“Judging from the Mission District’s Revolution Cafe, a name can steer destiny,” writes Andrew Gilbert in Thursday’s (11/17) San Francisco Chronicle (subscription required). “A decade ago, Joe Lewis, the venue’s presiding spirit and tireless booker, invited a young cadre of recent conservatory graduates to play a set of chamber music. It might have seemed like a fool’s errand, bringing sounds usually reserved for hushed rooms and black-tie affairs to the cafe’s raucous regulars.… But the performance marked the birth of Classical Revolution, an amorphous organization that has spread similar weekly or monthly chamber music sessions to cafes, bars and other unlikely venues in dozens of cities around the country. To mark its first decade, San Francisco’s foundational chapter has presented an ambitious series of concerts focusing on Beethoven, a celebration that culminates Friday, Nov. 18, at Grace Cathedral with a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.” Classical Revolution chapters have opened in Chicago, Cleveland, New York City, Portland, Reno, and Canada, France, and Germany. “The whole idea was to make this music more inclusive,” says founder Charith Premawardhana. “We wanted to make it accessible to as many people as possible and have a lot of musicians involved.”
Posted November 18, 2016
