SFCM Announces Spring 2025 Schedule of Live Performances
With exciting guest artists, collaborations with SFCM’s Alliance of arts management companies, three full orchestra concerts, and a funny, philosophical, and fast-paced musical theatre showcase, the Spring 2025 season promises an exciting end to the school year.
(L to R) Stefan Jackiw, Meow Meow, Awadagin Pratt, Fiona Cunninghame-Murray.
As we start a new season, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) is pleased to announce its spring concert series, featuring several exciting collaborations and concerts designed to dazzle audiences. SFCM puts on more than 500 performances a year, with more than 90% of concerts free and open to the public.
The Conservatory will welcome Joshua Bell and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields for a three-day artistic residency this February, where students will work directly with the acclaimed ensemble. The residency will conclude with a concert at Davies Symphony Hall—partof its Great Performers Series—where 30 SFCM students will perform alongside the ensemble, including one student who will solo with Joshua Bell.
Named one of the “Top Performers of the Year” by The New Yorker, SFCM welcomes vocalist and performer Meow Meow to its first orchestra concert of the season. The “post-post-modern diva” has hypnotized, inspired, and thrilled audiences globally with her unique cabaret and burlesque-inspired creations.
SFCM Opera and Musical Theatre promises an exciting production of optimism and wit with Leonard Bernstein's Candide, this adaptation of Voltaire’s 1759 satirical novel promises to delight audiences with its humor, energy, and crowd-pleasing score. This production will be directed by Frederic Wake-Walker, an Askonas Holt artist, renowned for his groundbreaking work at major international opera houses.
The popular “Chamber Music Tuesday” series will continue this spring. Among its highlights will be world-renowned violinist Stefan Jackiw, GRAMMY-winning violist Kim Kashkashian, and the brilliant Telegraph Quartet, all in collaboration with SFCM alumni, faculty, and students. The series will conclude with a special concert featuring Honors Chamber Music Ensembles composed of students.
Acclaimed double-bassist Rufus Reid will return to SFCM for the Roots, Jazz, and American Music (RJAM) Department’s Big Band concert. Reid has deep ties to SFCM: For years, he performed in a trio with RJAM drum faculty member Akira Tana alongside pianist Sumi Tonooka, one of the early winners in SFCM and the San Francisco Symphony’s Emerging Black Composers Project.
SFCM’s Faculty Artist Series concerts will continue in spring, featuring evenings by violinist Nancy Zhou, SFCM Historical Performance faculty Corey Jamason, Elisabeth Reed, and Elizabeth Blumenstock; Technology and Applied Composition (TAC) faculty Daria Novoliantceva; String and Piano Chamber Music Chair Dimitri Murrath accompanied by Associate Chair Julio Elizalde; Composition Department Chair David Conte and David Garner; Guitar Department historical instrument specialist Richard Savino; and violist Jonathan Vinocour.
Several community-oriented and student-led initiatives will be part of the season as well. The Chromatic Brass Collective returns to SFCM to host a Brass Day community event put on by the Conservatory’s Pre-College department on February 2, and TAC students will be putting on their annual Future Is Female concert on March 8, dedicated to platforming women composers and performers and addressing issues like climate change.
Many of this season's concerts showcase prominent artists represented on the rosters of Askonas Holt and Opus 3 Artists, the management companies acquired in recent years by SFCM. These organizations, along with the award-winning PENTATONE Records, form SFCM’s unique and growing Alliance that enhances the student experience at SFCM.
Music fans are invited to attend these concerts and others at the Ann Getty Center for Education and the Ute and William K. Bowes, Jr. Center for Performing Arts or the Bowes Center—inaugurated in fall 2021—where 90% of concerts are free and open to the public. In addition to Uccello Lounge, select SFCM concerts will offer food and drink concessions to the public.
Calendar listings are below. Some events require ticketing and, continuing this season, patrons can reserve tickets online using SFCM’s website. Please see SFCM’s performance calendar for a complete concert schedule and to register for attendance. Details and programs are subject to change.
