Jamie Sutherland was attending Scotland’s esteemed University of St. Andrews a few years ago, thinking his future was set. But he hadn’t counted on the ennui his courses would inspire.“It really didn’t feel like it was going anywhere,” says the singer, who was playing in campus combos at the time. “If you’ve ever studied philosophy, you’ll realize that it’s possibly the most pointless thing you could ever do with your life, apart from becoming a lawyer. So that was when I hatched my devious plan.”
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Each of the current San Francisco Ballet programs can be described with a single word. Program 3: variety. Program 4; consistency. Both are excellent, revealing more strengths than weaknesses. Both, featuring unusually long pieces, are challenging. Program 3 ranges from Yuri Possokhov’s energetic neoclassical choreography for Prokofiev’s “Classical Symphony,” to one of artistic director Helgi Tomasson’s most dramatic and affecting works, “Nanna’s Lied,” to William Forsythe’s intricate, bold “Artifact Suite.”
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Calgary-born, Montreal-based guitarist Taylor Smith is only 21. But he has lived an artistic lifetime to arrive at “Native Speaker,” the new Kanine Records debut of his ethereal quartet Braids. Initially launched as a backing combo for waifish vocalist Raphaelle Standell-Preston when she entered the Calgary Folk Festival’s songwriting contest, the group became a collective that made folk-pop and then dance-pop before radically changing due to its members’ strong creative drives.
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All singers experience highs and lows in their careers, but San Francisco mezzo soprano Zheng Cao has faced unique extremes. At 44, persistence, determination and what must be called medical miracles have enabled her survival against great odds. At the same time, triumphs on the stage have made her world-famous.The singer, featured in Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra’s concert series this weekend, came to the U.S. from Shanghai as youngster determined to become an opera star with $45 in her pocket and an English vocabulary consisting of “Merry Christmas.”
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San Francisco Symphony, which turns 100 on Dec. 8, is giving The City a birthday gift of a brilliant season of great music and famous artists. As it looks back on a century, the orchestra heads into the future with cutting-edge programming and in the vanguard of technology.“In marking the orchestra’s first hundred years,” says SFS President John D. Goldman, “this season is the moment to define what this orchestra will be for its next hundred.”
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The definition of diva can range from a woman blessed with great musical talents to one cursed with a difficult or demanding nature. Both ends of that spectrum have been applied to Patti LuPone.The Broadway star drops in at the Palace of Fine Arts on Tuesday for a City Arts & Lectures chat with Steve Winn and possibly a few songs. The subject of the evening — rescheduled from an event canceled last fall — is LuPone and her life and times as chronicled in her recent memoir.
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Back in 1998, Michael Gira, in a unique method, announced the breakup of his cryptic alternative outfit Swans by issuing an anthology of its best live work under the clinical title “Swans Are Dead” — an epitaph if ever there was one. Then he split with his longtime bandmate-partner Jarboe, began signing artists like Lisa Germano, Wooden Wand and Devendra Banhart to his offbeat imprint Young God Records, and carried on for five albums with his next group, Angels of Light.
But only a year ago, Gira’s MySpace page bore an eerie message: “Swans are not dead.”
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Sunny-voiced Bethany Cosentino might be the most in-demand collaborator in modern music. The Best Coast singer’s roster of recent outside assignments includes recordings with Black Iris (“When Will I Feel Love”), Weezer (“Go Away”), Kid Cudi and Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmanglij (“All Summer,” tracked for Converse shoes), and Britain’s brilliant Go! Team (“Rolling Blackouts” and “Buy Nothing Day”). But she’s even more famous as indie rock’s reigning Crazy Cat Lady, whose pampered feline Snacks — featured on the cover of Best Coast’s “Crazy for You” — has his own Twitter account.
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San Francisco’s Ensemble Parallele, a contemporary chamber opera company, is up for a new adventure, presenting the local premiere of Philip Glass’ “Orphée” (“Orpheus”) this weekend at Herbst Theatre.Ensemble Parallele music director and conductor Nicole Paiement is at the helm of the production, featuring one of Glass’ more accessible scores, with design and direction by Brian Staufenbiel.
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The past year has been a banner one for Justin Townes Earle.The 29-year-old twangsmith landed a cameo on HBO’s New Orleans-based drama “Treme,” playing guitar behind the troubadour character Harley — played by his real-life father, Steve Earle.GQ Magazine just named him one of 2010’s 25 Best Dressed Men, thanks to his angular Billy Reid-designed suits. And he’s just made the best album of his career, the R&B-meets-Carter-Family-ish new “Harlem River Blues” on Bloodshot. All rock-solid reasons to be cheerful.
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