George Cables Trio

Why Discussion Series

In December and January we gathered at The 222 for three discussions sessions about Authenticity. Each evening focused on a different angle: Art, Performance, and Community. We followed this process with an additional three sessions focusing on Purpose in March and April. And then again in July, we gathered for a more esoteric conversation, asking the question "why"?

As before, the discussion questions stimulated wide-ranging conversation. Notes from the sessions informed the creation of a word cloud. Interestingly, this question had many more individual, non-repeating words as compared to the previous two series. The quantitative data shows in size—the larger the word, the more frequently it occurred. Another more intuitive way to look at a word cloud is to see which words stand out or to notice if there are words missing.

What Moves You? with Porsia Tunzi

Aika Joshi Reading and Conversation

Alka Joshi is the internationally bestselling author of the Jaipur Trilogy: The Henna Artist, The Secret Keeper of Jaipur and The Perfumist of Paris. Six Days in Bombay is her fourth novel. Her debut novel, The Henna Artist, immediately became a New York Times Bestseller and a Reese Witherspoon Pick. It was Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. The book has been translated into 29 languages and is currently in development at Netflix as a TV series. In 2023, Forbes selected Joshi as one of “50 over 50” women empowering other women. Joshi was born in India and came to the U.S. with her family at the age of nine. She has a BA from Stanford University and an MFA from California College of Arts. She lives in California.

Clerestory presents Savor The Sound: A Musical Celebration of Food & Drink

Clerestory returns to THE 222 with a program showcasing the breadth of exquisite a capella polyphony that the group is known for, spanning the centuries from Renaissance polyphony to modern-day compositions. From countertenor to bass, Clerestory's nine singers have been praised by SF Classical Voice for their "distinctive voices blending in a gorgeous sound." Founded in 2006, the self-led ensemble features veterans of the country's most renowned professional voice groups, including Chanticleer, Conspirare, American Bach Soloists, and others. The ensembles exceptional talent has been featured on National Public Radio and on San Francisco's KQED. 

"The appeal of this concert theme is easy to taste: song and sustenance have gone together for thousands of years. Have you ever been to a party without either one? So, it's no surprise that for centuries, composers of choral music have celebrated food and drink with pieces that are sensuous, fun, crave-worthy, and beautiful. (It must be said that, yes, sex, too, tickles the senses in much the same ways and, not coincidentally, hums under the surface of this music in ways subtle and not.)

Indeed, just like music, food can be shared with others as an expression of love. Eating and drinking together can be a means of bonding with friends, or even people we just met--perhaps the person seated next to you. At the end of the day-often literally—our food brings us together with a sharing of culture, celebration, and hospitality." 

Jesse Antin, Clerestory Founder and President

Jane Hirshfield

Trio M

With a career spanning over three decades, the pianist and keyboardist Myra Melford has distinguished herself through her unique ability to blend jazz with elements of blues, Indian classical music, and avant-garde improvisation. She has pursued a creative vision that is both wholly distinctive and all-embracing, where composition and improvisation interact seamlessly and ingeniously, one side strengthening the other. Divergent idioms and eras coalesce—from jazz, blues and global folk styles to various corners of the classical tradition. Extramusical influences—the poetry of Rumi or the spirituality of the Huichol Indians of Mexico—also figure in the mix. In the end, Melford’s efforts are probably best served by labels like “contemporary music” or “new music,” or other tags that signify artistic freedom and daring more than any boundaries of genre.

A 2013 Guggenheim Fellow, Melford was described by the San Francisco Chronicle as an “explosive player, a virtuoso who shocks and soothes, and who can make the piano stand up and do things it doesn’t seem to have been designed for.”

Bay Nature

Bay Nature, now celebrating its 25th year of publication, is as unique and treasured as the San Francisco Bay it covers—think of it as the Bay Area’s own National Geographic. It is the go-to for readers seeking insight into local environmental issues, the nature that lives around us, and ways to get outdoors in the region. How did this publication become such a fixture in Bay Area media? What’s next?

Join Literary Arts Programmer Laurie Glover and Bay Nature editor Kate Golden  in conversation about how the magazine and its foundation are expanding the work of bringing science to the citizen.

