2020-21 Season Announced!

Left Coast is thrilled to invite you to our 28th season. Streaming free-of-charge!

If it becomes safe to gather again before the season ends, we’ll add live events and welcome you back to the concert hall with us.

Season Kick-Off Party

Sunday, August 23, 2020

4pm PST

We miss you and can’t wait to get together again! Join pianist Eric Zivian and violinist / Artistic Director Anna Presler for a special performance of Brahms’ fabulous masterpiece, the G major Sonata, followed by an after party on Zoom with your fellow Left Coasters. The Brahms performance will be live streamed on Left Coast’s YouTube channel, then we’ll move over to Zoom to say hello, and discuss the Brahms and Left Coast’s upcoming 28th season.

Soft-Spoken

Monday, September 21, 2020

7:30pm PST

This program stars flutist Stacey Pelinka in Soft-Spoken, a world premiere from the multi-talented artist David Dominique, Zeppelin, a duo by Laurie San Martin, and Kurt Rohde’s new remixes of songs by Hildegard and Joni Mitchell, alongside trios by Beethoven and Albert Roussel. 

David Dominique - Soft-Spoken WORLD PREMIERE

Laurie San Martin - Zeppelin for Flute and Cello

Joni Mitchell - Blue (remix, Kurt Rohde)

Hildegard von Bingen - Ave Maria (remix, Kurt Rohde)

Albert Roussel - Trio for Flute, Viola, and Cello, Op. 40

Beethoven - Serenade in D Major for Flute, Violin, and Viola, Op 25

Please Elaborate

Monday, November 9, 2020

7:30pm PST

In Please Elaborate, composers offer new ways of looking at music from other times. Benjamin Britten’s Nocturnal for guitar and Lachrymae for viola and piano are instrumental elaborations on songs by John Dowland. In Oh Chaconne and No Man’s Land Lullaby, Eleanor Alberga gives us her take on the monumental Bach Chaconne and Johannes Brahms’ tender Lullaby. 

John Dowland - Come Heavy Sleep 

Benjamin Britten - Nocturnal for Guitar

Eleanor Alberga - Oh Chaconne!

Johannes Brahms - Lullaby

Eleanor Alberga - No Man's Land Lullaby for Violin and Piano 

John Dowland - If my complaints could passions move

Benjamin Britten - Lachrymae for Viola and Piano

Long Distance Call

Monday, January 25, 2021

7:30pm PST

Responding to the safety measures required in the pandemic, Left Coast has commissioned new works conceived as long distance conversations between a piano trio and a soprano. Laura Rose Schwartz and Ryan Suleiman will each write a new work, using a call and response model: the singer and ensemble alternate in sending each other musical postcards! Music by Frederic Rzewski, George Lewis, and Louise Farrenc completes the program.

Laura Rose Schwartz - New Work for Distanced Soprano, Flute, Cello, and Piano

Ryan Suleiman - New Work for Distanced Soprano, Flute, Cello, and Piano

George Lewis - Emergent flute and live electronics

Louise Farrenc - Trio for Flute, Cello and Piano, Op. 45

Metamorphosen

March 22, 2021

7:30pm PST

All the string players of Left Coast perform together in the septet version of Strauss’ Metamorphosen. Our cellists Leighton Fong and Tanya Tomkins are featured in the world premiere of a new duet by Nina Shekhar, and Kurt Rohde is the soloist in Derek Bermel’s Soul Garden, a shimmering concerto for viola and chamber ensemble. 

Derek Bermel - Soul Garden

Nina Shekhar - New Work for Two Cellos WORLD PREMIERE

Richard Strauss - Metamorphosen for String Septet

Sonic Luxury

Monday, June 7, 2021

7:30pm PST

Enjoy the decadent beauty of Grazyna Bacewicz’s Piano Quintet #1 and Samuel Coleridge Taylor’s joyous Clarinet Quintet. For smaller forces, but equally lovely are Clara Schumann’s piano variations, and Esa Pekka Salonen’s Nachtlieder for clarinet and piano.

Grażyna Bacewicz - Piano Quintet No. 1

Samuel Coleridge Taylor - Clarinet Quintet in F-sharp minor, Op. 10

Clara Schumann - Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann, Op 20

Esa Pekka Salonen - Nachtlied, for clarinet and piano

2020 Composition Contest Winner

Sarah Westwood's Things You Don’t Yet Know You Feel is the winner of the 2020 Left Coast Composition Contest. Left Coast will perform the piece in our 2021-22 season.

Sarah Westwood (UK) composes music for dance, music-theatre, installation, and concert. Her work has been received in eleven European countries, across four continents, commissioned and awarded. This includes performances by Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, Ensemble L'imaginaire Strasbourg, Prism Piano Trio Boston, and soloists Dan Thorpe, Aleksandra Demowska-Madejska, Jelena Makarova, and Karin Hellqvist, amongst others.

