Previews

When Michael Tilson Thomas programmed the San Francisco Symphony's semistaged production of Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe for June 18-21, little did he know how au courant it would be.

The San Francisco Bay Area is a little foretaste of chorus heaven. Choruses flourish here, and their activities are constant. So what makes a person want to found another chorus? In the case of the International Orange Chorale of San Francisco, it’s as simple as wanting to choose your friends.

To hear pianist (and longtime SFCV contributor) Jerry Kuderna tell it, his upcoming concert at Trinity Chapel in Berkeley on June 6 was an extreme example of serendipity. There he was, innocently practicing music of the Catalan composer Federico Mompou, “the first Spanish composer who really got into my system,” he says.

The San Francisco Renaissance Voices, founded in 2004, is an ensemble dedicated to singing lesser-known and rarely performed early music, and this June they'll do just that. Their coming run of "The Darkness and The Dawn" (on June 13, 14, and 21) is an exploration of the Italian Renaissance, and the final installment of "The Polyphony Project," which explored the five major Renaissance schools.

La traviata, which opens June 13 in San Francisco Opera’s summer-season run, is a daunting opera for the soprano performing the role of Violetta Valery.

You might assume, from its Latin name Chora Nova, that it specializes in early music, but that’s far from the truth, as its upcoming concerts this week demonstrate. Carl Orff’s Catulli Carmina (Song of Catullus) does have Latin words, though its musical style is familiar from the composer’s Carmina Burana.

The idea that numerical properties underlie music has interested people since at least the Middle Ages.