Episode 18: San Francisco Performances

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A transcript, lightly edited for clarity and length, follows.

Show Guests: Melanie Smith, President of San Francisco Performances

Voices of the Community Introduction: Welcome to voices of the community which explores critical issues facing Northern California communities. We introduce you to the voices of community thought leaders and change makers who are working on solutions that face our fellow individual community members neighborhoods cities and our region. This is George Koster your host. 

Series Introduction: This episode is part of our series exploring COVID-19’s impact on nonprofits and small businesses in San Francisco. We started the series back in April 2020 during the height of the first phase of the Covid 19 pandemic and the Shelter In Place requirements. Over these past nine months, the Covid-19 pandemic and economic meltdown have wiped out millions of jobs in both the nonprofit and small business sectors as well as shuttered tens of thousands of small business operations.

The goal of the series is to shine a spotlight on the nonprofits, small businesses, and their staff who are struggling to deal with the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic on their operations, services and sustainability. The series of interviews we conducted features voices from a cross-section of organizations that make up the fabric of our community.  Each of them brings a unique perspective on how they and we are dealing with the issues facing our community during the global pandemic and economic depression.

Show Guest Melanie: Now more than ever, we're championing a new generation of younger artists who were also looking at ways to make this art form relevant, contemporary, and even more equitable. And through our history, we've also brought a lot of these artists into the community, through our partnerships, with public schools, other community centers.

Episode Intro - Show Host George: In this episode, our featured voice is Melanie Smith, President of San Francisco Performances. San Francisco Performances is an innovative curator of established classical music, jazz, and dance artists as well as a leading supporter of the next generation of performance artists with a commitment to equity for all. Their artist’s residencies provide opportunities for public school students who encounter music and dance for the very first time—to engage personally with artists and gain a deeper understanding of their work.

Show Host George: I'm joined remotely via zoom by Melanie Smith, President of San Francisco Performances. I'd like to turn to Melanie and have her share with our audience. You know, who is, San Francisco Performances and, the wonderful history you have there at the War Memorial.

Show Guest Melanie: San Francisco Performances is the City's premier presenter of what we call chamber music along with other kinds of smaller intimate performances. Chamber music can sound an anachronistic. But what it actually means is a small group of players on stage without a conductor performing in a relatively small space for a small group of people.

There's a lot of connection and sharing of energy that can happen in that context, that really can't happen in another setting. And that's why the Herbst Theater is pretty much been our home for the past 40 plus years, because it's the perfect place to make that happen. So, we've been around since 1979 and over the years, we've introduced hundreds of classical music, jazz and dance artists to the Bay area, including people like Yo-Yo Ma and Philip Glass, Prima Ballerina, Wendy Whelan and yeah, back in the day, the Paul Taylor dance company.

But now as we have before, we're championing a new generation of younger artists who were also looking at ways to make this art form relevant, contemporary, and even more equitable. And through our history, we've also brought a lot of these artists into the community, through our partnerships, with public schools, other community centers, through  long-term artist residency programs, really in an effort to connect with audiences, whether they're people who've bought a ticket to come into the Herbst or kids who may be experiencing this art form for the first time at school. So that everybody has an opportunity to engage personally with these artists and really come to some sort of understanding of this work.

Our mission is about offering the community, a transformative arts experience and a deep connection. We believe that there's nothing more powerful or timeless than live performance. So that's what we've always been about.

George: Thank you. That was a really nice overview. And, I think one of the most impressive things about San Francisco Performances is just the diversity that, each artist has her own, audience, if you will, but just a diverse, programming that you guys provide. So how has COVID-19 impacted I know that's hard one, since now we can't gather live. So, how have you guys been surviving?

Melanie Smith: Well, our last live performance, actually took place on Leap Day February 29th. It's hard to believe that was the last time we got together. Since then we've had to postpone or cancel about 20 different performances. And our patrons throughout this have been marvelous. They've offered to donate back or tickets or hold on to them and the hope of coming back for a rescheduled date and in the future. But it still means we lost about 50% of our income last year. And we just don't know yet in this new fiscal year, how it's going to end.

So, it's had a significant impact. We were supposed to be having our, season gala opener and fundraiser on Friday, October 2nd.  That's not happening. So, we're figuring out how to do this. I am very grateful, however that despite these financial losses to date, all of our staff are still with us working remotely and we're holding on waiting until the time when we can reopen safely.

