La Jolla Symphony & Chorus 2008-2009 Season Announced – The DNA of Music

The La Jolla Symphony & Chorus (LJS&C) announces its 2008-09 season – The DNA of Music. The 54th season is one of collaboration, a U.S. and world premiere, exciting guest artists, composers in residence, and an inspiring concert in recognition of Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday anniversary and Black History month.

La Jolla, Calif. (PRWEB) March 17, 2008 -- The La Jolla Symphony & Chorus (LJS&C) announces its 2008-09 season – The DNA of Music. The 54th season is one of collaboration, a U.S. and world premiere, exciting guest artists, composers in residence, and an inspiring concert in recognition of Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday anniversary and Black History month.

“We want to make an unforgettable, un-reproducible experience for our audience,” says Music Director Steven Schick. “To do this we ask ourselves, ‘what are the qualities of music that move us as listeners?’ Answering that question gives us the building blocks of the musical experience, the DNA. The building blocks for this season are Time, Motion, Home, Perspective, Passion, and Hope.”

The concert season opens on November 1-2 (Time) with Vltava (“The Moldau”), Smetna’s tone poem of a day and a night on a mighty river that flows through Prague. Carrying forward the thematic element is Takemitsu’s percussion concerto From me flows what you call Time with guest artists “red fish blue fish,” the UCSD resident percussion ensemble. The program concludes with Brahms’ Symphony No. 2.

The December 6-7 concert (Motion) showcases the West Coast premiere of Evan Ziporyn’s Frog’s Eye. This Balinese-inspired piece features the dynamic Tijuana dance troupe Lux Boreal Contemporanea Danza as “shadow puppet” dancers, with choreography by Allyson Green of Allyson Green Dance and the UCSD Dance Department. In keeping with the LJS&C’s focus on introducing audiences to contemporary composers, Ziporyn will attend the concert and participate in pre-concert lectures. Next on the program is LJS&C’s 2008 Young Artists Winner 16-year-old Margaret Zhou performing one of the great cello concertos of the twentieth century, Concerto #1 for Cello and Orchestra by Shostakovich. The program concludes with Stravinsky’s endearing ballet, Petrushka.

The February 7-8 (Home) concert celebrates the 200th birthday anniversary of Abraham Lincoln and his contemporary Charles Darwin by pairing Copland’s Lincoln Portrait with a new work by Rick Snow – Darwin Portrait (Thomas Nee Commission). The two pieces are offset by the world premiere of Anthony Davis’ Amistad Symphony, drawn from Davis’ opera about slavery that reminds us of one of Lincoln’s greatest challenges. The orchestra concludes the program with Respighi’s brilliant Pines of Rome.

“I am pleased to be presenting a work by UCSD Professor Anthony Davis on the February concert,” says Schick. “Though Davis has an international reputation and is currently working on a commission with Placido Domingo and the Los Angeles Opera, his music isn’t often heard in San Diego. This concert is an opportunity for San Diego audiences to become better acquainted with this exceptional local composer.”

For the March 14-15 concerts (Perspective) Choral Director David Chase leads an imaginative program that divides the chorus in two. On the first half, the women of the chorus join the orchestra in Debussy’s La damoiselle élue, based on a poem by Rossetti and sung in French. The concert’s second half is for male voices (in classical Latin), soloists and an unusual orchestra in a concert staging of one of Stravinsky’s rarely performed masterpieces, his oratorio based on Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex.

The May 2-3 program (Passion) presents music in the time of war. In The General, librettist Paul Griffiths draws a composite score from Beethoven (Egmont, King Stephen, Leonore Prohaska and Opferlied) and adds text to create a dramatic work for orchestra and actor that tells the story of the Rwandan tragedy through the eyes of the General who led the U.N. peacekeeping forces there. Originally commissioned by The Montreal Symphony, the LJS&C performance will be the U.S. premiere, which Griffiths will attend. The concert concludes with stunning guest artist Maya Beiser performing Elgar’s heartbreaking Cello Concerto, written in the aftermath of World War I.

The season ends in Hope. On June 6-7, soloists, chorus and orchestra join together for Mahler’s mighty Symphony No. 2 (“Resurrection”). Modeled loosely on Beethoven’s Ninth, it moves from a stormy beginning to a triumphant conclusion, full of ringing bells and exultant peals of sound.

Performances take place in Mandeville Auditorium at University of California, San Diego. For more information, call the LJS&C office at (858) 534-4637 or visit www.lajollasymphony.com.

The La Jolla Symphony & Chorus, San Diego’s oldest and largest community orchestra and chorus, is a non-profit musical performing group. Its 110-person orchestra and 130-person chorus perform groundbreaking orchestral and choral music along with traditional favorites from the classical repertoire. The 2008-09 season is Steven Schick’s second season as Music Director. Schick shares the season with Choral Director David Chase.

Contact:
Diane Salisbury
Executive Director
(858) 822-3774
dsalisbury @ lajollasymphony.com
www.lajollasymphony.com

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