Insight Chamber Players
Salons & Acknowledgements
At Insight Chamber, one of our goals is to bring a unique and meaning fun experience to our audiences. We were inspired by the Salons in Europe, specifically the relationship between composers Mendelssohn, Liszt, and Chopin who at one point lived blocks away from each other in Paris. During their rendezvous, they would often invite non musician friends to show off their latest compositions and virtuosic musical feats. Many of today's most renowned chamber music works were intended for such spaces, so as a part of Insight, we are honoring that tradition by keeping it alive and well!
If you have a space that you think would be perfect for the next Insight concert, please email us at insightchamberplayers@gmail.com
Clocktower Salon
The ClockTower building was originally the home of the Schmidt Lithograph Company, a graphic arts firm that produced classic California fruit-crate labels. The original three-story brick and timber plant that Max Schmidt built was expanded over the years to include a six-story concrete building and finally, to signal the company's success, the 170-foot-high steel-frame clock tower.
In the early 1990s, the 230,000-square-foot building was converted into 127 open floor-plan spaces by McKenzie, Rose & Holliday Development, offering tenants live/work units with views of the freeway and the San Francisco Bay. The project was completed in 1993 with a total value of $33.6 million.
Today, owners Davidson Bidwell Waite and Edwin Waite have made this unique space a home for many prestigious artists in the Bay Area. It is a stylish, intimate space that brings chamber music to life. We are thankful to be a part of the Clocktower Salon's season.
The Fisk House
The Fisk house is generously hosted by Jim Warshell and Gail Baugh. Long time friends of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and upstanding community members in Hayes Valley, the couple has spent the last 19 years restoring the Fisk House to absolute perfection. Matched with their exquisite taste in antiques, their historic house ties together an image of victorian royalty.
The house was originally commisioned by a financier from New England, Asa Fisk. It was built with ornamented Cuban Mahogany woodwork and features a ballroom and plant conservatory on the top floor. The ballroom was originally designed for dances and concerts for small orchestras. We hope to honor the original purpose and bring it into the present day community of music and art lovers.
The Blue Painted Lady
The Blue Painted Lady is generously hosted by George Patrick Horsfall. Although classical chamber music will be a new experience in this iconic home, this evening's concert continues the tradition of supporting the arts established many years ago by George and his mother, Catherine. For many years the Horsfall's have welcomed Broadway touring companies for evenings of music, warmth and welcome to artists on the road.
Starting in 1993 and well into the new millennia, the Horsfalls also produced and directed a series of sold-out and well-reviewed Cabaret performances of the Great American Songbook, at the Kensington Park Hotel and at the Plush Room at the York hotel
The Blue Painted Lady, #712, is the third home of the row, that was completed, (of seven), by Matthew Kavanagh in 1892-1895. It is arguably, the most intact of these famous homes with regards to original detail. As you listen to the gorgeous music tonight, you will be surrounded by the paintings, rugs and furniture, collected by the Sheehan, Horsfall and Rogers families over the last 173 years in San Francisco. Thank you for being a part of this new page in our home's history.
The Shannon-Kavanaugh House
(Corner Painted Lady)
722 Steiner was bullt by a young San Francisco carpenter-bullder, for his own famlly, in 1892, The rest of the houses in the row were built as "spec" houses in the years between 1892 and 1895. Kavanaugh was eclectic in his choice of design and details for the house. Appearing to be Eastlake in style, it is really Queen Anne, with typical fish scale shingles and lack of heavy applied woodwork that was typical of the period. The octogonal corner bay is reminiscent of the Second Empire style of two decades earlier. The Neo-Classic ornament predate trends of decades to follow. The house was purchased by Frederic Klopper, a German immigrant, in 1900. He was a well-known supplier to blacksmiths from the 1860's until his retirement in the early 20th century. The house was purchased in 1975 by Michael Shannon and James Vögeney, MD. The interior of the house includes a stained glass skylight in the Stair Hall, salvaged from a church in St. Louis, and seven other stained glass windows. The gilded mirror in the main parlor was purchased by the Fulton family in New York City in 1870 and shipped "around-the-Horn for their house formerly on Scott and Oak streets, It remained their until it was purchased for this house in 1975. All light fixtures on the main floor are working gaslights. The largest, In the Dining Room, was manufactured in San Francisco in the 1880's for a Pacific Heights mansion. The film "Maxie" was made here In November, 1984 as the house appeared as the home of Ruth Gordon, Glenn Close and Mandi Patinkin and will appear in Universal's "Junlor" with Arnold Swartzeneger, Danny Di Vito, Emma Thompson and Julie Kavner, due in 1995. Over 40 T.V. commercials and series, as well as 20 magazines, book covers and postcards have used the house. Restoration has been conducted by Michael Shannon and James Vogeney continuously since 1975, with Peter Jeal joining the project In 1982. Dr. James Vogeney died, January 1994. It is currently owned by Dan Robinson and Courtney Chenette.