And I'm so grateful also for a wonderful board of directors who really get it and their leadership and support has been tremendous throughout this time. So, we've been, keeping in touch, trying to connect with our audiences in whatever ways we can digitally and hanging on holding on to the future.

George: So then recently, as John had mentioned, San Francisco Performances is now kind of pivoted to do what so many arts and cultural organizations are trying to do, which is, to provide a virtual experience for, their, fans, customers, clients. How have you guys been doing that?

Melanie Smith: Well, one of the first things I did actually, so we closed the office on March 13th and before I left, I grabbed a handful of archival recordings from past context and thought, Hm, what can we do with these? I don't know. So, I took them home and we looked at them and we began posting them every week, just as an opportunity for people to share and remember, or to hear for the first-time artists from even, you know, 15, 20 years ago. So that was our first digital online series, which we called Front Row. And then during the summer months that yeah, sort of morphed into something that was more current.

I felt there was a time and place for people to really look to music for reflection. Respite, if you will. So, we created a short new series called Sanctuary and there was a church in Marin that allowed us to, in some cases live stream, if not record. There were no audience, but to bring local artists in, to do very special programs that were kind of, related to the time we were living through.

And I think that was tremendously meaningful for many people. And we heard from a lot of patrons about that. And now we're in the midst of our first ever podcast. And we work with, the music historian, Dr. Robert Greenberg, and he's doing a series of eight of them right now they're on our website, each one, a new one each week.

And that we hope will be sort of our back to school moment, taking us through the fall until such time. We hope in the new year that we can begin to open again. But our mission really is about live performance. And although it's been fun to be creative and to figure out, and, find ways to connect with people digitally, we are all about bringing them back together for the shared experience of a performance.

George: So, Melanie, how can, viewers and listeners of this interview, and all of your fans out there, support San Francisco Performances? What can folks do? Do you have a special campaign you're running for COVID?

Melanie Smith: In fact, we've just launched one, launched on October 1st, we have a new campaign called Bridge to the Future, which is, really what it says. We're asking people to make financial contributions to San Francisco Performances to help us bridge financially while we're shut down so that when we come back together, we can move forward.

We truly need this support to keep moving forward. I would also say though that, as I mentioned before, so many of our patrons and long-term, you know, members of our community subscribers have continued to buy tickets for future performances, knowing that some of them might have to be rescheduled.

And that helps tremendously. And it also helps just for our patrons and friends to remember and cherish those moments, those powerful performances that,  mean so much to them to hang on to that, to know that we will return and to really let us know how important the arts have been in their lives, because the staff, you know, needs some boosts too. As John mentioned, we all went into this field, my field specifically classical music and concerts, but we all went to the arts in general because we wanted to bring people together to share something wonderful.

And we can't be together right now. And so, it's really great, and helpful for us and for our team to know that people remember us, they have fond memories, they care, and they're looking forward to coming back.

George: So, to that point, Melanie, could you share with the audience, perhaps one of your favorite moments, over the years of, of San Francisco Performances, since I'm sure you have many, right?

Melanie Smith: Yes, I do have many, and I would say that at the end of the day, it's really about those personal connections that you can make I think in a more intimate space, NH chamber space, like the Herbst Theater. It's a way that artists can connect with audiences more directly, I think. Whether they go to schools, as many of them do and meet students who they keep in touch with for years, or they're performing on the main stage.

But I think out of all of the genres that we present, the artist who possibly have, the most direct pipeline to connection with people are the singers. And I have a couple of memories of singers. One from the passed and a couple of, very much more recently where they're doing just that the great Soprano Barbara Bonney used to come here often in the nineties in two thousand.

And as part of her engagements, she asked us to organize free public masterclasses. She wanted amateur singers in the community to have a chance to sing with her, maybe learn from her and share the stage with her. And just seeing Barbara choose an unknown person from the audience to come up on stage, very bravely and perform, and then join in a impromptu duet was really profound.

It spoke to that direct ability for music to communicate. And I think vocal music has an advantage, but more recently, we invited, Tenor Lawrence Brownlee. He's known as an opera singer. He's been here at SF Opera to give one of his first ever solo recitals at the Herbst. This was back in the spring of 2019, and he admitted to being a little nervous about it at the time, because it's a very different experience to be alone on stage with piano and a pianist it's very different from being in the midst of a huge cast and an orchestra in an ensemble, maybe in a costume it's very exposed, kind of like a high wire act without a net.

