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‘The Effect’ @ SF Playhouse ~ Women composers in ‘A Listening Quilt’ ~ SF Gay Men’s Chorus: Bridges

This week on Open Air, KALW’s radio magazine about the Bay Area performing arts, guest host Rose Aguilar is filling in for David Latulippe, and she talks with artistic director Bill English of the San Francisco Playhouse about The Effect, a play by British playwright Lucy Prebble.

The Effect is a funny and moving exploration of love, depression and the limitations of neuroscience in our current, pill-popping culture. The play, directed by Bill English, runs through April 28 at SF Playhouse in downtown San Francisco (450 Post Street - between Mason and Powell Streets).

Also stopping by are flutist Martha Rodríguez-Salazar, clarinetist Rachel Condry, and pianist Jennifer Peringer, of chamber music ensemble The Bernal Hill Players, along with cellist Jill Brindell, to share details about their concert A Listening Quilt: Contemporary Chamber Music by Women Composers from North and South America.

A Listening Quilt, at 4pm on Sunday, March 25, at the Community Music Center (544 Capp Street) in San Francisco, celebrates a culturally diverse harvest of music by female composers from the US, Mexico, Cuba and Argentina, all written in a classical contemporary chamber music idiom, but also infused with the flavors of their places of origin, including Harlem Renaissance jazz, West Coast experimentalism, bluegrass and cowboy music, Argentinian tango, Cuban son, and Mexican Danzón.

Plus, from the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, we meet with artistic director and conductor Timothy Seelig, and long-term chorus member Clint Johnson, who share details about Bridges, a one-night-only musical and emotional extravaganza, presented in cooperation with the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir on Thursday, March 29 (8pm) at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco.

Bridges is inspired by the Lavender Pen Tour, last year’s week-long concert tour by both ensembles through the Deep South, during which they made 23 appearances in 9 churches and 5 states and raised more than $100,000 for local LGBTQ+ non-profits along the way.

On the program is the California premiere of Seven Last Words of the Unarmed by Joel Thompson, a monumental choral work that honors the last words of seven unarmed African-American men killed by authority figures in recent years — Michael Brown (“I don’t have a gun. Stop shooting.”), Kenneth Chamberlain (“Why do you have your guns out?”), John Crawford (“It’s not real.”), Amadou Diallo (“Mom, I’m going to college.”), Eric Garner (“I can’t breathe.”), Oscar Grant (“You shot me! You shot me!”), and Trayvon Martin (“What are you following me for?”).

Open Air with guest host Rose Aguilar; heard live on Thursday, March 22 at 1pm. Listen now or anytime…