Tag: Symphony

9 Things to Know About Composer Gabriela Lena Frank

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.”

Frank’s quotes in this piece are extracted from a 2017 interview with The Michigan Daily. For the full article, please see: https://www.michigandaily.com/section/arts/life-outside-golden-cage-composer-gabriela-lena-frank-profile

The California Symphony’s season opener BEETHOVEN & BERNSTEIN takes place on Sunday, September 23 at 4 PM at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek.

Visit www.californiasymphony.org for tickets and more information.

Meet Your Instructor: Scott Foglesong talks Music Classes, Coding and Cats

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.

SOUND MINDS STORIES: The Students Have Their Say

Fame, family, and the trials of ugly handwriting: Sound Minds students tell all.

Fourth grade Sound Minds students Karla, Rick and Nick.

We talked to students at E. M. Downer Elementary School about their experience with the Sound Minds program. With contributions from second graders Mia, Rebecca and Paloma (violin); and fourth graders Yvonne, Anong, Rick, and Michelle (cello), and Karla and Nick (violin).

Why do you like Sound Minds?

Mia—I just like it. The teacher is nice to me and she’s kinda funny.

Rick — It’s fun. You get to make new friends.

Nick — I can make new friends, I can play an instrument and when I grow up… I can be famous and be rich!

Paloma sang the violin song for us. It goes like this:

This is my violin, this is where I put my put my chin.

E, A, D, G are the four strings, and the F-holes let it ring

Here’s the front, here’s the back. If I drop it, IT WILL CRACK!

So I hold in rest position, close to me as you can see.

Left: Second grader Paloma with her cardboard replica instrument. Right: Fourth grader Yvonne, who just started trying to write her own music, thanks to inspiration from Sound Minds teacher Ms Christine.

Why did you join Sound Minds?

Rebecca—I wanted to join Sound Minds because my sister did it before when she was a little kid. And she was at this school and I saw a picture of her with her violin.

Karla—I joined because my sister used to be here and she was so excited. It’s such a great place to be because you get to hang out with your friends and play music!

Yvonne—The reason I joined Sound Minds is because my sister joined it before me and I wanted to know how it was to have this experience, because other schools don’t have it and I wanted to take the chance I got.

Anong — It’s my start to make my life better, and to make my family happier.

Fourth grader Anong focusing hard in Ms. Amy Leung’s cello class.

Michelle — I joined the program because I thought it was cool and my sister did it. Four people in my family have been in Sound Minds.

Karla — I get to play with my friends and sometimes make new friends through music, and you get to express your emotions.

Rick—In the future, I can become a musician, get a lot of money and be famous!


What do you like most about Sound Minds?

Yvonne—The thing I like most about Sound Minds is that every year you get a hard piece of music and the more you practice, the easier it is to play.

Anong—My favorite part of Sound Minds is that you can educate yourself and learn new things. You can learn something new rather than just like, be boring. It’s better than just going home.

Michelle — There’s just nothing to do at home so now I can just practice the cello.

Rick—The best class in Sound Minds is Ms. Amy Leung’s class, because I get to play my instrument.

Karla—We get to sing and let out our expressions through music. Did you know that your left part of your brain controls your right hand and your right part controls your left hand? I learned that from Miss Christina.


Be a part of the success! Support music education and the Sound Minds program 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

www.californiasymphony.org/crescendo or call the California Symphony office at 925 280 2490 for assistance.


This is one article in a series of five about the California Symphony’s El Sistema-inspired music education program, Sound Minds.

View at Medium.com
View at Medium.com
View at Medium.com
View at Medium.com

View at Medium.com
View at Medium.com
View at Medium.com

Learn more about the Sound Minds program at www.californiasymphony.org/sound-minds or call the California Symphony Office at 925 280 2490.

SOUND MINDS STORIES: The Academic Coordinator

The California Symphony’s Sound Minds music education program teaches life skills, raises English and Math test scores, and inspires a community, says Academic Coordinator Sonia Wong.

