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Event
Fall Concert - Young People's Symphony Orchestra
Young People's Symphony Orchestra (YPSO) kicks off its 78th season with the Fall Concert that will feature music director/conductor David Ramadanoff, and 102 young musicians in an all-French program of Hector Berlioz's Overture to Benvenuto Cellini, Claude Debussy's Nuages (Clouds) and Fêtes (Festivals) from Nocturnes, and Camille Saint-Saëns' Symphony No. 3 in C minor (The Organ), with Elizabeth Forsyth, guest organist.
The concert will open with Hector Berlioz's Overture to Benvenuto Cellini, an 1838 opera based upon the memoirs of the great sixteenth-century sculptor and goldsmith. The opera flopped, but the overture thrived and became one of the composer's most popular works. The overture is a mini-drama that opens with a fanfare, and in the span of 10 minutes, gives us solemnity, lyricism, passion, and orchestral brilliance. It's a tour de force from Berlioz, who was a master orchestrator.
Completed in 1899, two of Debussy's Nocturnes for orchestraNuages ("Clouds") and Fêtes ("Festivals")were inspired by a set of paintings from the 1870s by American artist James McNeill Whistler. The artworks, also entitled nocturnes, are studies in light and shade that offer an impression of landscapes and objects. Debussy wrote about his Nocturnes, "The title Nocturnes is to be interpreted here in a general and, more particularly, in a decorative sense. Therefore, it is not meant to designate the usual form of the nocturne, but rather all the various impressions and the special effects of light that the word suggests. Nuages renders the immutable aspect of the sky and the slow, solemn motion of the clouds, fading away in grey tones lightly tinged with white. Fêtes gives us the vibrating dancing rhythm of the atmosphere with sudden flashes of light."
The featured work on the program will be Camille Saint-Saëns' Symphony No. 3 in C minor (The Organ), with Elizabeth Forsyth, guest organist. One of the most popular composers of his day, Saint-Saëns was also in demand as a performer, too, and was an accomplished organist and pianist. Saint-Saëns completed his "symphony with organ" in 1886, which was a commission for the Royal Philharmonic Society in London, England, where it received its premiere that same year. It represents the composer's highest achievement in the symphony form. Saint-Saëns dedicated the work to the memory of his friend, the composer and virtuoso pianist, Franz Liszt. In homage to his friend's many musical gifts, Saint-Saëns gave the symphony prominent parts for piano as well as organ, and also composed it with a single, recurring motif, a style of composition favored by Liszt. Of the symphony, Saint-Saëns said, "I gave everything to it I was able to give. What I have here accomplished, I will never achieve again."
Forsyth, the organist at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, has never played the organ part of the symphony before, so she's looking forward to it. "The rhythmic entrances are the challenge for this piece and being right there with the conductor. The organ has lush and low underpinnings in the second movement. It's low, rumbly support. It has its moments where it comes in with big chords, too," she says."
Forsyth will play the church's Petty-Madden organ, which was installed in 2006. She calls it an American classic organ with a French sensibility. "It has a nice complement of reeds in all of the divisions and character stops. It has all kinds of stuff to rattle the pews," she says.
And rattle the pews she will in the well known last movement of the work, which features polyphonic fugal writing and a massive climax of the whole symphony in which the organ provides extra force that supplements the low brass and timpani. Katherine Chen, a high school sophomore from Lafayette, and Joel Herman, a high school junior from Walnut Creek, two violinists in the orchestra who also play piano, will play the piano parts. "It's just a piece that's fun to play. The kids will enjoy playing it," says Ramadanoff.
Celebrating his 26th season as Music Director/Conductor, David Ramadanoff conducts 102 YPSO young musicians who range in age from 12 to 18 and hail from 25 Bay Area cities in seven counties.
Founded in Berkeley in 1936, YPSO is the oldest youth orchestra in California and the second oldest in the nation. The 2014-15 season is the 78th season since violinist and conductor Jessica Marcelli founded YSPO at the suggestion of Clarabelle Bell, an amateur harpist and Berkeley resident, who got the idea after hearing a youth orchestra on a trip to Portland, Oregon.
Program:
Hector Berlioz - Overture to Benvenuto Cellini
Claude Debussy - Nocturnes:
1. Nuages
2. Fêtes
Camille Saint-Saëns - Symphony No. 3 in C minor, opus 78 (the Organ),
Elizabeth Forsyth, guest organist
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Locationfirst congregational church
2345 channing way
berkeley, CA 94704
United States
Categories
| Minimum Age: 5 |
| Kid Friendly: Yes! |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
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