Introducing our new Concertmaster In Sun Jang

Santa Cruz Symphony is honored to welcome In Sun Jang as our new Concertmaster. If you attended our season opening United Sounds of America concerts, you probably noticed In Sun in this important role. In Sun will be featured prominently in our Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn concerts on November 14/15, when she performs Tchaikovsky’s famed Violin Concerto.

In Sun Jang is also a first violinist with the San Francisco Symphony and a former Concertmaster of the New World Symphony. A top prize winner at the International Henryk Szeryng Violin Competition, she has performed as soloist with Santa Cruz Symphony, New World Symphony, Puchon Philharmonic Orchestra, and Nanpa Festival Orchestra, among others. She made her Korean recital debut at Kumho Art Center in Seoul and her Japanese recital debut before sold-out audiences in Fukuoka and Shiida.

By special invitation of Isaac Stern, Jang performed at Carnegie Hall as part of the Isaac Stern Chamber Music Workshop. She has collaborated with leading artists including Menahem Pressler, Thomas Adès, and the Orion String Quartet. Her chamber music engagements have brought her to renowned venues and festivals throughout Asia and the United States, including Jordan Hall, Yellow Barn, the Aspen Music Festival, Miyazaki Prefectural Arts Center, Seoul Arts Center, and LG Arts Center.

A native of Seoul, Korea, Jang began studying violin and piano at the age of four. She is a graduate of The Juilliard School and the New England Conservatory and serves as a coach for the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra.

We're honored to have In Sun as our new Concertmaster, and we know you will be impressed by her genius and artistry this season!

A very special thanks to our former Artist in Residence and Concertmaster Nancy Zhou for her passion, creativity, and musical brilliance during her time with Santa Cruz Symphony. We wish her the best in her new role with the Tianjin Juilliard violin faculty.

United Sounds of America on October 3/4, 2026: A Review by Martin Gaskell

For the opening weekend of the Santa Cruz Symphony’s 69th season the orchestra joined the ongoing celebrations of the 250th birthday of our country, as Maestro Daniel Stewart had the orchestra showcase a diverse cross section of American music.

THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER

The concert opened with “The Star-Spangled Banner.” This was not only an appropriate way to begin a semi-quincentennial concert, but it also fit in perfectly with the essentially chronological program order as the tune was composed by John Stafford Smith for a short-lived London gentleman’s club a few years before the US Declaration of Independence.

Stewart had all the instruments playing during the concerts be up on stage. This included Principal Banjo John Imholz, who played in the Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue. According to my extensive research (actually, I just Googled it) the Santa Cruz Symphony became the first major symphony orchestra to include a banjo in “The Star-Spangled Banner”!

It is of course impossible in a single concert to do justice to the full diversity of US music over the past 250 years. A list of what various audience members missed on the program would be long. For example, there was no Early American shape-note music and there were no Sousa marches — not even “The Stars and Stripes Forever” (but don’t worry, I’m pretty sure that, as always there is going to be the traditional performance conducted by a distinguished guest conductor at the June 12th concert!) What the program did do was showcase and illustrate the wonderful diversity of US music.

FINALE FROM NEW WORLD SYMPHONY

After the audience sat down, the orchestra began the only other work in the program by a non-US composer, Antonín Dvořák, who became the director of the National Conservatory in 1892. The orchestra gave a rousing performance of the powerful finale to the famous New World Symphony, a work which, as Maestro Stewart said, epitomizes the potential Dvořák saw in the US. This met with enthusiastic applause.

THE UNANSWERED QUESTION

The first US composition on the program was Charles Ives’s most famous work, The Unanswered Question. It was so far ahead of its time that it is hard to believe that Dvořák had only been dead for four years when Ives wrote it in 1908! It could have been written many decades later.

At the start of the piece there was a complete blackout save for the musicians’ standlights. In the darkness, pianissimo (ppp) muted strings started a beautiful, widely-spaced G major chord. Then, out of the dark come five discordant off-stage trumpet notes played by principal trumpeter Michael Marmarou. According to program notes Ives wrote, these non-tonal notes represent “the perennial question of existence.” Each note clashes with the serene G major of the strings. The intervals are effectively unsingable.

