San Francisco Performances has announced its “Sanctuary Series,” which will stream for free online between June 25-July 16, 2020.

The series will consist of four concert showcases.

“Throughout many periods of challenge and change in human history, we have sought refuge and retreat. From cloisters and cathedrals to mountain tops and forests, we look for places to find sanctuary from the world’s woes. Music has also been called a refuge or an oasis, as well as a catalyst for reflection and even revolution. With these new digital programs, called the Sanctuary Series, we offer a musical space for focus and introspection,” said SFP President Melanie Smith in a press release.

It all kicks off with a recording by the Alexander String Quartet made on June 12, 2020. They will perform music by Brahms.

Streaming Date: June 25, 2020

It will be followed up by “The Living Earth Show,” which features Danny Clay’s “Music for Hard Times.”

Streaming Date: July 2, 2020

Tenor Nicholas Phan will join forces with composer and pianist Jake Heggie for “Time – a Meditation on this Moment.” They will perform music by Ives, Dowland, Chausson, Lili Boulanger, Fauré, Rorem, Vaughan Williams, Nadia Boulanger, Howard Swanson, Britten, Finzi, Bernstein, and Heggie.

“As the musical world has been forced to shut down due to this pandemic, and we musicians have suddenly found ourselves with untold amounts of time on our hands,” Phan stated in the press release, “I’ve been thinking a lot about time itself. Our program meditates on humanity’s relationship with time: how it sometimes feels as though it is flying by, how sometimes it feels as though it is endless, and how finite it is. No matter how much time we feel we have, we only have so much.”

Streaming Date: July 9, 2020

The series is capped by pianist Edward Simon performing music by Federico Mompou.

Streaming Date: July 16, 2020