Arts & Events

Worth Noting:

Boards, Commissions and Council are still on August recess with few City meetings.

The emergency Homeless Shelter which houses 95 people per night at 9^th and University closes after August 31. No new location has been identified.

On Monday the Agenda Committee reviews the proposed agenda for the first City Council meeting after summer recess

On Tuesday there will be community meeting on safety and the recent shooting at San Pablo Park.

Future Events:

There are events and forums planned before the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS) (September 12 – 14) http://globalclimateactionsummit.org. There is a march on Saturday, September 8 and a forum on Tuesday September 11 with a very impressive list of international presenters.

September 8 - Rise for Climate March (National Day of Action for Climate), 10 am San Francisco https://peoplesclimate.org/takeaction

September 11 - Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice 1:00 pm – 8:30 pm, local and international leaders, free and open to the public, wecaninternational.org/pages/sept2018,



The LeConte Neighborhood is postponing the meeting on Traffic Circles and Peoples Park until the end of September.

-more-

During the 2018 Berkeley Early Music Festival & Exhibition in June, I took time to visit the Exhibition, where rare and unusual instruments were on display and available for musicians to try them out. While at the Exhibition, I was offered four compact discs of music for lute, all produced by Gamut Music. I was asked by the people from Gamut Music if I would review these discs. I replied that I’d be happy to review them but couldn’t promise when I’d have the time to do so. Well, now in the last days of August I am delighted to fulfill my promise. -more-

Each year, the Merola Opera Program takes in a new class of young singers. In some years, the last two, for example, there is a bumper crop, and the Grand Finale concert at summer’s end features one standout performance after another. This year that is not exactly the case. At the Saturday, August 18 concert at War Memorial Opera House, the overall level of technical artistry on display was high, but the truly incendiary, standout performances were few and far between. This year’s Grand Finale program got under way with Dean Williamson conducting the San Francisco Opera Orchestra in a somewhat subdued rendition of the Overture to Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri. Director Marcus Shields employed a unit stage set throughout which consisted of a semicircle of what looked like boxes in an opera house, though two staircases led from ground level to the first tier of three. -more-