Sound Minds students: Left—a second grader with the cardboard replica violin she will use to learn proper instrument care; Right—a fourth grade student plays us a tune on her cello and tells us about the piece of music she is composing in Miss Christina’s class.

Sonia Wong is Literacy Coach at E. M. Downer Elementary School in San Pablo, CA, where 94% of students qualify for the federal free or reduced price lunch program and 69% are English language learners. She has been overseeing the Sound Minds program as Academic Coordinator since the launch of the pilot program in 2012.

CSO: You’ve been looking after this program for 6 years now. What changes have you observed in that time?

SW: I’ve observed a lot of changes and surprising growth in our students who’ve participated in the Sound Minds Program. You can see the growth occurring around fourth grade — they start with us in second, and by fourth grade, they just kind of zoom past their classmates in studying, in reading, and just in all kinds of academic areas.


CSO: Can you talk a little about the academic impact of this program?

SW: It’s really important for our students to become really good readers. Every year, we test our students with a program called STAR reading. We hope that our students at mid year will have half a year’s growth. We noticed that our Sound Minds students at every grade level outscored the non Sound Minds students by producing more than half a year’s growth. They’re doing really well in becoming better readers.

They say students’ brains stop developing around 7 years old but with music, they get to continue growing their brains. The kids at Downer Elementary don’t have English spoken at home, and so we teach them English here, and music helps them with their development of language.

CSO: What about social behaviors and growth?

SW: I’ve noticed a lot of social growth with our Sound Minds students. Many teachers tell me that their Sound Minds students are more focused. They listen better, they follow directions better, and they just seem to be able to concentrate a lot more than the non Sound Minds in class. The teachers welcome Sound Minds students — especially in the upper grades — because they know that they are going to get a good quality student that just works really hard. They are really hard workers. It’s really exciting to see them excel.

CSO: What is your wish for the future for Sound Minds?

SW: Students who belong to a group stay in school longer and perform better academically.

So that’s my wish for the Sound Minds students, that they will find their niche in music, and will continue in middle school (which is really hard!), but if you have a group, you can keep it together. And then on into High School: if they have a group they belong to, they will be ready for college.

At the end of the day, we are getting them to be college-ready and career-ready. With the social skills that they develop with Sound Minds, it can really take them far. We’re starting to see that with our alumni, which is really exciting.

Music is an important part of our students’ souls: It’s not just for the academic success that they achieve, but it’s also for their souls.


CSO: Concerts have been at capacity the past couple of years. What do you think is happening there?

SW: I have noticed that more parents and extended families are coming to the concerts. I think the kids are practicing more at home… Maybe the parents see them practice and then want to see the results when they come to the concert!

Fundamentally, our parents want what’s best for their children. They have a certain idea about what it means to play the violin or the cello and what that can do for your life. They have wishes for their children, and maybe for themselves. They might say they always wanted to learn the violin, and now their child gets to do it. And so they’re going to give them the permission to do it and support them as much as they can. They’ll do their best in their busy lives to pick them up, and bring them for concerts, and buy them their dress whites and shoes.

We are a poor community but they still have hopes and dreams, just as all other parents have for their kids.

CSO: Any message you’d like to pass along to California Symphony supporters?

SW: Sound Minds is a real partnership between the California Symphony and Downer Elementary School. We believe in the program so much that we use funding that could be used in other areas to support Sound Minds, along with the California Symphony. So we are very grateful to Symphony donors for the money, and the teachers that they provide for our students. We couldn’t do it without the California Symphony.

We’d like to really say thank you for making us a part of your community.


Be a part of the success! Support music education and the Sound Minds program 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

www.californiasymphony.org/crescendo or call the California Symphony office at 925.280.2490 for assistance.


This is one article in a series of five about the California Symphony’s El Sistema-inspired music education program, Sound Minds.

