Chamber Music San Francisco

After departing Smuin Ballets in late 2001, I knocked around for a year doing a couple of consulting gigs and pondering what to do next. A major donor, who knew me from Smuin, said "You know what San Francisco needs? A terrific chamber music series." I of course replied "if you fund it, I will run it" and, long story short, we started up Chamber Music San Francisco. I made the rounds to other supporters that I knew from Smuin, who believed in me - God bless them! - and in early 2004 we started presenting concerts in a beautiful 300 seat theatre in the Palace of Fine Arts. We did OK for paid attendance (our artists, I must say, were always very high quality), especially after we struck up a partnership with the museum's Membership department. We gave their members preferential treatment, which thus became a perk of membership, and they promoted our concerts in their (truly massive) membership mailings. A very nice win-win situation. We were lucky enough to gain credibility with the press, and there were published many reviews (of artists like the Beaux Arts Trio, Lynn Harrell and Seong-Jin Cho) and articles (about Pinchas Zukerman, Michael Schade and even myself)

One extraordinary project we had in the early years was a partnership with The Guzik Foundation, which sponsored young musicians from Russia and Armenia: a conductor named Constantine Orbelian held auditions and chose the artists; we presented them in SF (another organization presented them at Carnegie Hall); we helped get them on their feet professionally, booking modest tours in the USA for them, arranging headshots, etc. These young artists were top drawer, as Constantine had truly golden ears: in 2011, three Gold Medalists in the Tchaikovsky Competition had all been "Guzik kids": Daniil Trifonov (piano), Sergei Dogadin (violin) and Narek Hakhnazaryan (cello).

I would be remiss in this history to not mention The Classical Christmas Special, an idea which I shamelessly cribbed from Michael Smuin, which debuted in 2005. It was sort of a vaudeville of Christmas material, all with a classical bent, like the classic "Who's On First" routine, transposed to Santa's reindeer; a ballet of "The Little Match Girl"; and this Sleigh Ride Fughetta (see below for a sample program). Though the Christmas show was lots of fun to put together, and a decent success, it was a TON of work to create and produce new material every year, and we had to let it go...

We Add Walnut Creek

In one of our first seasons in SF, a patron came up to me and suggested that we open a "branch office" in Walnut Creek, because nobody else was presenting artists of our quality there. I was surprised, as I knew there was a lot of musical activity in that area, but I did my research and sure enough, that was the case. So I reached out to the Diablo Regional Arts Association, the arts funding entity for the Lesher Theatre, and asked them if they might fund our concerts there. There ensued a pregnant pause on the phone, broken when the DRAA person said "How funny! we were thinking the same thing, of funding Artistic Excellence. How much do you need?" A lovely question, ending a lovely conversation. I gave it some thought, gave them a number, they agreed and voila! a new concert series was born, starting in 2007 with the St. Petersburg Quartet, pianist Charles Rosen, "The 4 Seasons of Vivaldi and Piazzolla" and cellist Lynn Harrell. We sold out pretty much right away, and to this day our audiences there are loyal, enthusiastic and numerous.

Having a little two-concert "package" to offer artists created a true win-win-win situation: the artists got a nice fee, the organization got superior artists, and most of all the audiences in Walnut Creek got artists of the very top quality: Emerson Quartet, Tokyo Quartet, Beaux Arts Trio in the early days, and later on Emanuel Ax, Pinchas Zukerman, Sarah Chang etc. etc.

Another change that came about in 2007 was a change in the Museum's policies, which made it impractical for outside renters like us to use their jewelbox theatre. Thenceforth we presented our concerts at the more prestigious, albeit much larger (900 seats), Herbst Theatre.

We Add Palo Alto

In the summer of 2007, I was visiting a music festival south of San Francisco and enjoying an al fresco lunch with some of our supporters. One of them asked me "since you are doing concerts in Walnut Creek, why not do the same in this area?" and I couldn't think of a single reason why not. Furthermore, everyone at the table thought it was a great idea.... so we did! Using Walnut Creek as a template, we added a third concert series. Starting in 2009 we were offering five artists a year a package of three concerts in a row, on Saturday, Sunday and Monday (the last being the new addition). Again, we found our audience right away and started pretty much selling out on subscription in our 300 seat theatre.

This structure, of three communities partnering in classical-music concerts presented by one organization, is unique in the USA at this level: there are similar projects presenting local artists, but none presenting top touring musicians. Again, a win-win-win for everybody concerned!

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I am proud of being part of the genesis of two small but excellent Bay Area arts organizations, Smuin Ballets and Chamber Music San Francisco. Neither of them would exist without my efforts, and they both produce work of the highest quality; in fact, each of the concert series in CMSF's three cities can compete, in terms of quality, with any such series in the world - London, Berlin, Paris etc. - despite our relatively small budget. See what I mean HERE.

I stepped down as executive director of Chamber Music SF in July, 2024 and I wish it to endure, and to flourish. I think I built it to be strong and sustainable. Time will tell... (with deep gratitude to our graphic designer, Mike English, who made us look like we knew what we were doing)