Tune in to relive a selection of recent concerts and events featuring CMC faculty, students, and partners you may have missed! We’ll be sharing inspirational and educational concerts, workshops, and presentations to keep the music going all summer long. Watch these encores on our YouTube Channel.
Enjoy the following concerts and events, and stay tuned for more!
“A Song of Triumph: The History of Black Music” at Yerba Buena Gardens Festival
Community Music Center, celebrating its Centennial, presents “A Song of Triumph: The History of Black Music,” a new work by Maestro Curtis, Ph.D, featuring Maestro Curtis Ph.D, the Curtis Family C-Notes, and special guests, including including Dorothy Morrison, Bishop James Adams, Juan Escovedo, Ken Little, Larry Douglas, Ricardo Scales, Tony Bolivar, J.R. Hall, Tina Bryant, Neil Stallings, and Kam Krzy. The concert was an extension of CMC’s Black Music Studies Program, offering a journey of Black roots music and triumph through song, including hymns, field songs used to distract enslaved Africans from rigorous work, songs and culture created in the safe haven of the church, to music that the world enjoys today. Originally Premiered April 23, 2022. Read the program notes online here.
CMC Sessions: Traditions Moving Forward
Make musical discoveries with faculty from Community Music Center as they explore their methods, approaches, and creative practices in adapting musical traditions to inspire and guide the musicians of tomorrow. CMC Sessions: Traditions Moving Forward showcases the talents of faculty from the CMC Cultural Traditions and Piano Departments who represent diverse classical and non-classical traditions in workshops and presentations. The online workshops will use video, audio, and lecture-demonstrations to illustrate the faculty members’ influences and the musical education that shaped them, highlighting how their traditions impact their teaching and performing at CMC. Their personal stories illustrate the breadth of talent and creativity in CMC’s faculty.
Relive presentations and performances by these talented and inspiring faculty:
- Jennifer Peringer A CMC Teacher’s Musical Journey of Multicultural Explorations, Creative Expression, and Community Engagement
- Larry Dunn How Jump Swing Influenced My Music Making
- Tregar Otton Classical Foundations, Popular and Traditional Performance and Pedagogy
- Omar Ledezma Jr. The Music of Pacific Mambo Orchestra: A Percussionist’s Perspective
- Jon Jang One Day American, One Day Alien: Black & Brown Artists Who Made the National Anthem Their Own
- Joshua Saulle Vocal Traditions and Choral Innovations
- Lilia Zheltova Traditions of the Russian Piano School and Their Implementation in Today’s American Teaching
- Michaela Overall Teaching and Supporting the Neurodiverse Piano Student
- Martha Rodríguez-Salazar Bridging Cultures and Creating Communities: How My Binational Experience Shaped My Musical Perspectives.
Juliet McComas Keyboard Marathon: “Music of the Americas”
In its 18th year, the Juliet McComas Keyboard Marathon celebrates the richness of the piano repertoire through a different thematic lens each year. “Music of the Americas” shocases fifteen Community Music Center faculty artists performing nineteen American, Latinx, and African-American composers representing wide-ranging periods and styles. Bay Area composers Jon Jang, Bruce Nalezny, and Betty Wong are featured along with Barber, Bolcom, Bonds, Byron, Cervantes, Dett, Gardel, Gershwin, Ginastera, Glass, Guinga, Lecuona, Piazzola, Ponce, Price, and Villa-Lobos. Come hear your favorites and discover some new ones, as you enjoy a unique look into the vast repertoire of American music! This year, the event was held as part of the Old First Concerts series, origianlly performed May 1, 2022.
Featuring performances by CMC Piano Faculty and special guests:
Christian Bonvin, Esther Chan, Jaqueline Chew, Marco Diaz, Grace Huenemann, Jon Jang, Allison Lovejoy, Annie Nalezny, Michaela Overall, Erick Peralta, Jennifer Peringer, Matylda Rotkiewicz, Betty Wong, Shirley Wong-Frentzel, and Lilia Zheltova
With music by:
Samuel Barber, William Bolcom, Margaret Bonds, Don Byron, Ignacio Cervantes, Nathaniel Dett, Carlos Gardel, George Gershwin, Alberto Ginastera, Philip Glass, Guinga, Jon Jang, Ernesto Lecuona, Alfredo Le Pera, Bruce Nalezny, Astor Piazzolla, Manuel Ponce, Florence Price, Heitor Villa-Lobos, and Betty Wong.
All School-Recital 2022
The All-School Recital is an annual favorite, recognizing exceptional CMC students of all ages and levels in an afternoon of performances. The event often features CMC students who also receive Merit Scholarships. This year, the All-School Recital was held on Sunday, June 5 in CMC’s Concert Hall. Students and families had not participated in the event since 2019, so the day was extra special. There were 19 CMC students who performed works on a variety of instruments from across genres including old-time, classical, ragtime, and mariachi.
Field Day 2022 Performathon
Field Day is CMC’s annual celebration of music, community raising money for CMC scholarships and honoring the visionary founding director behind CMC, Gertrude Field. Field Day 2022 honored CMC’s Centennial with a spectacular in-person performathon, plus a two-day virtual performathon. Our students, faculty, and community shined on stage with a wide variety of musical styles from around the world and across the centuries, from soloists to “super choirs.” Watch our Field Day 2022 playlist to relive highlights from our in-person performances, as well as re-watch the virtual performathon livestreams.Special thanks to our special guest emcees at our in-person performathon: Chasta (107.7 The Bone) and Paul “Paulie Mac” McCaffrey (KNBR Radio) for joining in the CMC enthusiasm.