View at Medium.com
View at Medium.com
View at Medium.com
View at Medium.com

Learn more about the Sound Minds program at www.californiasymphony.org/sound-minds or call the California Symphony Office at 925.280.2490.

SOUND MINDS STORIES: The Principal

The Sound Minds music education program is transforming the lives of local underprivileged students — and giving Principal Marco Gonzales a way to talk to one struggling student.

Edward M. Downer Elementary School Principal Marco Gonzales

Marco Gonzales is Principal at E. M. Downer Elementary School in San Pablo, CA, where up to a third of students live below the poverty line. He lobbied hard for his school to be part of the original Sound Minds pilot program with the California Symphony in 2012 and he has championed the initiative ever since.

CSO: It’s been six years since the pilot program was launched. Are you still excited about the Sound Minds music education program?

MG: I’m still super excited about the program. The program brings a ton of energy, engagement and involvement in our school. This is my 23rd year of being a Principal and it’s still one of the most exciting things I’ve ever done in a school setting. Sound Minds has become an institution. It’s become a part of our school that is just what we do here. And it all started because of the connection between our school, E. M. Downer, and the California Symphony and the donors and supporters.


CSO: The program is founded on El Sistema principles so it’s not just a music education program, it was conceived as an instrument of social change. Living here in the Bay Area, which is generally quite affluent, why would you say we need a social change program here?

MG: I’m quoting somebody famous who said that all great societies need the Arts. The Arts for us, here in our school through Sound Minds, is an opportunity to make a connection with the bigger world, and for the kids to build a sense of identity, a sense of empowerment, and a sense of accomplishment and confidence.

When you’re a kid from an immigrant family that’s not part of mainstream America, you need something that will anchor you; you need something that you can draw upon when things get tough. That’s what I think happens with our kids here. They develop a self-confidence. And we know it shows in the classrooms as well, because they are outperforming their classmates in our local and state tests.


CSO: Two-thirds of students at your school are English language learners. How has Sound Minds affected English learners?

MG: I think our English learners here at E. M. Downer who are part of Sound Minds grow because of their exposure to another world, another language really. They learn about not only the music but where it music comes from, the history of music, and who are the composers of the pieces they learn. With the academic piece of our program, they get additional classroom time, so there’s a focused part of the day where they are working on improving academics and especially oral language.


CSO: You’ve said that student council members and “Dragon of the Month” tend to be Sound Minds students.

MG: It’s true: Sound Minds students tend to gravitate to leadership positions in our school. I think that what happens with Sound Minds students is that there’s a level of pride and accomplishment. It just gives our kids a place to belong. It gives them natural friendships where they speak the same language — they have the same excitement about their instrument or what they’ve learned — and they’re teaching one another. This is their team, this is their little in-house family and last year’s sixth graders were a great example of that. This was their school, this was their program, this was their identity. And I’m starting to see that come out now in the next wave, and that makes me really happy.

CSO: The kids from the pilot program who joined Sound Minds back in second grade graduated to middle school last year. Can you talk a little about that group?

MG: The original group of kids who joined Sound Minds were sixth graders last year. Some of them were really academic stars of our school — that was part of who they were — and some of them weren’t. Some of them who weren’t the stars academically became the leaders of the program. And there was a kid named José who was like that.

He moved out of the area, so it wasn’t easy for him to stay with the program, so it took more of a commitment. He had to ride the bus by himself sometimes so he could participate. He had his moment of not being sure if he could keep doing it because it wasn’t really easy. And he stuck with it! And at the sixth grade promotion ceremony, after the students performed, he gave us credit for helping believe in him when he didn’t believe in himself. I think there were a lot of his classmates who felt that way.

Our boys and girls now have an opportunity to take their skills to the new school and a new level because there is now a strings orchestra at the middle school that we feed into, so it doesn’t stop here. Now it really feels like this is the beginning of a long-term love or commitment for them around their music, around their violin and around their cello.

CSO: What other impact have you observed? Any anecdotes you can share?


