Next week bombs will burst in air, followed by a month and a half of festivals and concerts, classes, and lectures …. You could make an entire career, and receive social security, from going to all the offerings in July and Aug. But what about the next few days leading up to the Fourth and just afterward?
Here are a few Best Bets:
Before the Fireworks
June 29
Fandango XII marks the 200th anniversary of Ft. Ross, featuring corridos from Hispano-Mexican California, along with Russian balalaikas and dances. Put on by Coro Hispano de San Francisco with the Massenkoff Russian Folk Festival. At the Golden Gate Club in the Presidio. (corohispano.org.) True family entertainment and it’s free (7 p.m).
June 29 — July 2
MTT conducts the San Francisco Symphony in Schoenberg’s A Survivor From Warsaw, Op. 46, that six-minute short story of life and death in the streets of the Warsaw ghetto. During that other summer of 1942. For children? Yes, of a certain age. If, for example, one were in 9th or 10th grade studying 20th-Century European history you might consider this required listening. Or, say, reading Elie Weisel’s Night, this would make a compelling complement. A little preparation is all that’s needed. The worst that can happen is that you get this question, “what was that all about?” And then you explain. That followed by Beethoven’s 9th, with it’s "Ode to Joy" …. And there’s your hope. Thursday through Saturday this week at Davies Symphony Hall at 8 p.m.
July 1st
Stern Grove: Preservation Hall Jazz Band: Still around, still great. Since 1961. Members have included the enigmatic Buddy Bolden, Jelly Roll Morton, and the incomparable Louis Armstrong. Bandleaders have included Willie and Percy Humphrey, Billie and De De Pierce, pianist Sweet Emma Barrett, and more recently, Wendall and John Brunious. And now Mark Braud on trumpet; Charlie Gabriel on clarinet, Freddie Lonzo on trombone, et al. And there you are in the Grove, under the eucalyptuses, sandwich in hand, foot tapping all by itself, and years from now someone in the family will remember to say, “yeah, our parents used to take us to the Grove and once we heard the Preservation Hall Band.” The Grove has somebody terrific every weekend this summer. Go to sterngrove.org for a listing.
June 29, July 3
Off the beaten track: ODC presents 12 dance luminaries, prodigies, and golden greats and graduates. The likes of InkBoat. Don’t miss it. Friday, Saturday, Sunday in San Francisco’s Mission District (odcdance.org).
July 1
In the Music for Families Season Finale, Edwin Outwater and the San Francisco Symphony offer children, and parents, an introduction to classical music in kid-sized classical concerts: great music designed for families; musical discoveries and memories. Some of you may remember when Leonard Bernstein used to do this at Carnegie Hall in the early 1960s. This is a wonderful opportunity to pick up the cultural ball and pass it on. And not just best known works …. 2 p.m. at Davies Symphony Hall.
For The Fourth
July 4th
The Golden Gate Park Band musicians in their cherry-red jackets will be in the band shell in Golden Gate Park, between the DeYoung Museum, with the new Traina photography collection, and the Academy of Sciences, featuring an exhibit in the planetarium about earthquakes …. Bicycles are encouraged. If you don’t know the park, the Japanese Tea Garden is right across the road from the band shell; the Conservatory of Flowers, in all its matt whiteness, is 300 yards away. The carousel is a little further, near the tennis courts, beyond the lawn bowling, on the way to Kezar stadium. You can make a day of it. It’s all good. Patriotica starts at 1 p.m. and lasts for 90 minutes.
But, of course, the main event on July 4th will be the S.F. Symphony Fireworks Spectacular at Shoreline Amphitheater. And no doubt the crowd favorite will be the P.D.Q Bach Beethoven's Sportscast depiction of the first inning of Beethoven’s 5th. Ted Robinson will do the play-by-play; a little bit of a stretch from his usual monologue that goes something like this: “Shotgun for Smith; Gore on his left hip. One receiver left; three right.” The new dialogue begins like this. “Good evening music fans here we are in Philharmonic Hall in New York Mills, Minnesota. It’s a beautiful night for a concert, not a cloud in the ceiling.”
And there’s much more in this concert: music from John Williams (Nimbus 2000 from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone; the suite from Chariots of Fire by Vangelis, Richard Adler’s Overture to Damn Yankees, and more. Rousing in a word, and properly sentimental. Randall Fleicher conducts (8 p.m.). Go to sfsympony.org.
To Keep Celebrating
July 6th
July 7th — July 21st
Mendocino Music Festival: This is Allan Pollack’s show and he delivers. Highlights include Susan Waterfall’s presentation, The Turtle Island quartet, Sierra Hull and Highway 111, and the Celtic Band Solas. And of course there is the place itself. The Mendocino coast where the big white tent that houses these concerts is one of the three or four most gorgeous places between San Diego and Seattle. Plus, there's the charm of the town itself. Unmatched. If you’ve never been, this is a must see….July 9 — 15
This should top your short list: Golden Gate International Children's and Youth Choral Festival. And competition: 20 choirs from 12 countries. Singing in various venues in Oakland and Berkeley. Two divisions: 16 and under; 23 and under. Choirs to watch: The Budi Mulia Dua Choir from central Java. A folk orchestra, in the Gamelon tradition, on gongs, xylophones and bamboo, tuned in Asian scales … two choirs from China, one from Georgia, one from Honduras ... and The Decuties Intellectuals from Nigeria (for the name alone).Also, the world-renowned Kivi Choir from Lithuania, singing mythic stories from Northern Europe. Robert Geary, who put this festival together, and heads one of this country’s great children’s choirs, explains that song has a special place in Lithuanian culture, and by extension the snowbound territories in the upper latitudes. “You know even in summer where everything is growing there is still an artic stillness and yet someone said to me once, ‘oh, but you should be here in winter.’ There is an understanding of sound not being the norm.”
Mr. Geary takes great pride in this festival, whose honorary chair, incidentally, is Kirk Meecham, eminence grise of American choral music. One aspect of the festival is that singers from abroad stay with local choristers and their families. “What could be better than to have these cultural bridges? Think of it this way: It’s hard to pull the trigger on someone you know. And this is the point, we’re trying to create a sense of a global community, and I can tell you that after doing this for many years these kinds of events have far-reaching influences on the outlook and philosophy of young people.”