Pope Francis – Jorge Mario Bergoglio: 17 December 1936 – 21 April 2025

Papacy:  13 March 2013 – 21 April 2025

Upon the death of a pope, the Catholic Church initiates a series of time-honored rituals and procedures to honor the deceased pontiff and elect his successor. Here’s an overview of the protocol and timeline:

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Immediate Steps After the Pope’s Death

1. Verification of Death: The Camerlengo (currently Cardinal Kevin Farrell) confirms the pope’s death by calling his baptismal name three times.  

2. Destruction of the Fisherman’s Ring: The Camerlengodestroys the “Ring of the Fisherman,” symbolizing the end of the pope’s authority.  

3. Sede Vacante: The period known as sede vacante (“the seat being vacant”) begins, during which the Camerlengo administers the day-to-day affairs of the Vatican.  

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Funeral and Mourning Period

• Lying in State: The pope’s body lies in state at St. Peter’s Basilica for public viewing, typically for three days.  

• Funeral: The funeral is held between the fourth and sixth day after death, often in St. Peter’s Square, and is attended by thousands, including world leaders.  

• Novendiales: A nine-day period of mourning, known as novendiales, follows the funeral.  

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Election of a New Pope (Conclave)

• General Congregations: Cardinals gather for meetings to discuss the needs of the Church and potential candidates.  

• Timing: The conclave to elect a new pope begins 15 to 20 days after the pope’s death.  

• Eligibility: Only cardinals under the age of 80 are eligible to vote; currently, there are 135 such cardinal electors.  

• Conclave Procedure:

• Held in the Sistine Chapel, cardinals are sequestered from the outside world.  

• Voting occurs up to four times daily.  

• A two-thirds majority is required to elect a new pope.  

• Ballots are burned after each voting session; black smoke indicates no decision, while white smoke signals the election of a new pope.  

• Announcement: Upon election, the new pope is introduced from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica with the proclamation “Habemus Papam” (“We have a pope”), followed by his first blessing.  

Review of “Kaleidoscope” by Isabel Dobarro. Textura April 2025

Isabel Dobarro: Kaleidoscope
Grand Piano

Kaleidoscope—an apt title for a panoramic solo piano collection featuring pieces by female composers from the United States, Latin America, Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australia. This richly rewarding and diverse set by Galician pianist Isabel Dobarro fittingly appears on Naxos’s Grand Piano imprint. On the release, she does her part to right historical and contemporary wrongs, specifically the underrepresentation of women composers in yesterday’s and today’s programmes. Among the twelve artists featured are Gabriela Ortiz, Tania León, Caroline Shaw, and Yoko Kanno, each figure the recipient of esteemed awards and honours. Inspirations for their pieces came from equally diverse sources, with Kanno’s Hana Wa Saku, for example, written to honour the victims of Japan’s March 2011 earthquake, and Carolyn Morris’s Blue Ocean drawing on memories of her early years growing up along Australia’s Great Ocean Road.

Such a project is consistent with others undertaken by Dobarro, an award-winning graduate of New York University and currently a professor at the Katarina Gurska Higher Center, President of the European Music Center in Spain. Dividing her time between Madrid and New York City, she’s advocated for the works of Louise Héritte Viardot, Pauline Viardot, and Marianna Martínez and was recently named a ‘Woman to Watch in Culture’ by The Association Mujeres a Seguir. As Patricia Kleinman eloquently states in her foreword, Kaleidoscope represents “a significant stride toward the normalization of the programming of music composed by women and the integration of contemporary non-European music into the 21st-century musical lexicon.”

The journey begins with Nocturne by Bulgaria-born and London-based Dobrinka Tabakova, an incandescent reverie that pulls the listener into the fifty-five-minute release immediately. As she does throughout, Dobarro sensitively tailors her touch to the material to pinpoint its essence. Fiery and declamatory by comparison is Ortiz’s torrential “Estudio 3, homenaje a Jesusa Palancares” (from Estudios entre preludios), the performance this time testifying to the pianist’s virtuosic command. The dramatic contrasts in mood, tempo, and dynamics demonstrated between the opening pieces carry over to others, if not perhaps as extremely. Many of the settings are concise statements lasting from two to three minutes, which lends the recording a travelogue-like character.