MG: Recently a student came to my office after misbehaving in class. I mentioned I noticed her focus at the Winter Concert, and I said it seems like you’re really enjoying Sound Minds.

She looked at me like, “Are you serious? I LOVE my violin.”

And then I had a place where I could really talk to her about behavior and focus in the classroom and following the rules. It was affirmation of what we’re doing and why, and that kids are discovering these talents that they never knew they had, or their love of music through an instrument that is not part of the modern music world. When Gabriella said that to me, that was just amazing. This is why we do the program.

There are a couple of kids who have gone through the child protective system and they’re still here and they keep coming. Sound Minds becomes a place where they can be part of a bigger community and feel normal — they are doing what everyone else is doing versus maybe when they go home where it’s really not the case.

Diego has gone back and forth again between his grandmother and his mother. And where there’s one or two cases, there’s two or three more where we don’t know all the details. Even Gabriella, the young lady we spoke of who said she loved her instrument — she’s in the middle of a family custody back and forth — half the time with dad, half the time with mom. But she loves her violin and she’s here every day. Sound Minds provides students like her an anchor in many ways.

CSO: What do you see as the future for Sound Minds?

MG: The future for Sound Minds is that I hope stays here forever! And that California Symphony and our school continue to partner to make this a reality, and that future generations of students will come back and will be tutors and aids in the program, and that there will just be a cycle of kids learning and teaching as part of Sound Minds.

We’re competing with a lot of other interests in the world these days — video, and the whole world out there. What makes me excited is that every concert, I watch our kids being so focused and so committed to what they’re doing… It just comes out of them: their focus, their behavior, their teamwork, their understanding that they are part of a bigger thing — that it’s not just them.

*Students’ names have been changed to protect the identities of the individuals.


Be a part of the success! Support music education and the Sound Minds program 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

www.californiasymphony.org/crescendo or call the California Symphony office at 925 280 2490 for assistance.


View at Medium.com
View at Medium.com
View at Medium.com
View at Medium.com

Learn more about the Sound Minds program at www.californiasymphony.org/sound-minds or call the California Symphony Office at 925.280.2490.

Something Old, Something New— Something Different

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 might initially meet the eye.

Balch — like a broken clock (World Premiere)

Sibelius — Symphony №3

Brahms — Piano Concerto №2, with Haochen Zhang, piano

1. A World Premiere

First on the program is the debut performance of like a broken clock, written by Young American Composer in Residence Katherine Balch (2017–2020). By definition, a world premiere is new and therefore pretty special, so we won’t labor the point. (You can read more about Balch and her fascinating approach to composing here.)

2. A Symphony That’s Short

Next up is Finnish composer Jean Sibelius’ Symphony №3.

Pro-fans will notice that this is a break with the common pattern of classical music concert programming, which usually places the symphonic work at the end, after intermission. For this program, the running order is flipped, with the symphony before the break and the piano concerto at the end.

The reason for the flip is the relative length of the pieces: For a symphony, Sibelius’ Symphony №3 is a comparatively brief piece, clocking in at 31 minutes. It even comprises one fewer movement than the usual four you might expect from a symphonic work. This is the result of Sibelius choosing to move away from the Romantic style of his previous two symphonies — long, expansive works, influenced by the likes of Tchaikovsky — to explore a more focused, compressed style, characteristic of later composers.

3. A Concerto That’s Like a Symphony

After intermission and standing in contrast to the economy of the Sibelius symphony comes the mighty Brahms’ Piano Concerto №2. Delivered 22 years after his first, which was initially savaged by critics, Brahms’ second piano concerto is a grand and sweeping piece in the tradition of Romantic composers, with moments of drama and tenderness and culminating in thrilling finale. Brahms jokingly described it to a friend as a “tiny, tiny piano concerto,” but in fact, it’s a monumental piece that is often described as a “symphony with piano.”

