The finale after the finale: S.F. Symphony Chorus shines in Verdi's Requiem
Like a baseball game rescheduled after a rainout, there was one more concert on the San Francisco Symphony's season calendar after last week's grand finale with outgoing Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen.
The orchestra staged its makeup performance of Verdi's Requiem on Friday, June 20, a concert that was canceled during the Symphony Chorus' strike in September last year. James Gaffigan generously stepped in to conduct the work, which Salonen would have led in the fall. The program is slated to be repeated on Sunday, June 22, at Davies Symphony Hall.
After its extraordinary contributions to Salonen's farewell performance of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 2, the Chorus showed it was worth every penny of the anonymous $4 million gift made in the months following the strike. The singers came to the fore not just in the 90-minute Requiem, normally programmed by itself, but in a first part that included three choral pieces by Gordon Getty, himself a generous donor to the Symphony (and a co-founder of San Francisco Classical Voice).
Getty's works are genial, melodic and accessible, and Gaffigan, a friend of the composer, led them deftly and with evident care. The Intermezzo from Getty's 2017 opera 'Goodbye, Mr. Chips' begins delicately, with spare lines in the marimba giving way to the harp, then acquiring a more definitive melodic profile in the strings. It's a meditative piece that finds an unexpected climax when the choristers interject a school hymn, almost as if overhead from afar.
The Chorus also gave fine performances of 'Saint Christopher' (2024), which features effective writing for voices, and 'The Old Man in the Snow' (2020), a more substantial work in several sections that Getty skillfully sets apart with different instrumentation, including a trombone choir, keyboards and mallet percussion.
If the performance of the piece as a whole lacked finesse, their contributions were nonetheless stellar. The singing was artful, from the opening 'Requiem aeternam,' with the sound humming in the air through the nasal consonants, to the explosive 'Dies irae' and the stentorian 'Rex tremendae.' The women made a luminous entrance in the 'Lacrimosa' at the line 'Huic ergo parce, Deus' (Therefore spare him, O Lord), and the whole chorus concluded with the fearful declamation and hortatory final fugue of the 'Libera me.' The singers encompassed the range of Verdi's writing in finely balanced sound that pulled emotion from every chord change.
Gaffigan's conducting, however, emphasized drive and the titanic climaxes while shorting the Requiem's poetic side. Certainly, this is a public religious work, conceived as a memorial to Italian art — first to the composer Gioachino Rossini and then, when that initial plan fell through, to author Alessandro Manzoni. But it's not only theatrical. This interpretation was driven by inflexible tempos and a sameness to all of the climaxes and fortissimo outbursts that ultimately became wearing. Though the orchestra played well, earning deserved applause, the performance was missing a sense of transcendence and the overarching struggle of mourning and fear giving way to tranquility and acceptance.
The soloists — soprano Rachel Willis-Sørenson, mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, tenor Mario Chang and bass Morris Robinson — were generally excellent. The notable exception was Chang's effortful 'Ingemisco' prayer, sung without any bloom in the tone and generally unresonant and unconvincing. The violins joined Willis-Sørenson in a moving 'Sed signifer sanctus Michael' (Let the standard-bearer holy Michael), the soprano singing sweetly in one of the score's many standout lyrical moments. If there had been more of those, this Requiem would have been even better.
