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presents PIVOT January 23 27, 2018 A.C.T. s Strand Theater Launched in 2016, PIVOT is a new San Francisco Performances series created for adventurous audiences interested in truly unique arts experiences. Driven by a philosophy of innovation, creativity and artistic excellence that pushes the boundaries of the traditional concert experience, PIVOT offers exciting performances and creative exchanges between artists and audiences in welcoming, informal and intimate settings. This season, in an intensive four day exploration, PIVOT celebrates creator-performers on the American artistic edge. The journey begins with L.A. Dance Project, which burst on the dance scene in 2012 and has been turning heads with its fresh, contemporary vision of dance and stylistically diverse repertory. Then Bay Area pianist and contemporary music specialist Sarah Cahill will lead a celebration of visionary California composer Lou Harrison s 100th birthday, partnering with the Alexander String Quartet and William Winant Percussion Group. Palo Alto-native, composer/pianist Timo Andres brings a program inspired by visual patterns, with works by fellow new-generation American composers Caroline Shaw, Christopher Cerrone, and Eric Shanfield. Finally, visionary Bay Area choreographer and director Joe Goode and dancers will provide a glimpse of a new work in progress, based on the idea of storytelling through song. PIVOT: New Adventures in Performing Arts is supported by The Wallace Foundation 2 PIVOT sfperformances.org
Since 1979, SAN FRANCISCO PERFORMANCES has been a pioneer in the Bay Area by introducing hundreds of classical music, jazz, and contemporary dance artists to audiences. With a strong artistic vision and adventurous programming, San Francisco Performances presents the world s finest in music and dance, connecting audiences with artists in intimate settings. ART/PHOTO CREDITS: COVER: PIVOT Illustration: R. Black PAGE 6: L.A. Dance Project: Squarespace PAGE 9: Lou Harrison: David Harsany PAGE 12: Timo Andres: Jonathan Walter PAGE 15: Joe Goode Performance Group: RJ Muna sfperformances.org PIVOT 3
TIMO ANDRES Piano Friday, January 26, 2018 8:30pm Naše večery (Our Evenings) Lístek odvanutý (A blown-away leaf) CAROLINE SHAW Gustave le Gray ERIC SHANFIELD CHRISTOPHER CERRONE Pojďte s námi! (Come with us!) Frýdecká panna Maria (The Madonna of Frydek) Utopia Parkway Štěbetaly jak laštovičky (They chattered like swallows) Nelze domluvit! (Words fail!) The Arching Path Dobrou noc! (Good night!) Sýček neodletěl! (The barn owl has not flown away!) This performance is supported in part by a grant from The Ross McKee Foundation Please join us after the performance for a brief Q&A with the artist 4 PIVOT sfperformances.org
ARTIST STATEMENT: TIMO ANDRES There s a good reason for all the evocative titles [in this program], which is that all the works are based on visual images, either real or imagined. What I liked was that all the pieces have to do with different mediums, or chains of mediums, like a game of inspirational telephone. Caroline s piece Gustave le Gray is named after a pioneer in photography, and is half an analogue to his images, and half an imagined portrait of the photographer himself. Chris was inspired by an artist friend s rendering of a beautiful brutalist bridge in southern Italy the two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional form, translated into a musical form. Eric s Utopia Parkway is an homage to the sculptor Joseph Cornell musical objects move against each other in shifting positions, like the objects in one of Cornell s shadow boxes. And it s not known exactly what inspired the titles of Janáček s On an Overgrown Path, though I believe they were given only just before being published it seems likely they were images or phrases out of his own head. But they are amazingly evocative in a way that is pictorial but nonetheless abstract. I suppose what I m trying to say, if one can speak through one s programming, is that the way an artist sees art and the world is not usually confined to a single form or discipline. The qualities that move me in mu- sfperformances.org PIVOT 5
sic are the same ones that move me in a building, a photograph, or a piece of choreography. They re all related in cryptic ways. ABOUT THE ARTIST Composer/pianist Timo Andres (b. 1985, Palo Alto, CA) grew up in rural Connecticut and lives in Brooklyn, NY. A Nonesuch Records artist, he has received wide acclaim for an album of orchestral works, Home Stretch, and for his debut album, Shy and Mighty. Notable works include Everything Happens So Much, for the Boston Symphony and led by Music Director Andris Nelsons; Strong Language, for the Takács Quartet, commissioned by Carnegie Hall and the Shriver Hall Concert Series; Steady Hand, a two-piano concerto commissioned by the Britten Sinfonia and premiered at the; and The Blind Banister, a piano concerto for Jonathan Biss. Co-commissioned by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra with Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, and the Orchestra of St. Luke s, The Blind Banister was a 2016 Pulitzer Prize Finalist. As a soloist, recent performances include the world premiere of a piano concerto by Ingram Marshall with John Adams and the LA Phil, and an appearance at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, where he received the City of Toronto Glenn Gould Protégé Prize; Philip Glass selected Andres as the recipient of this award. This season Andres writes new works for the Music Academy of the West; for Inbal Segev and Metropolis Ensemble at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and for Ravinia s Steans Institute of Music. He performs with the New World Symphony and the Orchester Cottbus Staatstheater, among other dates. Timo Andres studied composition and performance at the Yale School of Music. He is one sixth of the Sleeping Giant composers collective. For more information about Timo visit: andres.com. 6 PIVOT sfperformances.org
Photo: Johansen Krause MUSIC WITH CHANGING PARTS SAN FRANCISCO PERFORMANCES presents Philip Glass and the Philip Glass Ensemble San Francisco Girls Chorus Students from the SF Conservatory of Music Tue Feb 20 7:30pm Davies Symphony Hall sfperformances.org PIVOT 7 415.392.2545 SFPERFORMANCES.ORG