Most concertos have a straightforward, “fast-slow-fast” three-movement structure, but Brahms added an extra fast second movement (the scherzo), so it’s a real workout for conductor, orchestra and soloist alike. For the soloist, it is also fiendishly difficult to play.

Taking on the challenge is acclaimed piano virtuoso Haochen Zhang, who won the 2009 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition at age 19. (Read more about this unique talent here.) Zhang first learned the piece at 15 and he performs it for only the second time in his career at the season finale.

“Brahms has always been one of my favorite composers, and this concerto certainly has given me an overwhelming joy everytime I listened or played it. It’s a perfect embodiment of this combination of grandness and intimacy and is perhaps why it’s so enduringly charming yet so challenging to interpret.” — Soloist Haochen Zhang on Brahms Piano Concerto №2.

4. A Special Reunion

Haochen Zhang and then Music Director candidate Donato Cabrera in 2013.

Guest artist Haochen Zhang last played with us five years ago when Donato Cabrera was a guest conductor, auditioning for the role of Music Director for the California Symphony. (Zhang played Beethoven’s Piano Concerto №4 — read more about that performance here.) The concert wowed critics, audiences, and the selection committee, and led to Cabrera’s appointment to the role he has held for the past five seasons.

Zhang says, “I recall lots of fond memories from the last time I was there. The Orchestra was really devoted and enthusiastic throughout the rehearsals, and Maestro Cabrera was not only a great conductor but such a supportive collaborator to a young musician like me.”

Cabrera chimes in: “I’ve been waiting for the right opportunity to bring back Haochen since we first worked together in 2013 on Beethoven’s Piano Concerto №4. I could tell through his approach to the Beethoven that he’d bring the same wonderful singing qualities to the Brahms Piano Concerto №2.”

The California Symphony’s 2017–18 season finale concert SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW takes place Sunday, May 6 at 4PM in Walnut Creek at the Lesher Center for the Arts.

For tickets and information, visit californiasymphony.org

Haochen Zhang: Veteran Pianist at Age 27

Season finale guest artist Zhang first wowed audiences at the age of 5

Then and now: At left, Zhang plays for family in preparation for his first professional gig, just shy of his 5th birthday. Right: Haochen Zhang now.

In demand internationally for nearly a decade now, Haochen Zhang first rose to prominence with his 2009 win at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition at just 19. However, his musical journey began much, much earlier: As a kindergartner, while friends were playing in the sandbox, Zhang was playing Mozart to great acclaim in his native China.

The Early Years

When Zhang was introduced to the piano a few months before his 4th birthday, he says it looked like a big toy to him, and when his mom asked if he’d like to learn to play, he embraced the opportunity. He says his mom “felt like I learned the piano faster than other children at the same age.”

At age 5, he dazzled a Shanghai Concert Hall audience with his interpretations of music by Bach, Mozart, and Haydn. By 6, he had debuted with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. When he was 11, Zhang toured major cities across China performing Beethoven, Mozart, and Chopin.

Success and accolades continued and in 2002, at 12 years of age, Zhang became the youngest winner in the history of the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians.

Coming to America

2005 marked a turning point as Zhang came to the US to study at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia under Gary Graffman, who also taught major stars like Lang Lang and Yuja Wang. It was a challenging time for the young prodigy, especially after mom’s visa expired and she had to return home to China, leaving fifteen-year-old Zhang to make his way on his own in a foreign country and with limited English language skills.

Zhang with his mother around the time he relocated to the US to study music.

“I had learned to speak English before I came to the States, but only to the degree of simple conversation and very basic reading. Of course, I had to suffer quite a bit in my first school year in the States. But that was nothing compared to a much bigger challenge: the culture shock of an utterly different environment, and the loneliness of living by myself for the first time.”—Haochen Zhang remembering his move to the U.S. at 15.

Zhang’s Big Break

Zhang garnered international attention in 2009 when he won gold at the 13th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition—arguably the highest-profile piano competition in the world, which is held every four years in Fort Worth, TX. At 19, Zhang became the second youngest ever winner of the gold medal and the first from an Asian country.

