Composer Shinji Eshima said, "Within the crown of chamber music in the Bay Area, Music at Kohl Mansion has long been its brightest jewel. Music at Kohl Mansion provides exactly the intimacy and setting that is the very definition of what chamber music is all about. I have never been so surprised as when Patricia Kristof Moy contacted me and asked if I would compose a new work for them. That this would be for their 40th anniversary, and I would be their 4th commission, following on the heels of Ernst Bacon, David Carlson, and Jake Heggie, well, this was extremely daunting. But it is also the honor of a lifetime."
Music at Kohl Mansion was founded 40 years ago by Liz Dossa in association with then-principal at Mercy High School, Burlingame, Amy Bayley, R.S.M. Over the years, Music at Kohl Mansion has commissioned musical works from Ernst Bacon with his Piano Trio No. 2 (1987); David Carlson's Sonata for Cello and Piano (1993); and Jake Heggie's Intonations: Songs from the Violins of Hope (2020). The commissioning of Japanese-American composer Shinji Eshima for the 2022-23 season marks the fourth.
Born in Berkeley, Eshima is a graduate of Stanford University and The Juilliard School of Music, and is a double-bassist with the San Francisco Ballet and Opera Orchestras. His instrument is the Plumerel bass (1843) featured in the painting by Degas, "The Orchestra of the Opera." He is on the faculty at San Francisco State University and San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Eshima has composed for a variety of venues including theater, documentary film, chamber music, opera and the San Francisco Zen Center. For San Francisco Ballet, he has created three highly acclaimed musical scores including RAkU, a work now in the Joffrey Ballet repertory.
$25-$55.