In the Civic, Marmarou started off in the corridor behind the entrance tunnel to the audience’s left. Answers to the trumpet’s question are provided by four upper woodwinds: flutes Sarah Benton and Kris Palmer, principal oboe Robert Scott, and principal clarinet Karen Sremac. The trumpet re-asks its question, this time from the back of the main entrance tunnel at the back of the auditorium. The woodwinds respond again.

This pattern is repeated another four times as Marmarou moved counter-clockwise to the right corridor behind the right performers’ entrance tunnel, to behind the timpani on the right side of the orchestra, to off-stage in the center, and to behind the basses and keyboard to the left of the orchestra.

Each time, the woodwinds’ dissonant and atonal attempted answer got more and more frantic until, after their sixth answer, they give up and leave the strings to their calm ppp G major. The trumpet asks its question for a seventh time, now back in its starting position. The final note which in the previous askings had been chosen to be either a C or a B to clash with the strings is now chosen to be a B to be in harmony with the strings.

Unfortunately, the layout of the Mello Center for the Sunday matinee concerts is always problematic for off-stage instruments and the solo trumpet had to be played mostly from just one position in the rear. Despite this, the performance of the Ives in both venues, during which Michael Marmarou remained unseen, was a magical experience of the sort that one can only get in a live performance.

RHAPSODY IN BLUE

Dvořák famously proclaimed that African American spirituals were “the real foundation of any serious and original school of composition to be developed in the United States.” (He also insisted that the conservatory be "thrown open free of charge" to Black students.) We didn’t get any spirituals in the weekend’s concerts, but we did get other fruits of the African diaspora in America. The greatest of these is jazz. It is music that blends African, Caribbean, and European musical traditions into a uniquely US-born art form. It has been widely described as the greatest American contribution to music and, indeed to the arts in general.

Piano soloist Christine McLeavey joined the orchestra to round out the first half of the concerts with the major work on the program: George Gershwin’s 1924 Rhapsody in Blue, a seamless integration of jazz idioms into symphonic music. It is the most popular work for piano and orchestra in any genre. There are more recordings than each of the big romantic piano concertos, such as Tchaikovsky’s 1st and Rachmaninoff’s 2nd and 3rd. (We’re being treated to the monumental “Rach 3” in the January 16/17 concerts).

I loved McLeavey’s performance. Unlike some performances, her playing did not feel rushed or mechanical; there was a comfortableness and freedom with the rhythms and her tempi felt right. Importantly, her interpretation helped me get a new appreciation of the lyrical and light-hearted sides to the work; it’s a fun piece. McLeavey didn’t just convey this with her playing, but also with her facial expressions. Audience members who were fortunate to have had a good view (there was no projection this weekend) commented that it was obvious that she was thoroughly enjoying playing. I suspected that this might have been what Gershwin himself did while playing.

After the concerts this led me to look up videos of Gershwin himself playing. Sure enough, there he was smiling away and having fun! Last weekend, the orchestra was also having fun. The humorous use of the wah-wah mute by Principal Trombone Sam Schlosser in the trombone solo responding to the muted trumpet solo drew laughter from the audience.

JUBA DANCE FROM SYMPHONY NO. 1

After the intermission the program continued with more African American musical influence: the Juba Dance from Florence Price’s 1933 Symphony No. 1, the first work by a female African American composer to have been performed by a major orchestra (the Chicago Symphony) in 1933. The juba, one of the influences on jazz, was a style of dance performed by enslaved people in the American South in the 19th century. As Daniel Stewart said before the orchestra played it, Price’s Juba is one of the world’s most joyous pieces of music.

ADAGIO FOR STRINGS

The program continued with one of the greatest pieces of all time: the 1938 Samuel Barber Adagio for Strings. Although it has been played at state funerals and such, there is no evidence that Barber intended it to be funereal. The tempo any piece is played at has a huge impact on its emotional effect. For the Adagio, Barber specifies a performance time of between 7 and 8 minutes, but it has become common for conductors to take 9 minutes or more. Some go even further and conduct the piece with a glacial slowness and draw out the caesuras (commas) between phrases to give them an agonizing intensity. This stretches out the Adagio to over 10 minutes.

