Free Classical Concert Series
Saturday, November 22nd at 7 p.m. – Final concert!
This final free concert of the series will feature two new works by American composer Mark Abel, whose works have attracted an international array of acclaimed singers and musicians as well as earned widespread praise from critics (more on his music below). This event is the premier performance of his song cycle “1966” featuring Australian soprano Charlotte Kelso. She is recognized as a rapidly rising star whom Stage Whispers notes has “a beautiful timbre… [and] an expressive physicality when singing.” Kelso has also been lauded by Opera Magazine as “Outstanding.” She will be accompanied on piano by the multi-talented Christine McLeavey Payne.
Abel’s second premier this evening is a chamber composition duo for cello and piano “A Door Opens” featuring Jonah Kim on cello and Keisuke Nakagoshi on piano. It is scheduled for recorded release as a single in February 2026. Another of Abel’s chamber compositions, “Out the Other Side” commissioned in 2022 by Jonah Kim is also on the program.
Each half of this evening’s performance is punctuated with quartet finales alternatingly by Dvorak and Brahms, performed with additional world-class musicians who compose the San Francisco Music Festival, Oscar Yao on piano, Eric Silberger on viola and violin, and Daniel Lelchuk on cello.
No advanced reservations. Gates open at 6:30 p.m. Seating limited to 100. Donations welcome!
The Musical Prism of Marc Abel
Since 2012 the recordings of Mark Abel’s chamber and vocal compositions have garnered widespread praise for their astonishing psychological depth and colorful variety of styles that one writer described as “melodically forthcoming, harmoniously laid-out, often playful, eminently accessible, at times ruminative, unabashedly joyful at others.”
Abel has been called “a compositional master of intriguing contemporary music” who “represents the best strain in contemporary American composers.” Critics have characterized his works as music that “sits comfortably within the classical tradition” and yet “fuse chamber and contemporary styles seamlessly together.”
Abel’s compositions overall are evenly divided between vocal and instrumental chamber compositions, as are the premiere performances in this concert. Gramaphone praised his works as ” …music compelling in narrative depth and energy.” Abel’s vocal works can be both “commanding and disquieting, … gorgeous and complex.” His song cycle “1966,” heard on his Spectrum album (along with “Out the Other Side”), has been described as “vividly dramatic and poignant,” and also “evocative, with a wistful beauty.”
Performed in the intimate candle-lit Swedenborgian Church, a hallowed national historic landmark, this promises to be a powerfully enchanting evening.