On her first trip to San Francisco from Latvia, Agnese Dzenide walked into the San Francisco Botanical Garden expecting quiet paths and plants. While wandering she heard music playing. Dzenide had stumbled onto the final day of Flower Piano.
The Outer Sunset was still asleep on the morning of Saturday, Sept. 19 – except for the vendors setting up their tents along the Great Highway. Within the hour, the aroma of street food wafted through the air, the first band took the stage and the street crowded with Sunset locals perusing the strip of the Great Highway and Taraval Street filled with art, music, food and their neighbors.
The vocals of the 45-year-old resident of Kensington (just north of Berkeley) are as smooth as charmeuse, confidently improvisational and seemingly effortless, although her perfectionism leads to a lot of tinkering with songs before Wolf is willing to put them out into the world.
Instead of presidential cage fights, on June 14, the Sunset Commons café on Irving Street hosted a “watch party” of an event celebrating the First Amendment, joining more than 1,500 such gatherings with an estimated one million people across all 50 states.
Born and raised in the Richmond District, Victor Alexander Tapia, known more commonly in the DJ world as “The Goshfather” has played throughout the Bay Area and is now taking his music to an international audience at the FIFA World Cup.
The Golden Gate Park Band hosted a Juneteenth celebration last month at the Spreckels Temple of Music (the “Bandshell”), featuring “The Sistas,” a gospel/R&B trio from the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre’s Soulful Christmas Choir made up of vocalists Mary Williams, Robin Hodge-Williams and Dr. Yvonne Cobbs.
On any given evening in the Inner Richmond, the many bars and restaurants on Clement Street are lit up and peopled by families, dates and groups of students. Somewhere between Fifth and Sixth avenues, a captivating sound can be heard.
The Richmond District has been home to the world renowned Del Sol Quartet since 1992. The Quartet includes violist Charlton Lee, cellist Kathryn Bates and two violin players, Benjamin Kreith and Hyeyung Sol Yoon. While Del Sol’s instruments are the same as those used in classical string quartets for hundreds of years, Del Sol’s performances are anything but traditional.
The family hi-fi set-up, anchored by two giant hidden speakers, was located in the dining room. We never ate there unless we had company. No one who came to the house knew where the speakers were because the beige tweed fabric covering them matched the adjacent drapes.
A new musical experience has taken root in Gold Gate Park.
Community Music Hangout, a weekly gathering of musicians and community members, has become a fixture on John F. Kennedy (JFK) Promenade in Golden Gate Park. On April 27, the group celebrated its 100th weekend hangout in the park.
An orange spotlight beams on the theater screen. Instruments line the narrow stage, framed by a delicate arrangement of flowers. Groups of friends enter the theater and fill the well-worn velvet seats. The City feels impossibly small.
Throughout the month of February, the San Francisco Public Library System (SFPL) celebrated Black History Month with its “More Than a Month” series.
Illuminate and the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department will present more than 125 free concerts at the historic Golden Gate Bandshell in Golden Gate Park in 2025, starting with women-fronted bands on March 1. The 2025 season will run through mid-November, featuring shows most Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays, and select Saturdays.
Alex Strachan stands before an ensemble of 10 woodwind and brass musicians, his baton moving rhythmically through space as he conducts an outpour of musical notes. The various instruments are coming together to produce a bouncy melody, instantly identifiable as the Addams Family theme song.
