Morrison Artists Series announces fall 2010 season of free chamber music concerts

The fall 2010 season’s lineup features the Czech Nonet, Peabody Trio and Alexander String Quartet.

“The season features both Romantic and contemporary masterpieces, from the expanse of a nonet to the intimacy of a violin and cello duo,” said Caltabiano, a composer who serves as associate dean of SF State’s College of Creative Arts and a Music professor. “All of these ensembles take chamber music seriously. They believe in the integration of the great repertoire with new works and play with integrity, imagination and passion.”

The concerts

The historic Czech Nonet kicks off the season at 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 10, in what is its first performance in California in about 35 years, and believed to be its first-ever performance in San Francisco. One of the oldest and most original chamber ensembles in the world, the Czech Nonet was founded in 1924 by students of the Prague Conservatory according to instrumental requirements of Louis Spohr’s Nonet—violin, viola, violoncello, contrabass and the wind quintet. The Czech Nonet was quickly recognized as both an important interpreter of classic repertoire and an ardent champion of new music, inspiring the composition of more than 300 works by some of the greatest composers of the time, including Prokofiev, Lutoslawski and Martinů. At the Morrison Artists Series, the ensemble will perform Martinů: Nonet (written for the ensemble in 1959); Asia: Nonet; Wagner: “Siegfried Idyll”; and Krejci: “Divertimento.”

The Peabody Trio performs at 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 7. Since winning the Naumburg Chamber Music Award in 1989, this trio has established itself as an important presence in the chamber music world as vivid interpreters of the classics of the repertoire, advocates for new music and dedicated teachers and mentors to a generation of young musicians. The Peabody Trio brings to its music-making what the Washington Post calls “the romantic fervor of the 20th century greats.” At the Morrison Artists Series, the trio will play a program of German trios and Russian duos, including Gubaidulina: “Dancer on a Tightrope”; Mendelssohn: Trio in D minor; Schnittke: “Stille Musik”; and Brahms: Trio in C major, Op. 87.

The Alexander String Quartet, SF State’s longstanding quartet-in-residence, performs at 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 3. The program will include Martinů’s Sextet, performed with Angela Choong and Yuan Zhang of the Hausmann Quartet, and other works to be determined. The Alexander performs regularly at major concert halls throughout the world. Collaborators include Manahem Pressler, Richard Stolzman, David Krakauer, Andrew Speight and Branford Marsalis. Recent recordings include a three-CD set of the Mozart quartets, a six-CD set of the complete Shostakovich quartets, and the complete quartets of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and SF State Professor Emeritus Wayne Peterson.

For the third consecutive season, Caltabiano will give a free lecture one hour before each concert.

New artistic director

Caltabiano, an SF State faculty member since 1996, plans to program the Morrison Artists Series with a balance of classical and new music in each concert. As a composer and scholar, Caltabiano believes in new music’s important contributions to society at large. “The music of our time represents what we experience as a culture,” he said. “Composers are among the great thinkers of their times, conveying our emotions in pitch and tone.”

Caltabiano replaces Saul Gropman, who was Morrison Artists Series artistic director since 1989.

According to Jane Galante, emerita trustee of the May Treat Morrison Trust, which helps fund the Morrison Chamber Music Center and its activities at SF State, “Ron Caltabiano will continue the high standards of the Morrison Artists Series and add an extra dimension of innovation based on his perspective as a composer and scholar. His pre-concert talks have already become an immensely popular addition to the wide-ranging selection of musical events offered.”

Caltabiano composes music that achieves “a remarkable synthesis of modernism and romanticism, of violence and lyricism, of integrity and accessibility,” Music and Musicians has written. He first came to international attention in the early 1980s with his String Quartet No. 1, premiered in the U.K. by the Arditti Quartet and in the U.S. by the Juilliard String Quartet. Works written for the San Francisco Symphony and other national orchestras exhibit kaleidoscopic colors and provocative designs. Performances by international orchestras include the BBC Symphony, Hong Kong Sinfonietta and Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Other commissions include the Fires of London, Emerson Quartet and Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Caltabiano has received awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Guggenheim Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, BMI, ASCAP as well as two Bearns Prizes. He earned his Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral degrees from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Elliott Carter and Vincent Persichetti. Caltabiano also was assistant to Aaron Copland during the last five years of that composer’s life. In addition, Caltabiano has studied composition with Peter Maxwell Davies and conducting with Harold Farberman and Gennadi Rozdesvensky.

Location and parking

McKenna Theatre is located in the Creative Arts Building on the SF State campus, 1600 Holloway Ave. (at 19th Ave.), San Francisco. Public parking is available in Lot 20, accessed from Lake Merced Boulevard between Winston Drive and Font Boulevard. On weekends and evenings only, public parking is available in Lots 1 and 2, on Holloway Ave. (at 19th Ave.). Parking is $1 per hour with a $5 daily maximum. Nearby street parking is readily available on weekends. For details, visit www.sfsu.edu/~parking.

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