Stefan Jackiw.
Chamber Music Tuesday with Stefan Jackiw
Tuesday, February 11th, 7:30 PM
Barbro Osher Recital Hall, 200 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA
Ute and William K. Bowes Jr. Center for Performing Arts
Program:
Ernő Dohnányi: Serenade in C Major
Sergei Prokofiev: Violin Sonata No. 2 in D Major
Felix Mendelssohn: String Quintet No. 2 in B-flat Major
Stefan Jackiw is one of America's foremost violinists, captivating audiences with playing that combines poetry and purity with an impeccable technique. In addition to recent concerto performances with the New York Philharmonic and National Symphony Orchestra, Stefan is also well known as a chamber musician. Stefan's residency with SFCM will also include masterclasses at both the collegiate and pre-college levels.
Opus 3 Artist Meow Moew. Photo credit Jeff Busby.
SFCM Orchestra with Edwin Outwater
Saturday, February 15th, 7:30 PM
Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall, 50 Oak Street, San Francisco, CA
Ann Getty Center for Education
Program:
Carl Maria von Weber: Overture to Der Freischütz
Paul Hindemith: Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber
Kurt Weill: Seven Deadly Sins
Edwin Outwater, conductor
Meow Meow, voice
Spectacular singer and performer Meow Meow, called “sensational” and a “diva of the highest order,” comes to SFCM for its first orchestra concert of the season. The Opus 3 Artist is known for her wild and collaborative stage presence. Her performance of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s last collaboration before they fled Germany features a semi-staged theatrical production on the SFCM stage.
SFCM Musical Theatre Presents Triumph of Love
Friday, February 21st, 2025 at 7:30 PM and Saturday, February 22nd, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall, 50 Oak Street, San Francisco, CA
Ann Getty Center for Education
Music by Jeffrey Stock
Lyrics by Susan Birkenhead
Michael Mohammed, director
Michael Horsley, conductor
SFCM’s Musical Theatre presents the 18th century classic French comedy Triumph of Love. Like the operas Il barbiere di Siviglia and Turandot, Triumph of Love takes its plot from an 18th-century commedia dell’arte play, infusing it with a lush score, delicious deception, and all the complexities of l'amour.
About Opera and Musical Theatre
Fiona Cunninghame-Murray.
Joshua Bell & Academy of St Martin in the Fields with SFCM Students and Soloist Fiona Cunninghame-Murray
Wednesday, February 26th, 2025, 7:30 PM
Davies Symphony Hall
201 Van Ness Ave, San Francisco, CA 94102
Program:
Johann Sebastian Bach: Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor
Franz Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 29 in E Major
Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade
This special event features a collaboration between Opus 3 Artists The Academy of St Martin in the Fields and SFCM in Davies Symphony Hall. As part of the San Francisco Symphony’s Great Performers Series, ASMF and SFCM students will perform side-by-side in a performance of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade led by Joshua Bell. The concert will also feature SFCM violin student Fiona Cunninghame-Murray performing as soloist with Bell in Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins. Cunninghame-Murray won this opportunity through a competition with other SFCM students.
This is a ticketed event at Davies Symphony Hall.
About the Academy of St Martin in the Fields
Kim Kashkashian (Credit: Claire Stefani)
Chamber Music Tuesday with Kim Kashkashian
Barbro Osher Recital Hall, 200 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA
Ute and William K. Bowes Jr. Center for Performing Arts
Program:
Gabriel Fauré: Piano Quartet No. 2 in G Minor
Antonín Dvořák: String Quintet No. 3 in E-flat Major
Internationally recognized as a unique voice on the viola and one of the great pedagogues of the instrument, SFCM welcomes Kim Kashkashian. She won the coveted GRAMMY Award for her recording of Ligeti and Kurtag solo viola works, and received the George Peabody Medal and Switzerland’s Golden Bow Award for her contributions to music. Kashkashian will also work with student chamber music ensembles in a masterclass during her residency at SFCM.