Telegraph Quartet

Now celebrating its 10th season together, the Telegraph Quartet returns to THE 222 to demonstrate once again why the San Francisco Chronicle proclaimed them “. . . an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape.” They have an equal passion for the standard chamber music repertoire and contemporary, not-standard works alike. Since winning the Grand Prize in the prestigious Fis- choff Chamber Music Competition in 2014 they have performed far and wide, both in North America and beyond.

“ . . . Full of elegance and pinpoint control. . .Every minute of their account sounds gripping and purposeful . . ."  -New York Times

Maxim Lando

Maxim Lando has at a young age already performed at many of the most prestigious venues in the world. Described by the New York Times as a “dazzling fire-eater” ARTS San Francisco) and by the New York Times as displaying “brilliance and infectious exuberance”combined with “impressive delicacy.” First Prize Winner of the 2018 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, Maxim held sold-out recital debuts at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall and the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater. The previous year Maxim made international headlines performing together with Lang Lang, Chick Corea, the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Yannick-Seguin at Carnegie Hall’s Opening Night Gala.

(C)Jim Orsetti 2025

 

FILM: Trouble in Paradise

Vox Humana

Love in Many Forms: Morgan Balfour

FILM: Playtime

Jacques Tati’s gloriously choreographed, nearly wordless comedies about confusion in an age of high technology reached their apotheosis with Playtime. For this monumental achievement, a nearly three-year-long, bank-breaking production, Tati again thrust the lovably old-fashioned Monsieur Hulot, along with a host of other lost souls, into a baffling modern world, this time in Paris. A group of tourists, whose paths are only occasionally crossed by M. Hulot, wander through the interchangeable glass-and-steel skyscrapers which comprise modern-day Paris. Visual gags occur with such simultaneous abundance that the film demands countless viewings for each joke to be fully savored. The film’s second hour, the opening night activities at an expensive restaurant that is not quite ready to open, comprises one of the cinema’s most masterfully orchestrated comic set-pieces. With every inch of its super-wide frame crammed with hilarity and inventiveness, Playtime is a lasting record of a modern era tiptoeing on the edge of oblivion.

Vieness Piano Duo

Megumi Inouye

David Weiss Sextet

The Romantic Era in Song

Indigenous Voices Series: Feast Days and Traditions with Lucille Lang Day and Denise Low

Ryan Keberle + Catharsis

Echoes of Souls: Dia de los Muertos in Song

Ghost Quartet

Indigenous Voices Series: Kim Shuck

El Olvido

Storms etc.: Daniel Cilli-Baritone and Tamirzhan Yerzhanov- piano

Indigenous Voices Series: Kurt Schweigman

ALEXANDER MALOFEEV

“unabashed virtuosity” – The Straights Times

“Malofeev’s artistry is truly remarkable for a young pianist who is at the beginning of what hopefully will be a long and fruitful career." - Boston Classical Review

THE 222 is excited to present an exceptional opportunity! Experience an up-close performance by pianist Alexander Malofeev in the intimate setting of THE 222, before his debut at Davies Symphony Hall later in the month. At 21, Malofeev has quickly established himself as one of the most prominent pianists of his generation.

Alexander plays with profound sensitivity, youthful passion, and stunning virtuosity. He is drawn to the reportedly most difficult pieces in the repertoire.  But what may strike listeners more are his cantabiles.  Here he shows a deep tenderness that can move his audience to tears. He himself says "I give myself completely. I simply give myself."

Malofeev came to international prominence when he won the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians in 2014 at age thirteen. Reviewing the performance, Amadeus noted, “Contrary to what could be expected of a youngster … he demonstrated not only high technical accuracy but also an incredible maturity. Crystal clear sounds and perfect balance revealed his exceptional ability.” In 2017, he became the first Young Yamaha Artist.

Alexander Malofeev’s star continues to rise. 2022 appearances include a debut at the Tanglewood Music Festival under Michael Tilson Thomas, where he performed the devilishly difficult Rachmaninoff Third Piano Concerto, and a debut at the Aspen Music Festival with Vasily Petrenko. He has substituted for such luminaries as Martha Argerich and Evgeny Kissin, and recently completed a tour of Asia, the UK, and Italy.

