La Jolla Symphony & Chorus

Saturday Concerts at 7:30 PM
Sunday Concerts at 2:00 PM
Mandeville Auditorium, UCSD

We open our season on the themes found in Wallace Stegner’s great novel “Angle of Repose” with differing views of heroism. The ultimate “heroic” piece – Beethoven’s Third Symphony – is paired with the young American composer Missy Mazzoli and her turbulent and alluring work.  John Cage, the James Dean of 20th-century composers, lets us experience a true anti-hero. Missy Mazzoli joins us for this concert (pictured).

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Conductor's Note

A brilliant Handel overture and Brahms’ stirring Triumphlied for chorus and orchestra face off against the darker hues and stirring passions of Schoenberg and Dallapiccola. Join us for a concert of dazzling color and shadowy expression.

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Conductor's Note

Luciano Berio’s delightful folk songs, sung by Young Artist winner Jessica Aszodi, lead us to muse on music outside the concert hall. In his moving Fantasia Ralph Vaughan Williams shows us just how intimate music can feel. Carl Nielsen takes us to the opposite extreme in his Espansiva symphony.

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A fascinating collage of opposites: Philip Glass, the American master of repeating phrases, paired with Aaron Copland’s flowing essay on eternal growth and renewal frame the rhythmic vitality of Bay Area composer Paul Dresher’s concerto for invented instruments. We also premiere this year’s Thomas Nee Commission by Yvonne Wu.

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Conductor's Note

Can we hear where we come from? Try this idea on as you listen to the vivid images by the eminent Chinese-American composer Chou Wen-chung paired with Edgard Varèse’s tribute to his adopted home in Amériques. Richard Strauss’s second horn concerto, featuring Young Artist winner Nicolee Kuester, represents the backdrop of Europe.

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Conductor's Note

Three great 20th-century composers contemplate peace – global, personal, spiritual. Britten begins the program with a work inspired by his intense pacifism. Schoenberg paints a picture of mankind evolving from a murky past to a bright future based on “Peace on Earth.” We conclude with one of Vaughan Williams’ greatest choral-orchestral works based on the war poetry of Walt Whitman and excerpts from the Bible.

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Conductor's Note