Arts & Events

Studium Teatraine, directed by Jerzy Grotowski's student Piotr Borovski, will be in the Bay Area next week, a residency presented by the San Francisco Arts Festival, performing an adaptation of Hannah Kral's novel Chasing the King of Hearts, as well as teaching an afternoon-long, free acting workshop and presenting a discussion, Poland During and After World War II, with Dr. Krzystof Persak, director of the Office of the President, Institute of National Remembrance in Warsaw. -more-

Cal Performances' great, open day of performing arts and entertainment for the whole community, Fall Free For All, sprawling all over the UC campus, comes around again this Sunday, beginning at 11 with the New Century Chamber Orchestra, led by Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, at Zellerbach Hall with music by James Daugherty and Josef Suk, and ending at 5 with Theatre of Yugen performing two medieval Japanese Kyogen comedies, the Chaucer or Boccaccio-like stylized farces that accompany tragic Noh plays at Wheeler Auditorium--and much, much more in between and overlapping, in mor than a half dozen venues ... -more-

Julian Pollack is a Berkeley musician par excellence. Son of two gifted musicians, Susan Waterfall and Allan Pollack (Allan teaches music at UC Berkeley), founders of the Mendocino Music Festival, where Julian grew up around the sounds and where he has played his own. Julian's played piano since five, his mother his first teacher. Among my fondest memories of music in Berkeley is the double piano duet Julian and Susan did of John Adams' Hallelujah Junction for the Mendocino Festival at the Berkeley City Club--something of great, interlocking dynamism and compelling musicality. -more-

Conductor Gerard Schwarz will step in for Music Director Joana Carneiro at Berkeley Symphony’s season opening concert Thursday, October 3 at 7 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall. Maestra Carneiro has had to cancel her appearances due to medical conditions that prevent air travel at this time. The program features the world premiere of Ossicles (Tiny Bones) by Bay Area-based composer and UC Berkeley composition faculty member Edmund Campion, a co-commission with Cal Performances. Ossicles is Campion’s fourth piece for orchestra and refers to the three smallest bones in the human body located in the middle ear. Italian pianist Alessio Bax joins the Orchestra as soloist in Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No.2 with Wagner’s symphonic poem Siegfried’s Idyll also featured on the program. -more-