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 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…
April 21, 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. They talked with us about their careers as musicians, and the experience of being part of this special recording project for California Symphony. Nicholas, you made your 2009 Carnegie…
April 21, 2021
Benjamin Britten (1913—1976)Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings Benjamin Britten’s prodigious compositional output was not matched by an equally robust physical constitution. He suffered through any number of ailments, thus many of his finest works were conceived and composed during hospitalizations or retreats, while others were shaped by illnesses ranging from measles…
April 21, 2021
Arnold Schoenberg (1874—1951)Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night)—Version for String Orchestra It opens with a cliché: your basic dark and stormy night. A couple is walking through the forest. The woman has a secret to impart to her new lover: she is pregnant, and not by him. He is, not surprisingly, taken aback by this…
April 21, 2021
Viet Cuong (b.1990)Next Week’s Trees—World Premiere “Light is an invitation to happiness,” wrote beloved poet Mary Oliver in “Poppies”. We could all use such an invitation about now. We’ve been through a period of darkness, of present dread and future fear, a time of foreboding and separation. But such things don’t last….