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San Francisco Chronicle
4 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
The finale after the finale: S.F. Symphony Chorus shines in Verdi's Requiem
Like a baseball game rescheduled after a rainout, there was one more concert on the San Francisco Symphony's season calendar after last week's grand finale with outgoing Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen. The orchestra staged its makeup performance of Verdi's Requiem on Friday, June 20, a concert that was canceled during the Symphony Chorus' strike in September last year. James Gaffigan generously stepped in to conduct the work, which Salonen would have led in the fall. The program is slated to be repeated on Sunday, June 22, at Davies Symphony Hall. After its extraordinary contributions to Salonen's farewell performance of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 2, the Chorus showed it was worth every penny of the anonymous $4 million gift made in the months following the strike. The singers came to the fore not just in the 90-minute Requiem, normally programmed by itself, but in a first part that included three choral pieces by Gordon Getty, himself a generous donor to the Symphony (and a co-founder of San Francisco Classical Voice). Getty's works are genial, melodic and accessible, and Gaffigan, a friend of the composer, led them deftly and with evident care. The Intermezzo from Getty's 2017 opera 'Goodbye, Mr. Chips' begins delicately, with spare lines in the marimba giving way to the harp, then acquiring a more definitive melodic profile in the strings. It's a meditative piece that finds an unexpected climax when the choristers interject a school hymn, almost as if overhead from afar. The Chorus also gave fine performances of 'Saint Christopher' (2024), which features effective writing for voices, and 'The Old Man in the Snow' (2020), a more substantial work in several sections that Getty skillfully sets apart with different instrumentation, including a trombone choir, keyboards and mallet percussion. If the performance of the piece as a whole lacked finesse, their contributions were nonetheless stellar. The singing was artful, from the opening 'Requiem aeternam,' with the sound humming in the air through the nasal consonants, to the explosive 'Dies irae' and the stentorian 'Rex tremendae.' The women made a luminous entrance in the 'Lacrimosa' at the line 'Huic ergo parce, Deus' (Therefore spare him, O Lord), and the whole chorus concluded with the fearful declamation and hortatory final fugue of the 'Libera me.' The singers encompassed the range of Verdi's writing in finely balanced sound that pulled emotion from every chord change. Gaffigan's conducting, however, emphasized drive and the titanic climaxes while shorting the Requiem's poetic side. Certainly, this is a public religious work, conceived as a memorial to Italian art — first to the composer Gioachino Rossini and then, when that initial plan fell through, to author Alessandro Manzoni. But it's not only theatrical. This interpretation was driven by inflexible tempos and a sameness to all of the climaxes and fortissimo outbursts that ultimately became wearing. Though the orchestra played well, earning deserved applause, the performance was missing a sense of transcendence and the overarching struggle of mourning and fear giving way to tranquility and acceptance. The soloists — soprano Rachel Willis-Sørenson, mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, tenor Mario Chang and bass Morris Robinson — were generally excellent. The notable exception was Chang's effortful 'Ingemisco' prayer, sung without any bloom in the tone and generally unresonant and unconvincing. The violins joined Willis-Sørenson in a moving 'Sed signifer sanctus Michael' (Let the standard-bearer holy Michael), the soprano singing sweetly in one of the score's many standout lyrical moments. If there had been more of those, this Requiem would have been even better.
Chicago Tribune
5 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Review: Giancarlo Guerrero steps into new Grant Park Music Fest role with a pair of genial and dynamic programs
Talk about a perfect storm. On Wednesday, Giancarlo Guerrero's much-fêted debut as principal conductor and artistic director of the Grant Park Music Festival was dampened by relentless rain. Audiences scrunched under the Jay Pritzker Pavilion fringe, only to play musical chairs dodging the structure's many (and ever-changing) leaky spots. When they weren't doing that, seat shuffles and squabbles competed with the evening's violin concerto. But if Guerrero appeared unflappable onstage, it's because he's been there before. He made his sophomore appearance with the orchestra in 2014 under nearly identical circumstances, down to the solo string showcase and contemporary American opener. Despite the lousy weather, that appearance impressed festival musicians enough to fast-track Guerrero to the top of their director wishlist a decade later. While last week's storm never erupted into thunder, musical lightning struck twice here with yet another exuberant, water-resistant stand by Guerrero on Wednesday, followed by a masterful account of Mahler's Symphony No. 1 on Friday. Wednesday's concert included two harbor works: 'An American Port of Call,' by Virginia-based composer Adolphus Hailstork, and Leonard Bernstein's 'On the Waterfront' suite. Conducting with his pointer fingers rather than a baton, and sporting a new goatee, Guerrero led a sparky, whistle-clean run of Hailstork's eight-minute curtain raiser. But when the music dissipated into quietude — recalling a boat drifting far off from shore, surrounded only by blue horizon — Guerrero guided