Sarah Westwood, photo credit James Harvey

She collaborates extensively with poet Georgie Lorimer, and dancers Eleven Farrer House (EFH). With Lorimer, collaborations include The Artist’s Kintsukuroi music-theatre work commissioned by Après l’Histoire, performed at Constellations Chicago; Into the Blank Expanse of Space for Carla Rees and Xenia Pestova, performed at Cheltenham Festival, published by Tetractys Publishing; and speaking within | fragmented lines for The Interstring Project, commissioned by Crossroads Festival Salzburg. Things You Don’t Yet Know You Feel is also in collaboration with Georgie Lorimer. This work was written for soprano Patricia Auchterlonie and Illuminate String Quartet, with a residency at Snape Maltings and a tour across the UK. With EFH, their most recent dance project copc was performed at Siobhan Davies Dance Studio London, and Dance Limerick Ireland. Previously, she was selected as a composer for Phoenix Dance Theatre’s inaugural Choreographers and Composers Lab Leeds, and a musician in ManiFeste’s In Vivio Danse Paris.

Notable attainments include being awarded the Bliss Trust Scholarship for artistic development to USA, selected for a Creative Retreat at The RedHouse Aldeburgh (supported by Britten-Pears Foundation), and a selected composer for ISCM World Music Days New Zealand 2020.

Sarah is studying for a PhD in composition at Goldsmiths, University of London, where she is also a research assistant in ‘Embodied Approaches to Performing Experimental Music’. She has been mentored by Patricia Alessandrini, Kenneth Hesketh, and Lauren Redhead, with further mentorship from Chaya Czernowin, Toshio Hosokawa, Justė Janulytė, Andrew Lewis, Anton Lukoszevieze, and Katharina Rosenberger.

Alongside composing, Sarah is Director of Programmes at Estalagem da Ponta do Sol’s Contemporary Music and Electronic Residency Madeira, bringing expert practitioners and practising sound artists, composers and performers from varied backgrounds together. She is also a Co-Director for Illuminate Women’s Music. The project aims to promote the work of women composers and performers, performing across UK. Illuminate has received funding from Arts Council England, Ambache Charitable Trust, PRS Foundation, ISM, and RVW Trust.

Find out more about Sarah at her website.

Sheltering Music: Special Note from Anna Presler

Dear Friends of Left Coast,

Coming up on June 1 is Left Coast's final subscription concert of our season. Since we anticipate continued restrictions on congregating we are preparing to broadcast the concert to our audience online, either from the concert hall or our homes. One way or the other, we look forward to playing some remarkable music for you in about six weeks! 

In the interest of health and safety, the musicians scheduled to play this concert have curated an updated program of solos and duets we can practice and rehearse at home. I'm excited about Sheltering Music, pieces picked for you by Stacey Pelinka, Phyllis Kamrin, Jerome Simas, Eric Zivian, Michel Taddei, Leighton Fong, and Loren Mach:

• Beethoven's rarely performed Piano Sonata, Op. 78, chosen by Eric for its succinct beauty

• Avian music: Peteris Vasks' Landscape with Birds, for flute, and Schumann's Bird as Prophet, for piano 

• Cloisonné a film accompanied by mesmerizing double bass music by Veronika Krausas

• Selections from Diaphonic Suite by Ruth Crawford Seeger and a baroque work by Michel Blavet that Stacey describes as "simple and haunting"

• Leighton and I are finally getting to play some of Jörg Widmann's tiny duos for violin and cello. We have wanted to work on these for years — they are incredibly fun and full of character, also full of surprises.

• Elliott Carter's brief and picturesque Steep Steps for bass clarinet

• Plus more music for viola, and percussion!

I hope you'll join us for Sheltering Music. We'll keep you updated about how to tune in. Meanwhile, please enjoy this Left Coast recording, a delicious morsel of night music from 1911, Lilli Boulanger's Nocturne. 

With best regards,

Anna

6 Productive Nonprofits In The Bay Area Built On Music

Left Coast Chamber Ensemble was featured in a video showcasing music makers in the Bay Area.

“The Bay Area has a wealth of culture, and it's important for all citizens to have the chance to be exposed to the wonderful art being created in Northern California. Each of these organizations has a unique approach to preserving music and bringing it to the masses, contributing to the diverse legacy that makes this such a special place.”

See the video featuring Left Coast and five other music organizations in the Bay Area.

Left Coast at Wunsch New Music Festival

Left Coast is proud to announce that we'll be the ensemble-in-residency at the second Wunsch New Music Festival at the University of Kansas from November 10-14, 2019.

Our agenda includes master classes, coachings, reading of student compositions, and we look forward to presenting a concert of contemporary music curated by the ensemble Tuesday, November 12th, 7:30pm at the Swarthout Recital Hall, including:

Melinda Wagner, Romanze with Faux Variations

Mei-Fang Lin, L'image Reconstituée

Jennifer Higdon, DASH

Christopher Stark, From the Field

Sheila Silver, On Loving

**Join us Saturday, November 9th, 3pm at the Center for New Music for a FREE concert previewing these works! Just for our home audience, enjoy a free preview before we hit the road!**