'Music Matters' At The Commonwealth Club Throughout August

'Music Matters' At The Commonwealth Club Throughout AugustPhoto: Courtesy of San Francisco Symphony
Geri Koeppel
Published on July 31, 2015

Each August, the Commonwealth Club offers a series of programs centered around a theme. In the past, the club has explored LGBT issues, water, food, citizen science, China, India, recession and more. Starting Monday, it'll kick off "Music Matters," with a record 29 events on the importance of music throughout the month of August.

Carol Fleming, director of the 15 member-led forums on various subjects, is responsible for choosing the annual topic, which she usually bases on what's big in the news. But for this 10th anniversary of the Platforum, as it's called, she decided she wanted to do something that really mattered to her personally. "Music matters to me, and more importantly, music matters, damn it," Fleming said. "It’s not optional. It’s not a frill. It’s important to humanity. And I decided I wanted that message to get out at all different levels of human exposure.”

The member-led forums—which includes everything from the arts to science and technology—have organized a variety of programs for "Music Matters." There will be talks on jazz, Broadway musicals, opera, women in music, music education, the music of cinema, music therapy, and how to use your body as an instrument. There's even "Music As a Vehicle For Social Justice," featuring Country Joe McDonald, lead singer of Country Joe and the Fish.

Melanie DeMore will lead a singing demonstration on August 18th. (Photo: UWRF)

Other speakers include Mark Volkert, assistant concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony, speaking on "Why Music? The Confessions of a Willing Prisoner of the Violin," and folk singer/"vocal activist" Melanie DeMore, who will lead a workshop on the power of voice, "Full Body Forward." 

Sonny Buxton, who kicks off the series with "A Beacon for Jazz," "has hobnobbed with Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, and Duke Ellington," Fleming said. For the full schedule, see the Music Matters page on the club's website.

Violinist Mark Volkert. (Photo: Courtesy of San Francisco Symphony)

Fleming's passion for music is clearly evident: she's played flute, guitar and piano, and has been a singer her whole life. "I want people to take up dancing, I want them to join choirs, I want them to get lessons in piano or an individual instrument," she said.

She also wants them to be an audience for music. "Music is not valued, and budgets are cut in the schools," she said. "They're teaching technology to little kids when they should be teaching dancing and rhythm bands. They’re sitting on a chair looking at a square. I don’t approve.”

The Commonwealth Club has been in San Francisco since 1903, with more than 20,000 members. The majority of its events are also open to the public (members receive discounts on tickets). The club moved out of its previous space at 595 Market St. in early 2015 and into a temporary site at 555 Post St., while it works on building out a permanent home at 110 Embarcadero.