Arts and Culture

Block Party Celebrates New Art Museum and Film Archive

Published

10 years ago

July 21, 2014

By Barry Bergman, UC Berkeley News

Every art museum needs a frame, and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive celebrated a milestone Thursday in the construction of its future home — the placement of the last steel beam in the new building’s structural frame — with a New Orleans-flavored block party and “topping out” ceremony on Addison Street.

The tradition, explained John Wilson, president of the company that’s erecting the museum’s new home, Plant Construction, started with iron workers, whose job was done once the final beam was set in place. “So they’d grab an apprentice, send him out for a case of beer, and then they’d all gather together, sitting on the tailgate of a pickup truck, and say, ‘Look what a great job we did, we’ll let the rest of these guys finish this.’”

In the last light of an overcast last Thursday, that tradition was extended to include Berkeley residents, members of the campus community and art and film lovers — often the same people — who got an opportunity to sign the final beam with felt-tipped markers, aided by the New Orleans-style accompaniment of the 14-piece brass band Mission Delirium and vendors of wine, beer and artisanal snow cones.

The crowd had dwindled a bit by 7 p.m., but was still in a party mood when an overhead crane carried the colorfully tagged beam from the street to the top of the new structure.

In addition to Wilson, UC Berkeley Vice Chancellor John Wilton, Berkeley Vice Mayor Linda Maio and Lawrence Rinder, BAM/PFA’s director, took the microphone briefly to commemorate the midpoint in construction of the relocated museum, which integrates the campus’s long-shuttered printing plant at Center and Oxford with a new structure extending north to Addison.

The foundation for the complex, said Wilson, is “literally sitting in Strawberry Creek, so we’ve built a boat for a foundation.”

When the complex finally replaces the current, seismically unsound museum in January 2016, Rinder said, it will feature a number of advantages, including twice the space for education and collection access, so that “the material richness of UC Berkeley’s collection will be accessible to a broader public.”

It will also include two theaters, allowing simultaneous PFA programs in spaces designed specifically for films “for the first time in our history.”

“You will be able to see films here,” he promised, “better than you can see them anywhere in the world.”

Rinder said construction of the new museum complex — designed by the architectural firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro, responsible for New York City’s High Line and the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art — would be finished a year from now, but that it could take an additional six months before exhibitions were ready for public viewing. A “naked opening” of the completed structure, sans art, is planned for next fall.

Meanwhile, Rinder made clear he was looking forward to “getting the keys” to the new building in July 2015.

“My staff will have a parade down the street,” he joked to the crowd, “and you can help us carry the Rothko.”

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Arts and Culture

Faces Around the Bay Dr. Carl Blake, Pianist

Born in Liberty, Missouri, Carl Blake, a virtuoso and respected pianist, made his most recent migration to the East Bay in 1999. One might have seen him performing recently at Noontime Concerts in San Francisco, or at the Piedmont Center for the Arts in Oakland. He is Director of Music at The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco. He was also co-organizer and collaborative pianist at Herbst Theater for The Majesty of the Spirituals concert in 2022 and has held several church positions in the Bay Area.

Published

3 days ago

April 17, 2024

Oakland Post

Dr. Carl Blake

By Barbara Fluhrer

Born in Liberty, Missouri, Carl Blake, a virtuoso and respected pianist, made his most recent migration to the East Bay in 1999.

One might have seen him performing recently at Noontime Concerts in San Francisco, or at the Piedmont Center for the Arts in Oakland. He is Director of Music at The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco. He was also co-organizer and collaborative pianist at Herbst Theater for The Majesty of the Spirituals concert in 2022 and has held several church positions in the Bay Area.

Blake obtained a Bachelor of Music from Boston University and continued post-baccalaureate studies in Jamaica before earning a Master of Arts in Music at San Jose State University. He was the recipient of two Fulbright residencies in Honduras and completed a third residency at the University of St. Petersburg in Russia. He has a Doctor of Musical Arts from Cornell University.

At age 19, Blake, then an undergraduate piano major at Boston University, was “discovered” by Impresario Dr. W. Hazaiah Williams, who is the Founder and Director of Today’s Artists/Four Seasons Arts.

