What do thimbles have to do with Katherine Balch’s next composition for the California Symphony? Read on for an update on the concerto she is writing for violinist Robyn Bollinger that is set to premiere at the 2018–19 season closer.
Left: Robyn Bollinger. Right: Katherine Balch with Robyn and thimble.
By California Symphony Young American Composer-in-Residence Katherine Balch. Balch will visit Walnut Creek in January for a reading workshop of her new piece-in-development.
Hi! Katherine here, California Symphony’s composer-in-residence. Happy fall! I spent the last few days of October in Boston, where my friend and collaborator Robyn Bollinger lives. Robyn will premiere my violin concerto, Artifacts, this May with the California Symphony.
Cheers! Kickoff to a weekend of playing and composing
We spent the weekend reading through and rehearsing some music, finalizing the workshop score for my upcoming read-through with the CS in January, and, most importantly, catching up on some much-needed girl time. I also presented my music to the composition students at Brandeis and Boston University.
Workshopping Day 1: In the third movement, I had written a very high, percussive pizzicati [when string players pluck the strings] figure in the violin sections. This was too hard, in fact, physically painful for Robyn’s fingers, because the strings of the violin become increasingly taut further up the fingerboard. So, we set out to find a similar sound that did not cause so much stress. After experimenting with several plectrum materials, we discovered that one can use a thimble to tap the string very high on the finger board. The resultant sound is exactly the delicate, high, percussive plucking sound I was looking for. So, I ordered 100 thimbles online. This concerto comes with accessories!
Homemade dumplings! Robyn and I have enjoyed cooking together since our undergraduate days as students at New England Conservatory.
Workshopping Day 2: Robyn played through a draft of one of the cadenzas in the concerto [when the soloist plays without any orchestral accompaniment], and we found solutions for some moments that were awkwardly written for the instrument. This concerto will be in four or five continuous movements which all feature the violin very heavily, but there will be three short cadenzas, spread out evenly throughout the 20-minute piece, in which Robyn plays without any orchestral accompaniment, showing different sides of her expressive personality. A weekend full of playing and writing!
Workshopping Day 2
Katherine Balch’s Violin Concerto will premiere May 5, 2019 at the California Symphony season finale. Tickets and information at www.californiasymphony.org/epicbruckner
Now entering the second year of her three year residency with the California Symphony, we connected with Katherine Balch to see what she’s been up to since we saw her at the May concert, and to find out how the concerto she’s writing for violinist Robyn Bollinger is progressing.
Robyn Bollinger and Katherine Balch enjoying the Boston Symphony Orchestra on the lawn at Tanglewood Music Center, where Katherine was a fellow this summer.
California Symphony Orchestra: What have you been up to since the premiere of your first piece with the California Symphony in May?
Katherine Balch: After an amazing week with the California Symphony, I had a fun time celebrating with the folks at Broadcast Music Inc., at the 66th Annual BMI Student Composer Awards ceremony in NYC, where I received an award for my orchestra piece, Leaf Fabric, written for the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra (with conductor Ilan Volkov). Then, I dove right into composing a new piece for the Oregon Symphony Orchestra, called Chamber Music, which was premiered just recently in Portland, OR under Jun Markl. There’s a nice write-up about the piece and my time composing it here.
I then spent 8 weeks as a fellow at Tanglewood Music Center, in the beautiful Massachusetts Berkshires, where I worked on site-specific projects there as well as a big new piece for NYC-based trio, Bearthoven. We recently were honored to receive a Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Grant for this project!
Watch out Donato! While a composing fellow at Tanglewood, Katherine had to write a short piece that she later had to conduct. (Balch claims she was “terrible”!)
Now, I’m back in school at Columbia University, where I’m currently in the 3rd year of my doctorate. I spent some time revisiting like a broken clock, and with the California Symphony recording in hand and some reflecting in mind, made some substantial revisions to the piece.
CSO: You’re working on your next commission for us — a violin concerto, which will premiere at the season finale and which you’re writing for your friend Robyn Bollinger. How is that going?
KB: I’m so excited to be working on this piece for my dear friend. The piece is called Artifacts, and each movement takes as a departure point a fragment or gesture from pieces in the solo violin repertoire that I love. Some of those pieces remind me of Robyn and her playing, and were chosen with her in mind, like Paganini’s 6th caprice for solo violin. I heard this piece for the first time when Robyn played all 24 of the Paganini Caprices in a single concert.
I currently have sketches of each movement, and am just starting to orchestrate some moments from each movement to workshop with the orchestra in January.
Composition sketches in Katherine’s studio at Tanglewood
CSO: You’re coming back to workshop the piece with Donato and the orchestra in January. Having done that once already last year, are approaching things any differently this time, and if so, how?
KB: I plan to use my time very differently. Last year, I came into the workshop with a basically finished draft of the piece, and the orchestra read it. This recording helped me tighten up loose ends and rework the ending of the piece, but I think because the piece was so close to done, I wasn’t as open about making changes as I could have been.
This time, I am going to bring small excerpts from each movement that each address a potential orchestral problem or question I have. In this way, it’ll be more explicitly experimental than the first workshop. I think this will be more educational for me and will also keep me open to making more drastic changes to the piece after the workshop period.
CSO: Outside of the California Symphony premiere, what else are you currently working on?
KB: Once I finish the workshop materials for California Symphony, I’ll be writing a piece for ‘cello and piano for my Young Concert Artists-roster colleague, the brilliant cellist Zlatomir Fung.
I’ll also be starting a string quartet for Juilliard’s quartet-in-residence, the Argus Quartet, which premieres the day after Robyn’s violin concerto, on May 6 in Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center.
Later in the season, I’ll be writing a double bass septet (yes, seven double basses) for Tanglewood Music Center, which will be performed in the summer.
Composition in progress: Katherine at work on the violin concerto that will have its world premiere at our 2018–19 season closer on May 5, 2019. Her cat Zarathustra likes to “help.”
Katherine Balch’s Violin Concerto will premiere May 5, 2019 at the California Symphony season finale. Tickets and information at www.californiasymphony.org/epicbruckner
Beyond music training and the teaching of life skills like commitment, perseverance, and how to work together, the Sound Minds music education program is also about exposing students in one of the poorest parts of the state to experiences that inspire and encourage them to imagine possibilities beyond anything they could ever have dreamed of before.
The Virtuoso, the Concertmaster and the Educator: Charlie Albright, Jennifer Cho and Patty Drury create unique and unforgettable experiences for the Sound Minds program students.
