No better place to plant a festival of outdoor piano performance than San Francisco Botanical Garden in Golden Gate Park. Among the diversity of flowers, plants, and trees, Flower Piano, in its expanded ninth season, hosted a variety of approaches to music and to the keyboard, showcased on a dozen pianos in a variety of al fresco settings across the Botanical Garden’s 55 acres. This reviewer sampled several during the festival’s opening weekend, Sept. 13–15.
Portland, Oregon-based composer Kennedy Verrett, profiled by SF Classical Voice in April 2022 ahead of his site-specific performances at Joshua Tree National Park, created a similar homage to Golden Gate Park here. On Friday afternoon, from a Yamaha baby grand in the Botanical Garden’s Redwood Grove, Verrett, dressed in a net shirt and distressed jeans, presented Soundcheck, an original composition in three parts, dedicated to the grove, the park’s Conservatory of Flowers, and the Japanese Tea Garden. Performing in nature, he explained, “means that we have to get permission from the elements and to invite them in.”
Accordingly, there were moments when Verrett appeared to be responding musically to birdsong, as well as to the sounds of a bassoon, a bass flute, and a double bass, situated out of sight of the audience, which was seated on benches. Verrett’s composition, depending on silence as much as sound, was so naturally inclusive that it seemed to incorporate the occasional car horn and the susurration of traffic from nearby Lincoln Way. He took a lyrical, often arpeggiated, sometimes pentatonic approach to melody and deployed a range of extended techniques: muting the piano’s strings, playing them like a harp while standing, and percussing the piano case.
During the next hour, in the Zellerbach Garden, a five-minute walk north of the Redwood Grove, Ensemble San Francisco presented a more traditional chamber program to a crowd variously arrayed along pathways, at the sides of and behind the stone terrace stage, and seated or lying across a large lawn. Cello, viola, and violin were positioned in front of the Kawai baby grand, which bore a sign: “Please respect the piano.” The musicians, visibly and audibly responsive to each other, performed Mozart vibrantly, suiting the midafternoon sunshine. They then offered a quartet by French composer Mel Bonis, late-Romantic and emotionally forthright, capable of entrancing lovers strolling along any nearby lane.
Closing out Saturday’s lineup, Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers were booked at the Flower Piano Lounge, just inside the main entrance, the only ticketed venue at the festival (otherwise free with admission to the Botanical Garden). It’s the largest stage at Flower Piano, here accommodating vocalist Smith and her eight-piece band. Fans arrived early to secure the best of the 100 or so folding chairs arranged in rows; food and drink were also available.
A much-loved entertainer with an inspiring smile and a clarion voice, Smith began the hour-and-a-half set with the tunes “I Love Being Here With You” and “Alone Together,” then made her way through the blues, jazz, country, and gospel chapters of the Great American Songbook. Her husband and longtime musical partner, Chris Siebert, often heard on the Hammond B-3 organ at San Francisco’s Royal Cuckoo Organ Lounge, deployed the crisper attack of the Yamaha piano to great effect, with the horns echoing and accompanying Smith’s sass, inspiring her to doff her faux fur coat and countermanding the cooling weather.
The majority of the event’s dozen pianos were designated for brief impromptu performances by visitors of any age and degree of musical training. The northernmost piano, a Kawai baby grand in the Ancient Plant Garden, gave Kathleen Li and Claire Lai a place to play four-hands early on Sunday afternoon. They’d hoped to be on the official schedule but were too late to register with Flower Piano and will try sooner next year.
After a couple more drop-in performances, Eric Shifrin arrived for his scheduled slot at 1 p.m. The charm and intimacy of the venue perfectly suited Shifrin, a performer whose delight in making and sharing music is contagious. “Poinciana” and “Willow Weep for Me” were well-chosen arboreal openers. A tangoed take on “Bésame Mucho” had the pianist shouting “Tequila!” during the break, and he introed “Love for Sale” by announcing, “We’re giving it away free today.” The eclectic set list also embraced Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans boogie, Mal Waldron, and several of Shifrin’s own “portrait songs,” dedicated to his grandson, his wife, and a favorite piano student.
The Sunday audience seemed larger and more diverse. Surrounding Shifrin were entwined young couples, babies in strollers, and seniors summoned to sing along to a rousing version of “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” You can get yours to Flower Piano next year if you missed it this time around.
