It's not dead or even ailing, Part 4

Sometimes I think we haven't developed all that far past the early hominids depicted in the early scenes of '2001: A Space Odyssey.' You remember them — starving to death, rooting for scraggly berries and weeds, competing for food with wild hogs, obviously on the fast track to extinction. Food walks all around them in abundance (those aforesaid, soon-to-be-posthumous wild hogs) but they can't make the connection. One morning a mysterious black monolith appears...choral music by Ligeti starts playing...and bingo. Goodbye hogs, hello Rush Limbaugh. Or something like that.

Outside of grabbing an opportunity to diss Obergruppenführer Limbaugh, I do have a concrete reason for getting all cinema-anthropologist this morning. I hear folks whining about the 'death' of classical music, although they live right here in San Francisco, and if there is any place in the US in which classical music is absolutely flourishing, it's here. I've already discussed classical music's vitality as witnessed by conservatories, concert halls, and the non-expiration of classical recordings. Now let's focus our attention right here at home, on the orchestral scene in San Francisco.

When I was growing up — mostly not in areas renowned for cultural accoutrements — most cities had an orchestra of some sort. Many of them were pretty good, although they had no public distribution due to the lack of recording opportunities. But really, that was about it. When I came here to San Francisco in 1974, the San Francisco Symphony was close to being the only game in town for the City, with other very interesting orchestras around the Bay Area, such as the Oakland Symphony, San Jose Symphony, and the Berkeley Promenade.

But nowadays San Francisco alone supports an amazing number of orchestras. I'm not even thinking about the Bay Area as a whole. This isn't an exhaustive list by any means, but it's a pretty good indicator of orchestral vitality.

San Francisco Symphony — our great, world-class orchestra in its wonderful Davies Symphony Hall. With Michael Tilson Thomas at the helm, renowned guest conductors and soloists, and as accomplished a set of players as you'll find anywhere in the world, this is the orchestral nexus. I freely confess to a certain bias here; I write program notes and give pre-concert lectures for the Symphony, and a lot of my friends and colleagues are orchestra members and staffers. It's my home-town band, after all, so my loyalty to them is similar to a football fan's loyalty to....ahem....uhhhh....those guys who play football in SF......(football's the one with the pointy brown ball, right?) But I digress; let us move onwards.

San Francisco Opera Orchestra and San Francisco Ballet Orchestra — both the Opera and Ballet support their own orchestras. (In the old days, the SF Symphony played for them as well.) If you've heard opera/ballet companies around the country or world, you'll know what I mean when I say that we're seriously blessed. Either group could easily stand on its own as a concert orchestra.

New Century Chamber Orchestra — a conductorless chamber orchestra under the musical directorship of Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg. Adventuresome programming and top-tier performance standards make this one of the City's jewels. I'll be talking more about the NCCO in future releases, especially about some of the intriguing works coming up next season, including two premieres by the wondrously gifted Clarice Assad.

San Francisco Chamber Orchestra — under the leadership of Benjamin Simon, this orchestra offers its concerts free of charge, relying on donations and sponsorship to keep the music flowing. This group offers a fine cross-section of Bay Area musicians, both as soloists and orchestra members. (More than a few of the players have passed through one or more of my classes at the SF Conservatory of Music, in fact.)

San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra — a relatively new ensemble which specializes in performing music by Bay Area composers. Their regular performing venue is Old First Church, and they have a regular season of concerts. Definitely worth checking out to get a feel for new music in the Bay Area.

Symphony Parnassus — this is a community orchestra under the directorship of Stephen Paulson, principal bassoonist of the San Francisco Symphony and a highly accomplished conductor. From its beginnings as a recreational orchestra at UCSF, the Parnassus has developed into quite a fine ensemble that now plays regular seasons in the better San Francisco concert halls. They've got a gig coming up on the 7th and 8th of June, in the SF Conservatory's superb main concert hall. They're doing the Beethoven Ninth, not exactly what you'd call a trivial undertaking.

Undoubtedly I've left out some groups (community orchestras in particular). That's a failure of research, not an opinion. The real point here is the sheer vitality of orchestral music in San Francisco alone, a small city with a population under a million. I haven't even looked at the larger Bay Area yet; that's coming up. Once I've done that, it becomes clear that you could attend different orchestral concerts just about every night of the week during the regular season, doubling up on the weekend. Decay? I don't think so.

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