For students at Downer Elementary School, Sound Minds provides intensive music education and training for free, three days a week throughout the school year. It’s also a path to better grades and a brighter future, with students testing in Math proficiency at a rate up to 4x higher than those not in the program.
We take a closer look at a few of the horizon-expanding opportunities the kids have shared, including one-on-one time with pianist Charlie Albright; a masterclass with Concertmaster Jennifer Cho, and a side-by-side rehearsal with local high school students, led by music teacher and California Symphony violinist Patty Drury.
The Virtuoso
“How do you remember all the notes?”
“Do you play other instruments?”
“How do you play with your eyes closed..?”
Guest artist Charlie Albright answers the students’ questions, and teaches them about improvisation.
After sitting in on a rehearsal for September’s BEETHOVEN & BERNSTEIN season opener, a group of Sound Minds students and teachers got to ask virtuoso Charlie Albright anything they liked, and they didn’t hold back.
Then the virtuoso pianist treated his young audience to an improvised extract of music from the Disney movie, “Coco,” a piece the students are working on this semester. They marveled at Charlie’s ability to play without music and listened intently as he explained that “improvisation is like giving an impromptu speech, and composing is like editing a paper in school—but you can’t do that when you improvise.”
We asked Charlie about the experience of working with the students and he told us: “It was wonderful sharing music with the Sound Minds kids, and discussing ideas on how music can connect people together. I was thrilled at how engaged the children were and how they seemed to understand that music is a means of expression and communication.”
“It is great that programs like Sound Minds exist to connect with children from different backgrounds and introduce them to the joys of music. Music is something that everyone can connect and express themselves through. I hope that the Sound Minds kids realized how music is a means of sharing and expressing emotions, and that through improvisation, they can create a piece of music that is uniquely theirs.”
The Concertmaster
In the spring, Concertmaster Jennifer Cho came to Downer Elementary to give a mini-masterclass to Sound Minds students. Brave student pairs played short passages as Jenny listened, offered encouragement and advice, and even played along.
Again, the students were full of questions, including how she overcomes nerves when she plays, how she plays so smoothly, and what to do if you lose your place in the music. (“Just keep breathing,” she advises. “Center your mind, just like a Jedi, and use your brain to focus.”)
And then she sealed her reputation as a bona fide rock star by launching into themes from Star Wars.
I want them to know that you can drive down the freeway with the windows down, blasting Beethoven’s 5th symphony, and rocking out. — Concertmaster Jennifer Cho
Concertmaster Jennifer Cho teaches a masterclass, and demonstrates how to play smoothly.
Says Jenny, “The kids were so attentive and enthusiastic. I think they enjoyed watching a musician up close.”
“Music can be so many different things to a child as they grow up. It can be a fun social activity but also a catalyst for intense personal development and opinions. It can heal and soothe the aches and pains of life but also be a healthy outlet for outrage and energy. How many teaching tools are available that have this kind or reach and impact?”
Asked what she wanted the kids to take away from the experience, she replied: “People so often mistake classical music for something you listen to in the bathtub with a glass of wine as you drift off to sleep. I want these kids to realize that is only a small fraction of what music can provide. I want them to know that you can drive down the freeway with the windows down, blasting Beethoven’s 5th symphony, and rocking out.”
The Educator
The Dougherty Valley High School Wildcats decorated the practice room with welcome signs for the Downer Elementary Dragons.
Patty Drury teaches music at Dougherty Valley High School in San Ramon. She also plays the violin with the California Symphony and it’s through that connection that her high school students have developed a relationship with Downer Elementary School, including pen pal letter exchanges and side-by-side rehearsals with the Sound Minds kids.
“I feel strongly about the great value of the Sound Minds program in its use of music to support at-risk youth,” she says. “I especially like sharing the joy of making music. In this way I still feel like a kid at heart!”
“It is important that such programs exist because they bring positivity, skills, support, opportunity, and pride to the participants — all of which promote well-being and good citizenship, and enable the students to be self-actualized, contributing members of their community. The gift of music is a life enhancement no matter what their ultimate vocation may be.”
“Seeing their faces light up when they grasp a new technique or concept, or the pride they feel when they hear the results of their efforts is immensely rewarding.”—Patty Drury
When asked what is special about side-by-side rehearsals, Patty continues: “When people make music together it is a collaboration of the highest order. It forges a connection through a unified artistic purpose and results in a beautiful collective sound. It truly is an example of ‘the whole is greater than the sum of the parts’. To be amidst the swell of sound which results is thrilling, especially for a student in the early years of their musical development. From what I observed, the Sound Minds students feel very good about the care and interest shown them by the DVHS students. In their DVHS buddies, the Sound Minds kids have another person who cares about them, supports their efforts, models orchestral skills, and enjoys a shared interest in music.”
Scenes from a side-by-side rehearsal: Sound Minds students experience the thrill of playing in a bigger orchestra, with its bigger sound, with their DVHS pen pals and mentors.
The benefits of the relationship are not a one-way street, says Patty. “Collaborating with the Sound Minds program allows the DVHS students to share with the Downer Elementary School musicians something that is very close to their heart. The partnership also allows them to experience what it feels like to give of themselves, sharing something they’ve enjoyed abundantly with those in an under-served community.”
“I believe it broadens their perspective as well, and perhaps makes them more fully appreciate the many advantages, privileges, and opportunities they have had along the way. I can tell from their comments that they genuinely care about the Sound Minds students. They were effusive and animated as they described their side-by-side experience with their Sound Minds buddies.”
And as for what Patty gets out of the experience, “The Sound Minds kids are genuinely eager to learn, so it is especially gratifying to instruct and inspire them. Seeing their faces light up when they grasp a new technique or concept, or the pride they feel when they hear the results of their efforts is immensely rewarding.”
To the Sound Minds kids, Patty Drury was a superstar, and so of course they asked for her autograph at the end of the session. To this student, she wrote: “You are AWESOME! Keep up the great work!”
Be a part of the success! Support music education during the California Symphony’s Crescendo Your Impact fall fundraising campaign and when you give by Oct. 31, 2018, your gift is matched dollar-for-dollar and your impact is DOUBLED.
