Time for Three pushes classical music forward; headlines with San Francisco Symphony
Live music has returned to the San Francisco Symphony. Time for Three, a band performing with the symphony this week, is making waves through their notes by playing a different sort of tune while sharing their message of what "contact" means to them.
Outside Davies Hall on a Tuesday afternoon, the three musicians of the band took some time to share their talents on the streets of San Francisco. This, while they usually perform with famed orchestras and in grand music halls.
Time for Three is made of three men from the East Coast: Nicolas Kendall, Charles Yang and Ranaan Meyer.
It is their skills with their strings and their love of this city that has finally brought them and their music back to life in San Francisco.
"We played with the orchestra at Stern Grove years ago," said Meyer. "And sort of the beginning of our relationship with the amazing organization."
Time for Three call themselves "a band of the moment," cut from a classical cloth but playing to push classical music forward.
"We are just curious musicians," explained Yang. "It is already weird that it is two violins and a bass and voice. But we are just curious to find different sounds."
Kendall, Meyer and Yang were forced into separation because of the pandemic, like so many others. But that time for them brought new ideas and new music to life. It is what their listeners get to experience now, in their latest of four concertos. Their newest is called, "Contact."
"We had time to really re-explore it during the pandemic, it is about this idea about the other, exploring new frontiers, but also reconnecting with ourselves as humans," said Kendall.
While their music does not fit into any specific mold per se, it fits right in San Francisco.
"San Francisco is such a town of innovation, creativity, thinking way into the future. And this piece is kind of perfect for that," explained Kendall. "There is so much diversity and artistic expression here. In a lot of ways we feel like it is a fit because genre does not really define us."
It is in San Francisco, where their different tune plays quite nicely for all who chose to experience it, whether it be a beautiful acoustic music hall or a San Francisco sidewalk.
Tickets for Thursday evening's concert at Davies Symphony Hall start at just $20 and are available at sfsymphony.org. Tickets for Friday evening's concert at Frost Amphitheater, presented by Stanford Live, start at just $15 for lawn admission and are available at live.stanford.edu.
More on Time for Three: tf3.com.
