Performances set for solstice fest
Maggi Payne, the electroacoustic composer and performer who has co-directed Mills College’s invaluable Center for Contemporary Music for nearly 30 years, has played all but one of the Garden of Memory summer solstice celebrations at Oakland’s landmark Chapel of the Chimes since the festivities began in 1995.
She doesn’t recall the year she missed the celebration, which features artists of many stripes performing in the gardens, chapels and alcoves of the maze-like columbarium and mausoleum, but she remembers the reason: The fountain at the heart of her piece “Fountain” was on the fritz.
On June 21, from 5 to 9 p.m., when scores of notable musicians like pianist Sarah Cahill, clarinetist Beth Custer, the vocal ensemble Kitka, the William Winant Percussion Group and Living Earth Show perform simultaneously around the serene setting, Payne plans to be back in the Garden of St. Mark with her 2013 piece “Theremin Morph.” It’s an interactive work for theremin, the electronic instrument whose pitch and volume players control by moving their hands closer or farther from its two antennae.
Payne, who built her little theremin from a kit she bought decades ago, has rigged it with a Morpheus digital synthesizer, an M-Audio Trigger Finger and other devices that allow the usually ethereal theremin to sound like a drum set, vibes or something else. The pitch and rhythm change according to the proximity and motion of the person playing it.
“Their bodies become part of the circuit, and they influence the pitch,” Payne says. “The way I have it set up, you don’t have to be anywhere near an expert to get some great things happening with it. It’s very accessible.”
Presented by New Music Bay Area and Chapel of the Chimes, the solstice bash has become a summer classic. Admission is $5-$15.
“I love the diversity of the crowds, and being able to talk with them, and coach them when they’re trying to play the theremin,” Payne says. “It’s so much fun. We’ve had people holding babies in their arms, moving them closer and farther from the antenna. It’s hilarious and wonderful. We get people in their 90s as well.”
Payne’s trigger device lets her switch the character of the sound unexpectedly, often to the delight of the person sweeping his or her hand or foot in front of it.
“If I hit one button, it sounds like a drum kit. Another button, it’s vibes. Another, electronic twirly stuff — one of my faves,” she says. “I watch the way people are interacting with the theremin; if it looks like they’d be really cool on drums, I switch it that way.”
She wants people to explore the sound “and just have fun with it — the magic of being able to wave your hand and have that change what you’re hearing.”
Payne doesn’t get to hear other musicians at Garden of Memory, but always digs the sound of bells at twilight, courtesy of Brenda Hutchinson’s sunset bell-ringing ritual.
For more information, go to www.gardenofmemory.com.
Vo at Cyprian’s
SF Live Arts @ Cyprian’s closes its Immigrant Voices series Saturday, June 9, with a performance by the engaging Hanoi-born instrumentalist and singer Van-Anh Vanessa Vo, an expert player of the dan tranh, the 16-string zither, and other traditional Vietnamese instruments.
She recently collaborated with Kronos Quartet at SF Jazz. At St. Cyprian’s Church on outer Turk Street, she plans to play solo and with guests.
For more information, go to www.sflivearts.org.
A 1st ‘Richard III’
For the first time in its 24year history, San Francisco’s African-American Shakespeare Company performs the Bard’s “Richard III,” from July 14-29 at the Taube Atrium Theater in San Francisco. Artistic director L. Peter Callender stars in the title role of the history plays that opens with the immortal line “Now is the winter of our discontent ... ”
Asked about portraying the treacherously plotting King Richard in our political environment, Callender called the play “a contemporary reality show. Richard plays with his followers, bringing them into his thinking and manipulating their thinking to his . ... They are charmed by him. So his lies — fake news? — become their truths.”
For more information, go to www.african-americanshakes. org.
Thomas farewell
Retiring after 22 years on the UC Davis music faculty, Jeffrey Thomas conducts his final performance of the University Chorus on Friday, June 8, at the Mondavi Center, leading a program of American songs and spirituals. Thomas will continue as artistic director of the American Bach Soloists.
For more information, go to www.mondaviarts.org.