SF Music Day reinvents itself as virtual festival
W hen the pandemic prompted the cancellation of live performances back in the spring, no one expected SF Music Day to go forward.
No one, that is, except Cory Combs.
Music lovers can thank Combs, executive director of Intermusic SF, when the annual all- day music festival returns today for its 13th installment, featuring a full lineup of classical, jazz, contemporary and global music performances in a new, pandemic- permissible format.
Instead of its usual approach, with live acts performing in multiple spaces throughout the city’s War Memorial Veterans’ Building, this year’s Music Day will come to audiences online, via a free, streamed format produced by Intermusic SF. The schedule includes appearances by the Del Sol and Telegraph string quartets, Destiny Muhammad Trio, Mads Tolling and the Mads Men, and the Terrence Brewer Group, among others.
Attendees from past years will remember SF Music Day as an almost athletic endeavor — one that required careful planning and often a mad rush bet ween the Veterans’ Building’s floors and performance spaces in order to experience as much of the schedule as possible.
For obvious reasons, that format wasn’t possible this year, says Combs. In a recent phone call, he said that when the pandemic started, he wasn’t sure if this year’s event could happen at all.
“I was hearing a lot of concern, from individual musicians but also organization leaders who were saying ‘ we have to cancel,’ not just because of health risks but the financial risk of doing it during this very unpredictable, unprecedented period,” Combs said.
Still, much of 2020’s lineup was already in place — as soon as one Music Day ends, Combs traditionally starts booking the following year — and others urged him to go forward. “I ended up reaching out to my program officers to say ‘ I still want to do an event,’” he said.
His initial plan was for a livestream between four stages — “so viewers could have that same experience, minus the running up and down the stairs” — but, under COVID-19 restrictions, that proved unworkable. With advice from health officials and venue management, a new plan emerged: a full day of streamed performances, performed and recorded in the War Memorial’s main space, Herbst Theatre.
There were restrictions. Only 12 people — including tech and crew — were allowed in the building at one time. They, and the performers, had to be masked; no vocalists, brass or wind players could perform.
“That was hard,” said Combs. “I had to go back to artists who were already booked and say ‘ you can’t be part of it.” Other artists, lacking rehearsal space, were unable to commit.
Combs said the event became one that “would really showcase the beauty of Herbst Theatre, with the sights and sounds of some of most interesting and unique artists who make up Music Day in a typical year.”
Each act will perform a 30-minute set, with a twist — the recordings were made with the cameras behind the musicians, facing out into an empty hall.
It’s an unusual perspective, one that highlights both the Beaux-arts beauties of Herbst Theatre and the conditions that necessitated this year’s changes.
“There’s a kind of poignancy to it,” said Combs.
“The musicians are onstage and the audience is not there. It’s a testament to where we are now.”
For Charlton Lee, violist with the Del Sol Quartet, the new format presented a welcome opportunity. Like many Bay Area musicians, the quartet had seen its typically busy schedule slow to a crawl. A planned world premiere of a new work by Huang Ruo, scheduled to be performed at Angel Island this past summer, was postponed. “The first few months were horrible,” said Lee. “We were just sitting around, applying for every grant we could.”
More recently, the quartet has commissioned a number of short pieces on themes of joy, and is about to announce upcoming outdoor performances at the Presidio.
A lthough he’ ll miss catching up with fellow musicians — “It was always fun, an opportunity for us to see each other” — Lee and his Del Sol bandmates, Benjamin Kreith and Samuel Weiser (violins) and Kathryn Bates (cello), are looking forward to playing “In the Amazon” by composer and hip-hop producer Kerwin Young, along with new works by Andrew Rodriguez and Jung Yoon Wie.
Like the Del Sol players, the Telegraph Quartet’s violinist Joseph Maile and violist Pei-ling Lin are veterans of past SF Music Days. “It was always pretty jam-packed,” recalls Maile. “Now it has to be this way, which is kind of a silver lining: They did a great job in terms of the set-up, with high- quality video and audio.”
With Eric Chin (violin) and Jeremiah Shaw (cello), the Telegraph foursome, winner of the 2016 Naumburg Competition, will play a single work: Erich Korngold’s scintillating 1945 String Quartet No. 3. “It’s a little more meaty than some of his more exuberant quartets,” Maile says of the piece.
“I hope people aren’t deterred by the fact that it’s not in person,” he adds. “It’ll still be a wonderfully variegated showcase, and a chance to hear music in that great setting.”
Lin agrees, adding that the streaming format gives the artists new opportunities to reach listeners around the world. “This year, my mom can actually watch it in Taiwan,” she said.