Your donation supports:
A season of exciting concerts featuring amazing professional musicians and stellar guest artists — all right here in Walnut Creek
Sound Minds — providing intensive music training and transforming the lives and futures of local children in one of the most economically disadvantaged parts of the state
Emerging composer talent through the highly-regarded Young American Composer-in-Residence program
We caught up with longtime California Symphony percussionist Allen Biggs to learn more about his life and work, and why he thinks he has best job in the world.
California Symphony Orchestra: How long have you been playing with the California Symphony?
Allen Biggs: I have been with the California Symphony since the very first concert at the Rheem Theater, many years ago.
CSO: When you’re not playing for us, what do you do?
AB: I play in a band called Jamalicious, and I do theater work for Broadway shows such as the upcoming Bat Out of Hell. I have recorded jingles of all types and I’ve come up with sounds for recordings and live performance—for example, imitating the sound of footsteps on newly fallen snow, or making the sound for the wand in Wicked.
I also teach. About ten years ago I revamped my approach to teaching, and decided I could have a larger impact by teaching music education students at San Francisco state about how to teach percussion, rather than giving individual lessons. I constantly get new ideas from students, about sound sources, and the permeable lines between sound, music and noise. It has been a great success, and many of those students now teach music in San Francisco and the greater Bay Area.
I have also done percussion training for Sound Minds teachers. Adopting the El Sistema approach has been the way to go, and it has been having great success.
Allen in his element. Photo courtesy of The Press Democrat.
CSO: What is it that attracted you to learn percussion?
AB: When I was three years old, my family moved from San Francisco to Northern Spain, and we lived in the Basque region for two years. A musician there made me a drum out of a box, so I could accompany his guitar playing. That moment had a huge impact on my life.
I love how percussion melds my fascination with harmony and non-traditional sounds.
CSO: What’s the one thing would you like readers to better understand about what you do?
AB: Most musicians play the same instrument when they perform, but I often have a new instrument to learn. Sometimes it is a modified drum kit, sometimes I have a huge arsenal of percussion instruments; sometimes I play an object you might not even consider a musical instrument, such as a cardboard box!
Occasionally my job is to simulate a sound, such as footsteps on newly fallen snow, or crickets on a summer evening. And two weeks ago in Germany’s Black Forest, I was recording different streams and springs, for a sound collage.
I have the best job in the world!!!
CSO: What’s the craziest thing that’s ever happened to you in performance?
AB: I was hired to play a roll on a drum to accompany a piece of performance art. I started and a man came out on stage, climbed a ladder with a pair of scissors, and cut a thin string which was suspending a bowling ball.
The bowling ball came hurtling down, and splattered all over the stage — turned out to be a pumpkin painted black!!
October 15, 2018 at 6:00PM | The Bridges Golf Club at 9000 S. Gale Ridge Road in San Ramon
Tickets include:
Hosted wine, drinks and heavy hors d’oeuvres.
A demonstration of exciting percussion instruments, including how Allen Biggs originated the sound of the witch melting in the Broadway musical Wicked.
Hear Donato interview Allen, who grew up playing in Rock and Roll bands in San Francisco and whose passion for percussion has taken him around the world.
Donors of $1k+, FREE All other donors, $35 General public, $50
This event is part of the Crescendo Your Impact fall matching campaign. Donate now and we’ll send you a discount promo code, and the value of your donation will be doubled during our fall matching campaign! Or donate/order tickets by phone at 925.280.2490.
We’re delighted to introduce six new recruits to the California Symphony. The group includes four international artists, two Juilliard School graduates, a student of Itszhak Perlman, and a self-described corgi-whisperer.
Clockwise from top left: Sarena Hsu Giarrusso (Assistant Principal Violin II), Xander Abbe, Sheng-Ching Hsu, Mijung Kim, Junghee Lee, Yulee Seo.
One hot day in June, the California Symphony held a grueling full day of auditions, seeking to fill several positions in the violin section. These fine musicians rose to the challenge and emerged victorious!
Music Director Donato Cabrera is thrilled with the caliber of his newest recruits. “I’m excited for the addition of these wonderful musicians to the California Symphony’s violin section. Sarena, Xander, Sheng-Ching, Junghee, Mijung and Yulee bring an incredible breadth of knowledge and experience to our orchestra, and their individual contibutions really show in the quality of performances you experience in the hall.”
The happy winners! From L to R: Concertmaster Jennifer Cho, Yulee Seo, Music Director Donato Cabrera, Junghee Lee, Sarena Hsu Giarrusso, Principal Violin II Philip Santos, Mujing Kim and Xander Abbe. (The sixth and final audition winner, Sheng-Ching Hsu, had to leave early to catch a flight back to New York.)
Sarena Hsu-Giarrusso — Assistant Principal Second Violin
Sarena Hsu Giarrusso holds a Master of Music in Violin Performance degree from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She earned her Bachelor of Music degree from the California State University of Sacramento where she graduated with Magna Cum Laude, Phi Kappa Phi honors, and Pi Kappa Lambda music honors.
As an active orchestral player, Sarena currently is a member of the Stockton Symphony. Recent performances include Opera San Jose in child prodigy Alma Deutscher’s opera Cinderella, and with Opera Parallèle in jazz trumpeter Terrence Blanchard’s opera Champion. Sarena has played with the Sacramento Philharmonic, Monterey Symphony, Modesto Symphony, and Napa Symphony. She has also been a member of the North State Symphony and has performed with the Juneau Symphony, Sacramento Chorale Society, Livermore Valley Opera, and at the Mendocino Music Festival.
Sarena has performed throughout North America and Europe in venues that include Berlin Philharmonic Hall, Munich Philharmonic Hall, Smetana Hall in Prague, SF JAZZ center, and Davies Symphony Hall.
“Outside of music, my hidden talent is that I am a corgi-whisperer.”—Sarena Hsu Giarrusso
To learn more about Sarena, please visit her website at www.sarenahsu.com
Xander Abbe
Originally from McLean, VA, Xander Abbe has been a violinist since the age of five, and graduated with a B.A. in music from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. He regularly performs with the California Pops Orchestra, and he is the principal second violin of the Golden State Pops Orchestra in Los Angeles.
Previously, he served as concertmaster of the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony, with which he performed the violin solo in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade in 2010, and he toured China with New York’s Park Avenue Chamber Symphony in 2011. He is an avid player of string quartets, having participated in chamber music festivals in Budapest, Salzburg, Paris, and Bennington, Vermont.
He lives in San Jose with his husband Murray and their four cats.
