PROGRAM NOTES
Mercury Soul’s biggest show yet,with 4 DJs and more than 50 performers!
Guests stepped into a living work of art as iconic Grace Cathedral was transformed by Mercury Soul for a magical evening of luxe DJ beats, lush classical music and stunning immersive visuals.
Interspersed between DJ sets by GARZA (of Thievery Corporation), Masonic (Mason Bates), Justin Reed & Striz, guests enjoyed classical performances by Grace Cathedral Choir of Men & Boys, Mercury Soul Brass All-Stars, SFCM Baroque and more! Massive visual projections by Mark Johns flashed across Grace Cathedral’s gorgeous architecture and illuminated its massive columns.
We got some great photos. Check out the Gallery!
If you haven’t already, there’s still time to join our Mercury Society! With a donation of $100 or more, you’ll become a member and gain access to exclusive benefits—like an invitation to our next event in a new private club. Because of the intimate size of the venue, we’re only able to invite Mercury Society members. Best of all, your gift helps power our growing youth education program.
What did I hear?
Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986)
Requiem (selections)
Renown for the fluid beauty of his choral and organ music, Duruflé is chiefly remembered for his Requiem, which recasts the traditional form in impressionistic textures.
At the heart of the Requiem’s musical language is plainsong – sung prayers – and specifically, the medieval melodies from the Mass for the Dead which Duruflé knew so well from his days as a choirboy in Rouen. Duruflé’s stated goal was to retain the fluid, elastic approach to rhythm that is characteristic of chant, with its constantly fluctuating groupings of twos and threes. The melodies are organically expanded and surrounded with impressionistic harmonies.
Gabriela Lena Frank (b. 1972)
Envuelto por el Viento (arr. N. Luna)
Born in Berkeley, California, to a mother of mixed Peruvian/Chinese ancestry and a father of Lithuanian-Jewish descent, Frank explores her multicultural heritage in music. Inspired by the works of Bela Bartók and Alberto Ginastera, Frank is something of a musical anthropologist.
She has traveled extensively throughout South America, and her pieces reflect her studies of Latin American folklore, poetry, mythology, and native musical styles. This arranged is drawn from her choral work Two Mountain Songs.
Pérotin (circa early 13th Century)
from Sederunt Principes
Pérotin expanded medieval music by adding multiple voices to Gregorian chant, creating rich, layered textures that revolutionized Western music.
His Sederunt Principes is a vibrant example of medieval polyphony. Multiple voices harmonize above a plainchant (or simple prayer melody). The piece’s rhythmic energy and soaring harmonies create a stunning contrast between the steady chant and the dynamic, complex voices.
J.S. Bach (1685-1750)
Sarabande from Partita in D Minor
Johann Sebastian Bach was an astonishingly prolific composer and a renown virtuoso keyboardist. He composed well over a thousand works that showcase a mastery of counterpoint, harmonic complexity, technical brilliance. His output, impact, and ingenious craft is unmatched in the history of Western music.
Baroque composers often composed suites based on dance forms popular in the era, all characterized by their national backgrounds and rhythmic differences. In its great variety, baroque dance styles resemble the richness of today’s myriad genres of electronic dance music.
During 1720, Bach delved into solo violin music. This was due to his position as Kapellmeister at the court of Leopold, during which he did not compose any church music.
Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979)
Petite Canon
Nadia Boulanger was a brilliant composer, conductor, and mentor of the 20th century. Her impact as a teacher shaped generations of composers – Aaron Copland, Philip Glass, Astor Piazzolla, and Quincy Jones all made the pilgrimage to study with her in Paris.
Boulanger’s music explores unexpected twists and turns of conventional tonal harmony. Her 1911 composition Trois Pièces, of which the Petite Canon is the second movement, showcases her deep experience as an organist.
John Cage
Dream (arr. M. Bates)
John Cage is known for his experimental embraced of chance, silence, and unconventional sounds. But also created dreamy, mediative pieces that predate the minimalism of Philip Glass by decades.