the music with expansive ease. Bernstein's 'Waterfront' benefited from the same balance of gusto and intuitive pacing. Patrick Walle's horn solo up top sounded suspended in time, before an increasingly feral orchestra jerked us back to street level. Amid the ferocity, the Grant Parkers always sounded whetted and clean, moving through the works' shifting meters with fearsome precision. In the final windup to the end, electric energy gave way to ringing, Mussorgskyan grandeur. Between the Hailstork and Bernstein, Jeremy Black returned to the festival as both concertmaster and featured soloist, offering up the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. Even the brunt of the evening's downpour couldn't wash away the strong impression left by this filigree, soulful performance. Black's sound in the opening theme and balladic second movement was sugared but never treacly. Meanwhile, the Allegro molto vivace coasted along serenely, Black's bel canto phrasing and pristine intonation never betraying its finger-flying briskness. Promisingly, Guerrero's orchestral accompaniment was every bit as tasteful. Negotiating solo string balance in the park is always just that — a negotiation — but Guerrero hit the sweet spot of clarity and restraint. The orchestra was able to be a bit more gutsy under Friday's soloist, Pacho Flores. The Venezuelan trumpeter has a sparkling sound, which he dispatched with doting attention to phrase and line in Arturo Márquez's lively, if unseasonal, 'Concierto de Otoño' ('Autumn Concerto'). The work was specifically composed for Flores in 2018, taking unabashed advantage of not just the trumpeter's lyricism but his gatling-gun articulation, unflappable stamina and chameleon flexibility. (He traded four different horns across the 20-minute piece: C and D trumpets in the outer movements, then a flugelhorn and soprano cornet in the middle.) Flores also knows how to work a crowd. Rather than shooting to the stratosphere in his third-movement cadenza, he crawled to the bottom of his range — an amusing subversion of trumpet tropes. He then turned his bell directly at Guerrero and playfully pppththhed at him through his horn, prompting a teasing 'what gives?' shrug from the conductor. That said, it's hard to endorse Márquez's concerto beyond a mere virtuoso vehicle. The orchestral backing is often trite, cycling through the same progressions for what feels like minutes at a time. If the concerto's many flavors of theme-and-variation were engrossing at all, it was entirely thanks to Friday's soloist and orchestra, both playing with tempera-rich color and joie d'vivre. For pops-adjacent music under a more skillful hand, look to Flores himself. He opened and closed his appearance with two self-penned numbers: 'Morocota' (named for a $20 Venezuelan coin) and 'Lábios Vermelhos' ('Red Lips'). Originally recording both with guitar accompaniment for a 2017 Deutsche Grammophon release, Flores sang through his horn with a suave melodiousness that would have done the Rat Pack proud, with just a shimmer of vibrato where it counted. His lush orchestral arrangements would have been right at home in that milieu, too. At one point in 'Lábios Vermelhos,' section trumpets got in on the fun, with a sneering little interjection. Yet another short, Latin-inspired curtain raiser opened the concert: 'Baião n' Blues,' by Chicago composer Clarice Assad. A staple of the Carlos Kalmar years, Assad's inclusion in Guerrero's opening week bodes well for the new festival chief's attention to local composers. Ultimately, though, this performance had some of the same early-season jitters as last week's opener, with a scraggly opening and subdivision disagreement among the violins. 'Baião n' Blues' already isn't Assad's most compellingly structured piece, but a more honed performance might have made a better case. While Mahler sought to depict the world's natural beauty and bizarre juxtapositions in his music, he perhaps didn't anticipate contending with throbbing helicopters, the squeal of a coach's whistle, and hot rods sputtering down Lake Shore Drive on Friday. The Grant Park corps rose above the usual downtown backing track with a fresh, focused Mahler 1. Guerrero cued the unearthly, whistling first bars with an ambiguous gesture that invited the orchestra to melt in freely. Offstage trumpets were piped through the crown of the pavilion stage, sounding mysteriously heaven-sent. When the theme arrived in the cellos, Guerrero maintained their levity and grace throughout the movement — and, in fact, throughout much of the piece, bringing an aerodynamic lightness even to the symphony's final cadence. Because Grant Park 'does things a little differently,' per Guerrero, Friday's performance reinserted Mahler's discarded 'Blumine' movement. Through a complex change of hands, the only surviving manuscript copy of 'Blumine' ended up in in New Haven, Connecticut, where it was rediscovered as part of the Mahler renaissance of the 1960s. If 'Blumine' is heard at all, it's usually as a standalone piece, for good reason: It's arresting but nearly always out-of-place amid the lustiness of the rest of the symphony. Friday's performance gave the same impression — gauzy and subtle, but stopping short of the richness and emotional abandon that would make a better case for its inclusion. Elsewhere, other idiosyncratic touches intrigued and often convinced: more perky staccatos by oboist Alex Liedtke, orchestral accents like bitter twists of a knife in the funeral march, and a slower reading of the klezmer-band interludes. In all, it endorsed Guerrero's warhorse chops as enthusiastically as his new-music acumen. Rain or shine, Grant Park is looking like a fair place to be under his baton.
