An Afternoon With the Aurora Mandolin Orchestra

This will be the 5th consecutive year that the Aurora Mandolin Orchestra will perform in the Koret Auditorium. The Orchestra will play from their varied repertoire, including traditional and semi-classical Italian, Spanish, Russian, specialty ethnic and contemporary orchestral compositions. Both professional and amateur musicians play mandolin, mandola, mandocello, guitar, string bass, accordion, flute and percussion to create their distinctive sound.

Come enjoy the Aurora Mandolin Orchestra at 2 PM, Saturday, November 24, 2012 in the Koret Auditorium, Lower Level, Main Library.

This program is sponsored by the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library

All Library programs are free and open to the public.

Introduction to Western Music: From Mozart to Wagner - Fall 2012, Session 2

 The Art, Music & Recreation Center of the San Francisco Public Library in association with the University of the Commons (uotc.org) presents

INTRO TO WESTERN MUSIC: From Mozart to Wagner - Fall 2012, Session 2

Sundays, November 18 & 25 and December 2, 16 & 23

12:15-2:30 PM

Koret Auditorium

Main Library, Lower Level

Instructor: John Smalley

Recommended Texts:

• Joseph Kerman and Gary Tomlinson, Listen
• Joseph Machlis and Kristine Forney, The Enjoyment of Music
• Don Randel, The New Harvard Dictionary of Music
• Piero Weiss and Richard Taruskin, Music in the Western World: A History in Documents
• Michael Chanan, Musica Practica: The Social Practice of Western Music from Gregorian Chant to Postmodernism

Online Resources

• Classical Music Library (a database of classical music recordings available through the San Francisco Public Library.Go to www.sfpl.org then eLibrary then eMusic.)
• Oxford Music Online (Go to www.sfpl.org then eLibrary then Articles & Databases.)
• IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library: Free Public Domain Sheet Music: http://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page
• The Lied, Art Song, and Choral Texts Page (lyrics and translations of thousands of song texts): http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/
• SFPL’s blog of music resources: http://www.delicious.com/AMRLibrarian

Course Description and Objectives:  This course examines Western art music in various political, economic, and aesthetic contexts and seeks to teach listening skills, a critical vocabulary for discussing music, and a greater appreciation for the complex roles of music in society. We will look at changing genres and styles of music and discuss composers’ choices and assumptions, as well as those of their patrons and audiences, moving chronologically from the Classical through the Romantic eras. Students’ critical perceptions and responses to the music and the readings are an integral part of the course.

Course Calendar - November–December 2012

11/18   Introduction. Elements of music.

Classical Music. Terms: “string quartet,” “sonata-allegro form,” “minuet/trio.” 

Mozart, Eine kleine Nachtmusik, mvt. 1

Joseph Haydn, String Quartet, Op. 20, No. 2, mvt. 1

Joseph Haydn, String Quartet, Op. 20, No. 2, mvt. 2

Joseph Haydn, String Quartet, Op. 20, No. 2, mvt. 3

Joseph Haydn, String Quartet, Op. 20, No. 2, mvt. 4

11/25   Classical Symphony.

Mozart, Symphony No. 40 in G minor, mvt. 1

           

Pre-Classical Opera.  Classical Opera.

            Rousseau, Le devin du village

Mozart, The Magic Flute, “Der Vogelfänger bin ich ja” 

Mozart, The Magic Flute, “Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön”

12/2     Classical Concerto.  Terms: “theme and variations,” “trill,” “cadenza.”

Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 17 in G Major, K. 453, mvt. 1

Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 17 in G Major, K. 453, mvt. 3

            Beethoven

Beethoven, Symphony No. 5, mvt. 1

Beethoven, Symphony No. 5, mvt. 2

Beethoven, Symphony No. 5, mvt. 3

Beethoven, Symphony No. 5, mvt. 4

12/9     NO CLASS

12/16   Romantic Music. Romantic piano music.  The Lied.  Terms: “Lied”

Chopin, Mazurka, Op. 6, no. 2

Schubert, Erlkönig

Schubert, Der Doppelgänger

Robert Schumann, Im wunderschönen Monat Mai 

Clara Schumann, Der Mond kommt still gegangen

12/23   Romantic Program Music.  Nineteenth-century exoticism. 

