Festive, passionate, and explosive music: Festivals concerts March 23/24

Welcome spring with our Festivals concerts!

Our Festivals concerts March 23/24 arrive just after the spring equinox—a significant turning point in the year. As rainy weather gives way to balmy days and light overturns darkness, Santa Cruz Symphony invites you to celebrate the renewal of warmth and the promise of spring. Join us as we experience festive, passionate, and occasionally explosive works by Granero, Schumann, and Stravinsky. Learn more about our featured soloist and composer here.

José González Granero wrote his Matsuri Overture in 2017 after witnessing ancient traditions blending with modern life at Kyoto’s Ebisu Festival. Matusuri means festival in Japanese, carrying connotations of comfort, prayer, and gratitude. Dedicated to the god of good luck and business prosperity, Ebisu Festival is a time when thousands of people enact rituals to bring success, asking for Ebisu’s blessing to overcome adversity with cheerful perseverance. Granero’s overture welcomes us into the beauty and ambience of Kyoto during this unique celebration.

Written in 1850, Robert Schumann’s Cello Concerto demonstrates Schumann’s compositional genius through an extended emotional arc, a powerful sense of character development, and hidden musical messages. Never performed during Schumann’s lifetime, this “lost masterpiece” has since come to be known as one of the great Romantic works for the cello. Award-winning featured soloist Gaeun Kim will dazzle us as she conveys the poetic depth of this entrancing concerto all the way to its thrilling conclusion.

In Petrushka, Igor Stravinsky finds his true voice, inventing ways to express physical movement in musical terms. The composer was only 28 years old when Ballet Russes impresario Sergei Diaghilev approached him in 1910 for another collaboration following Stravinsky’s success with The Firebird. Praised as a feat of sophisticated theatrical folklorism, Petrushka tells the story of a deadly love triangle between puppets who come to life. Petrushka is a mischievous clown, a representative of the trickster archetype who disrupts the status quo. We’ll follow his exhilarating journey and listen as Petrushka has the last laugh via the recurring “Petrushka chord.”

Come share the magic of these lush compositions!

Saturday 3/23 at 7:30 PM (Pre-concert talk at 6:30)
Civic Auditorium in Santa Cruz

Sunday 3/24 at 2 PM (Pre-concert talk at 1)
Henry J. Mello Center in Watsonville

The Family Concert: Celebrating Our Community Partners

Santa Cruz Symphony’s commitment to music education goes far beyond "Do-Re-Mi." Our educational programs include professional musicians, movement, rhythm, dancing, instruments, group participation, cultural traditions, and so much more. We invite some of the best music and dance performers in the county to help us inspire your children.

But that's not all. This Sunday, February 25, at 2pm you'll get to enjoy the culmination of all this education. Our annual Family Concert at the Civic Auditorium is an extravaganza of musical and dance talent from all over Santa Cruz County. Parents, grandparents, and children look forward to this event every year. We've even seen children dancing in the aisles and applauding.

Here are the incredible community partner organizations who will share the stage with Santa Cruz Symphony on Sunday afternoon...

Santa Cruz County Youth Symphony

Santa Cruz County Youth Symphony serves young musicians ages 10 to 20 as the area’s only training orchestra of pre-professional caliber. Under the guidance of Music Director Nathaniel Berman, the Youth Symphony cultivates a love of classical music and a spirit of collaboration among young musicians of Santa Cruz County and introduces young people from all socio-economic and cultural backgrounds to the joys of orchestral and chamber music. Learn more at sccys.org.

Cabrillo Youth Chorus

The Cabrillo Youth Chorus seeks to educate, develop, and inspire young people to attain the highest possible level of choral artistry. This goal is achieved through excellent teaching with a focus on music literacy, tone development, ear-training, and working with professional musicians. Since its inception, nearly 1,000 young singers have been through the program, many of whom have become music majors in college. Learn more at cabrilloyouthchorus.org.

Santa Cruz Ballet Theatre

Santa Cruz Ballet Theatre’s mission is to inspire the community and create opportunities for young artists through the advancement of the art of ballet. A pre-professional training organization, SCBT has graduated many dancers into the field of classical ballet. SCBT builds leaders in their dancers by instilling work ethic, organizational skills, self-confidence, cognitive thinking, and teamwork. Learn more at scbt.org.

Esperanza del Valle

Esperanza del Valle Ballet Folklórico Dance Company of Watsonville has been dedicated to the dissemination, preservation, and performance of the rich traditional dances of Mexico in the community since 1980. Their mission is to cultivate and promote pride and understanding of Mexican culture through its rich folkloric dances rooted in the merging of the Indigenous, European, and African heritages. Learn more at esperanzadelvalle.org.

El Sistema

El Sistema Santa Cruz/Pajaro Valley gives the children of Watsonville and Pajaro Valley the tools to claim their cultural heritage and build their creative and social legacy through music education. Believing that learning to read and play music together will develop children’s individual talents and teach them how to collaborate, the group has garnered national recognition, with support from esteemed funders such as the Lewis Prize and the National Endowment for the Arts. Find them on Facebook or learn more at elsistemasantacruz.org.

Kuumbwa Jazz Honor Band

The Kuumbwa Jazz Honor Band showcases talented high-school student musicians from Santa Cruz County and the Central Coast region. During weekly rehearsals, the band studies advanced jazz theory, arranging, and improvisation, all while learning valuable life skills in teamwork and critical thinking. You can find Kuumbwa Jazz Honor Band performing at special events and festivals throughout the school year, culminating in a special headline performance at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center. Learn more at kuumbwajazz.org.

Whimsical Storytelling Through Music? Yes! And You're Invited...

French composer Camille Saint-Saëns was at the height of his career in 1886. For years, he had been building a reputation as a serious, respected composer. While hard at work on his Symphony No. 3, he realized he needed a break. Rest would help him complete his opus. But while traveling to Austria for a vacation, he continued to compose—not a symphony this time, but something he considered light and amusing. Inspired by the animals he’d seen during his many travels, Saint-Saëns wrote The Carnival of the Animals, a piece his contemporaries referred to as a “zoological fantasy.”

The Carnival of the Animals was an immediate hit with those who heard it, but for several decades its audience was limited to semi-private performances. Feeling that the work was frivolous in comparison with his more serious compositions, Saint-Saëns decreed that the piece could not be published or performed until after his death, with just a few exceptions. When The Carnival of the Animals was finally published in 1922 and publicly performed in Paris, it was rapturously received. As French newspaper Le Figaro reported, "In every bar, at every point, there are unexpected and irresistible finds."

It's hard to believe that Saint-Saëns restricted performance of The Carnival of the Animals for so long, as it’s now one of the most famous classical music pieces ever written. Each of the 14 movements depicts a single or group of animals through playfulness, wit, and remarkably creative instrumental voicing. Considered one of his best works, the piece combines virtuoso level musicianship with powers of natural observation and unique storytelling ability.

At the Family Concert on Sunday, February 25, you’ll enjoy this gorgeous and highly entertaining orchestral work being performed by Santa Cruz Symphony and Santa Cruz County Youth Symphony. You’ll also see and hear “The Orchestra Moves,” the Carnegie Hall Link Up program performed by Santa Cruz Symphony and our community partners.

The Family Concert is a vibrant musical event with entertainment for all ages. At previous Family Concerts, we've seen children dancing in the aisles and eagerly applauding. That's how much they loved it! Learn more about our Youth and Family Concerts here.