Life After Gold

After winning the $20,000 cash prize, a recording contract, and a raft of international concert tour dates, Zhang embarked on a three-year tour across the United States, Americas, Asia and Europe, playing an astonishing 200 concerts at top venues across the globe. In 2017, he won the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, awarded to only 5 outstanding musicians each year. He also released his first studio album CD the same year.

Now 27 years old, Haochen Zhang performs the immense and challenging Brahms Piano Concerto №2 in the California Symphony season finale concert SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW under Music Director Donato Cabrera at the Lesher Center in Walnut Creek on Sunday May 6 at 4PM.

“Brahms has always been one of my favorite composers, and this concerto certainly has given me an overwhelming joy everytime I listened or played it. It’s a perfect embodiment of this combination of grandness and intimacy and is perhaps why it’s so enduringly charming yet so challenging to interpret.” — Haochen Zhang on Brahms Piano Concerto №2.

For information and tickets, visit www.californiasymphony.org.

Composer-in-Residence Katherine Balch on Cuckoo Clocks, California, and Composing in Color

The California Symphony’s May 6 season finale includes the world premiere of Balch’s “like a broken clock”

California Symphony Young American Composer-in-Residence (2017–2020). Photo credit KatieL Photography.

We caught up with Composer-in-Residence Katherine Balch to learn more about like a broken clock, the first of three pieces she will deliver during her three-year residency with the California Symphony. Balch beat out 130 other applicants in a newly revamped, “blind” selection process to win the highly-regarded, highly competitive residency, and she is the first woman composer to take up the position in the program’s 26 year history.

The title of the piece receiving its world premiere in Walnut Creek on May 6 is inspired by a line in a song called “In California,” by singer-songwriter Joanna Newsom:

Sometimes I am so in love with you

(Like a little clock

That trembles on the edge of the hour

Only ever calling out “Cuckoo, cuckoo”)

— From “In California” by Joanna Newsom

CSO: Why is the title like a broken clock all in lower case?

KB: The title is in lower case in reference to the Joanna Newsom lyric and also because to me it signals that this piece is part of a larger whole that deals with the musical ideas I’m interested in right now, which often cross pollinate my music.

CSO: Your composition process involves a lot of drawing and sketching. As simply as possible(!), can you explain what this graphic is and how it relates to the piece?

Balch describes her sketching as “a sort of pre-compositional drawing of the formal structural and sonic palette of the piece.”

KB: Usually, my process for writing a piece begins with a lot of generating / sketching out musical ideas, and then at a certain point I try to imagine the piece as a whole in my head.

This drawing is a representation of the whole piece, and guides me as I through-compose the material. I think very visually, so representing sounds with colors and shapes helps me remember them as I begin the process of “transcribing” the sounds in my imagination to the page.

CSO: You flew out from New York for your first rehearsal reading with the California Symphony in January. Did you make any adjustments to the score as a result? What did you learn from the experience?

KB: Yes, I made a ton of changes! I was so surprised how helpful and informative a half-hour of reading could be. Listening back to the recording helped me make a million tiny adjustments to the score (dynamics, balance, doublings, simplifying) and also some larger ones (I changed the end and added about a minute of music). It also helped me add in orchestration details and filter out extraneous ones.

I am so grateful to the orchestra for helping me make this a better piece! I am a compulsive revisor, and it’s such an unusual experience to get the chance to make revisions before a premier performance like that.

“Katie’s approach to composition is full of inventiveness and whimsy. I think our audience will not only hear the implications that the title of the piece implies, but will also be surprised by how she goes about creating these sounds.” — Music Director Donato Cabrera

Balch’s piece—the “something new” in a season finale concert entitled Something Old, Something New — receives its premiere on Sunday, May 6. The “somethings old” on the program are supplied by Sibelius’ Symphony №3 and Brahms’ Piano Concerto №2, played by piano virtuoso Haochen Zhang.

