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December 2002 Newsletter

Beach Cities Symphony

THE BEACH CITIES SYMPHONY

BARRY BRISK, MUSIC DIRECTOR 

PRESENTS A NIGHT AT THE OPERA

DEMETRA GEORGE, soprano

STEPHEN PLUMMER, tenor

Featuring arias and duets by Bizet, Puccini and Verdi

NEXT CONCERT FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2003

Marsee Auditorium, El Camino College 

Crenshaw Blvd. at Redondo Beach Blvd.

Torrance, California

FREE ADMISSION & FREE PARKING

Concert time: 8:15 P.M.

Pre-concert lecture: 7:30 P.M.

Information: (310) 379-9725 or (310) 539-4649

Arrival of the Guests from Tannhäuser:Richard Wagner

Arias & duets from La Traviata, Carmen, & La Bohème:Demetra George and Stephen Plummer, soloists

Dance of the Seven Veils from Salome:Richard Strauss

Waltz from Eugene Onegin:Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky

Arias & duets from Rigoletto, Tosca, & La Bohème: Demetra George and Stephen Plummer, soloists

Triumphal March & Ballet from Aïda:Giuseppe Verdi

DEMETRA GEORGE, the soprano whose performance delighted our audience in the Beach Cities Symphony’s 1999 “Night in Old Vienna,” will once again be featured in our January 17 concert along with tenor Stephen Plummer. Ms. George will sing arias from La Bohème and Tosca, and will be joined by Mr. Plummer in duets by Verdi and Puccini.

Ms. George appeared this past summer in concerts of opera, operetta, and pops with the Rio Hondo, Torrance, and Redlands Bowl orchestras. Also in 2002 she sang the lead in La Traviata and Mimi in La Bohème with the Nevada Opera Theater and has been a frequent performer in Las Vegas at NOT galas.A 2001 and 2002 Grammy Award semifinalist for her first CD, “Demetra George Sings Love Arias,” she then recorded “Broadway 101,” showcasing Broadway and Disney songs with her young Florida voice students whom she trained and sent on to professional careers. A native of Oklahoma and a scholarship winner to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Ms. George will be returning to New York in February 2003 for a “Love Songs” concert in Weill Hall/Carnegie Hall as a finalist in the Classical Productions national competition.

STEPHEN PLUMMER is a California native who has performed in concerts and on the stage throughout the United States. In addition to duets with Demetra George, his solos on January 17 will include “The Flower Song” from Carmen and “Vissi d’arte” from Tosca. After graduating from California State University, Northridge, with a degree in vocal performance, Mr. Plummer became an original resident artist with the Los Angeles Opera, singing eight seasons as understudy for Plácido Domingo in addition to performances in Le Nozze di Figaro, Macbeth, The Tales of Hoffman, and Otello. He has also performed leading roles in La Traviata, La Bohème, La Fanciulla del West, Madame Butterfly, and Tosca with Tri Cities Opera in New York, Fort Worth Opera, Redlands Bowl Opera Festival, Lake George Opera Festival, and New Orleans Opera. One of his fondest memories is singing Don Jose in Carmen on national tour with Victor Borge conducting. He has also sung operetta and musical theater, including Sweeney Todd and Pirates of Penzance. Last summer was his first appearance as Count Almaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia in the Redlands Bowl Opera Festival.

A NIGHT AT THE OPERA resonates with multiple meanings depending on each listener’s cultural conditioning and previous exposure. An immediate association for some is the 1935 Marx Brothers movie of the same name, in which Otis B. Driftwood (Groucho Marx) berates his hackney driver for delivering him to a performance five minutes before the final curtain. “Because of you I nearly heard the opera!” Then he commands, “Once around the park--and drive slowly!” Later in the film, trying to impress the wealthy Mrs. Claypool (Margaret Dumont) as both are hearing an aria from Il Trovatore, Groucho wonders, “What was that? High C, or Vitamin D?”

For those of you who share Groucho’s level of sophistication and anxiety when anticipating A Night at the Opera, Music Director Barry Brisk has chosen the ideal program: an assortment of melodic, universally beloved highlights from the cream of operatic repertoire. To complement the singers’ offerings, he has surrounded them with orchestral selections frequently heard on the radio but not often in a live concert. “Here we have a concert of short [vocal] pieces which allowed for their presentation,” concludes Maestro Brisk, “rather than the more usual programming of three or four large works ”So we have something for everybody: superbly sung arias and duets for those familiar with and appreciative of famous opera repertoire; an ideal introductory concert for those who identify with Groucho and the gang. This night at the opera is not to be missed.

OUR OCTOBER 25, 2002, CONCERT, the first of the Symphony’s 53rd season, began with a rarely heard gem, Claude Debussy’s Première Rhapsodie for Clarinet and Orchestra, featuring principal clarinetist Bradley Cohen. According to Daily Breeze reviewer Kari Sayers, Cohen’s “elegant” performance “brought out the nuances in the high and low registers and made the dissonance sound pleasing.” For the remainder of the evening, Music Director Barry Brisk led a program that featured El Camino’s combined Community Choir, Voce Angelicus, Chorale, and Concert Choir under the direction of Leslie Back and Joanna Nachef. While only the Women’s Chorus, or Voce Angelicus, was heard in the last of Debussy’s Three Nocturnes, completing the first half of the program, the combined choirs performed in the high point of the concert: Schicksalslied, or Song of Destiny, by Johannes Brahms. The evening ended with “Va, pensiero,” from Nabucco by Giuseppe Verdi. “As is tradition,” Sayers noted, “the audience [was] invited to sing along” and did so rousingly.