“My favorite composer is Franz Schubert. His string quartets are epic.”—Xander Abbe
Sheng-Ching Hsu
Born in Taiwan, Sheng-Ching Hsu was six years old when she made her first public appearance as a violinist and a pianist at the National Cheng-Kung University.
She has performed in venues such as the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Carnegie Hall, Teatro Municipal de Santiago (Chile), Remonstrantse Kerk in Alkmaar (The Netherlands), and National Recital Hall (Taiwan). Last season saw performances in Carnegie Hall, the Bohemian Consulate (New York), and National Recital Hall (Taiwan) and more.
Sheng-Ching has won numerous competitions, including the Flushing Young Artist Competition, and the Asia Pacific Cup Music Competition. In 2001, Sheng-Ching was the youngest participant and winner of the Tainan National Music Competition; she won the composition category a year later. Sheng-Ching’s exceptional talent has led her to stages throughout Asia and attracted the attention of Yamaha and Kawai. She is a scholarship recipient of both companies.
“My favorite composer is J. S. Bach. His music is simple enough for a 10 year old to learn, but is also so complex that you never stop playing and discovering new things for the rest of your life.”—Sheng-Ching Hsu
Teaching is also one of Sheng-Ching’s passions, which has led to her coaching chamber music at Stony Brook University, leading the Great Youth Symphony in Staten Island and serving as both violin and piano instructor at Manhasset School of Music, in addition to her private studio in New York City.
Sheng-Ching studied in the Juilliard Pre-College Division, where she served as the concertmaster of the Pre-College Orchestra, and studied with Itzhak Perlman and Catherine Cho. Sheng-Ching has a Bachelor of Music Degree from the Mannes College of Music and a Master’s Degree from The Juilliard School, with the generous support of the Irene Diamond Graduate Fellowship. She recently earned her Doctor of Musical Arts from SUNY Stony Brook University under the tutelage of Philip Setzer and Arnaud Sussman.
Junghee Lee
Junghee Lee has achieved great success as an active soloist, orchestral and chamber musician. Born in Seoul, South Korea, she received a Bachelor of Music from Yonsei University, her Master of Music Degree from The Juilliard School, and she earned Doctor of Musical Arts from Rutgers University.
In 2013, she was the winner of the International Competition of Romantic Music in New York, and was a winner in the Rutgers Chamber Music Competition.
She has performed at numerous venues, such as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. She has studied with Hyo Kang, Masao Kawasaki, Cho-Liang Lin, Yoon Kwon and Dan Carlson. Currently, she is a section violinist at Santa Cruz Symphony. Passionate about teaching, she also has many students in San Francisco Bay Area.
“My motto? Life is short! Enjoy!”—Junghee Lee
Mijung Kim
A native of Seoul, Korea, began to study the violin at the age of seven. Mijung holds both her B.M. and M.M. degrees in Orchestral Music from Ewha Women’s University and studied the Professional Studies Diploma Program with Professor Wei He at San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
She was a member of Seoul Youth Orchestra for four years and played at Cheonan Philharmonic Orchestra as a first violin from 2010 through 2017. She is also a founding member of the Viva String Quartet.
Throughout her career, she has performed for orchestras and chambers in various countries including Korea, Japan, China and the U.S., and has achieved several awards including the 1st Place in the American Protégé International Piano and String Competition, Manhae Competition and the Youngsan Arthall Chamber Contest.
“My favorite composer is Dmitri Shostakovich because his pieces have energy, message, and dissonance, and above all they are very enjoyable to play.”—Mijung Kim
Yulee Seo
Born in South Korea, violinist Yulee Seo has appeared as a soloist and an active chamber/orchestra player in Korea, Japan, China, Austria, Germany, Poland, Sweden and the USA. She has performed in major venues including Musikverein Vienna, Carnegie Hall, Salzburg Festspielhaus, Disney Hall, Liederhalle, Muza Kawasaki, and Seoul Arts Center.
A winner of numerous competitions, among them the Padova International Music Competition and the Dichler Competition, she played as soloist with Seoul Symphony, Hungarian Kammer, SK Networks Chamber, SNU Modern Ensemble, and Tri Valley Youth Symphony. She had the honor of performing J.S. Bach’s Chaconne at the St. Thomas Church where J.S.Bach worked as Kapellmeister, as part of the Bach Festival in Leipzig. She has played with the Stuttgart Philharmonic (Praktikum), International Attergau Institute Orchestra (principal), Festival Ensemble Stuttgart, Aurora Festival Orchestra, SNU-Mannheim Project Tour, Bucheon Philharmonic, TIMF Ensemble, Seoul Philharmonic, amongst many others.
She is the recipient of numerous scholarships, including those awarded by the Live Music Now Foundation by Yehudi Menuhin, Rotary Club Wiener Neustadt, and Angelika-Prokopp Akademie of the Vienna Philharmonic. In recognition of the last award, she was invited to perform at the Salzburg Festival.
After moving to the United States, she served as concertmaster for the Berkeley Chamber Opera, and was a faculty member at the Fresno Summer Orchestra Academy (FOOSA). She recently joined to the Marin Symphony, California Symphony, and the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra. She maintains private studio in Bay Area, and she coaches Hope Box Charity Youth Orchestra as well as Tri Valley Youth Symphony.
Seo holds degrees from Seoul National University and the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.
Congratulations to all these wonderful musicians: We are so happy you have joined the California Symphony family!
Look out for these new faces on stage at the Lesher Center throughout the 2018–19 season and beyond.
Be a part of the success! Support musical excellence during the California Symphony’s Crescendo Your Impact fall fundraising campaign and when you give by Oct. 31, 2018, your gift is matched dollar-for-dollar and your impact is DOUBLED.
Your donation supports:
A season of exciting concerts featuring amazing professional musicians and stellar guest artists — all right here in Walnut Creek
Sound Minds—providing intensive music training and transforming the lives and futures of local children in one of the most economically disadvantaged parts of the state
Emerging composer talent through the highly-regarded Young American Composer-in-Residence program
Imagine a job interview where you get to say anything you want and your interviewers have no idea who you are or where you’re from. Where your anonymous artistry is left to speak for itself, and where you never see your interviewers’ faces until AFTER you’re offered the job…
We lift the lid on the mysterious world of orchestra auditions and take you behind the scenes of what it’s like to try out for the California Symphony.
For musicians and artists, auditions are a high-stakes, high-stress fact of life: Years—if not decades—of study and practice of your art, distilled into just a few minutes of playing, with every aspect of your performance— accuracy, tone, pitch, tempo, expression—scrutinized by the judging panel.
