August 20, 2019
Internationally recognized mezzo-soprano Rachel Calloway has been praised by the New York Times for her “penetrating clarity” and “considerable depth of expression” as well as by Opera News for her “adept musicianship and dramatic flair.” She talks with us about growing up in a musical family, her jet-setting career, and the Bay Area connections that…
August 20, 2019
Gabriela Lena Franks’ The Keeper and the Dove song cycle uses text by Pulitzer Prize-winning Cuban-American playwright Nilo Cruz to explore the complex relationship between Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. The “Keeper” allows Kahlo’s spirit form to return to her beloved husband for one last visit during the Dia de los Muertos (Day…
August 15, 2019
By California Symphony Music Director Donato Cabrera. As we approach the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth in 2020, I thought we could get a head start by programming his most popular symphony, and perhaps the most recognizable piece of Western Classical Music, his Symphony №5, with one of his lesser known works, The Creatures…
August 15, 2019
Ludwig van Beethoven – Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus (1801) We tend not to think of Beethoven as a theatrical composer. We think symphonies, we think sonatas, we think string quartets and piano trios and concertos. After all, he wrote only one opera (Fidelio) plus a smattering of incidental music. And there’s a…
August 21, 2018
This California-born, Grammy award-winning composer was included in the Washington Post’s list of the 35 most significant women composers in history. In case you hadn’t heard of her before, here’s a quick primer. View from Frank’s Timberstone Mountain Farm, part of the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music (pictured left) and composer Gabriela Lena Frank…
January 9, 2018
We take a closer look at the wildly ambitious 1808 concert which debuted no less than two symphonies, a piano concerto, and a new choral piece (plus a selection of other favorites) in a frigid, four-hour long musical marathon. On a freezing cold winter’s night in Vienna, December 22, 1808, one of the most legendary…
