Symphony

Symphony

Symphony

Symphony

Symphony

Symphony

Symphony

Symphony

Symphony

Symphony

4/27/2025 - VSO'S CONCERT MUSIC OF TIME, MUSIC OF PLACE - Peter Lert
Vallejo Symphony / Marc Taddei conductor
The Vallejo Symphony's final concert of the 2024-2025 season was performed April 27 in their usual venue, Vallejo's historic Empress Theater. Built in 1911 as one of the first small “movie palaces” in northern California, it went through various incarnations before being lovingly restored, complete ...

4/13/2025 - DRAMATIC SHOSTAKOVICH SYMPHONY CLOSES PHILHARMONIC'S 25TH SEASON - Terry McNeill
Sonoma County Philharmonic / Norman Gamboa, conductor.
Sonoma County Philharmonic’s season ending concerts always program a work that can be a stretch for the all-volunteer orchestra, and April 12 and 13 found Shostakovich’s demanding D Minor 5th Symphony the piece de resistance. The weekend pair of concerts, conducted by Norman Gamboa in his th...

3/22/2025 - OLD AND MOSTLY NEW IN SRS MARCH CONCERT IN WEILL - Peter Lert
Santa Rosa Symphony / Yue Bao, conductor. Simone Porter, violin
Santa Rosa Symphony's March 22 concert might be thought of as encompassing both the old world (Mendelssohn's E Minor Violin Concerto, one of the cornerstones of the German Romantic period) and the new, with both an echo of the European late romantic period: Dvorak's Symphony New World Symphony (No. ...

2/23/2025 - TWO FORMIDABLE SYMPHONIES AND PURPLE MOUNTAINS AT SRS CONCERT - Peter Lert
Santa Rosa Symphony / Frencesco Lecce-Chong, conductor; Joyce Yang, piano
The Santa Rosa Symphony's February 23 concert included works from three distinct periods. Chinese American composer Shuyung Li’s Purple Mountains, premiered in 2023, while Brahms’ E Minor Symphony was first heard in 1885. Fitting between them was Leonard Bernstein's second, titled Age of Anxiety, ...

1/19/2025 - EARTHLY PLEASURES AT THE VALLEJO SYMPHONY - Peter Lert
Vallejo Symphony / Marc Taddei conductor
It’s refreshing to see a resurgence in performances of the works of Mahler. Once the province only of major metropolitan orchestras, it’s now increasingly common to find Mahler symphonies on the programs of smaller regional (and, in some cases, even volunteer community) orchestras. One such professi...

1/19/2025 - EARTHLY PLEASURES AT THE VALLEJO SYMPHONY - Abby Wasserman
Vallejo Symphony / Marc Taddei conductor
At a pre-performance talk January 19 the Vallejo Symphony’s conductor Marc Taddei addressed an early-bird Empress Theater audience with tales of two composers, Haydn and Mahler. He characterized the program we were about to hear as “two approaches to our place in Nature.” He termed Haydn’s Symphon...