But what you might not know is that those aspiring to join a professional orchestra like the California Symphony have an unique set of additional circumstances to deal with, thanks to the established practice of blind auditions.
What’s a Blind Audition?
A screen is erected between the candidate and the selection panel and neither one can see the other, hence the audition is “blind.”
Here’s what it looks like from both sides of the screen.
Blind auditions: The selection panel’s view from in front of the screen, and the candidates’ view from behind it.
Why Hold Blind Auditions?
Boston Symphony was the first to try blind auditions in 1952 as a way to tackle rampant nepotism. At that time, the students and friends of existing orchestra members were pretty much guaranteed of winning auditions and securing jobs with the orchestra: people hired the people they knew, and inside connections were everything. Of course, not only was this unfair, it also meant that better candidates might not make the cut, which in turn had implications for the quality of the ensemble. So, for the first time in 1952, candidates were asked to audition behind a screen: Musicians would be judged solely on the merits of their playing.
While the screens helped address favoritism, it was observed that the audition results still skewed male.
“Then they asked candidates to remove their shoes, and that made all the difference,” says California Symphony Executive Director Aubrey Bergauer. “Why? Because the sound of the women’s heeled shoes as they walked on stage unknowingly influenced the panelists.”
As these practices to ensure fairness were adopted, it was found was that the combination of the screen plus shoes removed increased the chances that a woman would advance through preliminary rounds by +50%. Before blind auditions were introduced, male orchestra members outnumbered female musicians almost 2-to-1. As of 2013 data, the ratio of male to female orchestra musicians in professional orchestras is 54% to 46%, and if you look at the California Symphony, we now have more women than men in the orchestra (54% women and 46% men).
Auditioning for the California Symphony
Every spring, auditions are held to fill vacancies and to increase the number of permanent musicians in the California Symphony. The higher the number of permanent orchestra members, the greater the continuity of players from one concert to the next, and the tighter the ensemble. That enables Music Director Donato Cabrera to shape and develop a unique sound with the California Symphony. Recruiting the right people to the right sections is crucial to the artistic integrity of the orchestra.
Last spring, auditions for clarinet and principal timpani were held and we welcomed Stephen Zelinski and Alex Orfaly to the orchestra. This year, the focus was on filling the many vacancies in the violin section, resulting in the largest audition process we have ever handled in a single day.
Here’s how things went down…
Before the Big Day
While the focus of the action and the drama is definitely audition day itself, the process leading up to the day requires a LOT of planning. In fact, reviewing her notes, Operations and Education Director Sunshine Deffner counts 43 separate items to project manage so that everything runs smoothly, including:
—Finding an audition venue and setting the date. In this case, June 18 at Danville Village Theatre.
— Putting together the resume review committee and selection panel.
— Advertising in various media, including international online publications, on our website, and through Facebook.
— Renting pipe and drape for the screens, and hiring the auditions venue itself!
— Music! The principal chair of the violin section recommends the audition pieces, and after getting Maestro’s input, audition excerpts are provided to the short-listed candidates. There can be more than a dozen passages on the audition list, however candidates may only be asked to perform 4 or 5 pieces on the day.
The Candidates
51 musicians applied, and 27 were invited to audition at Danville Village Theatre on June 18. After some last minute cancellations, 25 showed up to audition.
Candidates came to us from right here in the East Bay and from as far afield as Chicago and New York. They included musicians with multiple advanced degrees, people who had performed in major venues around the globe, and even one who had studied under Itzhak Perlman.
The Odds
Up to seven spots in the violin section were up for grabs on this occasion, including the role of Assistant Principal to the Second Violin section, which created unusually favorable odds to win to an audition for a position with a professional orchestra.
Audition Day Arrives!
The seven-person judging panel comprised five tenured Orchestra members (including the principals of three sections), Concertmaster Jennifer Cho, and of course Music Director Donato Cabrera.
The Selection Committee confers with the Union Steward and Orchestra Personnel Manager.
Additionally, a Union Steward and the Orchestra Personnel Manager were present to ensure the rules are observed and to brief the musicians at every stage, while Operations & Education Director Sunshine Deffner was on hand throughout the day to ensure things run smoothly.
To preserve anonimity, candidates are not allowed to speak during their audition, and any questions must be channeled through a California Symphony staff member. While women don’t usually take off their shoes these days, they are encouraged to wear soft-soled shoes, so the sound of heels on the stage don’t give the game away in terms of the candidate’s gender. For each round, the musicians draw lots to determine their audition order, and they are announced to the committee only by their lot number.
On this day, the selection process was scheduled to go for three rounds (preliminaries, semi-finals and finals), with 10 minutes allotted for each candidate in each round. Members of the selection committee cast secret ballots and candidates progress based on a majority vote.
Backstage — the selections for the first round are posted outside the audition hall for the musicians. Instruments, some valued at tens of thousands of dollars, are never far from their owners!
What Sets a Good Audition Apart from a Bad One?
During the course of the day, the committee will hear the same pieces of music played by multiple different candidates. According to Music Director Donato Cabrera, “As audition committee members, we are all hoping to hear everyone who is auditioning make as much music as possible in one of the most unmusical, sterile environments ever devised, the screened audition.” He adds, “On any given day, certain people will be better at this Herculean task than others.”
Making the Cut
Unsuccessful candidates are let go after each round. For those who progress through the rounds, it’s a long day, starting at 9am and wrapping with the announcement of the winners at around 4pm, when they are finally introduced to their future colleagues and warmly welcomed into the California Symphony family.
Sarena Hsu Giarrusso who scored the most prestigious slot available at this year’s auditions, gives her insights into what the process is like from the point of view of the person behind the screen, being judged.
California Symphony: How did you prepare on the day of your audition?
Hsu Giarrusso: I woke up at 6am to make sure I had a few hours to be awake and have enough time to practice/warm up my fingers before heading out to Danville, which is about a 40-minute drive from my house.
CS: Did you recognize anyone at the audition?
Hsu Giarrusso: There were several other candidates that I recognized at the audition! That can always be intimidating since the music community is very close-knit in the Bay Area and at this level, the players tend to all know each other.
CS: How did you feel you during each round? Were you confident?
Hsu Giarrusso: To be honest, I was incredibly nervous as I tend to have stage fright, not to mention seeing many people that I knew at the audition. I think I was also in shock when I drew the #1 slot in every single round! What are the chances?!
