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 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…
October 13, 2017
From October 13th to the 31st, the California Symphony will be exploring mysteries and superstitions surrounding symphonic composers. Pictured left to right: Gustav Mahler, Arnold Schoenberg, and Alban Berg. Composers can be a superstitious bunch. For this Friday the 13th during the spooky month of Halloween, we look at three who were fixated on the power…
September 15, 2017
Music Director Donato Cabrera reflects on Mahler, whose Symphony №4 is featured in our season opener, LYRICAL DREAMS, on Sunday, September 24. When listening to a composition by Gustav Mahler, try to think about time and place. As in, the precise time and place Mahler aimed to convey in the music. Mahler was trying…
September 12, 2017
Wonder what the musicians think of the music in our new 2017–18 LARGER THAN LIFE season? Well so did we, and so we asked them. In a poll of California Symphony musicians this summer, an astonishing 76% indicated a preference for our season opener, LYRICAL DREAMS, a program that includes pieces either written about or…
September 11, 2017
—By Jennifer Cho, California Symphony Concertmaster. Arnold Böcklin’s self portrait inspired the chilling, creepy violin solo in the second movement of Mahler Symphony №4 According to Gustav Mahler’s wife Alma, the second movement in his Symphony №4, which features a uniquely challenging violin solo, was inspired by a self portrait of Arnold Böcklin. Behind the artist,…
September 2, 2017
James Agee’s family home in Knoxville, TN, c.1915. The waning days of summer have us waxing nostalgic in the run up to our season opener, LYRICAL DREAMS — Sunday, September 24th at the Lesher Center in Walnut Creek. All three pieces on the program — Barber Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Stookey YTTE (Yield To Total Elation) and Mahler Symphony №4 — are…
August 18, 2017
Here’s our press release with everything you need to know about our 2017–18 season opener LYRICAL DREAMS, which features a modern day classic by American composer Samuel Barber, and a whimsical new instrument played by Bay Area composer Nathaniel Stookey (it bears some resemblence to a vacuum cleaner!) The program concludes with an epic masterpiece…