Boudu Saved from Drowning

“In this film, the deeply revered French director Jean Renoir takes advantage of a host of Parisian locations, and the anarchic charms of his lead actor (Michel Simon) to create an effervescent satire of the bourgeoisie.” – Eleanor Nichols, Film Programmer

Despite the problems of sound recording in 1932, Jean Renoir (the son of the great Impressionist painter) went out of the studio and shot this film on the streets of Paris and along the banks of the Seine. It is not only a lovely fable about a bourgeois attempt to reform a rebellious bum (Michel Simon is the shaggy, bearded tramp who spills wine on the table and wipes his shoes on the bedspread), but a photographic record of an earlier France. “A beautifully rhythmed film that makes one nostalgic for when it was made.” — Penelope Gilliatt (1932, 87 min, in French w/English subtitles)

Kim Stanley Robinson

Robinson is “generally acknowledged as one of the greatest living science-fiction writers.” – The New Yorker

“the gold-standard of realistic, and highly literary, science-fiction writing.” – The Atlantic

Join us for a conversation and book reading with NY Times bestselling author Kim Stanley Robinson. Robinson has penned more than twenty books, including the internationally bestselling Mars trilogy, and more recently Red Moon, New York 2140, and The Ministry for the Future, which Jonathan Lethem calls “the best science fiction non-fiction novel I’ve ever read.”

Many of Robinson’s novels and stories have ecological, cultural, and political themes, and feature scientists as heroes. He’ll be reading from his latest work, The High Sierra: A Love Story. In it, a departure from science fiction for which he is best known for, he lavishly celebrates this exceptional place, and explores what makes this span of mountains one of the most compelling places on earth. It is a gorgeous, absorbing immersion in a place, born out of a desire to understand and share one of the greatest rapture-inducing experiences our planet offers.

Nate Klug - Hosts and Guests

“Klug is writing some of the strongest poetry you can find in American letters these days. Stoically fierce and vividly alert.” – McSweeneys

Join us for an evening with poet and essayist Nate Klug, hailed by the Threepenny Review as a poet who is "an original in Eliot's sense of the word." He’ll read from Hosts and Guests, his latest book of poetry, and join THE 222’s literary programmer Laurie Glover in conversation.

Klug’s theme is “the existential life found within embodied experience,” the “baffling unpredictable welcome he finds hidden in ordinary life.” His chiseled, musical lines blend close observation of the natural world, social commentary, and spiritual questioning. Hosts and Guests was published by Princeton University Press in 2020 and is Klug’s second book of poetry.

Klug has been supported by prestigious fellowships from James Merrill House, the MacDowell Colony, and the poetry foundation’s Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship.

A Matter of Life and Death

“Produced and directed by Powell and Pressburger, this 1946 classic is in fact jaw-droppingly imaginative existential fantasy – it’s totally original - doesn’t look or feel like any other film!” – Eleanor Nichols, Film Programmer

In Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s visually ravishing film, in which an elaborate stairway connects a Technicolor earth with a monochrome Heaven, David Niven plays a downed bomber pilot in WWII who senses that his having eluded a fiery death was arbitrary at best. On the operating table he finds himself suspended between Heaven (where he is summoned to argue his case in the celestial courts) and earth (where he has fallen in love with a heavenly WAC in the person of Kim Hunter). This is existential fantasy at its finest. “The doctor who befriends him diagnoses ‘a highly organized hallucination’ and much the same could be said of the film with its bewildering alternations of microcosm and macrocosm, poetry and pathos, monochrome and color. A stunning, subversive masterpiece.” — British Film Institute. The supporting cast includes Marius Goring, Roger Livesey, Raymond Massey, and a very young Richard Attenborough. (1946, 104 min)

Sacred & Profane - A Chamber Chorus

Sacred & Profane, an a cappella chamber choir, performs traditional and emerging choral works with superior execution.  Their challenging repertoire spans the musical canon, including contemporary and highly demanding works.

Into its 45^th season, Sacred & Profane invites you to discover the power of music to bring solace as well as inspire us to create positive change. Their new season begins by exploring dreams and visions of a more just world. 