Black America Web
a day ago
- Black America Web
First Day Of Summer Freebies & Deals
Source: Anna Beletskaya / Getty The first day of summer is a fantastic opportunity to enjoy the warmer weather while taking advantage of numerous freebies and special promotions offered by restaurants, retailers, and entertainment venues across the country. On June 20, 2025, many businesses are rolling out exclusive deals designed to help customers celebrate the season with refreshing treats, cool drinks, and fun activities, all without breaking the bank. Whether you're an ice cream enthusiast, a smoothie lover, a bargain hunter, or looking for family-friendly entertainment, there's something for everyone to enjoy. Popular grocery chains like Kroger are giving away thousands of free pints of ice cream with a simple digital coupon download, while local doughnut shops such as Shipley Do-Nuts and Krispy Kreme are offering sweet deals on their signature pastries. RELATED: Free Summer Meals Available for Baltimore Youth Through City Schools Beverage lovers can score free smoothies and double loyalty points on select drinks at Planet Smoothie and Scooter's Coffee. Retailers like Target continue to delight customers with giveaways of summer-themed charms and keychains, and fast-food chains like White Castle and Wendy's are launching promotions and interactive games that reward participants with free or discounted menu items. Families aren't left out either, as cinemas including Showcase and Regal are providing affordable or free movie options to keep kids entertained during the sunny season. Many of these deals require advance registration in loyalty programs or app downloads, so preparation is key to fully enjoying the perks. With such a variety of options, the first day of summer becomes more than just a seasonal milestone; it transforms into a day of fun, savings, and community celebration. Get Breaking News & Exclusive Content in Your Inbox : CATCH UP ON THESE STORIES… 15 R&B Songs to Bring in the Summer Summer in Maryland: 10 Must-Visit Spots For Sun, Fun, And Local Flavor First Day Of Summer Freebies & Deals was originally published on Offering $1 family movies on select days. Check local listings for participating theaters. Kids can earn a free movie ticket by submitting a book report through the Bookworm Wednesday program. Check local listings for participating theaters. Celebrate the launch of the Takis Fuego Chicken Sandwich with the 'Spice Invasion' game in the app on June 20 to win prizes and free food Get BOGO free small shakes after 8 p.m. from June 20–22 using code SUMMER. Rewards members earn Double Smiles on any Red Bull Infusion drink after 11 a.m. on June 20 with an in-app coupon VIP members can enjoy a free 20 oz Lunar Lemonade smoothie on June 21. Sign up by June 19 at Parents can get a $1.99 scoop with the 'Parents Pass' coupon available in the app from June 16–20. Buy a dozen doughnuts at regular price and get a second dozen of Original Glazed for $2. Some locations may also be giving away a year's worth of free doughnuts. All customers get a free classic glazed do-nut with any purchase on June 20. Rewards members receive a free scoop or cone via a Wallet Drop in the app, valid for in-store or carry-out on June 20. Offering 92,000 free pints of Kroger-brand ice cream. Download a digital coupon starting at 12 p.m. EST on June 20 at Redeem by July 4. Black America Web Featured Video CLOSE
