Santa Cruz Symphony will join with Santa Cruz Shakespeare on March 29/30 for an artistic collaboration that will have you applauding for more. We'll hear the Symphony perform Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy, Mendelssohn's Overture for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Anna Clyne's Sound and Fury, as well as recitations by Santa Cruz Shakespeare's highly respected Artistic Director Charles Pasternak and powerhouse actor Allie Pratt.
You'll be enthralled by this fusion of music and theater. Buy your tickets today to reserve your preferred seats!
Shakespeare and Music
“Here will we sit and let the sounds of music/ Creep in our ears./ Soft stillness and the night/ Become the touches of sweet harmony.” ―Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
Shakespeare has been associated with music since the earliest days of his theatrical career. Music makes frequent appearances in his plays, which include more than 90 poems intended as lyrics. He often used songs to evoke a mood, make a political statement, or convey the character of the singer, imitating real-life musical styles found in his current time and place of Renaissance England.
Shakespeare’s plays have gone on to inspire hundreds of musical works over the past four centuries. Many famous composers have found his work irresistible, creating a wide variety of music to depict his stories—perhaps because his dramatic and enduring tales so richly express what it means to be human.
Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, and Clyne
Like many of his 19th-century contemporaries, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky found inspiration in Shakespeare. His Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy uses the orchestra to summon the world of the play in a breathtaking blend of romantic passion, dramatic conflict, and lyrical beauty. Tchaikovsky was a master of melody, and Romeo and Juliet showcases some of his most memorable themes.
Felix Mendelssohn was yet another 19th-century composer who was enchanted by Shakespeare, creating the Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream when he was just 16 years old. It was immediately popular, and is still considered a work of effervescent genius—a lithe yet romantic piece featuring special effects made by the instruments to evoke aspects of Shakespeare’s play such as the scuttling feet of fairies and the braying of a donkey.
Anna Clyne’s Sound and Fury premiered in 2019, inspired by Shakespeare’s imagery, metaphor, and rhythmic use of language in Macbeth. Clyne seeks to take the listener on a journey that is both invigorating and reflective. San Francisco Classical Voice described this work as “a study in contrasts, with sometimes skittish outbursts of the music against the serenity of the poetry... It deserves a second and third hearing.”
Free open rehearsal of Symphonic Shakespeare:
Friday, March 28 at 7:30 PM at the Civic Auditorium in Santa Cruz
Doors open at 7:00 PM | No reservations required
Evening performance of Symphonic Shakespeare:
Saturday, March 29 at 7:30 PM at the Civic Auditorium in Santa Cruz
Doors open at 6:00 PM | Pre-concert talk at 6:30 PM
Matinee performance of Symphonic Shakespeare:
Sunday, March 30 at 2:00 PM at the Henry J. Mello Center in Watsonville
Doors open at 12:45 PM | Pre-concert talk at 1:00 PM