The Shop Around the Corner

“It’s easy to love this classic film populated by flesh and blood characters with a huge helping of nuance and tenderness, as well as dazzling verbal and visual wit!” – Eleanor Nichols, Film Programmer

“Close to perfection – one of the most beautifully acted and paced romantic comedies ever made in this country. It is set in the enclosed world of the people who work together in a small department store. Margaret Sullivan and James Stewart are the employees who bicker with each other, and in no other movie has this kind of love-hate been made so convincing. Their performances are full of grace notes; when you watch later James Stewart films, you may wonder what became of this other deft, sensitive pre-drawling Stewart. As for Sullivan, this is a peerless performance: she makes the shopgirl’s pretenses believable, lyrical and funny. The script by Samson Raphaelson is a free adaptation of a play by Nicolaus Lazlo, and though it’s all set in a Hollywood Budapest, the director, Ernst Lubitsch, sustains a faintly European tone.” – Pauline Kael.   The dazzling supporting cast includes Frank Morgan, Joseph Schildkraut, and Felix Bressart. (1940, 99 min)

Django Festival Allstars

“Sensational... Standout performance... Hardest swinging band at the Newport Jazz Festival” – Downbeat Magazine

“The highpoint of the entire weekend of the Playboy Festival at The Hollywood Bowl was The Django Festival Allstars” – LA Scene Magazine

Direct from France, Django Festival Allstars bring the music of the legendary gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt fully into the twenty-first century. This brilliantly cohesive group of musicians with their unique, high-energy performances pay tribute to Reinhardt, who is considered one of the greatest guitar players of all time and known for playing with an unmistakable cool and jumping joie de vivre.

The music speaks of Paris in the 20s and 30s when “gitane” music filled the air, in the cafés, the streets, in the countryside, a romantic Paris with lovers, campfires, a time of Montmartre, la belle époque, le Boudon café, café au lait, luscious pastry, and a great glass of wine. Django was "king". He teamed with Jazz Violinist Stephane Grappelli and made musical history.

Reinhardt’s driving, swinging style became known as hot jazz. With its roots in American popular music and reverence for Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and other American jazz greats, hot jazz enjoys world-wide popularity. The Allstars honor the traditions while adding their own interpretations, arrangements, and original compositions with stunning virtuosity. They swing like crazy and will break your heart with a ballad!

Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir

“The OIGC and the singers in it are uplifting, spiritually and musically nourishing, soul sparkling, and absolutely joyous!!!” – “Cindy” from OIGC’s Facebook page

The Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir weaves together a family of singers from a wide range of faiths, races, and cultures-- joined in the mission to inspire joy and unity in all people through Negro spirituals and black gospel music. The choir and its dynamic director, Terrance Kelly, have captivated audiences across the world, from Israel to Norway to Australia to the Deep South. Before each show, choir members call out their wishes to send joy, love, and hope to everyone in attendance. And when the choir starts singing, audiences can’t help but jump to their feet, lift their hands, and allow the glory of the music to uplift them.

The award-winning Choir’s exquisite harmonies and stirring gospel repertoire have led to performances with a wide variety of esteemed groups, such as Joshua Nelson, the Prince of Kosher Gospel; the Five Blind Boys of Alabama; and the Duke Ellington Orchestra. The Choir also appears on Grammy-winning albums by Linda Ronstadt, MC Hammer, Tramaine Hawkins, and others.

Reverso - Chamber Jazz

“Accessible and thoughtful, lyrical and cerebral... Keberle and his bandmates weave their voices together with supple ease and understated grace to conjure a collective sound that embraces the listener while rewarding closer attention.”— Shaun Brady, Downbeat

Reverso, a trans-oceanic chamber jazz ensemble co-led by trombonist Ryan Keberle and pianist Frank West, presents their original chamber jazz in concert. Reverso looks to bridge the divide between jazz and chamber music realized by an outstanding trio which also includes the acclaimed French cellist Vincent Courtois.

Keberle and West show us that jazz and "classical" music have become even more intertwined in today's music world, since they began to intersect among Ravel and his contemporaries such as Satie, Stravinsky and Milhaud over 100 years earlier.

