Arts & Events

AROUND AND ABOUT MUSIC: Atlantic Crossing: New Century Chamber Orchestra With Chanticleer--Tuesday, First Congregational Church

By Ken Bullock
Thursday March 20, 2014 - 05:50:00 PM

Across the ocean from New York to Europe--that's the program for Atlantic Crossing, the collaborative concert of New Century Chamber Orchestra, led by Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, with all-male chorus Chanticleer, this Tuesday at 8, First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way (near Durant & Dana). 

Music from the period between the World Wars will be featured, opening with NCCO's rendition of Fritz Kreisler's Midnight Bells, followed by Offenbach's Barcarole--and then a panoply of pieces by Miklos Rosza, Bartok, Hindemith, Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weill and Gershwin, concluding with "Tea for Two"--and a medley of Ellington/Strayhorn tunes. 

Some of the arrangements are from the 30s all-male German chorale, the Comedian Harmonists. 

NCCO showed their flare for collaboration the last time they played at First Congregational, in February. After a vigorous set of operatic instrumental music, the string orchestra, beefed up with some winds, backed three talented operatic singer/actors (Marai Valdes, Efrain Solis--& the excellent Thomas Glenn) from the Adler Fellows program of San Francisco Opera in a well-directed (Eugene Brancoveanu) staging of Donizetti's delightful short opera buffa, 'Rita,' a slapstick-y, sung salute to ... domestic violence? --though it's hard to tell, in this crazy menage-a-trois, who's getting the worst from whom. 

Atlantic Crossing, Tuesday, March 25, 8 pm, First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. $29-$59 (Single tickets at $15 for those under 35). (415) 392-4400; ncco.org