SFCM students perform in an opera production.
SFCM Opera Presents Candide by Leonard Bernstein
Friday March 14th, 7:30 PM and Saturday March 15th, 7:30 PM
Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall, 50 Oak Street, San Francisco, CA
Ann Getty Center for Education
Candide
Music by Leonard Bernstein
Lyrics by Richard Wilbur, Stephen Sondheim, John La Touche, Lillian Hellman, Dorothy Parker, and Leonard Bernstein
Frederic Wake-Walker, director
Edwin Outwater, conductor
Embrace a sunny outlook and everything will be OK, right? Not so in Leonard Bernstein’s funny, philosophical, and fast-paced take on Voltaire’s biting satire first published in 1759. This cynical but comical outlook on society comes with an overture that has become a hugely popular concert classic. This production is produced and directed by Askonas Holt’s internationally renowned director Frederic Wake-Walker and conducted by SFCM Music Director Edwin Outwater.
About Opera and Musical Theatre
The American Brass Quintet.
American Brass Quintet Residency and Side-by-Side
Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall, 50 Oak Street, San Francisco, CA
Ann Getty Center for Education
Hailed as “the most distinguished” of brass quintets by American Record Guide, the highly celebrated American Brass Quintet will be coming to SFCM in the spring for a residency that includes masterclasses and coaching, culminating in this side-by-side performance with SFCM brass students.
About the American Brass Quintet
Gabriela Lena Frank.
New Music Ensemble with Nicole Paiement
Barbro Osher Recital Hall, 200 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA
Ute and William K. Bowes Jr. Center for Performing Arts
Nicole Paiement, conductor
GRAMMY-winning composer Gabriela Lena Frank will be visiting SFCM in April, during which SFCM's New Music Ensemble under the direction of Opera Parallèle's Nicole Paiement will be performing some of her work.
About Nicole Paiement
About New Music Ensemble
About Gabriela Lena Frank
SFCM Orchestra with Awadagin Pratt
Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall, 50 Oak Street, San Francisco, CA
Ann Getty Center for Education
Awadagin Pratt, conductor & piano
Chih-Yao Chang & Donald Lee, assistant conductors
Program:
John Adams: Chamber Symphony
Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 39 in G Minor
Ludwig van Beethoven: Egmont Overture
Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major
This special chamber orchestra concert features SFCM faculty Awadagin Pratt as both conductor and piano soloist, as well as SFCM’s two graduate student conducting students. It opens with John Adams’ Chamber Symphony and Haydn’s Symphony No. 9, led by Edwin Outwater’s conducting students Chih-Yao Chang and Donald Lee. Pratt’s half of the program will conclude with him conducting Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 from the piano.
Chamber Music Tuesday with the Telegraph Quartet
Barbro Osher Recital Hall, 200 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA
Ute and William K. Bowes Jr. Center for Performing Arts
Program:
Antonín Dvořák: Cypresses
Josef Suk: Piano Quintet in G Minor
George Rochberg: String Quartet No. 3
Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “powerfully adept… with a combination of brilliance and subtlety,” the Telegraph Quartet formed in 2013 with an equal passion for the standard chamber music repertoire and contemporary, non-standard works alike. Returning to SFCM, where the Telegraph were formerly Ensemble-in-Residence, the experienced chamber music pedagogues will work intensely with SFCM’s chamber music students in preparing for this performance.
SFCM Historical Performance Presents Orlando
Saturday, April 12th, 7:30 PM, and Sunday, April 13th 2:00 PM
Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall, 50 Oak Street, San Francisco, CA
Ann Getty Center for Education
Orlando
Music by George Frideric Handel
Libretto by Carlo Sigismondo Capece
Corey Jamason, director and conductor
Elisabeth Reed, director
Marcie Stapp, director and diction coach
One of Handel's most experimental and unusual operas, Orlando explores the age-old theme of how love makes us miserable. The warrior Orlando loves Angelica, who doesn’t return his love, leading him into madness in some of Handel’s most stunning music. This production is presented by the SFCM Historical Performance program, and features students from both the Voice program and Baroque Ensemble.
