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Porgy and Bess

Empress Theatre

An American in Paris

Rhapsody in Blue

This program features two American works—one by Duke Ellington, and the other written with you in mind by our Composer in Residence, Trey Makler! The River is yet another ballet score, written for Alvin Ailey and the American Ballet Theater in 1970. This fabulous work uses the progress of a river, from a tiny spring to the ocean, as a metaphor for life. Like the other two seldom-heard ballet scores we present this season, this is a work of huge invention, and a reminder (as if any of us need it), that the “Duke” is one of our very greatest composers. Violin virtuoso Cordula Merks completes our traversal of 19th-century concertos with the warmhearted Mendelssohn.

The River

The Empress Theatre

Ravel’s Mother Goose began its life as a group of piano miniatures, which later were brilliantly orchestrated, and then finally expanded into the ballet score that we will present to you. It is a magical score filled with wonder on every page, and finishes with one of the most-profound climaxes of the 20th century. Grieg’s Piano Concerto was to prove highly influential to impressionists such as Ravel, and its second movement is a heartfelt response to the birth of his daughter. I’m especially excited to present the work of Julia Perry, an African-American woman living in the mid-20th century, whose brilliantly-crafted music is a unique expression of neoclassical sensibilities distilled through the challenges she faced as a female composer of color in the United States.

Fairy Tales

Stravinsky’s witty, neoclassical masterpiece Jeu de Cartes (The Card Game) was inspired by his favorite game—Poker! It is hilariously filled with quotations from Beethoven, Johann Strauss, Ravel, Delibes, Tchaikovsky, and even Rossini’s Barber of Seville! It is an orchestral tour de force that requires the virtuosity of your orchestra to bring off. Speaking of Virtuosity, we are excited to present a family act for you. The Hersh family is Bay Area musical royalty, with cellist Alex recently winning the 2022 Pro Musicis Award, while his father Stefan is one of the nation’s most revered violinists. In this season of commemoration, it is entirely fitting that we welcome back Stefan, since he served as the Vallejo Symphony’s concertmaster back in the day!

Game of Cards

We open our season with “Pixie,” a spritely, delicious treat by Trey Makler, VSO’s Composer in Residence. We are excited to introduce Trey to you and honored to present the premiere of this new work. Next, Pianist Jared Redmond plays the first of three luscious piano concertos scheduled for this year: the Piano Concerto in F-Sharp Minor by Alexander Scriabin, a contemporary and classmate of Rachmaninoff. Scriabin’s concerto combines the passionate technique of Rachmaninoff with the grandeur and finesse of Chopin in a rapturous tour-de-force that will sweep you off your feet. Beethoven’s innovative Symphony No. 5 anchors the program. Its magisterial four-note theme has been described as “the sound of Fate knocking on the door.” The winds of revolutionary fervor blow through this early 19th-century work, in which Beethoven broke new ground that would transform the world of music forever. 

Fate

Ruth Crawford Seeger, ultramodernist composer and matriarch of the folk-revival Seeger family, composed in radically different styles. Music for Small Orchestra came from her early, avant-garde period, while “Rissolty Rossolty,” a crazy-quilt polyphony of three folk tunes, was composed as a whimsical tribute to the never-ending energy of folk music. David Fung, who performed with VSO in 2018 to great acclaim, returns to play Tchaikovsky’s tempestuous Piano Concerto No. 1. The melody from this concerto’s iconic opening became a huge hit when transformed into the love song “Tonight We Love,” but the rest of this audacious early work is even more compelling, as it alternates between dreamy passion and quick passages of dazzling difficulty. Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 shows the master at the height of his powers—transporting us from a pastoral beginning through wry humor, high tragedy, and triumph. 

THE DANCE

Our “Pastoral” concert opens with Caroline Shaw’s astonishing “Entr’acte.” You’ll listen spellbound as Shaw, the youngest composer to win the Pulitzer Prize in music, compresses time and stretches it out again—taking us, in her words, “behind the looking-glass.” From its dramatic opening statement to the fiery thrills of its close, Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 1 delivers a virtuoso punch tempered by lush lyricism. Jeffrey LaDeur will perform this striking concerto with all the power and nuance it deserves. Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, the only one of his symphonies to depict a story, takes the listener for a Sunday walk in the countryside, with bucolic melodies and birdcalls that set a pastoral scene, a country dance led by an out-of-time brass band, an unexpected thunderstorm, and a hymn of thanksgiving. 

Vallejo Symphony

Apr 20, 2024

Porgy and Bess

13 - 14 Jan, 2024

An American in Paris

Sep 30, 2023

Rhapsody in Blue

20 - 21 May, 2023

The River

25 - 26 Feb, 2023

Fairy Tales

Vallejo Symphony

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