On Monday, we stopped by Golden Gate Park for Flower Piano, an annual outdoor music festival where musicians perform on pianos placed throughout the Botanical Garden. The first performance we caught featured Betty Roi, a Parisian jazz vocalist (or chanteuse, to use the French word). She is a native of Paris who came to San Francisco in the 80s and studied jazz vocals and improvisation. She performed with her trio in the Garden of Fragrance, where visitors are encouraged to experience the plants through touch and smell.

She began her set with a song made famous by Josephine Baker, an American-born performer who moved to Paris and became a star as a singer. Between songs, she told stories of Americans falling in love with Paris, while the French fell in love with American jazz. Partway through the set, I took this photo of artist Tom Colcord, who was painting the beautiful scene nearby:

Next, we headed to the Ancient Plant Garden to listen to Joshua Grayson, who performed a beautiful version of Chopin’s Ballade No. 1. I loved how intimate this performance was, with the crowd sitting around the piano campfire-style. After Chopin, he performed the Symphony for Solo Piano by Charles-Valentin Alkan, another French composer.

The beauty of Flower Piano is that there are pianos and performances all around you, so as you move from one performance to another, you are also getting a tour of the Botanical Garden’s 55 acres of unique gardens.

If you haven’t yet stopped by Flower Piano, you definitely should. The festival runs through September 20th, so there is still time to catch some shows. The flowers and music are beautiful, the September weather is gorgeous, and general admission is free for SF residents.

On Saturday, I attended Far Out Fest x Art Walk SF, a combined music and arts street festival featuring local artists and musicians. The event stretched along Balboa between 35th and 39th avenues, an area also known as Balboa Village.

Far Out Fest started as a series of sidewalk performances in front of Eye & Hand Society and the Noise record shop in the Richmond District, while Art Walk SF started in 2022 with the idea of turning neighborhood businesses into temporary galleries and music venues.

On Thursday evening, we attended NightLife: For the Birds, one of the signature nightlife events held after hours at the California Academy of Sciences. For these events, the theme of the museum changes from family-friendly and purely educational to an adult-centric (21+) gathering with a social vibe. DJs are spinning, the lights are dimmed, pop-up bars are set up, and the museum lets loose while maintaining its focus on education and exploration.

Last Saturday, we joined a large group of volunteers at Ocean Beach to participate in the Sunset Dunes Bioblitz. The event was supported by multiple organizations, including SF Surfrider, SF Feminist Bird Club, and the Golden Gate Bird Alliance. The objective of the day was to explore the shoreline, identify plants and wildlife, upload photos to iNaturalist, and contribute to biodiversity data utilized by conservation groups in the area.

We wrote previously about our first bioblitz at Lobos Creek in the Presidio. These events are a really fun way to learn more about local ecosystems from experts on different species. Saturday’s event coincided with California Biodiversity Week, celebrating local plants, animals, and ecosystems in neighborhoods and parks. We ended the outing having learned to identify many common beach plants, gained insight into dune restoration efforts, and even spotted some adorable snowy plovers in the sand!