For more information, please visit californiasymphony.org.

Announcing the 2018–19 Season

Featuring Bruckner, Beethoven, Bernstein, and more…


The 2018–19 Season is here, and highlights include:

  • Bernstein — A centennial celebration of the American icon
  • Beethoven — With award-winning pianist and audience favorite Charlie Albright
  • Movie Magic — Animated classic The Snowman with score performed live with the Pacific Boychoir, plus a program that showcases the genius of American composer John Williams
  • Piazzolla — Concertmaster Jennifer Cho leads the orchestra in a seductive Argentine tango
  • Bruckner, Mozart, Ravel, and more, including the world premiere of a new violin concerto by Young American Composer-in-Residence Katherine Balch

Season tickets are now available. In addition to the best prices we offer all year, subscribers enjoy 20% off extra single tickets all season long, early purchasing privileges, and free ticket exchanges. Explore the new season, and find out more about subscribing here.

Want to know more about this year’s programming choices and the California Symphony’s commitment to diversity? Read more in the press release:

https://mailchi.mp/californiasymphony.org/for-immediate-release-2018-19-season

For more information, visit www.californiasymphony.org/2018–19season or call 925.280.2490.

Mozart Interrupted

What additional treasures might exist had Mozart survived beyond 35? And what iconic works *wouldn’t* we have, if other great composers had died young like him?


“When I am… completely myself, entirely alone… or during the night when I cannot sleep, it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence and how these ideas come I know not nor can I force them.” —Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

If Mozart is to be taken at his word, he must have lived much of his short life in sleepless but productive solitude. He composed over 600 musical works—including 21 stage and opera works, 15 masses, and over 50 symphonies—and he did all this in just half a lifetime.

As much wonderful music as Mozart left us, it is tantalizing to wonder what else he might have gone on to write, had he had a few more years. When Mozart died in 1791 at the age of 35 while writing his Requiem Mass, he was at the peak of his powers: He had finished two operas (including the much-loved Magic Flute), a clarinet concerto, a cantata and had about two-thirds of the Requiem completed.

What if he’d had another 30 years ahead of him? How many more operas, concerti and great symphonic works would he have delivered? How much further would he have advanced the forms?

Of course, we’ll never know the answer, but this started us thinking—possibly a little morbidly—about all the other great works that would not exist, had their composers also been struck down in their 30s. Consider, for example, that Bruckner did not even complete his first symphony until he was 43; Beethoven wrote symphonies five through nine all after the age of 35; and Brahms delivered his virtuosic second piano concerto at the comparatively ripe old age of 48.

Here is a short list of monumental works that would never have been written had their composers perished like Mozart at the age of 35.

  1. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony

There would be no Ode to Joy since Beethoven composed his Ninth Symphony at the age of 54.

2. The Nutcracker Suite

There would be no sugar plum fairies dancing to music composed by Tchaikovsky at age 52.

3. The Messiah

The holidays just wouldn’t be the same without gems like For Unto Us a Child is Born and the Hallelujah Chorus, composed by Handel at age 56.

4. New World Symphony

Dvorak composed his Ninth Symphony, the New World, at the age of 52.

5. Wagner’s Ring Cycle

Not one single note of the stirring Ride of the Valkyries, composed as part of Wagner’s opera saga at the age of 61.

We’ll never really know what the world lost when Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died at just 35, working on the Requiem that was to become his own unfinished swan song, but it is astonishing to consider his achievements in the context of other composers’ bodies of work which were delivered in up to twice the time.

Mozart’s genius and his singular place among the greats is undeniable. Rather than dwell on the loss, perhaps a better course of action is to reflect on and appreciate the many glorious treasures he left behind?

The California Symphony performs MOZART REQUIEM with the San Francisco Conservatory Chorus on March 17 at 8 PM and March 18 at 4 PM at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek.

Visit www.californiasymphony.org for information.