...and the concert at BAMPFA this evening will be full of wonderful music. Sacred and celebratory, with pieces by Preben Antonsen, Katherine Balch, John Dowland, Julius Eastman, Lou Harrison, Giacinto Scelsi, and Charles Wourinen.
After Everything concerts feature musicians and special guests with diverse backgrounds, styles, and interests– and above all, a deep love of music.
TONIGHT IS NO EXCEPTION.
NIKOLA PRINTZ RESOUNDS. An energy lingers wherever she hurls her dark, velvety voice and wherever the shadow of her commanding presence falls. She is a member of the resident artist program at Opera Memphis where she recently made her debut as Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro.
As a child, Mezzo-Soprano Nikola Printz, always had trouble falling asleep, without some background noise or a light on. So her mom would put together mixed tapes and cds of calm, quiet and relaxing music.
. . . she made me this one mix and the first part was this really long symphonic piece. It started with this mesmerizing violin solo ... this magical piece of music that sounded like a movie to me.
Every night for the next year or two, she listened to this piece to fall asleep, never knowing its name . . . never knowing what it was, or who wrote it, but being absolutely obsessed with it. By the time she thought to ask about it, her mother had forgotten what it was.
Almost a decade later, Nikola, then a senior in high school, was singing in the Chorus of her local Symphony, performing Vaughn Williams’ Dona Nobis pacem, along with other symphonic pieces on the program. She heard Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazadeand immediately recognized the first motif, the low bass that signifies the power of the Sultan in the first movement, “The Sea and Sinbad’s ships”
. . . I just immediately felt this crazy wave of implacable comfort and joy. I couldn’t believe that I had weirdly found this wild piece of music again after all of those years . . . that feeling rung inside me like a bell, and I just decided then that music was where it’s at for me.
EUGÉNE THERIAULT GETS GIDDY. A San Francisco native, Eugéne studied at the Oberlin Conservatory and earned a Masters in Music from the San Francisco Conservatory. New music performance has been a part of his life since adolescence. He loves music that takes something he knows very well, and twists or alters it in an interesting way. Here's something that makes him absolutely giddy.
When I was a kid (probably three or four years old) my dad would put a recording of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring on his old record player and I would dance to it-or what passed for dancing to me at the time . He'd told me the story behind the ballet and that stuck with me, even after I first saw Fantasia's dinosaur depiction. To this day it's one of my favorite pieces.
Join us later when we perform Sarah Cahill's program series Full, a concert which occurs each month on the night of the full moon at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. (Ticket included with price of admission. Seating is limited!)
