Curating The KDFC Salon Series at SF Performances

KDFC has teamed with San Francisco Performances to present the KDFC Salon Series, starting next Wednesday evening at 6:30, and featuring pianist Edward Simon. The Venezuela-born jazz pianist will be playing a classical recital of music by Catalan composer Federico Mompou at the Education Studio upstairs at the War Memorial Veterans Building. There are four concerts in the series, curated by Simon, and hosted by our own Dianne Nicolini.

There’s more information at the San Francisco Performances website.

The four concerts are different in approach and instrumentation – with solo classical and jazz, and trio and duets represented. Wednesday’s concert was inspired by a Prelude of Mompou’s that San Francisco Performances Executive Director Melanie Smith heard Simon perform with his trio back at an earlier Salon concert at the Hotel Rex. “I’ve always loved the music of Federico Mompou. He’s a composer who writes very simply. He always wrote in short form. Never wrote anything for long form or extended work. There’s something about his pieces that have an improvising quality to them. I of course, I’m an improviser, and the question came up whether I would be doing some improvisation during this Mompou concert, and I believe that his music is so beautiful as it is, that really nothing needs to be added or subtracted from it.” That simplicity and directness will be on display in music from his Preludes, Song and Dance collection, and Música Callada (Silent Music). “His writing is very concise. So he has a gift for saying the most with the fewest notes. And that whole aesthetic is something I’m very much attracted to. I connect with that. In my own writing, in my own playing as an improviser, I strive to get the most out of the fewest notes.” The next concert in early February, will feature Astor Piazzolla’s ‘Four Seasons of Buenos Aires’ as arranged for Piano Trio. There’s a solo jazz recital on February 26th, and the final concert in mid-April will be duets of music for flute and piano by Venezuelan composers, which he’ll play with his longtime friend Marco Granados.