March 22, 2024 :: Robert Thies shot to fame in 1995 when he became the first American in four decades—since Van Cliburn’s Cold War win in 1958—to win a Russian piano competition, but things didn’t quite work out as planned… Robert talks with us ending up at zero after his feted win, diving into Clara Schumann’s diaries, and looking...
March 21, 2024 :: Saad Haddad (b. 1992) Mishwar (World Premiere, 2024) Saad Haddad, the California Symphony’s current Resident Composer, is acclaimed for his distinctive blend of Western art music and Middle Eastern idioms. Haddad has drawn Mishwar (Arabic مشوار(, meaning “A Trip,” out of his own memories. He tells us that: “Throughout my childhood, my family and I made frequent...
March 19, 2024 :: It’s rare that a concert is stopped midway through a piece, but that’s exactly what happened during Sunday’s MOZART SERENADES concert when part of an instrument broke off mid-performance. The heroic actions and incredible sight-reading talents of one California Symphony musician saved the day. Rarely played today, the basset horn is featured in a number...
January 12, 2022 :: A flight of fancy inspired by the great outdoors, the music on this program evokes soaring larks, clucking hens, a mystical swan, and the wafting sounds of birdsong from the Bohemian countryside. California Symphony presents TAKE FLIGHT at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek on Saturday, Jan. 29 at 7:30pm and Sunday, Jan. 30...
September 9, 2021 :: Marianna Martines (1744–1812) Sinfonia (Overture) in C Major (1770) The name Marianna Martines might not be familiar to modern music lovers, but the names of those in her circle most likely are: composers Joseph Haydn, Johann Adolph Hasse, and Giuseppe Bonno, Vienna court poet Metastasio, English critic and musical gadly Charles Burney, Empress Maria Theresa...
:: Beethoven’s fifth piano concerto is one of the best known and best loved pieces of music ever written, but it wasn’t always known as the “Emperor” and Beethoven might have had some choice words about its nickname. What’s in a name? Beethoven did not give his fifth piano concerto the nickname “Emperor” and he...
May 22, 2021 :: Nicholas Phan, tenor, and Meredith Brown, horn, are featured in Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, in the May 22 episode of Poetry in Motion. The lyrics for the piece are from works by six English poets on the subject of night. Courtesy of Wikipedia Pastoral The day’s grown old; the fainting sunHas but...
May 12, 2021 :: Our final original poem of Symphony Gives Week celebrates YOU and all that we achieve when we RISE TOGETHER. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT! Want to donate to the campaign? We are still accepting your gifts… “To this year & the next & the next after that, if we hold each other up, we’ll feel...
May 6, 2021 :: Wonderful… Soul-refreshing…”—Kathryn Juneau, Viola This article was first published in May, 2021 When 30 California Symphony musicians came together last month to record the Poetry in Motion season finale series, it was the largest gathering of California Symphony musicians in one place since the February 2020 BRAHMS FEST concerts. We asked how it felt to...
May 3, 2021 :: It’s been hailed as “a model for residency programs across the country” (Mercury News), and former resident composer Dan Visconti calls it simply the best residency program in the country. California Symphony’s groundbreaking Young American Composer-in-Residence program turns 30 this year, helping to launch the careers of ten composers to date. We checked in with...
