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Last night, in an abandoned storefront on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley (previously a Gateway Computer store and pictured above via Google, the second floor was also home to radio station KPFA for three decades), pianist Sarah Cahill initiated the latest installment of the peripatetic Berkeley Arts Festival with a concert that featured the music of Peter Garland, Stephen Blumberg, Mamoru Fujieda, Colin McPhee, Kyle Gann, and Terry Riley.
Starting around 1990 as part of the Berkeley Store Gallery, the Berkeley Arts Festival has been turning empty store fronts on Shattuck Avenue into performance spaces and exhibition halls for a month or two each year, largely due to the support of local commercial property owners, the City of Berkeley, and many art patrons, volunteers, and artists, and all under the direction of the indefatigable Bonnie Hughes.
The nice thing about these concerts is the informality of it all. Like being in someone's home, the performers and audience feel comfortable enough to talk about the music and sit close. The wonderful Grotrian grand piano looked beautiful in the center of the room, and the audience of about 50 of us sat in three rows in a semicircle around it, facing the windows onto the street. It was wonderful to hear, for example, Colin McPhee's Balinese transcriptions while watching the lights from the Shattuck Avenue Cinema across the street and people with umbrellas walking along the sidewalk.
And since Sarah knows all the composers on the program, she was able to speak about the music first-hand. Which added even more to the intimacy in the room.
By the way, I highly recommend Sarah's new CD on New Albion of Kyle Gann's Private Dances, which includes On Reading Emerson, performed last night.