From Nkeiru Okoye’s African Sketches comes the haunting “Dusk,” an intimate and melancholy African-folk excursion. A dual Canadian-Jordanian citizen of Bosnian, Palestinian and Syrian heritage, Suad Bushnaq brings her background working in the film composing industry to the expressively romantic Improvisation. Like Bushnaq, Kanno has created a considerable body of music for various live-motion visual media, and the piano version of her Hana Wa Saku pulls at the heartstrings with lyrical tenderness. Whereas the intense energy and rhythmic thrust of León’s “Tumbao” recalls Ortiz’s setting, the expansive Blue Ocean by Melbourne-based Morris revisits the sparkle of Tabakova’s opener. As uplifting is “Very lightly, like a harp” from Water Dance by Karen Tanaka, whose composition studies have taken her to Tokyo, Paris, and Florence. Dobarro honours the memory of Argentinean composer Claudia Montero (1962-2021) with a poignant treatment of Buenos Aires, Despierta y Sueña that evokes with deep longing the South American city. Speaking of evocations, Dobarro closes the release with the world premiere recording of Carme Rodríguez’s Alalá das paisaxes verticais, which the composer created as a musical portrait of the pianist’s home region of Galicia in northwestern Spain.

The recipient of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Music and several Grammy Awards, Caroline Shaw has established herself as of one of contemporary music’s major figures, and her mesmerizing, Chopin-influenced Gustave Le Gray (titled after a key figure in French photography of the mid-nineteenth century) shows why. Words in the booklet’s brief Shaw bio, that she tries “to imagine a world of sound that has never been heard before but has always existed,” astutely capture the feeling one has while listening to Gustave Le Gray, that this fourteen-minute piece seems hauntingly familiar despite its having been created in 2012. Dobarro’s exquisite rendering is nuanced, as she carefully calibrates her phrasing, pacing, and touch to maximize the music’s impact. After softly chiming chords cascade during the opening minutes, the interlacing of patterns grows in complexity until, four minutes in, time slows and the work’s most intoxicating motives emerge. Transitions are effected smoothly between contemplative and dance episodes, the whole held seamlessly together by Dobarro’s unerring performance. As consistently strong as the album is in general, it’s the pianist’s rendition of Shaw’s piece that is its undeniable high-water mark.

Media contact: David Perry / (415) 676-7007 / news@davidperry.com

Windsurf Named Presenting Sponsor of Bay to Breakers 2025

New Era of Flow and Fun for San Francisco’s Most Iconic Footrace
On Sunday, May 18

17 April 2025, San Francisco, CA: A new wave of innovation is set to sweep across the streets of San Francisco: Bay to Breakers, the city’s most iconic and irreverent footrace, is thrilled to announce Windsurf as the Presenting Sponsor for the 2025 event. This year’s race will proudly bear the title: Bay to Breakers powered by Windsurf, taking place on Sunday, May 18.

Windsurf, a cutting-edge software company built for developers and powered by AI, was born in the Bay Area and shares a deep cultural connection with the race itself. As part of the new partnership, Windsurf aims to bring its signature “flow state” ethos—familiar to both runners and coders alike—to every step of the legendary 12K event.

“One of my favorite moments in the company’s early days was running Bay to Breakers with two other founding team members,” said Varun Mohan, CEO and Co-Founder of Windsurf. “We didn’t train for it. We just showed up and had a great time, and that experience stuck with us. So being part of the race now, as a sponsor, feels like a full-circle moment—one we’re excited to share with others.”

Anshul Ramachandran, Head of Product & Strategy and part of the Founding Team, added: “Bay to Breakers is probably the most representative of what SF is. It’s fun, exciting, and a little chaotic in the best way. Also, we as a company have come up in the Bay Area, out of Silicon Valley, with many of us having run the race before. It’s one of the only events that truly matches the same vibe we bring as a company. So for us, being part of this just makes sense.”

“Windsurf’s energy and vision are a perfect match for the creativity and spirit of Bay to Breakers,” said Phyllis Blanchard of Motiv Sports/Bay to Breakers. “From its roots in the developer community to its AI-powered tools that help people find their flow, Windsurf brings a fresh wave of innovation and authenticity to this time-honored San Francisco tradition.”

As Presenting Sponsor, Windsurf will be fully integrated into all aspects of the race experience, from pre-race communications and social media to on-course branding and exclusive activation zones. Runners can expect to “get their second wind” at the Windsurf Mile and enjoy a series of tech-forward, community-focused engagements throughout race day.