I clocked Daniel Stewart’s interpretations at 7 mins 45 seconds at both concerts — well within Barber’s desired tempo range. This maintained the momentum and made the structure of the long phrases much clearer. Importantly, keeping to the composer’s tempo did not make the Adagio excessively funereal, which would have fit in poorly with the overall program of the concert.

FANFARE FOR THE COMMON MAN

After the slow, elegiac strains of the Barber, a wake-up was needed. This was provided by a piece that is a “must” for a United States 250th birthday concert: Aaron Copland’s 1942 Fanfare for the Common Man for brass and percussion. Principal Timpanist John Weeks had a great time!

MUSIC FROM WEST SIDE STORY

The 1950s were represented by the opening and closing movements of Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances that he extracted from his greatest hit, the 1957 musical West Side Story. Time only permitted the orchestra to perform the first movement (Prologue) and last movement (Finale).

The Prologue uses aggressive syncopated jazz and Latin rhythms to depict the growing rivalry between two street gangs in New York. Members of the orchestra have to do synchronized finger snapping (a signature motif associated with the white American street gang in the musical.) I’m afraid I have to report that finger snapping does not seem to be an “extended technique” taught as part of the training of string players! (But in their defense, it is rather hard to snap your fingers with a violin bow in your hand!)

The orchestra’s percussion section got a good workout in this movement. The other movement the orchestra played is calmer and depicts the emotions of the end of the story.

COME YE

After West Side Story, vocal soloist Omari Tau was welcomed on the stage with warm applause. He is well known to local audiences through being the MC of the orchestra’s family concerts each year. The second half of the 1960s was the height of “the protest era” and there was much popular music associated with this. Stewart chose to represent this with an arrangement by Omari and himself of Nina Simone’s song Come Ye, a call to prayer for peace and for a better world, words that are as relevant today as they were in 1967.

The arrangement was very effective. Omari sang Simone’s words while accompanying himself with quiet body percussion (gently slapping his torso). He was very quietly doubled by Principal Cellist Jonah Kim, muted violas, pianissimo bassoons (Michelle Keem and Iain Forgey). Accompaniment was provided by harp (Molly Langr) and pizzicato cellos and basses. The combination created a perfect atmosphere for Simone’s invitation and invocation.

SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW

“We can’t have Omari sing just one song!” proclaimed Stewart in announcing an addition to the program. The violins proceeded to strum their instruments as though playing ukuleles, and Omari launched into the 1993 cover of Somewhere Over the Rainbow by Hawai’ian native singer Israel Kaʻanoʻi Kamakawiwoʻole (“Iz”) — a recording that went on to become the best-selling Hawai’ian recording of all time and spent over seven years as number one on the Billboard World Digital Songs chart!

CHUKCHANSI OVERTURE: A CALIFORNIA TONE POEM

Coming down to the present day, the penultimate work in the concerts was a posthumous première of Chukchansi Overture: A California Tone Poem by a longtime member of the Santa Cruz Symphony family: John (“Jackie”) Orzel, who played horn in the orchestra for over three decades and whose wife, Jane Orzel, was principal bassoon. The Chukchansi people are located in Central California.

Composer Jackie Orzel
1955–2023

Orzel was a lifelong devotee of the music of Anton Bruckner. The influence of the great Austrian symphonist was clear throughout Orzel’s Chukchansi Overture in the textures, orchestration, structure and development of material. For example, it begins with a long, sustained great octave (i.e., the same note name sounding in multiple octaves) for the entire orchestra (strings, woodwinds and brass) in a manner reminiscent of the opening of many Bruckner symphonies. There are also similarities to epic film music.

As might be expected from a composer who was a fourth horn player, there were prominent roles for the low brass. In particular, there was very effective use of the bass trombone. Bass trombonist Timmy Grabow received enthusiastic applause at the end. All in all, Chukchansi Overture is a magnificent work. As the applause died down at the Mello Center, someone shouted out, “Play it again!” I wish there had been time to do so.

MUSIC FROM STAR WARS

The final piece on the program was the main title music from John William’s Star Wars Suite, music the orchestra has often played before and music that needs no explanation. Indeed, Maestro Stewart commented that the opening theme might be as popular as the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony or “Happy Birthday”! (If you are a fan of John Williams’s music, mark your calendar for June 12th when the orchestra will be playing an entire concert of John Williams’s music.)

