Take Flight

Selections inspired by our fine feathered friends

What’s Interesting About This Program

  • 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 Concertmaster Jennifer Cho performs Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending, a gorgeous masterpiece for solo violin and orchestra, which regularly appears in all-time favorite classical music polls.
  • Haydn’s Hen Symphony gets its name from a “clucking” rhythmic motif in the first movement, while the English horn is the voice of the Swan of Tuonela, Sibelius’ ethereal tone poem, which is based on a Finnish tale about a mystical swan that guards the island of the dead.
  • Inspired by the folk music of Bohemia as well as sounds of nature found in the Bohemian woods, Dvorák’s Symphony No. 8 is the most tuneful and cheery of his large-scale works.

Patrons must be fully vaccinated and masks are required. For details, please visit www.californiasymphony.org/COVIDsafety.  Thank you for your cooperation!

Making Concerts Fun

This isn’t your grandma’s orchestra! We like to do things a little differently...

  • Free pre-concert talk with Maestro Cabrera begins an hour before the show
  • Bring your drinks to your seats
  • Phones on and silent allowed
  • Clap when you like what you hear

The Program

Vaughan WilliamsThe Lark Ascending

HaydnSymphony No. 83 (The Hen)

SibeliusSwan of Tuonela

DvořákSymphony No. 8

Show Sponsors

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