The divine Bach at egalitarian ‘Greek’
It would have been right on Monday morning for UC Berkeley to have sent Cal Performances flowers and chocolate.
Cal Performances’ Gala at the Greek II, on Sunday, April 30, made music lovers — at least for a night — forget the university’s worst of times (free speech, sex scandals, secret funds, tuition hikes, administrative misspending) and bask in its best of times with Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile, playing Bach. “It doesn’t get any better than this,” said Ma to the adoring audience during a break between musical selections.
The performance/party was a shot in the arm for UC Berkeley, agreed arts administrator Sara Wilson, who cochaired the event with Helen Meyer (of Meyer Sound, which created the technology that carried the music from the players’ fingers through the early evening air and to the ears of rapt listeners).
“It showed how much love and affection the performing arts can create,” said Wilson. “There is this group,” she continued, pointing to the 350 or so dolled-up supporters at the reception before the concert, and also “the others out there in their blue jeans,” the more than 5,000 people sitting on the stone steps of the Greek Theatre and sprawled on the grass above. “And they’re all together. It’s a very egalitarian setting.”
The gala supports Cal Performances’ educational programs, and was well attended by Cal brass, including UC President Janet Napolitano, about-toleave Chancellor Nicholas Dirks and
Carol Christ, who will become UC Berkeley’s 11th chancellor on July 1. Had a drone been flying over the reception, it might have observed that the crowd around Christ was thicker than the crowd around Dirks. But the evening’s focus wasn’t on In and Out rankings; it was music (and the raising of $800,000 for educational and community programs), and that was sublime whether you were in a folding chair down on the floor of the Greek or perched on those steps. The performers seemed as euphoric as the audience.
Christ said she’d taken up the viola at the age of 30 or so, still takes lessons and plays with a chamber group. It’s an instrument that’s the target of many musicians’ jokes, and I asked her if she thought that would prepare her for the job. She laughed. But she said the Springfield (Mass.) Symphony had been invited to executive training at Smith College — she was president there — and the executives were asked to listen when the orchestra members were given directions: Play this piece louder than anyone else; play this piece so you’re the only instrument heard. “The pieces sounded really awful. The lesson they were trying to teach was about leadership, encouraging acute sensitivity to the other instruments.”
The evening’s honorees and honorary co-chairs were Gregg and Laura Perloff, whose support over the years — for necessary seismic and other upgrades — was praised lavishly by Cal Performances Executive Director Matías Tarnopolsky, at the reception, concert and dinner (by Grace Street Catering). (Every time it was mentioned, the applause-drawing line for most-favored upgrades was the addition of 44 restrooms.)
Perloff, whose Another Planet Entertainment company produces Outside Lands and the Treasure Island Music Festival as well as every show at the Greek, knows the turf. “The only thing better than seeing a great artist,” said Perloff, “is to see them in an extraordinary setting.”
P.S. What with all the talk of politics and free speech at UC Berkeley, it’s important to remember that not every student has a political agenda. “I chose Berkeley over UCLA,” is what Emily Warden overheard one young woman tell another as they walked across campus, “because Berkeley is so cute.”
“I thought of the best prank during Shavasana.” Woman to woman, overheard after that mindful rest period at the end of yoga by Kate Townsend
Muckraker Michael Moore opens on Broadway on Aug. 10 with “The Terms of My Surrender,” a limited-run, oneman show co-produced by Carole Shorenstein Hays. The project purports to answer the question: “Can a Broadway show take down a sitting president?”
Sure, chef Corey Lee won a James Beard Award as best chef in the West, but he wasn’t the only Bay Area Beard honoree. Peggy Knickerbocker, who wrote “Brain Food,” a story published in Cooking Light about Paula Wolfert and Alzheimer’s disease, won a journalism award; and the Kitchen Sisters, Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva, won a broadcast award for “Hidden Kitchens: War and Peace and Food.”
The San Francisco, Chicago and New York productions of “Hamilton” welcomed 5,000 students to matinees on April 26. The tickets were underwritten by Google.org, which paid $60 each.