This week on Open Air, KALW’s weekly radio magazine for the Bay Area Performing Arts in Times of Corona, host David Latulippe talks about Hearts in San Francisco with Kim Meredith, CEO of the SF General Hospital Foundation, and 2021 Heart artist Jennifer Bloomer. Also, a conversation with composer Jake Heggie, in his role as creator of a podcast series of intimate conversations with American opera singers. Plus, Peter Robinson talks with dramaturg Philippa Kelly about the goings-on at Cal Shakes in Orinda.
Since its inception in 2004, Hearts in San Francisco has become one of the most widely recognized public art projects around the world. Over time, San Francisco Bay Area artists have created more than 480 Hearts that have gone on display across the city of San Francisco and beyond and have, in combination with other Hearts events, raised more than $32 million to support patient care at San Francisco General.
The 22 new Heart sculptures in the 2021 series include six large Hearts, six tabletop Hearts, and 10 mini Hearts, designed by 23 Bay Area-based artists, both established and up-and-coming.
The 2021 Hearts in San Francisco series are on public display in the windows of the Flood Building (870 Market Street in SF) through February 14. Following years of San Francisco tradition, several of the large Hearts will be exhibited in Union Square from February through October 2021.
Select Hearts will be auctioned at the Foundation’s Hearts in SF virtual fundraiser on Thursday, February 11 (6-7pm), with all proceeds benefiting essential life-enhancing programs and initiatives at Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, or Zuckerberg San Francisco General (ZSFG).
Also, we talk with composer Jake Heggie, about his series of podcast, titled Sing Louder, in which he has intimate and very personal conversations with some of America’s finest opera stars about their craft, their relationships with their voices, and their struggles in the world of opera. We listen to Heggie’s interview with mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges.
Plus, Open Air's regular contributor and critic at large, Peter Robinson, talks with Philippa Kelly, dramaturg at the California Shakespeare Theater about all things Shakespeare, and he finds out what’s happening this summer at Cal Shakes, meanwhile addressing important questions like: “What was an audience in Shakespeare’s day like, compared to the modern day”; and “How did Shakespeare cope with the plague now in the theater;” plus a discussion of new books on the life of the Bard.
Open Air, with host David Latulippe, is heard live on Thursday, February 4 at 1pm, and archived thereafter at this very location. Listen now or anytime….