March 21, 2022
Everyone loves a good fairy tale, featuring dashing heroes and heroines, evil villains, and imperiled protagonists, navigating their way towards a hoped-for happy ending. Shared from one generation to the next, these cautionary tales occupy a special place in popular culture and they have inspired some of the most appealing and memorable music ever written. …
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…
December 21, 2021
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958) The Lark Ascending (1914/1921) Nostalgic longing permeates The Lark Ascending. Not a cozy nostalgia that looks back to a rose-tinted past, but rather a spiritual fervor for an idyllic paradise, expressed as the song of a soaring skylark and, on the earth below, human life—a poignant metaphor for our collective yearning…
April 16, 2018
The 2017–18 season finale features two European masterpieces (“Something Old”), a world premiere (“Something New”), and a program with a difference At first glance, the line up for the California Symphony’s May 6 season closer —SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW—may look like business as usual. However delve deeper, and there is more to the finale than…
