Ensemble for These Times to Present 19th Home Season HOME in San Francisco
Programs will feature pianist Dale Tsang, soprano Nanette McGuinness, and premieres by Clarice Assad, Reena Esmail, and Jake Heggie.
Ensemble for These Times has announced its 19th Bay Area Home Season, launching a new two-year initiative, “The HOME Project,” exploring the meaning of home through six concerts and five programs running from October 2026 through May 2027.
The season will open with Call for Scores: Solo Piano, Vol. 3, featuring E4TT emerita pianist Dale Tsang performing 14 works selected from the ensemble's third Call for Scores. The program will be presented October 18 at the Community Music Center in San Francisco and October 25 at the Berkeley Piano Club.
E4TT received 155 scores from 89 composers representing 20 countries and 19 U.S. states for the Call for Scores. The selected works include world premieres by Isiah Diaz-Lopez and Arturo Fernandez, a U.S. premiere by Joao Oliveira and several California and West Coast premieres.
The season continues November 15 with Exile | Banishment | Home at Old First Concerts in San Francisco. Exploring the question of what it means to be “home and not yet home,” the program will feature selections from Dimitri Shostakovich's From Jewish Folk Poetry, Op. 79, sung in the poetry's original Yiddish, alongside the world premiere of Alexander Malinas' Skazka, featuring Russian folktales reinterpreted for narrator, Pierrot ensemble and percussion with images by Aria Nunez.
The concert will also include the world premiere of a new cello and piano duo by Bay Area composer Mary Bianco, as well as works by David Garner, Andrea Casarrubios and Stella G. Gitelman Willoughby.
E4TT will kick off 2027 with Hollywood Exiles & Modern Noir on January 24 at Piedmont Piano Company in Oakland. The program will pair music by émigré composers who fled Europe for Hollywood during the 1930s and '40s with contemporary works inspired by film noir.
The concert will feature the world premiere of two-time Emmy Award winner Lars Deutsch's LA Noir: Devil's Flight for piano trio and a piano trio arrangement of Grammy Award-winning composer Germaine Franco's The Mother Daughter Theme. Music by Miklós Rózsa, Arnold Schoenberg, Eugene Zádor and Erich Zeisl will also be featured.
The centerpiece of the season, HOME, will take place April 9 at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Marking E4TT's seventh multimedia collaboration with SFCM, the concert will feature four world premieres, including new works by Max Marcus, Max Tafoya and Zoe Yost, as well as the winner of the E4TT/SFCM Composition Department multimedia student composition competition.
The program will also explore differing musical responses to “America the Beautiful” through works by Tyson Gholston Davis, Reena Esmail, Jake Heggie and Juri Seo, accompanied by a visual montage of scenes from across the United States. Clarice Assad's The Last Song will round out the program.
The season will conclude May 15 at San Francisco's Center for New Music with the eighth edition of Inspiración: Music by Women and Nonbinary Composers. The program will feature three world premiere commissions from Luna Composition Lab alumni Ilaria Hawley, Peyton Neleson and Èbùn Oguntola as part of Luna Lab@10.
Works by Chén Yí, Gabriela Lena Frank, Edna Alejandra Longoria, Anna Thorvaldsdottir and Mari Esabel Valverde will also be featured.
Ensemble for These Times consists of soprano and Artistic Executive Director Nanette McGuinness, cellist Megan Chartier, pianist Margaret Halbig and co-founder and Senior Artistic Advisor David Garner. The ensemble won The American Prize for Chamber Music Performance in 2021 and has performed internationally in Germany, Hungary, Poland and Spain.
All concerts in E4TT's 2026-27 season will be offered in hybrid format for both in-person and livestream audiences.
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Julius Caesar Marin Shakespeare Company (8/14-9/13) |
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Pickleball Hillbarn Theatre (8/20-9/13) |
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Holly Shaw’s ROAR! The Marsh Berkeley (8/29-8/30) |
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“Exile | Banishment | Home” Old First Concerts (11/15-11/15) |
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Once Upon A Mattress Saratoga Civic Theater (9/26-10/17) |
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Hadestown (Non-Equity) Orpheum Theatre San Francisco (1/07-1/10) |
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Golden Gate Park Band Golden Gate Bandshell (4/26-9/27) |
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Joyful Raven’s Tactical Frivolity The Marsh Berkeley (8/27-8/29) |
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The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown Santa Cruz Shakespeare (9/11-10/03) |
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Sherry Glaser’s Life & Death: A Love Story The Marsh Berkeley (8/21-8/22) |