CS: Not only did you win the audition, you were awarded Assistant Principal Violin. That’s like being the number 1 draft pick!
Hsu Giarrusso: It took a couple of seconds for me to register that I won the Assistant Principal chair. I knew that the other candidates in the finals round with me were all amazing players, and it’s always difficult not to compare yourself to the competition at the moment!
CS: You performed last month in the season opener, Beethoven and Bernstein. How was your first time playing with the California Symphony?
Hsu Giarrusso: I had an incredible time playing with the Symphony for the very first time. I’m lucky to have an amazing stand partner, Philip [Santos, Principal Violin II], and honored to play with all the other unbelievably talented, professional musicians.
Be a part of the success! Support musical excellence during the California Symphony’s Crescendo Your Impact fall fundraising campaign and when you give by Oct. 31, 2018, your gift is matched dollar-for-dollar and your impact is DOUBLED.
Your donation supports:
A season of exciting concerts featuring amazing professional musicians and stellar guest artists — all right here in Walnut Creek
Sound Minds — providing intensive music training and transforming the lives and futures of local children in one of the most economically disadvantaged parts of the state
Emerging composer talent through the highly-regarded Young American Composer-in-Residence program
Christine Keller has taught at the Sound Minds music education program and other California Symphony education initiatives for more than two decades. In addition to being a teacher, Christine is a professional pianist and one half of the “Keller Duo” with her concert pianist mom, Alice Mae Keller, who has been struggling with dementia since 2001. She shares her story with us for World Alzheimer’s Day, September 21, 2018.
California Symphony: You and your mother are both classically trained pianists. Together you formed “The Keller Duo”, and you performed professionally around the Bay Area. How did you come to create the act, and what was it like working with your mother?
Christine Keller: In 1996, I won the Berkeley Piano Club competition and spent the spring practicing and preparing for the winner’s concert. Unfortunately, after that I was out of money, and had to find a job. I began teaching at Music Time, a music school for small children, through which I eventually got a job with the California Symphony. Too busy to follow a concert career at the time, I accepted my mother’s proposal to become her duo piano partner, and we became a team, the Keller Duo.
Of course, at the beginning, there were a lot of mother-daughter issues that came up, and eventually we found an elegant solution. Using humor to dissolve the occasional tension between us, we developed a deep respect for one another, not only as musicians, but as friends. Somehow, being at the piano(s) became a safe place to tell each other the truth, no matter how difficult that might be, and sometimes it was quite revealing. We performed around the Bay Area, mostly at Berkeley Piano Club and Performing Arts Society. Dad coached us as we were preparing for concerts, and turned pages for us at performances.
The Keller Duo: Alice Mae and Christine Keller on the cover of their 1992 recording.
How many years did you perform together? When was your most recent performance?
We have performed every year since 1996, except when I injured my shoulder and couldn’t play with her from 2005 until 2009. That makes 28 years playing together!
Our last performance was June 6, 2018 at Berkeley Piano Club.
Mom turned 88 this year, exactly the same number of keys there are on a piano. Together we bring 136 years of playing the piano to our performances!
Your mother has been suffering from dementia for a long time but you say that playing the piano together is something that has helped keep her brain active and has kept her engaged with you. How do you think music helps?
Mom has been struggling with dementia since 2001, when she had two operations within a week of each other. The anesthetic was toxic to her brain, as it is for many people. Playing music is something that gives her a sense of value. Preparing for the concerts allows her to feel important and have a goal to accomplish. She still sight reads, and though she can no longer tell you how many sharps are in the key of A major, she can still process that information and play it.
We even have a piece that shifts from A major (with three sharps) to A flat major (with four flats.) The notes look exactly the same on the page, but you have to play all of the notes differently because of the key change. With a little coaching, she can still do it. She is losing the connection between words and things, but she can still play piano!
About five or six years ago, we were invited to perform on the concert series for Rossmoor. Before the concert, when Dad left the house for any length of time she became very anxious because she didn’t know where he was. After a couple of weeks of four hours practicing a day, right before the concert, she could remember that he was out shopping and that he would come home safely to her. It extended my father’s ability to be independent for several years afterwards, a profound improvement for them both.
How is your mom doing now? Are you still playing together?
Mom is slipping deeper and deeper into Alzheimer’s now. The other day I asked her to help me clear the table and bring the cups into the kitchen. She just stood there, so I asked her a couple more times, getting more exasperated each time. When she didn’t bring them, I looked at her face, and saw she was very confused. She looked at me and said, “What’s a cup?”
It’s an extraordinary opportunity to be with a woman whose brain no longer allows her to engage the world easily, nor even make a full sentence most of the time—other than “You’re wonderful!” or “We’re having a good time, aren’t we?” But she can sit down at the piano and play music with me. Sometimes she even corrects my sight reading, telling me I am not observing a dynamic marking! After so many years playing with each other, it is such a delight to drop into this familiar and rare opportunity to play piano with my mother, still making really beautiful music together!
You currently teach students in the Sound Minds program at Downer Elementary School. Does your experience of working with your mom impact how you teach the kids?
My musicality, attention to detail, and the sheer pleasure of polishing a piece so it shimmers, I learned from her. I bring all of that to my work with the students. All of the patience and teaching strategies I use with the Sound Minds students have come full circle, as I draw on them when I sit at the piano with my mother, because her mind is functioning as a toddler now. But beyond that, at the piano, playing music together, she is still the extraordinary musician who was on the radio playing piano at age 11.
Any final thoughts you’d like to share?
My mom has been my musical mentor, inspiration, and wonderful companion at the piano for my entire life. Playing music together allows me to continue a meaningful relationship with her now, even as her mental capacity dwindles.
I believe making music together with my mom is one of the most important things I’ve done in my life, and I encourage every parent who has a musical child to share music-making with them!
Finally, I’d also like to acknowledge my dad, Richard Keller, for his support, keen musical insight and encouragement, especially these last few years. Without his loving attention, Mom wouldn’t be where she is today.
This California-born, Grammy award-winning composer was included in the Washington Post’s list of the 35 most significant women composers in history (2017). In case you hadn’t heard of her before, here’s a quick primer.
View from Frank’s Timberstone Mountain Farm, part of the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music (pictured left) and composer Gabriela Lena Frank (pictured right).
