Promotional video

Pierrot Re-Imagined is a celebration of a piece that redefined modern music, Arnold Schoenberg’s iconic Pierrot Lunaire. Celebrating the 100th anniversary of its American premiere in 2024, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, joined with the vocal artistry and bravura interpretation of mezzo-soprano Rachel Calloway, are proud to offer a reimagination of experiencing Pierrot in live performance.

In collaboration with the Arnold Schoenberg Center in Vienna, this program combines a live performance of Pierrot in tandem with a full-length film by video artist Simona Fitcal, created with animated collages of visual art by Schoenberg himself, and accompanied by supertitle translations.

Schoenberg’s remarkable composition will be programmed in context with current works for Pierrot ensemble by diverse American works, like Joan Tower’s virtuoso fantasia, Petroushskates, and rising star Kevin Day’s ebullient new work un(ravel)ed as well as selections from Schoenberg’s own Cabaret Songs, highlighting the background and inspiration for Pierrot.

Pierrot Re-Imagined: A new way of experiencing a piece that feels forever fresh and continues to affect the landscape of contemporary music, right up to the present.

San Francisco Contemporary Music Players is the West Coast’s most longstanding and largest new music ensemble, comprised of 22 highly skilled musicians. For more than 50 years, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players have created innovative and artistically excellent music and are one of the most active ensembles in the United States dedicated to contemporary music. Holding an important role in the regional and national cultural landscape, the Contemporary Music Players are a 2018 awardee of the esteemed Fromm Foundation Ensemble Prize, and a ten-time winner of the CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming.

The Players have performed more than 1,300 works by over 600 composers and the organization has commissioned over 80 major works including pieces from composers such as John Adams, John Cage, Earle Brown, Olly Wilson, Michael Gordon, Du Yun, Myra Melford, and Julia Wolfe. The Contemporary Players have been presented by leading cultural festivals and concert series including San Francisco Performances, Los Angeles Monday Evening Concerts, Cal Performances, the Stern Grove Festival, the Festival of New American Music at CSU Sacramento, the Ojai Festival, and France’s prestigious MANCA Festival.

The Contemporary Music Players nourish the creation and dissemination of new works through world-class performances, commissions, and community and education programs. The Players perform the music of composers from across cultures and stylistic traditions who are creating a vast and vital 21st-century musical language featuring the work of iconic and emerging composers while shining a spotlight on works for large ensemble and California artists.

Eric Dudley, Artistic Director and Conductor, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, enjoys a multi-faceted career as a conductor, vocalist, pianist and composer deeply engaged in the performance of music both past and present. He is currently in his fifth season as Artistic Director for the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the largest and most long-standing ensemble dedicated solely to the presentation of contemporary music on the West Coast. From its founding in 2009, Eric also performed as an original member of the genre-defying vocal octet Roomful of Teeth, touring worldwide and recording a vast array of newly commissioned works with the Grammy Award-winning ensemble.

Rachel Calloway, mezzo-soprano, brings versatility and compelling insight to stages worldwide. Her work has been praised by the New York Times for “penetrating clarity” and “considerable depth of expression” and by Opera News for her “adept musicianship and dramatic flair.” A dedicated interpreter of new music, Ms. Calloway has premiered hundreds of solo and chamber music works. Recent and upcoming premieres include music by Augusta Read Thomas, John Zorn, Robert Xavier Rodriguez, David Garner, Gabriela Lena Frank, Christopher Cerrone, and Annika Socolofsky.