Our 5th annual Canciones del Mar concert was a dream!

"THE SACRED RADIANCE OF THE SUN"

- King Lear

Our 5th annual Canciones del Mar concert was a dream. Thank you dancers, listeners, and stellar musicians! 

Photos: ACT OUT Photography, Jim Norrena

Photos: ACT OUT Photography, Jim Norrena

A standing ovation for the jaw-dropping sunset streaking resplendent colors across the sky, melting everything into liquid gold, and slipping off into violet clouds. 

Big thanks to our friends at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park and to the warm wooden embrace of ferryboatEureka. We'll be back! 

Meantime, the songs of el pulpo (the octopus) y el calamar (the squid), of sailboats and canoes and the teasing love affair of the waves against the sand, murmur in our memories...

Photo: Lauren Matley

Photo: Lauren Matley


Mother Lear starts this weekend with private home performances in SF and San Anselmo!

On opening weekend you can find mama Lear on the roof of a dramatic SOMA warehouse, surrounded by the urban jungle, as well as amongst live oaks upon a golden hilltop. 

Be sure to catch We Players' trademark exterior open space performances of Mother Lear in the South Bay at Montalvo Arts Center, and in San Francisco at the beautifully expansiveMcLaren Park. Find unique intimate performances under The Sukkah at The Jewish Community Center East Bay, and at other spectacular private residences around the Bay Area.

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

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!  

Soy Tu Mar (I Am Your Sea)

Canciones del Mar: Songs of the Sea

I have played all sorts of concerts in all kinds of venues but “Canciones del Mar; Songs of the Sea” (curated by Charlie Gurke from We Players) is a very unique and fun concert because our performance will happen aboard a beautiful historic ship, the Balclutha, in the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park.

For an hour and a half Jose Roberto Hernandez (guitar, vocals), Charlie Gurke (saxophone), David Pinto (bass) and Edgardo Cambón (percussion, vocals) and I will take you to a world of sea and love with stories and song.

I’m particularly excited about this year’s performance as I will be sharing one of my original songs, “Soy Tu Mar” (I Am Your Sea), a song that speaks about the sea, or better said, the sea speaks about itself, about its memories, about its joys and fear…through me.

I am very honored to be playing with such broad and talented musicians. We all come from different musical backgrounds so I will be playing and singing songs that, at times, may take me out of my comfort zone which I find to be very exciting as playing and singing styles of music different from mine takes my musicianship to another level. Really looking forward to this beautiful collaboration!

— Diana Gameros, Vocals & Guitar
Canciones del Mar

Meet the Musicians of Canciones del Mar

Canciones del Mar: Songs of the Sea
on Saturday, July 19th at 6pm aboard the tall ship, Balclutha.

I think of the musicians of Canciones as an all-star ensemble, but when putting this group together, I wasn’t looking for the flashy, virtuoso kind of ‘all-star’. Each member of this ensemble is a virtuoso musician and composer in their own right, but I chose each one more for their interpretive sensitivity than their ‘chops’. I wanted to be sure that the themes we’re expressing, the variety of metaphor that the sea provokes, would be artfully expressed.

I’ve had the pleasure of performing with Edgardo Cambon’s large and small ensembles, Candela and Latido, for the past several years. Originally from Montevideo, Uruguay, Edgardo is a master percussionist and vocalist with a breadth of knowledge and experience performing the music of Latin America, from Argentinian tango to the salsa of El Barrio. Edgardo is especially fluent in the popular and folkloric music of Cuba, and opens each Canciones performance with a chant to Yemaya, the Afro-Cuban deity of the sea.

Originally from Juarez, Mexico, Diana Gameros is known to most of her fans for her original songs of ‘love, longing, and hope’, performed in a diverse style that blends elements of latin music with rock, world music, and jazz. I knew Diana would be a perfect fit for the Canciones ensemble when I heard her perform solo, playing very original and personal arrangements of classic boleros and rancheros from the latin american tradition.

I came to know Jose Roberto Hernandez when we spent the better part of a year bringing the music of Latin America to elementary school kids across San Francisco through a program with the SF Symphony. Jose Roberto is not only a master guitarist and vocalist with a wealth of knowledge of the bolero and nueva trova traditions, but is also skilled in folk instruments from around Latin America, including his native Tabasco, Mexico.

David Pinto is one of the many musical treasures we are lucky to have here in the Bay Area. A native of Peru, David is best known for his work as music director, arranger, and bassist for Susana Baca. In addition to his particular expertise in Afro-Peruvian music, David performs with the bay’s best salsa, folkloric, and latin jazz ensembles.

— Charlie Gurke
We Players 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.

Scroll down to place your reservation!

ROVA Saxophone Quartet

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…”

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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!