It might have been a stricly subjective response, but next to the great news of the opening of Stanford's splendid 842-seat Bing Concert Hall, the announcement of a Beethoven-heavy (very heavy) Stanford Live season for 2012-2013, was a disappointment.
So, the announcement, today, by executive director Wiley Hausam of a far more varied and interesting next season is welcome.
Some of the featured stars may be distinguished borderline warhorses, but programs and the variety of ethnic participation are all to the good. The upcoming season touts Itzhak Perlman (Sept. 22) and Deborah Voigt (April 11); I await appearances of Joshua Bell (Feb. 8), Richard Goode (May 16), and Angela Brown (Feb. 23) in Bing Hall.
Here are some of the appealing offerings:
- World premiere of Linked Verse, a collaboration between Stanford's Jaroslaw Kapuscinski and the artistic collective OpenEndedGroup, featuring a concerto for cello, shô, and live 3D stereoscopic visual projection (Dec. 7).
- The Asif Ali Khan Ensemble, a leading practitioner of Qawwali music, will appear on its first West Coast tour (April 1).
- The acclaimed Brazilian company, Grupo Corpo, is known for its joyous and sensuous athleticism (Jan. 31).
- The Atlantic Crossing Project brings San Francisco’s Chanticleer and New Century Chamber Orchestra together for their first collaboration, under the direction of Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg (March 20). The concert evokes the time between the two world wars, imagining a cruise ship traveling between Germany and New York, with the music of the 1920s and 1930s.
- Tony Award-winning actors Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin bring Broadway to Bing Hall in an evening of musical theater (April 26).
- San Francisco Opera’s Falstaff, starring Bryn Terfel, will be simulcast live to Frost Amphitheater (Oct. 11).
- Visiting orchestras include the Estonian National Symphony (Nov. 2), the Haifa Symphony Orchestra of Israel, under the direction of Noam Sheri (March 16), and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (April 2). The Estonians, led by Neeme Järvi, will play Arvo Part's Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten, Dvořák's Cello Concerto, and Sibelius' Symphony No. 5.
- Preservation Hall Jazz Band (Sept. 29) and fado singer Mariza (Nov. 1); recitals by violinist Joshua Bell, sopranos Deborah Voigt and Angela Brown, and pianist Richard Goode.
"The heart of our chamber experience," says Hausam, "is the St. Lawrence String Quartet (Oct. 9, Oct. 13, Jan. 12, and April 27), which will also sponsor a young quartet, the Aeolus (April 6), whom we are excited to introduce to our audience. To these, we add the unstoppable Kronos (Jan. 15) and the Takács (Jan. 25), one of the world’s preeminent interpreters of Bartók’s string quartets.
"We’ve also broadened the scope of offerings in our second season with an eclectic mix of world music and dance performances. The French choreographer Jérôme Bel will bring us a festival of three different pieces, which we will present with the Stanford Dance Division" (Nov. 13, 18, and Dec. 2).
On Oct. 13, the St. Lawrence will give the West Coast premiere of Stanford alumnus Samuel Carl Adams' String Quartet in Five Movements, which has its world premiere in Spoleto next month. At the other SLSQ concerts, San Francisco Symphony principal violist Jonathan Vinocour (Jan. 12) and soprano Jessica Rivera (Apr. 27) will participate.