SFFILM & TAC Present the 2025 Sound and Cinema Fellowship Screening
Thursday, April 24th, 2025 6:00 PM
Barbro Osher Recital Hall, 200 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA
Ute and William K. Bowes Jr. Center for Performing Arts
Led by SFCM’s Technology and Applied Composition program, SFFILM and SFCM presents an evening of music and film showcasing original, independent work as part of the 68th Annual San Francisco International Film Festival. Featured films will be presented, with directors and SFCM composers in attendance. Reception to follow.
About Technology and Applied Composition
About SFFILM Festival
Rufus Reid.
Roots, Jazz, and American Music Big Band Concert with Rufus Reid
Thursday, May 1st, 2025 7:30 PM
Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall, 50 Oak Street, San Francisco, CA
Ann Getty Center for Education
Renowned jazz bassist Rufus Reid returns to SFCM for the Roots, Jazz, and American Music (RJAM) Department’s Big Band concert. Reid has been a hugely influential presence in the jazz world since the 1970s, and has direct ties to SFCM: He played in a long-running jazz trio with SFCM RJAM drum faculty Akira Tana and Emerging Black Composers Project winner Sumi Tonooka. This concert will be celebrating his original compositions for large jazz ensembles.
About the Roots, Jazz, and American Music Department at SFCM
About Rufus Reid
SFCM Orchestra with Edwin Outwater
Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall, 50 Oak Street, San Francisco, CA
Ann Getty Center for Education
Program:
Joaquin Rodrigo: Fantasia para un gentilhombre
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 6 “Tragic”
Edwin Outwater, conductor
Samuel Liang, guitar
SFCM concerto competition winner Samuel Liang is the youngest guitarist to have won eight guitar competitions, including internationally. As a winner of the SFCM Guitar Concerto Competition, Liang will be playing Joaquín Rodrigo’s Fantasia para un gentilhombre. The remainder of the evening is then dedicated to Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, written in the early 1900s during the peak of his professional life as a conductor. With Mahler’s own labeling of the Symphony as “Tragic,” his friend and assistant, the great conductor Bruno Walter, said of the symphony “The Sixth is bleakly pessimistic: it reeks of the bitter cup of human life.”
Chamber Music Tuesday: SFCM Honors Chamber Ensembles
Barbro Osher Recital Hall, 200 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA
Ute and William K. Bowes Jr. Center for Performing Arts
Featuring:
The Amaru Quartet
Jeeihn Kim and Mark Chen, violins
Erika Cho, viola
Seoyeon Koo, cello
Trio Ethea
Shintaro Tandea, violin
Ayoun Alexandra Kim, cello
Jon Lee, piano
In SFCM’s first-ever Honors Ensemble competition, held during the Fall 2024 semester, two ensembles were selected for the opportunity to be featured in this additional Chamber Music Tuesday concert. In addition to this performance, both ensembles will also present community programs throughout the semester, and coached by the Conservatory Connect department.
About String and Piano Chamber Music
Chamber Opera: Anon and Riders to the Sea
Thursday, May 8 2025, 07:30 PM and Friday, May 9 2025, 07:30 PM
Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall, 50 Oak Street, San Francisco, CA
Ann Getty Center for Education
Heather Mathews and Sergey Khalikulov, stage directors
Curt Pajer and Dana Sadava, conductors
SFCM's Opera and Musical Theatre Department present a captivating double bill featuring Errollyn Wallen’s Anon and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Riders to the Sea. In Anon, Wallen's innovative blend of contemporary sounds and timeless themes explores the intersection of identity, anonymity, and the human condition. Vaughan Williams’ Riders to the Sea, based on J.M. Synge's harrowing play, is a stark yet poetic exploration of grief, loss, and the relentless power of the sea.
About Heather Mathews
About Curt Pajer
Learn more about studying at SFCM.