Lights, Strings, Beats & Soul, at an SF Cathedral

The central conceit of Mercury Soul is a kind of merging of the passive listening instrumental concert experience with the electronic music DJ-led dance party.

Several times throughout Friday evening, one would sit in the pews and enjoy a set of classical pieces by composers ranging from the 13th century to the present, such as Pérotin, J.S. Bach, Teleman, John Cage, and Mercury Soul creator himself, Mason Bates ( one of the world’s most performed composers of his generation), played by students from the SF Conservatory of Music, the Mercury Soul Brass All-Stars, and other local groups.

Then the live musicians would shift into an interlude composed by Bates that interwove with an electronic track started by a DJ on the other end of the building, sometimes Bates himself, finishing with Thievery Corporation’s Garza.

The musical dialogue would proceed until the DJ prevailed and the audience was drawn over to the DJ booth area for an energetic dance, until the same thing happened in reverse. It’s actually a lovely way to experience both kinds of music. One was not nailed to one’s seat for a three-hour symphony, nor was one pushed to dance until one dropped all evening.

It’s seldom that one gets to enjoy both styles of musical consumption, and mixing the dancing and the more traditional close listening was refreshing. I felt Mercury Soul could have gone further with the visuals: the DJ sets featured hypnotic psychedelic projections dancing up and down the cathedral’s columns, but the classical sets merely featured the composer of the current piece’s name along with basic music history 101 information on said composer projected above the bands.

There was one modern dancer who performed during certain DJ sets, and I felt that the whole evening could have featured more dance, more projections, and a more truly immersive atmosphere, using the cathedral in the same way the old SF Movement Arts Festival (now Grace n’ Motion) did. But for a night out, the range of not only musical styles but ways of enjoying it is hard to match at any other event in town or anywhere.

Mercury Soul was held on Friday, April 25th, at Grace Cathedral. For more amazing programming, check out Grace Cathedral Events here.

For more Mercury Soul, follow them on Instagram or via their website.

For more amazing photography by Gura Khalsa visit GuruPhoto.

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