Pre-Performance Talk at 7 pm: ”How Music is Made” with Guest Composer Raven Chacon  

This exciting concert is one of a series that San Francisco Contemporary Music Players is presenting this season, and an official part of the California Festival, a celebration of new music. With RE-voicing, we consider the nature of voices — in both the literal and musical sense, and in the larger scope of historical interchange — in one of the city’s most resonant and awe-inspiring spaces for listening to instrumental and vocal music.  

A stirring solo organ meditation by Messiaen contemplates the eternity of celestial choirs, while a chamber trio by Chinary Ung creates spirals of sonic luminosity. The Bay Area premiere of Raven Chacon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Voiceless Mass (2021) offers a moving statement that ‘considers the spaces in which we gather, the history of access of these spaces, and the land upon which these buildings sit.’ Despite the title’s reference to the liturgical Mass, ‘the piece contains no audible singing voices, instead using the openness of a large space to intone the constricted intervals of wind and string instruments. In exploiting the architecture of the cathedral, Voiceless Mass considers the futility of giving voice to the voiceless, when ceding space is never an option for those in power.’ Finally, George Crumb’s Ancient Voices of Children features both soprano and child soprano in an exploration of texts by Spanish poet Federico García Lorca, framing the child-like impulse that all share in the life-long search for a voice, and the question of purpose once it is found. 

Guest Artists: Tonia D’AMELIO, soprano & Christopher KEADY, organist 

Tickets $20-$30-$60

Program

Olivier MESSIAEN – Apparition de l’Église Éternelle (1932)
Chinary UNG – Luminous Spirals (1997)
Raven CHACON – Voiceless Mass (2021) – Bay Area premiere
George CRUMB – Ancient Voices of Children (1970) 

Event Details 

The cathedral will open at 6:30 p.m. Enter the cathedral through the door at the top of the Great Steps. The accessible entrance is via the glass doors on Taylor Street left of the garage entrance. Turn left down the hallway and follow it to the elevator. 

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About SFCMP 

San Francisco Contemporary Music Players is the West Coast’s longest standing and largest new music ensemble, comprised of twenty-two highly skilled musicians. Now in their 53rd season, SFCMP have created innovative and artistically excellent music and are one of the most active ensembles in the U.S. dedicated to contemporary music. Holding an important role in the regional and national cultural landscape, SFCMP were a 2018 awardee of the esteemed Fromm Foundation Ensemble Prize, and a ten-time winner of the CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming. SFCMP has performed more than 1,300 works by over 600 composers and has commissioned over 80 major works.

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