The eighteenth edition of the annual Other Minds (OM) Festival will return to the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco (JCCSF) at the end of this month. This year there will be a heavy emphasis on wooden winds in great diversity as follows:
- One of the best known virtuoso players of the soprano recorder, Michala Petri will be a featured guest artist. She will perform the United States premiere of “Vogelstimmung,” composed in 2011 by Sunleif Rasmussen, who will also be present. In fact Rasmussen will hold the distinction of being the first invited Other Minds composer from the Faroe Islands. In addition, Petri will play “sparrows in supermarkets,” also composed in 2011 by Paula Matthusen for recorder and multichannel electronics.
- The Indian master of the ultra-long low-register bansuri will perform two ragas, along with Swapan Chaudhuri on tabla.
- The recorder will figure in the Scandinavian folk music trio Gáman (along with violin and accordion). In addition to performing several traditional pieces, Gáman will give the United States premiere of another Rasmussen piece, “Accvire,” composed in 2008. They will also give the world premiere of the just-completed “Together or Not” by Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen.
- Finally, Anna Petrini will perform three works for Paetzold contrabass recorder, two of which will be receiving their American premieres and will involve electronic accompaniment. These are the 2008 “Sinew0od” by Mattias Petersson and the 2011 “Split Rudder” by Malin Bång. The other composition, the 1994 “Seascape” by Fausto Romitelli, will require the instrument to be amplified.
The programs will also feature world premieres of “ARA” by the Korean-American performance artist Dohee Lee for the newly-invented Eye Harp, voice, and electronica and “Work Around the World” by Aaron Gervais, scored for percussion quartet (the William Winant Percussion Group), voice (Amy X Neuburg), and live looping electronics. Jazz pianist Craig Taborn will perform his “Avenging Angel Solos;” and Pamela Z will perform two works for voice and electronics, one of which will be her own arrangement of Meredith Monk’s 1986 “Sacred Song” and the other an improvisation with Matthusen. Matthusen will also perform her own “…and, believing in….”
The three concerts of the festival will take place at 8 p.m. on February 28, March 1, and 2. Each will be preceded by a panel discussion at 7 p.m. The venue will be the JCCSF building at 3200 California Street in Laurel Heights. Standard tickets for each concert are $30 for the general public, $25 for OM members, and $20 for students. The public and members may also purchase premium seating at $45 and $40, respectively. A festival pass for standard seating to all three performances is available for $77 for the general public, $64 for members, and $51 for students. Premium seating passes cost $115 for the general public and $102 for members. All purchases may be made through an event page (which also gives day-by-day details of each of the three programs) on the JCCSF Web site or by calling the JCCSF Box Office at 415-292-1233.
In addition OM will host a pre-festival Recorder Fest. This will provide patrons with an opportunity to meet and listen to performances by the three recorder soloists, Petri, Petrini, and Roed (the recorder player in Gáman). Other festival artists, both composers and performers, are also expected to attend. The ticket for this event will include beverages and hors d’oeuvres.
The venue will be a private art studio in the Mission District. Address and directions will be provided upon purchase of tickets. The reception begins at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, February 27; and the recorder performance will begin at 8 p.m. Tickets are only available through an Eventbrite event page. The price is $50 with a $3.75 service fee for each ticket.
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