SF's unofficial spring music fest

April 13, 8:16 AMSF Classical Music ExaminerScott Foglesong

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The onset of spring is heralded by all three concert halls at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music hosting a stream of students presenting their degree recitals as the graduation deadline looms. The recital pressure cooker fires up in early April and stays boiling hot through mid-May, serving up a lavish banquet of free concerts in a friendly and comfortable, yet elegant, venue.

Welcome to San Francisco's annual, albeit unofficial, Frühlingsmusikfest.

Just consider the recitals (and ensembles) scheduled from 5:00 PM on Saturday April 18 through 8:00 PM on the following Sunday evening -- i.e., all taking place within a 30-hour period:

• Luke Sodergren, trombone
• Xi Wang, soprano
• Christina Knudson, violin
• Brendan Lai-Tong, trombone
• Tracy Goodwin, flute
• Chris Ramos, tenor
• Asako Okamoto, percussion
• Robert Cowan, baritone
• Anna Washburn, violin
• Joshua Fishbein, composition
• Jimmy Featherstone, tenor
• Andrea Oh, violin
• Stacey Lichter, soprano
• The music theater workshop performing "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown"
• The Conservatory Baroque Ensemble playing concertos by CPE Bach and Antonio Vivaldi

Admission price: nada, zip, zilch, squat.

Perhaps you might be interested to hear the backstory behind Frühlingsmusikfest.

A conservatory student's educational life divides into two broad areas: academic and performance.

The academic end of things encompasses everything students do that involves classes; theory, eartraining, musical literature, music history, and performance practice rub shoulders with history, literature, languages, and even a smattering of the sciences. Contrary to popular belief, a conservatory education is not 100% music; a bachelor's degree requires breadth courses as well as the intensely-focused major.

The performance end of things has to do primarily with the student's major (voice, an instrument, composition, or conducting). Performance encompasses the all-important private weekly lesson with a studio teacher and the yearly performance evaluations, or juries. The final yearly performance evaluation is typically a senior recital. (Graduate students are evaluated primarily through recitals, rather than juries.)

Juries are performances, but they differ from recitals in that they are private, not public. A student plays a program of pieces for a panel (a.k.a. jury) of the department's teachers, and receives written comments as well as a grade. Students must pass all required juries, or they will not graduate.

The senior recital can be thought of as another jury, but with two critically important differences: 1) the public is invited to attend and, 2) the attending faculty will not interrupt with: "Thank you! Now, could we hear the Beethoven, please?"

Senior and graduate recitals also serve as rites of passage, special occasions much like christenings, bar mitzvahs, or weddings. As such, they might very well include family celebrations, receptions, and parties. The three-level SFCM atrium resembles a food court throughout the weekend during Frühlingsmusikfest, and just about every night during the week as well. One might emerge from the Sol Joseph Recital Hall at intermission to discover a lavish reception in full swing for a recital that just let out from the Osher Salon or the Hume Concert Hall. A certain amount of discreet reception-crashing is par for the course.

Left to right: the Hume Concert Hall, Joseph Recital Hall, and Osher Salon

So allow me to present a brief guide for negotiating Frühlingsmusikfest.

Saturdays: show up a bit before 5:00 PM. There will be recitals at 5:00 and 8:00 in all three of the halls, giving you a total of six from which to choose. Although you could research the situation in advance using the SFCM website, it's more fun to court serendipity and choose on the spot; programs are posted at the entrance to the Atrium.

Just pick your recital and go -- there are no tickets or other bothersome formalities. Go to the hall, grab a program, and select a seat. The Hume Concert Hall is at the street-entry level; the Joseph Recital Hall and the Osher Salon both enter from the Café level, one floor down. The Joseph Recital Hall's balcony is accessible from the street-entry level.

Sundays: consider spending the day. The usual starting gate is 2:00 PM with further recitals at 5:00 PM and 8:00 PM, giving you nine in all. At the height of the season, some Sunday recitals may be as early as 11:00 AM.

Evenings during the week: check the website in advance, but you can be sure of at least one recital.

It's perfectly OK to hall-hop, taking in the first part of one recital and the second part of another. However, do not enter or leave during a performance. Consult the video monitor located outside each hall, and enter or leave only during applause, stage-changes, or intermissions. Typically the ushers will protect you from making an egregious error, but ultimately the responsibility rests with you, especially during Musikfest when the ushers have their hands full with backstage duties and can't pay much attention to the house.

Restaurants at all budget levels abound in the neighborhood (it's a few steps from the corner of Market and Van Ness, after all), and the Conservatory -- unlike a certain fancy opera house a few blocks up Van Ness -- is blessed with abundant, uncrowded, and centrally-located restrooms.

The SFCM Atrium

You will find the San Francisco Conservatory at 50 Oak Street, near the corner of Market & Van Ness. The underground Van Ness Metro station lurks but a few steps from the SFCM main entrance, and the Civic Center BART station is within easy walking distance. Parking varies, but availability can be surprising--there's more than you'd think, between street parking and the three commercial lots on the same block of Oak Street as SFCM.

The SFCM website is your best source for helpful, up-to-date info.