Bay Area native Gabriela Lena Frank is an acclaimed composer and one of the leading voices for multiculturalism in classical music today. Her Three Latin-American Dances for Orchestra, whose first movement unabashedly references the music of West Side Story, is featured in the California Symphony’s season opener BEETHOVEN & BERNSTEIN.
1. Composer Gabriela Lena Frank was born in Berkeley in 1972 and currently lives in Boonville (population: 1,200), about 2 hours north of San Francisco.
2. She was born with a moderate to profound hearing loss.
3. Cultural identity is at the center of Frank’s music and it was an important aspect of her own up-bringing: Her father is of Lithuanian/Jewish descent, and her mother is Peruvian, of Chinese descent. Growing up, Frank was exposed to a lot of traditional South American music.
“I firmly believe that only in the United States could a Peruvian-Chinese-Jewish-Lithuanian girl born with significant hearing loss in a hippie town successfully create a life writing string quartets and symphonies.”
4. Frank’s composing talents started when she was young, when her piano teacher encouraged Frank to experiment with mixing styles and to make up little songs on her own. Frank would often include folk music and Andean elements in her improvisations.
5. Coming of age during Gorbachev’s perestroika and the fall of the Berlin Wall during the ’80s, she initially planned to pursue Russian Studies, however a summer music program at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in her final year of high school changed all that.
“It changed my life, because I was exposed to this whole music world I didn’t know existed. This idea of becoming a composer came to me right away. I didn’t know what that meant, or what it was like, but I had written my first piece down on paper, and heard it come to life at the hands of other kids my age and younger, and I was hooked, instantly. Instantly.”
6. Frank joined the music composition program at Rice University and later gained her doctorate at University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre & Dance in 2001. While working on her doctorate, Frank began to remember her love for South American folk music, and inspired by composers like the Hungarian Béla Bartók and the Argentinian Alberto Ginastera — who similarly celebrated their own cultures — she started to combine elements of South American music with her classical training.
“I realized that I had found my mission,” Frank explained. “I wanted to, in a very general way, be as mestiza* in my music as I was in my person: I’m multiracial, I’m multicultural, and I think that that’s something deeply American.”
* Mestiza: A woman of mixed race or ethnic ancestry, especially in Lain America, of mixed American Indian and European descent.—Dictionary.com
7. In 2017, she founded the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music, and she offers emerging composers short retreats at her home in Boonville in Mendocino County.
8. She is passionate about teaching young composers the importance of community engagement. Frank herself has volunteered extensively in hospitals and prisons. Recently, she worked with deaf African-American high school students in Detroit who rap in sign language.
9. Frank could be described as a musical anthropologist. Her music blends her South American studies and extensive travel experience with her Peruvian heritage, overlaid with a contemporary American point of view.
“[The Andean influence] changes just because it has to mix and blend with my psyche, which was formed here, was formed in the United States. I’ve spent most of my time here, in my home country. For me, again, I feel like that’s very American. We bring in a lot of cultures, eat it up and make it into something new. We’ve been doing that for centuries.”
An American icon’s best loved works and a returning virtuoso feature in the California Symphony’s 2018–19 season opener—Sunday, September 23, at 4pm, at the Lesher Center in Walnut Creek. Read Scott Foglesong’s program notes here.
PROGRAM: BEETHOVEN & BERNSTEIN
Sunday, September 23, at 4pm, at the Lesher Center in Walnut Creek
Overture to Candide (1956) — by Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990)
Piano Concerto №3 in C Minor, Op. 37 (1803) — by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)
Three Latin-American Dances for Orchestra (2003) — by Gabriela Lena Frank (b. 1972)
Symphonic Dances from West Side Story(1961) — by Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990): Overture to Candide (1956)
Chic celebrity he may have been, bellwether of contemporary American life, his patrician features and cultivated New England voice familiar to millions from his many appearances on radio and television. And yet Leonard Bernstein was something of a throwback to an earlier age when to be a musician meant to encompass the whole of the art rather than to segregate oneself into a well-defined specialty. Like those multitudinous kapellmeisters who peppered Europe from the 17th through 19th centuries, Bernstein could do everything. And he could do it all well: composer, conductor, pianist, teacher, writer.
But he didn’t always succeed. Consider his 1956 Broadway “comic operetta” Candide: It bombed, despite having a libretto by no less than Lillian Hellman, despite being directed by no less than Tyrone Guthrie, and despite starring no less than Robert Rounseville and Barbara Cook. Rather than allow his Voltaire-based brainchild to slink away to the Bardo of failed shows, Bernstein kept on revising and rewriting, starting with the 1959 London production and continuing on for decades with an assortment of collaborators. Nor did it all end with Bernstein’s death in 1990. As of 2018 Candide sports as many upgrades as Microsoft Windows.
The Overture has persisted through it all as a popular concert staple. Vivacious, witty, and ever so manic, it whizzes by in a whirlwind of orchestral pyrotechnics. Along the way it serves up a number of tunes from the show, including Glitter and Be Gay — that canary-on-steroids throat-scorcher that some listeners might remember as the theme music for Dick Cavett’s various TV shows.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827): Piano Concerto №3 in C Minor, Op. 37
“String Snapper, Hands on High” was critic Harold C. Schonberg’s title for the Beethoven chapter in The Great Pianists. The description is apt. Easily the most electrifying pianist of his generation, spellbinder of audiences and scourge of piano tuners, Beethoven brought something altogether new to the yet-green art of piano playing: pure animal magnetism. As he aged and his hearing deteriorated along with his overall health, wrong notes began to crowd out the right ones, but his laser-like intensity never faltered.
Piano Concerto №3 in C Minor dates from the beginning of Beethoven’s “Middle Period,” a.k.a. his full artistic maturity, when his output began to resemble a fusillade of musical thunderbolts emanating from the right hand of an over-stimulated Zeus. Music would never be the same after that decade-long bombardment; in fact, one could characterize the ensuing 19th century as a collective attempt to come to grips with, and mop up after, Beethoven’s volcanic Middle Period.
Even if the Third Concerto is putatively in the darkly dramatic key of C Minor, its first movement is quite the journey through a mélange of keys, moods, and affects. Almost right up to the end Beethoven manages to sidestep an easy resolution until absolute necessity dictates a proper wrap-up.
The second-place Adagio, one of the noblest movements in Beethoven’s concertos, could stand alone as an independent work of the Rhapsody variety. Just how far the piano had evolved in the mere ten years since Mozart’s last piano concerto is demonstrated by the middle section, in which a silvery haze from the piano accompanies and supports statements from the winds. Soon enough (too soon, it often seems) the final measures are reached, and in a sudden lurch the masterful third-place Rondo is propelled into action by the solo piano.
