Summer in the City

There are many reasons why I'm excited to be sticking around the Bay Area this Summer, culture-wise. Here are just a few of them...

1. American Bach Soloists' SummerFest -- what lovelier way to spend a summer evening than munching a gourmet picnic supper serenaded by some of the country's finest early music specialists?

2. Thrillpeddlers' Theatre of the Ridiculous Festival -- San Francisco's own Grand Guignol stage company presents a weird and wonderful program of theatrical campery featuring Charles Busch's Theodora, She-Bitch of Byzantium and Charles Ludlam's Jack and the Beanstalk.

3. Asian Art Museum's Ming Dynasty Exhibition -- Not the place to go charging about like a bull in a china shop.

4. San Francisco Theater Festival -- this event seems to get bigger and bigger and more and more inventive with each passing year.

5. Lucia di Lammermoor at the Ball Park -- can't wait to experience SF Opera's production on a massive screen while eating hotdogs and drinking beer.

6. San Francisco Renaissance Voices staging of Hildegard von Bingen's Ordo Virtutum -- I'm currently wrapping my head around Hildegard's germanized Latin plainchant text in order to play "The Soul" in this astounding 12th century work.