On Tuesday, Nov. 12, Classical Revolution, whose name signals its mission of getting classical music out of the concert hall and into more accessible and affordable public places, celebrated what its founder, Charith Premawardhana, described as “reaching the legal age of majority.”
The organization’s 18th anniversary was shared with a few dozen wine-sipping fans at the intimate Honey House in San Francisco to the sounds of a quartet featuring Premawardhana and Anthony Blea on violins, Keith Lawrence on viola, and Kyle Stachnik, a recent graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, on cello. The four offered artful renditions of Beethoven and Mozart, along with ingenious adaptations of pop hits by the Beatles, the Foo Fighters, and Toto.
“We’re continuing to attract younger musicians, giving them a way to meet people and to play for their peers and fans,” Premawardhana commented during a break. “We’ve survived on little or no funding, on the kindness of musicians, and we now need to do more fundraising and grant writing so we can present different and more complex music. With more money, we’d be able to fund rehearsals and to improve promotions so we can reach people we don’t yet know.”
Classical Revolution began in 2006 with sessions at the now-shuttered Revolution Cafe in San Francisco’s Mission District and migrated to other venues around the city. New chapters blossomed across the country and overseas. “And now there are similar groups of musicians who came up through Classical Revolution and are doing their own thing,” Premawardhana noted.
