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Press Release: Berkeley Arts Festival Schedules First Two Concerts Next Week
The Berkeley Arts Festival Opening Concert, featuring Pianist Sarah Cahill, will take place on Tuesday July 12, at 8 pm at 2133 University Avenue, Berkeley.
The second concert, on Wednesday, July 13, at 8 pm, features Dan Plonsey's “New Monstrosities of Jazz”.
The multi-talented Cahill, the Bay Area's most vital proponent of new music, performs music from the American experimental tradition, including works by Henry Cowell, Ruth Crawford, and Dane Rudhyar. Among the Cowell pieces is his polyrhythmic three-movement Rhythmicana, composed while he was incarcerated in San Quentin. Sarah also performs three of Czech-American composer Tomas Svoboda's Nine Etudes in Fugue Style, composed in the mid-60s.
Sarah, who has a world-wide schedule of performances, will be playing with the Berkeley Symphony in December.
The non-profit Berkeley Arts Festival, now in its 20th year, has been producing concerts, readings, and exhibitions in empty storefronts borrowed for a month from generous landlords in Downtown Berkeley. The current location was most recently Mike's Bikes, which has moved up the street to the former paint store.
Plonsey's latest incarnation, the “New Monstrosities of Jazz” is made up of Steve Adams (alto sax), Jim Bove (drums), and Scott Looney (piano), Dan on sax, and Steve Horowitz (bass).
According to Andrew Gilbert in the East Bay Monthly, “What sets Plonsey’s music apart is his gift for combining antic, occasionally self-lacerating humor with fundamental existential themes, all set to insistently tuneful music. Hilarious and deadly serious, he’s a painstaking composer who embraces the ridiculous and the sublime.”
Dan Plonsey's Beanbenders played at the Berkeley Store Gallery (the first phase of the Berkeley Arts Festival) every Sunday night (in the old bank building on Shattuck and Bancroft) for a number of years starting in 1994, and made the festival famous.
The suggested donation at each concert is $10-$20.
For more information contact Bonnie Hughes: fabarts@silcon.com