Before the Schicksalslied, Brisk paid tribute to Mehli Mehta, Conductor Laureate of the American Youth Symphony and father of Zubin Mehta, who died on October 19 at the age of 94. A mentor and friend of Brisk and also of Beach Cities Symphony Concertmaster Rebecca Rutkowski, the late Maestro loved the music of Brahms above that of any other composer. For that reason, Brisk dedicated the Song of Destiny to the memory of this exceptional musician and human being.

CYBERSPACE UPDATE:http://BeachCitiesSymphony.org

Four years after its inception, the Beach Cities Symphony’s web site is flourishing, thanks to Dr. Peter Landecker’s initiative and many hours of work. His goals in starting the site, to increase publicity and communication channels as well as to attract new players for the orchestra, have been met to an impressive degree. “As of December 2002,” notes Landecker, “the [Symphony’s] home page has been accessed about 12,000 times!” The week before a concert, about 200 people visit the home page site as well as usually use one or more links to maps, newsletter articles, photos, and other materials. The path to the site’s current web address and sophistication is full of turns and involved a steep learning curve on Landecker’s part. “I originally wrote content code in HTML [Hyper Text Markup Language] by trial and lots of errors, since I was never trained to use this computer code.” After establishing a free web site with Geocities, he notified various search engines of Beach Cities Symphony’s cyber presence and requested links from other web pages to ours. He also went from a single home page to a multi-layered series of supporting links to current and back issues of the newsletter, the history of the organization, information about Music Director Barry Brisk, an area map showing routes to Marsee Auditorium, and lists of orchestra players, program advertisers, and financial contributors. He even provided a membership form to encourage new or renewing Symphony Association donors. A link to Amazon.com was established in order to provide a 5% rebate for our organization. A year ago, tiring of the annoying Geocities ads, Landecker switched to the current http://BeachCitiesSymphony.org web address for a nominal annual fee.

The web as a communication tool is nothing short of astonishing. New players have joined the orchestra as a result of finding us via the Internet. Former friends and composers who want a venue for their works have contacted Music Director Barry Brisk (conductor@BeachCitiesSymphony.org). Former friends of orchestra members have also re-established contact via a web name search. As the popularity of the site has grown, so have Landecker’s duties as Webmaster. Therefore, in November 2002 he switched to an automated mailing list service provided by Yahoo in order to lighten the burden of sending concert reminders. Those on the existing reminder list have already been notified; if anyone new wants to receive these timely messages, send a blank e-mail address to http://beachcitiessymphony-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. (Landecker and Yahoo assure subscribers of privacy and no sharing of addresses.) Landecker welcomes your comments at peter@BeachCitiesSymphony.org.

In addition to managing our web site and playing violin at our concerts, Landecker works on weather satellites and space sciences projects at TRW. Nevertheless, he manages to travel three months or so every year. In 2002, for example, he spent four weeks in Thailand and three weeks in South Africa; the photo at the top of the page shows him in on Table Mountain in Cape Town. For more information on his interests and activities you can visit--you guessed it--his own personal web site: http://geocities.com/plandecker. 

FUNDING SUPPORT

The Beach Cities Symphony Association is extremely grateful for funding received through a matching grant from Phillip D. Pitchford, a Senior Vice President with Salomon Smith Barney. Mr. Pitchford is a major benefactor to the SPCA-LA and funded the P. D. Pitchford Animal Companion Center in Long Beach. As someone who loves the arts, especially local community groups, he presented an unusual $1,000 challenge by pledging to match new contributions from orchestra players who either became first-time members or increased their current level of support. To date the musicians have nearly doubled the amount of the challenge. If you would like to become a private or corporate benefactor to the orchestra, please call our information number: 310-379-9725.

WELCOME TO OUR NEW BCSA MEMBERS:

Joyce Block-Miller

Jamie Boelter

Raelinda Brown

Bob Duhe

Steve Fry

Sandra Klein

Walter & Lilly Kuder

Mr. & Mrs. James D. Moore

Bill Nunan & Eve Ahlers

Yoko Ohmori

Donald & Marlene Okada

Matt Overholser

Phillip Pitchford

Donald Pitts

Erika & Brian Robinson

Dick Rossberg

Dawn Shepard

Sally Amundsen Tierney

Michael Van Dam

Grace Van Dusen

Jerome Welner

Sharlene Yelin

MATCHING FUNDS CORPORATIONS:

Arco

Best Foods

Chevron Products Company

Honeywell (Allied Signal)

Los Angeles Times 

Mattel

TRW

Thank you for supporting our organization!

OUR REMAINING CONCERTS FOR THE 2002-03 SEASON:

March 14, 2003

M. Ravel: Mother Goose Suite

Ho Zhan Hao and Cheh Kang: The Butterfly Lovers. Elmer Su, violin soloist

N. Rimsky-Korsakov: Suite from The Golden Cockerel

May 30, 2003

Charles Fernandez: Cartoon Suite (world première)

Artists of the Future soloists: to be announced

P. I. Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet

Beach Cities Symphony Association

Post Office Box 248

Redondo Beach, CA 90277-0248

Information line: 310-379-9725 or 310-539-4649

Visit our web page: http://BeachCitiesSymphony.org

To receive e-mail reminders of concerts, send a blank e-mail to beachcitiessymphony-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Send web page comments to peter@BeachCitiesSymphony.org

Text: Toni Empringham

Graphics: Ralph Dame

Editor/Advisor: Margaret McWilliams

The BCSA is an Amazon.com Associate. When you use our link to purchase CDs, books, etc. from Amazon, not only do you receive a discount, but also part of the purchase price goes directly to the Symphony as a referral fee. The link is www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/beachcitiessymph.

 

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