If the program of the weekend’s concerts had stuck to chronological order, Star Wars (1977) would have come before the 2022 Orzel Overture, but since it is hard to follow Star Wars with anything, the Williams was put last. That could have been the end, but Daniel Stewart chose to have a quiet encore — all of us singing the Iz version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

– Martin Gaskell

The Lookout List contest is Live. Vote for Your Symphony by October 18!

Your Symphony. Your Vote.

Santa Cruz Symphony has been nominated for Favorite Performing Arts Organization in the 2026 Lookout List, and we'd love your support.

If our music has moved you, inspired you, or brought you together with friends and family, please take a moment to cast your vote.

And to our friends who also love Santa Cruz Shakespeare, there's good news! You can vote for Santa Cruz Symphony in the Performing Arts Organization category and still show your love for Shakespeare in two additional categories: Favorite Theater Company and Favorite Venue for Local Theater.

Let's celebrate the incredible performing arts community we're so fortunate to have here in Santa Cruz County.

Here’s what you need to know:

• Voting is free and open through Sunday, October 18.

• You'll need to register to vote, and you can cast one vote per category.

• To vote for Santa Cruz Symphony, find Arts & Entertainment, then look for Favorite Performing Arts Organization.

Thank you for being part of our Symphony family and for supporting live orchestral music in Santa Cruz County.

We're moving to the Tannery!

Santa Cruz Symphony is excited to announce that we are moving to a new office location at The Tannery Arts Center, where we will be sharing space with the Arts Council Santa Cruz County.

Please note that this move only affects our administrative offices. Our performance venues remain unchanged.

New Address:
Santa Cruz Symphony 
1070 River Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95060

New Office Hours:
Monday through Thursday
10:00 AM to 4:00 PM

Symphony concerts will continue to be presented on Saturday evenings at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium and on Sunday afternoons at the Mello Center for the Performing Arts in Watsonville. Our Musician Recital Series will also continue at Samper Recital Hall at Cabrillo College.

As we make this transition, our office will be temporarily closed the week of July 6 while our staff relocates and settles into the new space. During this time, response times may be slightly delayed, but we will continue to monitor email and voicemail and do our best to assist patrons and donors.

Visitors are welcome to our new office on River Street beginning the week of July 13.

We're thrilled to join the vibrant creative community at The Tannery, and to have this opportunity to serve our patrons, donors, musicians, and community partners in a beautiful new space. We look forward to seeing you throughout the season!

A new season awaits — order your subscription today!

Our 69th season presents a larger-than-life schedule of seven concerts, starting in October with our United Sounds of America concert through to our ever-popular June Pops Benefit Concert celebrating the music of John Williams. Other highlights include Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto featuring violinist In Sun Jang, Stravinsky's Firebird (1919 Suite) featuring violist Pearl de la Motte, and Jaron Lanier's World Premiere Singularity Variations featuring groundbreaking pianist Serene.

Not a subscriber yet? Place your order NOW for the best chance to get the seats you want!

Individual concert tickets go on sale September 1, 2026.

Questions? Call 831-462-0553 x10 or email office@santacruzsymphony.org.

Here's what our 2026-27 season offers:

UNITED SOUNDS OF AMERICA

Saturday, October 3 and Sunday, October 4

Smith, arr. Toscanini: Star Spangled Banner
Antonín Dvořák: Finale from the New World Symphony
Charles Ives: The Unanswered Question
George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue
Florence Price: Juba Dance from Symphony No. 1
Samuel Barber: Adagio for Strings
Aaron Copland: Fanfare for the Common Man
Leonard Bernstein: Music from West Side Story
Nina Simone: Come Ye
Jackie Orzel: Chukchansi Overture [World Premiere]
John Williams: Music from Star Wars

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Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn

Saturday, November 14 and Sunday, November 15

Daniel Strebulaev: Overture [World Premiere]
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto featuring violin soloist In Sun Jang
Felix Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 4, Italian

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Rachmaninoff’S 3rd

Saturday, January 16 and Sunday, January 17

Jaron Lanier: Singularity Variations [World Premiere] featuring piano soloist Serene
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3 featuring piano soloist Serene

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Family Concert: Peter and the Wolf

Sunday, February 28

This engaging, family-friendly concert brings students, families, and our community together.

Carnegie Hall Link Up Program: The Orchestra Sings

Golden KPop Demon Hunters: featuring Cabrillo Youth Chorus and El Sistema
Cascabel: featuring Esperanza del Valle and Nematatlin de la Universidad Veracruzana
Antonín Dvořák: Music from New World Symphony featuring International Academy of Dance
George Gershwin: I Got Rhythm featuring Kuumbwaa Honor Jazz Band
Reena Esmail: Ram Tori Maya featuring Cabrillo Youth Chorus
Igor Stravinsky: Finale from The Firebird featuring International Academy of Dance
Atravesado from Suite Huasteca: featuring Esperenza del Valle and Nematatlín de la Universidad Veracruzana
Jim Papoulis: Oye

Sergei Prokofiev: Peter and The Wolf

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THE FIREBIRD

Saturday, April 3 and Sunday, April 4

BTS & Myungsoo Shin: Black Swan 
William Walton: Concerto for Viola featuring viola soloist Pearl de la Motte
Igor Stravinsky: The Firebird (1919 Suite)

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ALSO SPRACH ZARATHUSTRA

Saturday, May 1 and Sunday, May 2

Reena Esmail: Ram Tori Maya
Leonard Bernstein: Chichester Psalms
Friedrich Nietzsche: Hymnus an das Leben
Richard Strauss: Also Sprach Zarathustra

Guest Artist: Cabrillo Symphonic Chorus under the direction of Carlin Truong

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Spring Pops Benefit Concert

Saturday, June 12

A JOHN WILLIAMS CELEBRATION

Including music from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, and Harry Potter

Join us for a free street party before the concert with live music, food, and dancing!

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It’s Party Time! Join us for our Pops Concert

Get out the popcorn and your best movie costumes! After a concert season full of innovation, intensity, and grandeur, Santa Cruz Symphony will mark the coming of summer with an evening of cinematic masterpieces. On Saturday, June 13, the Symphony meets the silver screen with selections from your favorite movies.

Join in the pre-concert fun at the free street party in front of the Civic starting at 5 PM – no ticket required. Wear a movie costume and dance along to the sounds of live Brazilian tunes (and more) by the ever-popular Samba Cruz. Indulge in delicious treats from popular local food truck vendors. Kids and adults alike can make friendship bracelets at our craft table and visit our face painting station. It’s a celebration for the whole community!

“Our Pops concert is a program created for all ages, so families are encouraged to attend,” said Gary Reece, Executive Director. “Choose from the menus of local food trucks, such as Corralitos sausages, vegan and vegetarian specialties, tacos, and more. Take photos of your group at our DIY photo booth. This special concert is the ideal way to jump into the summer season.”

The concert begins at 7:30 PM when Maestro Daniel Stewart leads Santa Cruz Symphony on a cinematic journey through a wide variety of musical styles and compositional techniques. These unique performances of beloved soundtracks will delight young and old movie lovers alike. The atmosphere at Symphony Pops concerts is electric and unforgettable!

Movie scores have inspired countless young viewers with a lifelong love of orchestral music. At this concert, everyone can experience the many ways that symphonic music enlivens our imaginations, laying the groundwork for future appreciation of classical works.

All proceeds will benefit Santa Cruz Symphony and help ensure the continued success of educational programs and performances. Bring the whole family and invite your friends to this evening of festivities and music!

Saturday, June 13
Civic Auditorium in Santa Cruz
5:00 PM Free Street Party
7:30 PM Concert

The greatest of all symphonies: A review of the May 2/3, 2026 Beethoven Symphony No. 9 concerts

by Professor Martin Gaskell

This weekend Santa Cruz Symphony, under Daniel Stewart, the Cabrillo Symphonic Chorus under Dr. Carlin Truong, and a stellar quartet of vocal soloists treated local audiences to stunning performances of what Frederick Stock, famous conductor of the Chicago Symphony, called “the greatest of all symphonies,” Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. It is a work ranked by musicians and critics alike as one of the, if not the, greatest musical creations of all time.

The weekend’s sold-out concerts capped a highly successful season of Santa Cruz Symphony Classical Series concerts. One sign of this season’s popularity was that there were no season program books handed out at this weekend’s concerts. They had run out with the previous month’s Amadeus performances!

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, like the similarly large-scale symphonies of Bruckner and Mahler, always presents a programming problem: what else does one put on the program?

At the first performance in 1824 in a theater intermediate in size between the Civic Auditorium and the Mello Center (and probably with similar acoustics), Symphony No. 9 was preceded by Beethoven’s now rarely played “Consecration of the House” overture, and an hour’s worth of his Missa Solemnis. One 19th-century conductor solved the problem by performing the entire Symphony No. 9 twice in one concert!

Daniel Stewart took a more modest approach. The program began with Dvořák’s exuberant Carnival Overture. It matched the mood of the audience perfectly. At the end people were ecstatic.

In the calmer part of the overture there were some notable solos for the cor anglais (Meave Cox), Principal Flute Sarah Benton, Principal Clarinet Karen Sremac, and Kiri Murakami-Loehmann, who was filling in as Concertmaster at short notice. Maestro Stewart had them take solo bows at the end of the piece. Norman Peck’s varied tambourine technique was also interesting to watch and hear.

The next piece had been announced in advance in the season program book as a world premiere of local composer Jaron Lanier’s “Music for Piano and Orchestra,” but this had been changed to his Khaenoncerto for Khaen and Orchestra, which had been commission for the year 2000 celebration of the 1000th anniversary of the founding of the city of Wrocław in Poland. As well as being a composer, Lanier is a noted computer scientist, technologist, and futurist.

First though, there was a short, last-minute insertion into the program. The story of this addition was told by the composer. Audiences appreciate hearing living composers say a little about their music, and Jaron Lanier is a particularly delightful speaker. He explained that he is, unfortunately, very prone to losing scores of his compositions! The September 1984 issue of Scientific American featured his computer programming work and had a piece of his music on the its front cover. Lanier had lost score to the piece. However, he and Daniel Stewart realized during rehearsals before the weekend’s concerts that all they had to do was look at the 1984 Scientific American issue to recover the music!

Daniel Stewart had then quickly entered the music from the magazine cover into music-notation software, so that the strings were able to give us the world premiere of The Scientific American canon! (I do have to fault the orchestra though for not reading directly off the Scientific American cover!)

The scheduled piece by Lanier was his Khaenoncerto for Khaen and Orchestra. The khaen is the national instrument of Laos. This unusual instrument consists of many parallel bamboo resonator tubes looking a little like pan pipes sticking up into the air. The pipes are sounded with reeds on the side that are somewhat similar to those of a harmonica (mouth organ). “In case you’re wondering,” said Lanier on Saturday, “yes, I did lose the score to this piece too!” This produced peals of laughter. In the absence of a printed magazine cover in this case, Daniel Stewart had transcribed the piece from a recording of the performance in Poland.

The scheduled Khaenoncerto that followed began with a solo cadenza for Lanier on the khaen. Then the orchestra began a canon, starting with the violas alone, then adding the cellos (a very beautiful combination), and so on. At the climax, when everyone in the orchestra is playing, the (amplified) khaen enters. It blended well with the orchestra, and its rich harmonic spectrum added a bell-like sheen to the ensemble.

After the intermission, Maestro Stewart took the podium again. He waited until everyone was silent and then commenced the hushed, mysterious, primeval start to the first movement to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. The performance was as good as any I have heard and had all of Stewart’s famous attention to detail.

The great climax of the opening movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 is the start of the recapitulation (the return to the opening motifs after the so-called “development section” in the middle). To me it conjures up the maelstrom at the heart of a collision between two galaxies. A special shout-out to the orchestra’s timpanist, John Weeks, is needed here because it is his dramatic, minute-long drum roll that makes this moment. The audience burst into applause at the end of the movement.

A scherzo, the symphony’s least popular movement, follows. This is Beethoven’s longest scherzo. Like most conductors, Stewart omitted the longer repeats. I think we often make the mistake of thinking of Beethoven as always being serious, but the symphonic movement he is associated with introducing is the scherzo. Scherzo is the Italian word for joke. One shouldn’t miss Beethoven’s humor. I was delighted to hear an audience member near me laugh at the end of the scherzo just before applause broke out. That meant the orchestra had successfully conveyed the humor.

After the noise and drum bashing of the scherzo, we get the tranquility of the lyrical, yearning, and meditative slow movement — a movement that a famous astronomer I knew requested to be played as he was dying. It consists of alternate variations on two themes: the first, a serene slow theme played by the first violins and clarinets, and the second, a more flowing theme beautifully played by the violas and second violins.

It is amazing music, especially since it was written by a man who could only hear it by attaching a metal rod to the soundboard of his piano and clenching the rod in his teeth! (This is called bone-conduction hearing.) The high point of the movement was Philip Browne’s playing of the challenging, wide-ranging fourth horn solo.

The finale starts with cacophony — what Wagner called “the horror chord.” To enhance the drama, Maestro Stewart attacked this without taking a break at the end of the slow movement. After only waiting a second or two and receiving an affirming nod from John Weeks, who needed to rapidly change the timpani tuning, Stewart called on the woodwinds, brass, and timpani to explode with the dissonant chord that starts the finale with a jolt. The cellos and basses follow with an extensive recitative where they review and reject the music of the previous movements.

After this introduction, Stewart inserted a very effective short pause before the cellos and basses start Beethoven’s most famous tune, best known in the English-speaking world as the hymn “Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee.” Beethoven’s tune grows through one of the finest crescendos in all of music. The “horror chord” returns, but instead of the instrumental recitative we get a vocal recitative sung by local rising-star baritone Edward Tavalin, who did such an outstanding job as the commendatore from Mozart’s Don Giovanni in the orchestra’s Amadeus last month. Tavalin not only sang the recitative but also illustrated the text with hand gestures.

The chorus joined in to start singing Schiller’s “Ode to Joy.” They alternated with the vocal quartet consisting of Tavalin joined by soprano Dani Zhang, mezzo-soprano Ginger Costa-Jackson, and tenor Joshua Stewart (who sang in last year’s Mozart Requiem). This tutti section ends with a surprise, held, high, fortissimo modulation as Schiller’s text described angels standing before God.

The Cabrillo Chorus and especially director Carlin Truong deserve highest praise for how well they handled the very demanding choral parts that take singers to the tops of their ranges far too often for comfort. Notably, the sopranos did not “squawk” on their high A’s and B’s. There was no obnoxious vibrato sticking out. Good tone quality was maintained in fortissimos. Truong had prepared everything very well.

If I have to pick out just a couple of outstanding choral parts, I would first choose the entry where the full chorus first sings the tune to Schiller’s opening lines. Even though I was expecting it, the massive effect of all eighty voices coming in fortissimo gave me quite a jolt.

Secondly, I would choose the high held notes set to the text which is translated in the program as:

Brothers, above the starry canopy
There must dwell a loving Father
Seek Him above the starry canopy!
Above the stars He must dwell.

Singers maintained pitch well on these long, sustained notes at their ranges through dynamics varying from fortissimo to pianissimo.

A number of instrumental choices that enhanced the performance of the symphony are worth mentioning. First, trombonist Teddy Van Winkle switched to an alto trombone for the Beethoven Symphony No. 9. For the powerful trombone accompaniment to the male voices at the words “Be embraced, millions,” tenor trombone Kaitlin Lamber joined bass trombone Doug Thorley. One could not tell by ear that there were two trombones, but the doubling added power to the declamation. For the march-like section in the finale, contrabassoonist Kris King played the bottom B-flats, the lowest notes of any orchestral instrument, instead of the decidedly less impressive B-flats an octave higher indicated in some editions.

Finally, a couple of very small authentic details. For the “Turkish music” in the finale, the percussion section did not use their largest bass drum, but a smaller one more in keeping with practice in Beethoven’s day. Also, Norman Peck had small metal rings on his triangle. Having such rings jingling on a triangle goes back to medieval times and was a practice that continued beyond Beethoven’s day.

At the conclusion of both concerts, there was immediate shouting, thunderous clapping, and repeated whistling. Everyone who could stand was up on their feet. A long-time player in the orchestra remarked that it was the longest-lasting applause he could remember. Eventually, a few players began to pack their instruments, but the applause just went on and on.

Many people in the audience, the choir, and the orchestra said how moving the performance had been for them. What one regular audience member remarked to me was typical of what I heard. She said that experiencing Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 was “uplifting” and “something we need in these times.”

Martin Gaskell

Photos by Rebecca Barnes