Bay to Breakers is a San Francisco original, known for its spirited race that has been a staple of the city since 1912. It brings together athletes, families, community members, and costume-clad participants for a 12K race from the San Francisco Bay to the breakers on the Pacific Coast. Bay to Breakers is a celebration of life, laughter, and the personality of San Francisco, embodying the city’s inclusive spirit and community engagement. During the annual Bay to Breakers Race, participants of all ages and abilities, and oftentimes in costume, line up on Howard Street a few blocks from The Embarcadero on the third Sunday in May – in 2025, May 18. The course travels west through the City and finishes at the Great Highway, where the breakers crash into Ocean Beach. It truly is a time-honored tradition and the quintessential San Francisco experience.

To learn more about Bay to Breakers or sign up for the fun, visit www.baytobreakers.com. For sponsorship or Corporate Teams information, email Alex Jee at ajee@motivsports.com.

About Windsurf:
Windsurf is a leader in AI-powered coding solutions, offering tools that blend collaborative, continuous AI assistance with developers’ workflows. With a mission to make software creation seamless and joyful, Windsurf helps teams ship faster and smarter with intuitive tools and AI-powered coding assistance. Headquartered in the Bay Area, Windsurf is built by developers, for developers. For more information, visit www.windsurf.com.

MEDIA ADVISORY – EARTH MONTH

Volunteer Programs at the Presidio: Spring Days of Service, Saturday, April 19, 9am – 12pm.
Earth Day in Action at Fort Scott, Rob Hill, and Restoration Sites Throughout the Presidio.

Media Contacts:
David Perry / (415) 676-7007 / news@davidperry.com
Lisa Petrie: / (415) 707-9489 / lpetrie@presidiotrust.gov

WHAT:
The Presidio Trust’s signature Earth Month volunteer event happens Saturday, April 19 as part of the larger “Spring Days of Service” campaign across the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Seventy five volunteers will work across four key habitat restoration sites to remove invasive species, to allow for native plants to thrive insupport of healthy ecosystems in a park that is both a national historic landmark and ecological preserve.

Media will have two distinct coverage options:
*   Fort Scott Parade Ground: Central meeting and check-in site, with great visuals of group activity in meadow restoration and interviews with the volunteer coordinator, biological technician and volunteers.
*   Rob Hill Dune Restoration Site: Strong nature visuals, interviews with volunteers and biological technician,  plus view the Silver digger bee’s spontaneous return thanks to these same stewardship efforts.

Visuals include:
– Volunteer groups weeding mulching, and planting
– Native plant beds and landscapes with views of the Bay
– Golden Gate Bridge and historic Fort Scott in the background

WHEN:
Saturday, April 19 from 9am to 12pm

9am – Opening Circle

9:30 – Spread out to different projects

11:45 – Closing Circle

WHERE:
Main media location recommended: Fort Scott Parade Ground, Presidio of San Francisco (1299 Storey Ave). Alternate location for visuals: Behind Rob Hill Campground (1475 Central Magazine Rd, limited parking; please contact in advance).

WHO:
Presidio Trust staff and volunteer leaders available for interviews include:
– Aricia Martinez Johnson, Volunteer Coordinator (Fort Scott)
– Dionisio Gamoso, Bioscience Technician (Rob Hill site)
Please coordinate interviews with David Perry in advance.

DAY OF CONTACT: David Perry, (415) 676-7007

Volunteer projects in the Presidio are led in coordination with the NPS, the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy and the Presidio Trust. For more information and the full list of Spring Days of Service projects, visit: https://www.parksconservancy.org/volunteer/earth-day-and-spring-days-service-2025. For ongoing Presidio Trust projects please visit here: https://presidio.gov/support/volunteer

Blog overview and event highlights also available at: https://presidio.gov/explore/blog/earth-month-activities

About Volunteering in the Presidio. 
Between 1994 and 2024, volunteers have donated more than 867,000 hours of service.To learn more about the various volunteer opportunities, visit presidio.gov/volunteer.

About the Presidio + Presidio Trust.   
The Presidio is one of America’s most visited national park sites, located within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Spanning 1,500 acres next to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, the Presidio is among the most biologically diverse parks in America. Historically a home to native peoples and a military post under three flags, its facilities have been reinvented as museums, restaurants, hotels, homes, and offices. The Presidio Trust is the federal agency that stewards the Presidio, in partnership with the National Park Service and with support from the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. The Trust sustains the Presidio by leasing homes and workplaces and offering visitor amenities. Learn more at presidio.gov.

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