A little fun with our amazingly talented music director Charlie Gurke & his band, Gurkestra.
HEAR THE SONGS OF THE SEA
Canciones del Mar pulls into port in just ten days!
Saturday, 9/23, 6:30pm
We Players' Music Director, Charlie Gurke
Come celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month at Canciones del Mar, aboard Eureka, the 1890 side-wheel paddle steamboat at Hyde Street Pier.
Have a listen to La Piragua, from Canciones del Mar!
Join our "Captain's Club"!
Any donation to We Players made between now and 9/23 in the amount of just $10 or more puts you in the Captain's Club!
We're delighted to offer complimentary Canciones del Mar drinks to our Captain's Club members.
Please note: We can not accept any donations on-site at the event and drinks will not be available for purchase.
So wet your bosun's whistle and join the Captain's Club today!
Vessels for Improvisation aboard the ferryboat Eureka
When I was approached about programming concerts at SF Maritime as part of We Players’ cooperative agreement with the park, it didn’t take long to figure out what I wanted to do.
One approach was to explore themes of the sea in latin american music, which we’ve been doing in our Canciones del Mar concerts.
The other approach that came to me was at the other end of the musical spectrum, so to speak. A more ‘pure’ exploration of sound in space, the basic idea was to let improvisers loose in the park to react and respond to the sounds of the pier. The bigger idea is that working with other artists in the familiar site of SF Maritime will help We Players company staff see the Park in new and inspiring ways.
A longtime fan of the ROVA sax quartet, they were the first ensemble I thought of approaching for this project. For an astounding 35 years, ROVA has been developing an improvisational rapport, making them an ideal group to step into almost any situation with open ears. Larry and John came to scope out the pier and decided that the ferryboat Eureka was best suited to this endeavor, with ample space for both audience and performers to move freely during the concert.
I had initially conceived of Vessels for Improvisation as a solely musical event, but ROVA expressed interest in collaborating with dancer Shinichi Iova-Koga, which made perfect sense, as movement (of performers and audience alike) would be a major part of Vessels. Now in it’s second year, I’m very much looking forward to what Vessels will reveal, featuring an expanded ensemble with the addition of John Bischoff on electronics, and Dana Iova-Koga and Dohee Lee from inkBoat joining ROVA and Shinichi.
– Charlie Gurke, Music Director
Vessels for Improvisation
Our site-integrated concerts explore the themes embedded in or suggested by a site and investigate the sonic properties of a space. Following the success of Canciones del Mar: Songs of the Sea in spring 2013, Music Director Charlie Gurke curates an evening of live music and dance improvisation aboard the historic ferryboat Eureka at Hyde Street Pier on November 2, 2013, featuring ROVA Saxophone Quartet and special guest Shinichi Iova-Koga from inkBoat.
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ROVA Saxophone Quartet
The ROVA Saxophone Quartet has been exploring the synthesis of composition and collective improvisation for over 35 years, creating exciting, genre-bending music that challenges and inspires. The Penguin Guide to Jazz calls ROVA’s music “a teeming cosmos of saxophone sounds” created by “deliberately eschewing conventional notions about swing [and] prodding at the boundaries of sound and space…”
For Vessels for Improvisation, ROVA will be joined by dancer Shinichi Iova-Koga (pictured above), founder of SF based performance company inkBoat.
“Shinichi Iova-Koga’s work is grotesque, beautiful, and funny. As a dancer he is never less than mesmerizing — ephemeral like smoke, limpid like a vernal pool. He has developed a personal form of mixed-media dance theater that integrates contradictory impulses — the ancient and the technological, the chaotic and the formal, nature and nurture. He might be called a dancer at the edge.” ~RITA FELCIANO
Join We Players and these renowned artists for an
unforgettable evening at Hyde Street Pier!