Dream is a gentle, hypnotic soundworld with flowing rhythms and mantra-like repetitions of scales and patterns. Inspired by Eastern meditation, it invites listeners into a serene and profound space.
Georg Phlipp Telemann (1681-1767)
from Burlesque de Quixotte
Georg Philipp Telemann synthesized a wide variety of European influences into what was one of the most imaginative musical voices of the early 18th Century. Inspired by the story of Dox Quixote, the Burlesque showcases his fascination with the French style.
In tonight’s first movement, Don Quixote’s awakening is depicted in a bleary minuet, a courtly dance. The second movement showcases Telemann’s mastery of evocative instrumental writing, which can be heard in the sighing violins that depict Quixote’s longing for Princess Dulcinea.
Arvo Pärt (b. 1935)
Spiegel im Spiegel
Arvo Pärt is an Estonian composer of classical and religious music. Inspired by Gregorian chant, Pärt uses minimalist techniques to induce a meditative state.
Spiegel im Spiegel – ‘mirrors in mirrors’ – is a composition by Arvo Pärt written in 1978, just before his departure from Estonia. The piece uses the ‘tintinnabular’ technique invented by Pärt, wherein a melodic voice, operating over diatonic scales, and tintinnabular voice, operating within a triad on the tonic, accompany each other.
Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613)
Tristis Est Anima and
Amicus Meus from Tenebrae Responsaries
The curious life of the 16th Century composer Gesualdo mirrors his highly idiosyncratic harmonies. As a composer, he is known for writing madrigals and pieces of sacred music that use a wildly adventurous language not heard until the 19th Century.
He is also known for killing his first wife and her aristocratic lover upon finding them in flagrante delicto. About a year after the gruesome end of his first marriage, Gesualdo’s father died and he thus became the third Prince of Venosa and 8th Count of Conza.
What makes Gesualdo’s madrigals astonishing is their wandering harmonies and chromatic lines. Admirers have written about him through the centuries: an aide at the Este Court where Gesuldo worked remarked that “his art is infinite and moves in an extraordinary way,” while the modernist master Igor Stravinsky called him “one of the most personal creators ever born.”
Embroiled in both the Spanish Inquisition and a witchcraft trial (he was supposedly tormented by the spells his rejected concubine), Gesualdo ended his days in a depressive tumult and is said to have died a violent death at the hands of his servants.
Mason Bates
Mercury Interludes
Mercury Interludes preceded and followed each classical set. Interludes are composed and arranged by Mason Bates specifically for each Mercury Soul event.
Performers
DJs: GARZA of Thievery Corporation, DJ Masonic (Mason Bates), DJ Justin Reed & DJ Striz (illmeasures Chicago)
Conductor: Brad Hogarth
Piano: Elyse Weakley
Organ: Christopher Keady
Solo Cello: Sophie Deng (Mercury Soul Youth Ambassador)
Conductor: Brad Hogarth
Solo Dancer: Sarah Chou (SFDanceworks)
Visual Designer: Mark Johns
The Grace Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys
The Mercury Soul Brass All-Stars and SFCM Brass
Trumpet 1: Scott Maycomber, Caleb Brosnac, Taylor Hopps
Trumpet 2: Robert Giambruno, Jordan Ku
Trombone: Kensey Chellis, Neil Advant, Vidyuth Guruvayurappan
Horn: Sarah Ference, Yolanda Zheng, Seth Shumate
Tuba: Bin Love, Massimiliano Castor, Patrick Zhang
SF Conservatory of Music Baroque
Conducted by Corey Jamason
Violin 1: Alexandra Santon
Violin 2: Mateo Garza
Viola: Ruisi Doris Du, Zoe Yost
Violoncello: Octavio Mujica, Griffin Seuter, Vinci Chen, Ian Kitchen
Special thanks to:
