Oct 14th, 2019 Contact: Nadia Liu
for immediate release (510) 849-9776
[email protected]
Calendar Editors Please Note
Who: Young People’s Symphony Orchestra
What: Fall Concert 2019
To the Point (2004) by Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962)
Capriccio Espagnol (1887)by N. Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)
Symphony No. 5 (1888) by P. I. Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Where: First Congregational Church of Berkeley
2345 Channing Way, Berkeley CA 94704
When: Saturday Nov 9th; 8 PM
Tickets: $15
Box Office: http://www.ypsomusic.org/tickets
(510)-849-9776
Concert info:http://www.ypsomusic.org
Venue Info: http://www.firstchurchberkeley.org/
About the Program
Celebrating his 31st season as Music Director/Conductor in 2019-2020, David Ramadanoff conducts 94 young musicians who range in age from 11 to 21, and hail from 29 Bay Area cities as far north as Fairfield and as far south as Union City.
For YPSO’s Fall Concert, Maestro Ramadanoff has selected a program that showcases the diversity of talent in the entire orchestra. The young musicians will be performing Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol, and Jennifer Higdon’s To The Point.
The program opens with the all-strings piece, To The Point, by living composer Jennifer Higdon. It is a contemporary piece by a “pioneer woman of classical music”. Her pieces “reflect her personality, creating a genuine, personal experience for the listener.” Higdon is lauded as someone who can create music that is accessible and welcoming (Heinzmann, String Visions, Ovation Press). YPSO has not been a stranger to exploring Higdon’s works. A few years ago, they performed Blue Cathedral. According to Higdon’s own program notes, To The Point is a compositional response to Debussy’s and Ravel’s string quartets, “which imitate the Gamelan heard by the composers at the 1889 World Exposition”.
Prior to that World Exposition, in the summer of 1887, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov composed his Capriccio Espagnol and conducted the first performance later that same year. The piece allows various instrument groups to demonstrate their talents through special techniques and articulations. The strings, for example, play “quasi guitara” to imitate the sounds of a guitar. This piece also showcases the individual talents of some YPSO musicians with important solos by the violin (concertmaster), clarinet, flute and harp. From the program notes of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Phillip Huscher writes, “When Tchaikovsky attended the premiere of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol in October 1887, he hailed it as ‘a colossal masterpiece of instrumentation.’” YPSO intends to showcase the brilliance of this composition at their concert.
And speaking of Tchaikovsky, they will be performing his iconic Symphony No. 5. This is a cyclical symphony, meaning that it has a recurring main theme. Sometimes called the “Fate Theme”, it has a funeral march-like quality that weaves itself in and out of the symphony and eventually evolves into a “triumphant march” by the last movement. Maestro Ramadanoff explains that there are three themes that interplay with each other throughout the entire work – the Fate Theme and two love themes. One of these love themes – possibly the most memorable of this symphony - is introduced by a solo French Horn, and then echoed by the string section while the oboes and clarinets dance delicate strands around this melody.
In the opus of critical review, this work has become iconic in the exposition of the ideas of victory and triumph. On October 20, 1941, during the Siege of Leningrad, city leaders ordered the orchestra to keep playing during a live radio broadcast. Bombings began during the second movement, yet the music carried people’s spirits up through the final note. As Maestro Ramadanoff says, “Tchaikovsky was a man of extreme emotions which are reflected in his music in ways that move us deeply.”
David Ramadanoff Biography
David Ramadanoff has been Music Director/Conductor since 1989. Under his leadership, YPSO has grown to a
membership of 85 young players from throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and has gained wide recognition as an outstanding youth ensemble. A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Mr. Ramadanoff began his professional studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music and Temple University. He was a doctoral candidate at The Juilliard School where he also taught conducting until Seiji Ozawa offered him the position of Assistant Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony. Mr. Ramadanoff worked closely with Robert Page, William Smith, Herbert Blomstedt, Otto Werner Mueller, Seiji Ozawa, Eugen Jochum, Leonard Bernstein, and Gunther Schuller, and attended both Aspen and Tanglewood. He performed regularly on the San Francisco Symphony subscription concert series, continuing as Associate Conductor under Edo de Waart. As Music Director, he developed and strengthened the Symphony’s educational programs and community concerts. In 1980, Mr. Ramadanoff won the Leopold Stokowski Conducting Award, and in 1982 made his Carnegie Hall debut with the American Symphony. He served as Director of Orchestral Activities at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music from 1984 to 1988 as well as Principal Conductor of the SFCM Orchestra. Mr. Ramadanoff has been guest conductor for performances with the Kansas City Philharmonic, the North Carolina Symphony, the San Antonio Symphony, the Grand Rapids Symphony, the Napa Symphony, Santa Cruz Symphony, and Fort Collins (Colorado) Symphony. In addition to YPSO, Mr. Ramadanoff is Music Director/Conductor of the Master Sinfonia Chamber Orchestra and the Conductor of the California Sound Collective. He served as the Music Director/Conductor of the Vallejo Symphony Orchestra from 1983 to 2015. Mr. Ramadanoff served on the board of directors of the Association of California Symphony Orchestras from 2007 to 2010.
About the Orchestra
YPSO begins the 2019-2020 season with this concert line-up on November 9th. They will wrap up their season in a Summer 2020 tour to the European cities of Leipzig, Vienna and Prague, performing in world class venues including the Musikverein in Vienna.
Founded in Berkeley in 1936, YPSO is the oldest youth orchestra in California and the first independent youth orchestra in the nation. The 2019-2020 season is the 83rd 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 the Portland Junior Symphony.
YPSO’s mission is to “encourage young people to become exemplary musicians and young musicians to become exemplary people”. The organization puts on four regular concerts per season. In addition, they reach out through programs such as Bread and Roses and the Bay Area Music Project to bring music into the lives of the surrounding community and encourage the civic development of its students. YPSO will also host a free open dress rehearsal program on Friday Nov 8th, 6:30pm for families with children ages 10 and under, and elementary/middle school classes accompanied by a teacher. Contact YPSO to make arrangements.
About Funding
YPSO is funded in part by the Berkeley Civic Arts Grant, Kiwanis Club of Berkeley, Alameda County Arts Commission, individual donors, and the friends and families of YPSO students.