Williams honored Blake by awarding him the first Marian Anderson Young Artist Award. Anderson personally presented the award at the Masonic Auditorium in S.F. Subsequently, Blake was presented by Dr. Williams in his San Francisco debut at The Herbst Theatre. Williams subsidized a year of study abroad for Blake at the Paris Conservatory of Music. Additionally, Williams sponsored Blake’s New York Weill Hall debut, where he has performed twice since. Blake performed several times at the Yachats Music Festival in Oregon.

Blake continues to perform nationally and abroad. His hobbies are reading, baking and travel. He says, “I’m still pumping ivories, as Belgian pianist Jeanne Stark described the disciplined practice of concert piano.”

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Arts and Culture

Oakland Jazz Great Offers Master Class as City Declares “John Handy Day”

World-renowned jazz master saxophonist John Handy, a McClymond’s High School graduate, was presented with a Mayor of Oakland Proclamation declaring Feb. 12, as John Handy Day in the city. Handy is most notably known as the featured saxophonist for Charles Mingus on “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” from the album “Mingus Ah Um” (1959) and on “Hard Work” from his own album “Hard Work” (1976).

Published

2 months ago

February 24, 2024

Oakland Post

(L-R) Del Handy, John Handy, Roger Glenn, and Joe Warner celebrate John Handy Day at Geoffrey’s Inner Circle, Oakland. Photo by Lady Bianca.

By Conway Jones

World-renowned jazz master saxophonist John Handy, a McClymond’s High School graduate, was presented with a Mayor of Oakland Proclamation declaring Feb. 12, as John Handy Day in the city.

Handy is most notably known as the featured saxophonist for Charles Mingus on “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” from the album “Mingus Ah Um” (1959) and on “Hard Work” from his own album “Hard Work” (1976).

“John Handy is a jazz icon and an inspiration to musicians everywhere,” said Ayo Brame, a 16-year-old Oakland tenor saxophone player who is enrolled at the Oakland School for the Arts.

In celebration of this day, the reception in downtown Oakland at Geoffrey’s Inner Circle was a gathering of artists, young and old, coming together in his honor and celebrating his 91st birthday.

Handy presented a Saxophone Colossus free masterclass for musicians. This class afforded a rare opportunity to learn about the saxophone from an aficionado. The class was free and open to all – saxophonists, vocalists, aficionados, students, and casual listeners.

“As a longtime friend for over 60 years, and fellow musician who has had numerous opportunities to share the stage with John, it has always been a pleasure performing with him and hearing his creative interpretations of the music and his gift of ease inspiring the next generation of jazz musicians,” said Roger Glenn, a multi-instrumentalist.

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Arts and Culture

Musical Chronicling Life of Betty Reid Soskin Set for Bay Area Debut

Betty Reid Soskin’s storied 102 years includes time spent as a WWII defense worker, activist, business owner, songwriter, National Park Service park ranger and so much more. Now the Richmond icon is the subject of a musical based on her incredible life.

Published

2 months ago

February 24, 2024

Oakland Post

Betty Reid Soskin. Photo courtesy of Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond.

The Richmond Standard

“Sign My Name to Freedom,” a San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Company (SFBATCO) production which will focus on the life, music and writing of Ms. Soskin, will premiere at San Francisco’s Z Space Friday, March 29 and continue through Saturday, April 13. Tickets range from $15–$65 and can be purchased online at https://www.sfbatco.org/smntf

The musical is directed by Elizabeth Carter, while playwright Michael Gene Sullivan integrates Ms. Soskin’s own music throughout dialogue between what SFBATCO calls “The Four Bettys” as they progress through a century of experiences of this awe-inspiring American woman.

The cast of “Sign My Name to Freedom” features Tierra Allen as Little Betty, Aidaa Peerzada as Married Betty, Lucca Troutman as Revolutionary Betty and Cathleen Riddley as Present Betty Reid Soskin, according to Artistic Director Rodney Earl Jackson Jr. and Managing Director Adam Maggio. Other casting will be announced in the future.

Jackson said that having Soskin’s blessing to steward her life’s story is an honor and career highlight for him and that her journey stands as “a beacon for Black Americans, women and people of color all across the world [and] is a testament to the strength of the human spirit.”

San Francisco’s Z Space is located at 450 Florida St. in San Francisco. Check out the trailer here at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-ap9N2XBB0