Beethoven’s finale has served as the inspiration and model for any number of later composers. Its square-jawed main theme turns out to be the inexhaustible source of the materials that follow, as Beethoven adroitly leaps over every pitfall of a form prone to stupefying tedium due to its periodic repeats. To conclude, Beethoven transforms that originally stern theme into the stuff for a dazzling celebratory frolic.
Gabriela Lena Frank (b. 1972): Three Latin-American Dances for Orchestra (2003)
“Perhaps there are other disciplines that I could have aimed my life at — I seriously considered political science and law — and who knows where those roads would have led? But my sense of self has developed inexorably along the simple principle of storytelling and creating objects of beauty through sound, leaving the earth hopefully a bit better.”
Thus wrote Gabriela Lena Frank, a notably successful practitioner of a profession not particularly noted for successes. Her influences and inspirations reach far beyond her native Berkeley, including Latin America (Peru in particular), Asia, and Eastern Europe. Frank tells us that the first of her Three Latin-American Dances for Orchestra of 2003 opens as an “unabashed tribute to the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein.” The second-place Highland Harawi evokes the mountainous mysteries of the Andean world, while the concluding Mestizo Waltz lightens the mood by celebrating the kaleidoscopic mestizo music of the South American Pacific coast.
Leonard Bernstein: Symphonic Dances from West Side Story (1961)
Bernstein’s theatrical masterpiece West Side Story, with lyrics by a then-unknown Stephen Sondheim and book by Arthur Laurents, opened to solid, if not overwhelming, success at New York’s Winter Garden Theater on September 26, 1957. A dramatic departure from Broadway norms in its threading of Jerome Robbins’s deeply integrated dance routines throughout an urban update of Shakespeare’s tragedy Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story constitutes a sophisticated hybrid of musical and ballet, the whole empowered by Bernstein’s magnificent, and now iconic, score.
In 1961, four years after the Broadway premiere, Bernstein assembled an orchestral suite that follows the show’s plot mostly via its dance routines, including songs such as “Somewhere,” later fused with “I Have a Love” in the tragic Finale. A point of particular interest: Bernstein’s skillful variants of the ecstatic love song “Maria” in both the “Cha-Cha” and the “Meeting Scene” as Tony and Maria discover each other, followed by an up-tempo variation of the same melodic figure as the nervous Jets dance the “Cool” fugue immediately before their climactic rumble with the Sharks.
Program Annotator Scott Foglesong is the Chair of Musicianship and Music Theory at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and a Contributing Writer and Lecturer for the San Francisco Symphony.
We caught up with the multi-talented musician, award-winning teacher, and long-time San Francisco Conservatory of Music faculty member, who leads FRESH LOOK: The Symphony Exposed—a new adult education class, which takes place at Walnut Creek Library for four Saturdays, starting July 14, 2018.
Scott Foglesong leads FRESH LOOK: The Symphony Exposed — a new adult education class, which takes place at Walnut Creek Library for four consecutive Saturdays, July 14 through August 4, 2018.
CSO: Where are you originally from and where do you live now?
SF: I’m originally a Texan, born in Houston and raised both there and in Fort Worth. I spent my formative years in Denver, and then went off to Baltimore for college (Peabody Conservatory). I relocated here to the Bay Area in the 1970s and lived in San Francisco for almost 40 years. Nowadays I’m an emigre to suburbia; my home is in Brentwood, out in eastern Contra Costa county, where I have been since 2015.
CSO: You have a rich background in music that encompasses teaching, performing and writing. Can you give us the edited highlights version of your bio?
SF: I began studying piano at age 4 when I commandeered the piano originally meant for my sister. After continuing to play piano through high school, I entered the Peabody Conservatory as a piano major and then continued my graduate studies at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where I studied piano with Nathan Schwartz, harpsichord with Laurette Goldberg — who founded the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra — and theory with John Adams, back in the days before he was a famous composer.
I still give the occasional piano recital, but my focus is in teaching: I teach eartraining and music theory at SFCM and music history/appreciation courses at both UC Berkeley and the Fromm Institute at USF. I became involved with the San Francisco Symphony about 15 years ago, first as a contributing writer to the program book and then also as a pre-concert lecturer. Nowadays I’m all over the place — not only those afore-mentioned venues, but I also write for the Las Vegas Philharmonic, San Luis Obispo Symphony, and Berkeley chorus Chora Nova in addition to the SF Symphony and the California Symphony. I hold the Sarlo Award for Excellence in Teaching (SFCM). Next year marks my 41st on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory, where I have chaired the Musicianship and Music Theory department since 1999.
“The thing about the course is to focus on the music, and let the biographical or informative aspects arise from that rather than the other way around.” — Scott Foglesong
CSO: You’ve been writing the program notes for California Symphony concerts since 2013. What’s the most surprising factoid you’ve revealed to audiences in your program notes?
SF: I think possibly the most intriguing is just how close the Rachmaninoff Second Symphony came to not ever being written at all.
CSO: The Symphony Exposed is a completely new adult education initiative. How did you approach developing the course and what are you most looking forward to sharing?
SF: I am blessed with plenty of experience in sharing music with non-musicians, thanks to my work at UC Berkeley, the Fromm Institute, and the SF Symphony. The thing about the course is to focus on the music, and let the biographical or informative aspects arise from that rather than the other way around. So my goal, my hope, is to help people become aware of just what how vast and varied our Western musical tradition is, in particularly as it has manifested in the modern orchestra — which, by the way, is a fairly new phenomenon in the scheme of things.
CSO: You describe yourself as a “pianist, musician, teacher, writer, cat-lover, music history devotee, occasional computer geek and sometime programmer.” Can we get a picture of your cat?
SF: My kitty April went to her reward in 2013 at the amazing age of 25 years old; I haven’t had a kitty cat since then. Here is April in 2010, not looking anywhere near her actual age (22 years old).
FRESH LOOK: The Symphony Exposed is a new adult education class which takes place at Walnut Creek Library for four consecutive Saturdays, July 14 through August 4, 2018.
The initiative is supported by a generous grant from the American Orchestras’ Futures Fund, a program of the League of American Orchestras made possible by funding from the Ann & Gordon Getty Foundation.
Temporary Site 