Reverso's repertoire features original compositions by Keberle and West. They’ll be celebrating music from their upcoming new album inspired by Fauré, Harmonic Alchemy (OutNote Music) due out in November.

Mesa-Yakushev Duo

“One of the Top 10 Classical Music Events of the Year” - San Francisco Chronicle

“…little short of heroic” - New York Times

THE 222 brings together two exceptional talents for an evening of mesmerizing musicianship and amazing synergy. The recipients of multiple honors and awards, Cuban-American cellist Thomas Mesa and Russian pianist Ilya Yakushev are known not only for their extraordinary musical talents but also for their charismatic stage presence and audience rapport. Mesa has appeared in concert from Carnegie Hall to the Supreme Court and Yakushev has performed internationally, including with the SF Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas. 

222 Anniversary Celebration with Romero Lubambo, Chico Pinheiro, Claudia Villela & Pamela Driggs

The evening begins with a champagne and hors d’oeuvres reception, followed by Brazilian jazz guitar and vocal virtuosity, as Romero Lubambo and Chico Pinheiro return for a second night’s performance – this time with the unique Brazilian singer, pianist and composer Claudia Villela and vocal favorite Pamela Driggs. The New York Timesdescribes Claudia Villela’s voice as ”remarkable, beautiful, towering.” Driggs’ voice has been called “impeccably gorgeous.” 

JOHN HEARD TRIBUTE

THE 222 will host a very special evening of music and art honoring John Heard, the world-renowned bassist and artist who passed away last December. Join us for a beautiful, heartfelt tribute and a wonderful meeting of the arts!

The evening will feature music by The John Heard Tribute Trio, with pianist Danny Grissett, drummer Lorca Hart and Essiet Essiet on bass. They’ll be joined by a special guest, to be announced.

A slide show and an exhibition of John Heard’s art will be on display. Attendees will have a chance to share stories, thoughts, and feelings about John, to be captured on video for John’s grandchildren, who’ll attend with other family members.

Produced by THE 222’s jazz programmer, Jessica Felix was a very close friend of John and his family. Heard’s Trio played at the Hotel Healdsburg Lobby from 2003-2008 while Felix was artistic director of the Healdsburg Jazz Festival.

BENNY GREEN

On Saturday, May 21, THE 222 will be swinging when Benny Green performs a solo jazz piano concert on the amazing, new Yamaha concert grand piano. Benny has been hailed as perhaps the most exciting, hard-swinging, hard-bop pianist to ever emerge from Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. An expert in piano technique with decades of real-world experience, he’s played with no less than the most celebrated artists of the last half century, counting Bud Powell and Oscar Peterson among his influencers.

Benny Green is the bearer of the torch and guardian of a legacy handed down to him by his musical mentors. Since emerging under the tutelage of Betty Carter, Art Blakey, Freddie Hubbard and Ray Brown in the early 1980s, Green has become a highly regarded pianist and bandleader. His efforts to expand upon the language of the classical jazz canon have placed him not only among the best interpreters but also among the vanguard of musicians keeping jazz’s evolution going.

JACKIE RYAN TRIO

Vocalist Jackie Ryan brings her trio to THE 222 for one show only on April 16. The uncommon configuration of vocal, trumpet and piano, will sound beautiful with the acoustics of this new venue. Her band includes Erik Jekabson on trumpet and John. R. Burr on piano.  Jackie’s show will include the classics from the Gershwins, Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Benny Goodman, to the Brazilian standards of Antonio Carlos Jobim and will also include surprises of seldom heard gems.

Jackie “is one of the outstanding jazz vocalists of her generation and, quite possibly, of all time. She is the thoroughbred vocal equivalent of the Triple Crown, rivaling the dexterous sass of Sarah Vaughan, the instinctive smarts of Carmen McRae and the scintillating verve of Diana Krall.” --- Christopher Loudon, Jazz Times

HOLLYWOOD PIANO TRIO

The trio was formed in 2018 and is comprised of three of LA’s most outstanding musicians. Each of the three have distinguished careers as concerto soloists in LA’s musical landscape. Cani is Concertmaster with the LA Opera, Byers is founding member of the Calder Quartet, and Faliks is Head of the Piano and Professor of Piano at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. Each brings their unique, multifaceted international experience and their vibrant personalities to the medium. 

ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS

For his feature debut, 24-year-old Louis Malle brought together a mesmerizing performance by Jeanne Moreau, evocative cinematography by Henri Decaë, and a now legendary jazz score by Miles Davis. Taking place over the course of one restless Paris night, Malle’s richly atmospheric crime thriller stars Moreau and Maurice Ronet as lovers whose plan to murder her husband (his boss) goes awry. A career touchstone for its director and female star, Elevator to the Gallows was an auspicious beginning to Malle’s eclectic body of work and established Moreau as one of the most captivating actors ever to grace the screen. (1958, 91 min., in French w/English subtitles).

FOREVER

Dutch documentary maker Heddy Honigmann takes us on a mesmerizing tour of artists’ graves in Paris’ famous
Père-Lachaise cemetery, but what could have been a morbid exploration of dead icons becomes instead a moving
celebration of the living. Honigmann follows the men and women who make pilgrimages to the cemetery, unearthing their sometimes sad, sometimes uplifting stories. There are those who come to tend the graves of their loved ones – lost husbands, wives and parents – and those who leave offerings for their favourite writers and musicians – Chopin, Proust, Ingres and Jim Morrison. Occasionally, we follow these pilgrims home, or to work.

EDWARD SIMON

Venezuelan-born Edward Simon, will play a solo piano concert at THE 222 in Healdsburg on Saturday, December 4, celebrating the recent release of his newest recording “Solo Live” on Ridgeway Records. Recorded at Oakland’s Piedmont Piano Company on his 50th birthday in 2019, Solo Live is Simon’s first unaccompanied recording. Unedited, it’s a ravishing portrait of one of jazz’s most eloquent improvisers investigating a setting that’s become one of his primary outlets during the pandemic. Long leery of performing alone, a situation that leaves a pianist “really exposed,” he described the Piedmont Piano date as “a leap of faith.” This is his 15th album as a leader and his first unaccompanied recording.

THE BEACHES OF AGNUS

“I’m playing the role of a little old lady, pleasantly plump and talkative and telling her life story. And yet it’s others I’m interested in, others I like to film. Others who intrigue me, motivate me, make me ask questions, disconcert me, fascinate me. This time, to talk about myself, I thought, ‘If we opened people up, we’d find landscapes.’ If we opened me up, we’d find beaches.” Agnes Varda, The Beaches of Agnes

At the age of 80, director Agnes Varda embarked on a freewheeling journey documenting her life. In clever, free associative set pieces, she joyfully explores her past, her friendships, and her home turf on the Rue Daguerre in Paris. “Uninhibited about sex, generous in her affections, worldly-wise, blending tender recollections with self- deprecating antics, Varda, free from fear and shame, turns her tale of a life lived in art into a work of art in its own right, and one of her best—a rapturous tribute to life itself.” Richard Brody, The New Yorker (2008, 110 min., in French with English subtitles)

GEORGE CABLES TRIO

Cables is traveling to California from New York for the first time with his trio since 2018 to be part of the grand opening of THE 222, Healdsburg’s newest performing arts venue. Mr. Cables and THE 222 jazz programmer Jessica Felix have known each other since the early 1980’s when they first met while Jessica was working at the Keystone Korner Jazz Club in San Francisco. Since then, they have become good friends and she has presented him numerous times over the years. “George is always there when I start with a new venture, happy to do what it takes to make the concert a success”.

ERNIE WATTS QUARTET

VISUAL THINKING STRATEGIES WITH ROBYN MUSCARDINI

The basic tenet of Visual Thinking Strategies is that finding meaning in imagery calls upon many aspects of cognition—personal association, questioning, speculating, analyzing, fact-finding, and categorizing—and that looking at art, going through a process of aesthetic development, brings us forward in our cognitive development as a whole. After a brief introduction to the origins and ongoing theoretical underpinnings behind the development of Visual Thinking Strategies, we will spend time looking together at one of the works of art in the gallery, with an eye to the range of skills we draw on, from simple identification (naming what one sees) to complex interpretation on contextual, metaphoric and philosophical levels.