Having announced the “basics” of the 2025–2026 season of San Francisco Performances (SFP) at the beginning of this past April, I can now begin to account for the performances themselves. That announcement provided the basics for the annual PIVOT Festival, which will consist of three concerts on January 30 and 31 and February 1. The other seven series will extend across the full season, and each will be discussed in a separate article.
That “journey” will begin today with specifics about the Art of Song series. This will consist of four events, all beginning at 7:30 p.m. on either a Thursday or a Friday. As in the past, all of the recitals will be held in Herbst Theatre, on the ground floor of the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. All performances will begin at 7:30 p.m. The summary of dates and performers is as follows:
Friday, September 26: The first vocalist will be tenor Mark Padmore. He last visited SFP in March of 2022 with a program that accounted for an impressively diverse array of composers: Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Gustav Mahler, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Charles Ives. For his return visit, he will focus entirely on Schumann. He will be accompanied at the piano by Paul Lewis.
Friday, October 24: Baritone Benjamin Appl was the final recitalist in the Art of Song series for the 2022–2023 season. This was his SFP debut; and the title of his program was Nocturne, described in my preview article as “a nighttime journey with selections arranged according to facets of the night – romance, the moon, stars, nightmares, fancies, insomnia, dreams, the darkest hour, and finally, morning.” This year is the centenary of the birth of baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and Appl’s latest album, For Dieter: Hommage à Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau is scheduled for release towards the end of this month. Appl will draw upon that album to prepare his program. The pianist on that album, pianist James Baillieu, will be his accompanist.
Thursday, March 19: Appl’s performance during the 2022–2023 season was preceded by the recital performed by opera star J’Nai Bridges. On that occasion she was accompanied only by percussionist Ulysses Owens Jr. This time she will be accompanied at the piano by Terrence Wilson. However, some of her selections will involve a string quartet. Those selections will be performed by the members of the Catalyst Quartet: violinists Karla Donehew and Abi Fayette, Paul Laraia on viola, and cellist Karlos Rodriguez. The composers contributing to the program will be Antonín Dvořák, Edward Elgar, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and Libby Larson.
Soprano Miah Persson (from her SFP event page)
Thursday, April 9: The final vocalist will be Swedish soprano Miah Persson. She will be accompanied by Magnus Svensson at the piano. The program will be devoted entirely to Nordic songs.
Subscriptions are now on sale for $280 for premium seating in the Orchestra, the Side Boxes, and the front and center of the Dress Circle, $240 for the center rear of the Dress Circle and the remainder of the Orchestra, and $200 for the remainder of the Dress Circle and the Balcony. Subscriptions may be purchased online in advance through an SFP Web page. Orders may also be placed by calling the SFP subscriber hotline at 415-677-0325, which is open for receiving calls between 9:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. When single tickets go on sale, they may be purchased by visiting the specific event pages. The above dates provide hyperlinks to the appropriate Web pages.
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