Signs of Spring

It’s March 1st, and last weekend’s sunshine seems to have further encouraged spring to bloom around us.  I could have made a gorgeous bouquet from all the blossoms popping out along the BART path I walk in the morning.  The daffodils along my driveway in El Cerrito have been out for a couple of weeks, and those in Lake County began to show last weekend, though no fruit trees have started there yet. 

This annual cycle of renewal and growth always fills me with delight.  There’s a joyous surge that seems to come from all the grass and bloom, and it feels musical to me.  The first bursts of spring often make me think of the Song to the Moon from Dvorak’s opera, Rusalka (although the actual plot of the opera is hardly uplifting).  My association of this music with spring came from the film Driving Miss Daisy, where the opening strains are heard as the camera pans glorious trees in full blossom.  I had another dose of this same spring music on Friday night, at the Cypress String Quartet’s concert at the Herbst Theatre, where the Quartet performed the premiere of a work by Elena Ruehr, called Bel Canto (based on Ann Patchett’s novel by the same name).  Throughout the work, Ruehr quotes extensively and beautifully from the Song to the Moon, and its melody stayed with me over the sunny weekend.

It’s always wonderful to hear music written in our time, but especially when it makes a deep and personal connection.  SFGC is proud to have a long connection with composer, vocalist and alumna Lisa Bielawa, who will visit the Chorus at the end of rehearsal this Tuesday, to talk to the girls and some alums about her life and work.  She’s in town this week for a performance of her work, Kafka Songs, on the Other Minds Festival on Thursday, March 4.  Lisa was the 2009 Frederic A. Juilliard/Walter Damrosch Rome Prize winner, and as such is spending a year in residence at the American Academy in Rome.  I remember her from performances with the Philip Glass Ensemble (of which she is a member) at Davies Symphony Hall a few years ago, where the ensemble performed live music to accompany the groundbreaking films of Godfrey Reggio – Koyanasquaatsi, Powaquaatsi, and Naqoyqaatsi. These were extraordinary, unforgettable performances, completely merging the musical and the visual into a single whole.

SFGC also has a long and distinguished tradition of commissioning new works for treble voices, and this spring will be no exception.  In the next month or so we expect delivery of a score from composer Chen Yi, written for us and the Cypress String Quartet, to be premiered at our concerts at the SF Conservatory this June. But this time, the performance will also include a commissioned video installation to accompany the music, from local film maker Felicia Lowe. This is a first for SFGC, and another way for the combination of music and image to create an indelible memory. Stay tuned for more information as this exciting project unfolds and blossoms!