest, one you’d want to hear again.
            Can you still call a piece a premiere if it played on TV a half-century ago? Such was the “Twilight Zone” episode called “Little Girl Lost” by the filmland legend Bernard Herrmann, born almost exactly 100 years ago. It served as mellow background for a spooky sci-fi episode, redolent with arcane mysteries and unresolved chords. The instrumentation was as unusual as it was ingenious: four harps, four flutes, a vibraphone and a viola d’amore, the latter played by the night’s most prominent instrumentalist, Roland Kato, viola principal  of the L.A. Chamber Orchestra. A rarity in Hollywood for doing his own orchestrations, Herrmann showed himself here to be a wizard in sound textures to fit a desired environment.
            Martha Stoddard, who conducted several of the works with a sure hand and beat, substituted her composer hat for “Orchestral Suite for the Young of All Ages,” a sunny and adept opus variously led by oboes and flutes.
            Allan Crossman fashioned a clever turnabout in “Arriving at Loch Lomond.” He built up a variations piece around the famous Scottish ballad through the variations, holding back the theme till the conclusion, when the audience was invited to stand and sing along to close out the ambitious but uneven concert at the Old First Church. His upside-down musical cake was saturated with adroit inspiration.
             NOTED IN PASSING---The SFCCO's concert format, mixing solo with orchestra and varied ensembles in between, recalls one of the important grass-roots groups throughout America from 1933 through the 1960s: The National Association of American Composers and Conductors, which had been founded by Henry Hadley, no less, who had been the very first conductor-director of the 100-year-old San Francisco Symphony.
            Old First Church, a varied year-round concert series dominated by recitals and chamber works, at 1751 Sacramento, S.F. For info: (415) 474-1608, or go online. 
        ©Paul Hertelendy 2011
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           Paul Hertelendy has been covering the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with relish -- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly) will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local artists as well.
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