Every year this time, round about the Chinese New Year, the force of nature that is Betty Anne Siu Junn Wong rounds up some fine talents associated with San Francisco’s beloved teaching institution, the Community Music Center, for a wide ranging program that might include Chinese classical music, klezmer, western classical music from Debussy to Schoenberg, and, of course, small combo jazz.

It’s the jazz cats who finish it out each time, this time a combo including reed players Ken Rosen and Joe DeAndreis, pianist Randy Clark and bassist Richard Saunders. With luck, CMC Director Emeritus Steve Shapiro, a close neighbor and solid supporter of Bird & Beckett, will sit in on piano for a tune or two. Certainly he’ll play a couple of tunes with Ellen Rosenthal on bass!

Betty Wong, a long-time faculty member at CMC, is particularly known for her Phoenix Spring Ensemble, exploring indigenous and Original music with major improvisations by jazz and middle eastern virtuosos, influenced by folk music of Tajikistan, Eastern Turkestan, Kazhakstan, Turkey and Iran.