But Larry was keen to do it. So, in addition to doing a program of some well-known Schubert Songs, he actually asked the composer Tyshawn Sorey to write a new work just for him. And it had its world premiere that night called Cycles of My Being, which really is a reflection and tells a story of what it's like to be a black man in America historically and now, and that was so, powerful.

Larry performing that on our stage for the first time in these times is an unforgettable moment. And, I think that that, that piece of work that piece of music I hope lives on and becomes part of what we call the canon, because again, we need it. As part of the sanctuary series that we created this summer too, I asked Tenor Nicholas Phan this year, to think about a program that would speak to the COVID time. And he connected with the composer, Jake Heggie, who happened to be free. And the two of them came together and performed this digital concert, which we then made available to patrons called a Meditation on This Moment. And I got to be the only audience member in the room for that.

And probably out of this challenging time it's one of the more beautiful memories I will take with me. It was sorrowful, but it was ultimately very healing, and I heard from many of our folks listening that it deeply affected them as well.

George: Thank you those were great stories.  Melanie, what would you like to see are positive things coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, melt down.

Melanie Smith: The end of the world that it feels like sometimes.  Well, I mean, as John said, San Francisco is ahead of the curve in terms of dealing with COVID and we're so grateful to the Mayor for her vision and her wisdom and her willingness to listen to the scientists and the experts to bring us to this place.

We are very, very fortunate indeed, and though shutting down our season certainly was difficult and remains challenging. John and I, and our team in the War Memorial team have been working together in new ways to try to come up with a plan that we can demonstrate will allow us to maybe open a little sooner than others, to bring people back with socially distanced, smaller capacity audiences, so that we can keep the live music alive.

But this time, this meditation and that's Nick Phan's word. Has also given us in the classical music field, a real pause, a moment of reflection, and we need to look at it, our history and our field and how it's perceived and how relevant it may seem to be to those out there who are not maybe our regular subscribers, but other people in our community and beyond, I think it's an important moment of reflection.

And, it's something that we at San Francisco Performances are taking very much to heart and looking to the future when we do resume live performances. Who is on the stage? What are great works that have been unheard that we need to uncover? What are moments that we need to share? And what are relevant new works that we can help to, bring into being, working with artists like Larry Brownlee, or others that can touch people's lives more meaningfully as we move forward. I don't think that we would have had the time or the opportunity necessarily to look at these things. Had we not been put on pause?

George: Thank you Melanie for sharing all the wonderful work. And it's so wonderful to hear that San Francisco performances is continuing on. Please send me the information on the podcast and we'll put all of that in the contact information for listeners and viewers of this, interview to enjoy and please stay safe out there.

Melanie Smith: Thank you.

Episode Outro - Show Host George: That’s it for this episode of voices of the community. You have been listening to the voice of Melanie Smith, President of San Francisco Performances. The Covid-19 pandemic has led to a very big economic impact on performance organizations and the performing art community with an estimated 50% unemployment rate for performance artists on a national level. The financial impact will continue since the gathering of people in theaters will be one of the last business sectors to re-open in the San Francisco Bay Area. To Melanie and John’s point performing art organizations are being forced to develop new models of live streaming of shows and when small socially distanced audiences can come back into the theater the creation of hybrid performances of both on-line and in person could become the new theater experience. To find out more about how you support San Francisco Performances 41st season go to sfperformances dot org        

Series Outro: We hope that you enjoy the insights, points of view, and personal stories from the voices of change-makers and their nonprofits and small businesses featured in this series. To find out more and get engaged with the nonprofits, small businesses and staff members, featured in this series please go to my web site george koster dot com and click on Voices of the Community to find links to the extended versions of these interviews and to listen to the entire series. After listening to these stories we hope that you will consider making a donation and volunteering to provide a hand up to your fellow community members.

Series Credits: I want to thank my associate producer Eric Estrada, along with Mel, Michael, and Lila at the San Francisco Public Press and KSFP. To listen to our next episode in this series and to our archived past shows which feature community voices working on solutions to critical issues facing Northern California communities, please go to george koster dot com. While you are on our website please consider making a donation to help us provide future shows just like this one. Please subscribe to Voices of the Community on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or where ever you get your podcasts. Follow us on twitter @georgekoster and please email us with feedback and show ideas at george@georgekoster.com. I'm George Koster in San Francisco and thank you for listening.

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