Michael Moschen - October 11 & 13, 2009

Join us for an unprecedented collaboration of music and movement when the California Symphony presents acclaimed visual motion artist Michael Moschen – in his first performance ever with a live symphony orchestra – choreographed to Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite and Mason Bates’ Mercury Interlude.

The recipient of a prestigious McArthur Foundation Genius Grant, Moschen has performed throughout Europe, Asia and North and South America.  He has been commissioned by the Cirque du Soleil to create and stage a new work for their Las Vegas show, and has been featured at theatre and dance festivals in Hong Kong, Perth, Edinburgh and Barcelona, and in the United States at Spoleto USA, the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival, Lincoln Center's Serious Fun Festival, the 75th Annual New Yorker Magazine Festival and the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival among others.  His film credits include Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, in which Moschen’s hands “stand in” for David Bowie’s in the scene with the crystal balls.  His life and work was featured on the PBS’ “Great Performances’ episode, “In Motion with Michael Moschen.”  He has also appeared on numerous TV shows, including “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” and the A&E special, ‘The Mystery of Genius.” Moschen is deeply involved in understanding and sharing the physical and mathematical principles that underlie his work.  He has been a keynote speaker at the National Conference of Teachers of Mathematics and for the Association of New York Teachers of Mathematics, and he has lectured on innovation and creativity at Carnegie Mellon, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Lincoln Center Education Program. Moschen grew up in a housing project in a Massachusetts mill town, and began his juggling career with boyhood friend Penn Jillette (now of  Penn & Teller).

Will Durst - January 24 & 26, 2010
Narrating Copland's Lincoln Portrait

Outraged and outrageous, Durst is as current as today's headlines, as accurate as a marksman, and universally-acknowledged by even his peers as the nation's foremost political comic.  A Midwestern baby boomer with a media-induced identity crisis, Durst, according to the New York Times is "quite possibly the best political satirist working in the country today."  Reigning as C-SPAN's favorite comic, Durst is a five-time Emmy nominee and recipient of seven consecutive nominations for the American Comedy Awards'' Stand Up of the Year.'  He was the first comic invited to perform at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and the first American to be nominated for the prestigious Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for the show. "Myth America." He has racked up more than 400 television appearances in 14 different countries while slinging jokes around the globe in his one man crusade to make people laugh out loud on purpose against their will. 

Chad Hoopes - March 7 & 9, 2010
Performing Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1

“A minor miracle occurred here when the junior winner of the truly incredible Menuhin Competition, just 13 years old, walked onto the platform of the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff and performed Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with such aplomb and sensitivity that half the audience were in tears.

“Chad Hoopes, who comes from the US, is an artist to treasure. Possessed of a superb technique, he even directed the wonderful players of the Orchestra Of Welsh National Opera, who brought this impeccably organized and inspiring celebration of talent to a stunning finale.” - South Wales Echo

At age 14, Chad Hoopes already possesses the kind of technical mastery, ease of expression and joyful talent that come along only once in a generation. In April 2008, the Ohio seventh-grader, who began his piano studies at age four, won first prize in the Young Artists Division of the Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition, triumphing over Russian, American, Chinese and South Korean competitors. He has performed In Europe with the Brussels Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra of the Welsh National Opera, and in recital at the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad, Switzerland, and in the U.S. with the Cleveland Orchestra and Asheville, Akron, Minnesota, and Pittsburg Symphonies.  A performance with the Cincinnati Pops was recorded and released by Telarc in collaboration with NPR's “From the Top.”  Beyond the concert hall, Hoope’s virtuosity and exuberant personality have been featured nationally on CBS’ “Early Show,” PBS's “From the Top,” and NPR. 

Sarina Zhang - May 2 & 4, 2010
Performing BOTH Lizst's Piano Concerto No. 1 and Tchaikovsky's Pezzo Capriccioso for cello and orchestra

For our season finale, the California Symphony will present the world premiere of a new work by our critically-acclaimed Young American Composer-in-Residence, Mason Bates, and a rare opportunity to hear a major young artist perform two solos on two different instruments on the same program.   Pianist / cellist Sarina Zhang, who will be 14 at the time, will play Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1 in E flat, as well as Tchaikovsky's Pezzo Capriccioso for Cello and Orchestra.

Zhang first performed on NPR’s “From the Top” at the age of eight, playing Chopin's E-minor Waltz and Debussy's Arabesque No. 1, then returned at the age of 11 to play the third movement of Haydn's Cello Concerto No. 1 in C.  She has also been featured in the PBS series, “From the Top: Live from Carnegie Hall.”  In 2008, Zhang was awarded first place in the Connecticut International Young Artist Competition in piano and second place in cello, as well as the special prize in the New York Grand Prix International Piano Competition. The year before, she won the alternate in the Juilliard Pre-College Romberg Cello competition, the solo and concerto titles in the Virginia Waring International Piano Competition, the first prize in MTAC California Piano Solo Competition, and first place in the Los Angeles Violoncello Society Scholarship Competition.  She has performed with the Detroit Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, New City Sinfonia and the Northridge Symphony Orchestra.