Anon., Dies Irae

Berlioz, Symphonie Fantastique, mvt. 5

            Romantic Opera:  Italian and German styles.  Terms: “Leitmotive” 

Verdi, Aida

Wagner, Tristan and Isolde, Prelude

Wagner, Tristan and Isolde, Philter Scene

The 40th Anniversary of Wimmen's Comix 1972 - 2012

cover of Wimmin's Comix Number 1, November 1972 

(source: Women in Comics Wikia)

In 1972, a group of women cartoonists in San Francisco created Wimmen's Comix, an Anthology of Comics by women, challenging the sexism the faced by the male dominated comic book publishing industry.

The mission of Wimmen's Comix was to publish a comic book drawn by women cartoonists, and to leave fifty-percent of each issue open for new contributors. There was a rotating editor or co-editors and each issue had a theme.

There were seventeen issues of Wimmen's Comix published by Last Gasp Eco-Funnies, Renegade Press, and Rip Off Press between 1972 through 1992, and over a hundred new cartoonists saw their work in print, some for the first time. Many other titles grew out of this groundbreaking anthology, and today we are scattered in all corners of the United States and Europe.

The exhibit includes covers from throughout the series' run and panels of severals of the artists' work.

The 40th Anniversary of Wimmen's Comix will be on display on the 4th floor of the Main Library from November 10, 2012 through February 7, 2013.

November 2012 Thursday Noon Videos

In November the Art, Music and Recreation Center is hosting and programming the Main Library's Thursday Noon Videos in the Koret Auditorium.  This month's theme is “a very dysfunctional Thanksgiving.”

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Pieces of April, 2003, 80 minutes.
Katie Holmes plays the title character in this story of a family reuniting at April’s grotty Manhattan apartment for what may be the mother’s (Patricia Clarkson) final Thanksgiving. We follow April as she tries to put the meal together, only to find out that her oven is broken. Meanwhile the rest of her family is slowly making their way to New York, with the trip punctuated by many stops, including one for a funeral for road kill. With the help of various neighbors, April manages to assemble dinner, while learning to appreciate the importance of family and bonding with her fellow apartment dwellers in the process.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Home for the Holidays, 1995, 103 minutes.
Forty-year old single Chicagoan Claudia Larson, played by Holly Hunter, heads home for Thanksgiving having just been let go from her job at an art museum. In addition, her daughter (Clare Danes) confides on the way to taking Claudia to the airport that she’ll probably experience sex for the first time during the holiday weekend. The family Claudia will be joining includes her overbearing parents, (Anne Bancroft and Charles Durning) a crazy aunt, (Geraldine Chaplin) a humorless sister, (Cynthia Stevenson), and her mischievous brother (Robert Downey, Jr.), bringing his new boyfriend, (Dylan McDermott) home. How could this Thanksgiving not be a great time?

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Hannah and Her Sisters, 1986, 107 minutes.
A Woody Allen Manhattan mosaic, Hannah and Her Sisters concerns the lives, loves, and infidelities among a tightly-knit artistic clan. Hannah (Mia Farrow) regularly meets with her sisters Holly (Dianne Wiest) and Lee (Barbara Hershey) to discuss the week's events. It's what they don't always tell each other that forms the film's various subplots. Hannah is married to accountant and financial planner Elliot (Michael Caine), who carries a torch for Lee, who in turn lives with pompous Soho artist Frederick (Max Von Sydow). Meanwhile, Holly, a neurotic actress and eternal loser in love, dates TV producer Mickey (Allen), who used to be married to Hannah. Yes, it’s complicated - but also very enjoyable - to see how these stories resolve.

There will be no video program on Thursday, November 22 when the Library is closed for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Each screening begins at noon at the Koret Auditorium, Main Library, Lower Level. All programs at the Library are free and open to the public. This program is supported by the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library.

Motion Pictures: Featuring Bay Area Dance Companies

from The Happiness of Pursuit (Post: Ballet) by David Jouris

The San Francisco Public Library presents an exhibition of prints – representing a cross-section of local dance companies – that strive to capture the flowing energy that is unique to dance. To accomplish this, Berkeley artist David Jouris has developed an approach that distills time and motion into a single impressionistic image. In so doing, he is able to reveal a fluidity that would otherwise go unseen and to convey some of the luminous magic of dance.

The photographed dance companies include Axis Dance Company, Company C Contemporary Ballet, Keith Hennessey, Lily Cai Chinese Dance Company, LINES Training Program, Na Lei Hulu, Post: Ballet, Printz Dance Project, Robert Moses' Kin, and Zhukov Dance Theatre.

The exhibit is schedule to be displayed from October 27, 2012 through January 31, 2013 in the Steve Silver Beach Blanket Babylon Music Center on the 4th floor of the Main Library.