BEACH CITIES SYMPHONY NEWSLETTER
THE BEACH CITIES SYMPHONY
BARRY BRISK, MUSIC DIRECTOR
PRESENTS
ARTISTS OF THE FUTURE
CONCERTO COMPETITION WINNERS
FRIDAY, MAY 13, 2005
CONCERT TIME: 8:15 P.M.
pre-concert lecture: 7:30 P.M.
Marsee Auditorium, El Camino College
Information: (310) 379-9725 or (310) 539-4649
Piano Concerto No.
1 in B flat (third movement): Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Eric A. Chang, soloist
Violin Concerto No. 5, K. 219 (first movement): Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Jessie Chen, soloist
Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major, op. 15 (third movement): Ludwig van Beethoven
Khoa Huynh, soloist
Flute Concerto in G major, K. 313 (first movement): W. A. Mozart
Kei Yoshimatsu, soloist
Also featuring:
Carmen Suite No. 1: Georges Bizet
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: Paul Dukas
MUSIC TEACHERS ASSOCIATION OF CALIFORNIA,
SOUTH BAY BRANCH
2005 ARTISTS OF THE FUTURE
CONCERTO COMPETITION WINNERS
ERIC CHANG, 17, is an honor roll student
at Palos Verdes High School. He has been studying piano with Anli Lin Tong
since age six; this will be his third appearance as an Artist of the Future Concerto
Competition winner. To date, Eric has won many awards, including second place
in the prestigious Los Angeles Philharmonic Bronislaw Kaper Award. He has won
the Bach Festival Concerto and Complete Works, the Bellflower Symphony Young
Artists, the CAPMT Sonata, the MTAC South Bay Scholarship, the Cypress College
Piano, the MTNA State, the Los Angeles Liszt, the Young Musicians Foundation
Debut, the Edith Knox Performance, and the MTAC State Concerto Piano
Competitions. At the Southwest Youth Music Festival, he won in both the Young
Pianist and Open Categories.
Since his orchestral debut at age 10, Eric has been featured as soloist with
the Asia America Youth Orchestra, the YMF Debut Camp Orchestra, the Culver City
Chamber Orchestra, the L.A. Bach Festival Orchestra, and the Bellflower
Symphony Orchestra. In addition to solo repertoire, he played in the 2002-03
YMF Chamber Series. His trio ensemble performed in a concert broadcast on
KMZT’s “Sundays Live.” Eric also plays ensembles with his older sister Norine,
a violinist.
JESSIE CHEN, who
is 10 years old, has been a student of Elmer Su for the past four years and
made his orchestral debut at age nine. He was a winner in the open category of
the 2003 and 2004 Southwest Youth Music Festival, won second place in the Los
Angeles Final of the American String Teachers Association Competition, and
first place in the MTAC VOCE (voice, orchestra instrumentalist, chamber music,
ensemble) branch competition. Also he has won the Torrance Symphony Bramhall
Concerto Competition and was a finalist in the Peninsula Symphony Orchestra’s
Edith Knox Performance Competition. He has already appeared as a soloist with
the Bellflower and Torrance Symphonies and in the 28th International Young
Artists Peninsula Music Festival. He will solo with the Palos Verdes Regional
Orchestra as well as the Beach Cities Symphony this May.
Jessie is in the fifth grade at Lunada Bay Elementary School in Palos Verdes
Estates. In addition to music, he likes math, sports cars, computers, and video
games.
KHOA HUYNH, age 10, started studying piano
with Maria Demina when he was five. Since then he has won several piano
competitions, including the Southwest Youth Music Festival, Cypress College,
and the Bellflower Symphony Orchestra. This spring he will be playing
Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Bellflower Symphony as well as with
our orchestra.
Khoa is a student at Washington Elementary in Redondo Beach where he is in the
GATE (Gifted and Talented Education) program. In his spare time, he enjoys
basketball, reading comic books, and watching movies.
KEI YOSHIMATSU is 18 years old and has studied
flute with Verna Balch for nearly four years. He has won numerous awards,
including the Junior Bach Festival Complete Works and Branch VOCE competitions.
Kei was the principal flutist in the Asia America Youth Symphony conducted by
David Benoit. This year, he was chosen for the All-Southern-California Honor
Orchestra.
Kei is a senior at Palos Verdes Peninsula High. Throughout high school, he has
been active in music groups including Marching Band, Concert Band, and
Drumline, where he achieved the position of Bass Drum Captain. In addition to
music, he has a great interest in academics, especially science. He hopes to
major in Biochemistry at a UC campus and continue his passion for music as a
minor study.
For the past six years, Target Corporation has generously supported our
annual Artists of the Future concert. The Beach Cities Symphony Association
wishes to thank Target in Torrance, their employee team, and Team Leader David
Diaz for their dedication to fostering young talent in the musical arts.
TIME TO JOIN
As the Beach Cities Symphony begins preparations for its 2005-2006 concert
season, your support is vital in covering the rising costs associated with
bringing free concerts to the public. Check next season’s schedule to see
what Music Director Barry Brisk has planned for your enjoyment.
With this mailing you will find an envelope for your 2005-2006 membership
subscription and a letter from Symphony Association President Bob Peterson explaining
some of the changes in membership categories. To make sure you remain on our
mailing list for the newsletter and concert reminders, and to be eligible for
prize drawings, post-concert receptions, and other members’ benefits, please click here to renew your subscription
now.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
We’re looking for an appropriate and catchy title for our
“Official Publication of the Beach Cities Symphony Association.” Submit a
possible name for our quarterly newsletter and see your name in print.
The person whose submission is chosen will have his or her name spotlighted in
the first newly titled 2005-06 issue. Send as many names as you wish by mail,
e-mail, or telephone. Deadline is July 31, 2005.
Mail: P.O. Box 248, Redondo Beach, CA 90277-0248
e-mail: info@BeachCitiesSymphony.org
Call: (310) 379-9725
MEMORIAL GIFTS
You are invited to honor friends and family members with a donation to the
Beach Cities Symphony Association, a non-profit organization. Memorial gifts
this season include those in remembrance of Paul Peterson and of Chester Smith.
You may also wish to include the Beach Cities Symphony in your will or bequest,
as did our faithful supporter Billyanna Niland.
Paul Peterson, a retired armament engineer, was a long-time Conductor’s Circle
supporter who attended our concerts for many years. His interest in music
stemmed from a brief encounter with the violin and years playing the flute in
bands in Iowa and California. We are grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Dean Helble and
to Charlotte Reinke for their recent gifts in his memory.
South Bay architect Chester Smith was a founder of the Riviera Village Rotary
Club and a member of the Redondo Beach Rotary Club. He and his sons, Jeff and
Steve Smith, also Rotarians, have supported the Beach Cities Symphony through
Rotary and through their individual interest. Our thanks to Kline Construction
and The Oarsmen Foundation for their gifts in memory of Chester Smith.
LIONELLO FORZANTI (pictured,
left), who joined the Beach Cities Symphony’s viola section this past season,
has had a long and distinguished musical career. Born in Venice, he earned
diplomas in violin, viola, chamber music, and composition in his native Italy.
He also studied orchestral conducting in Siena, Salzburg, and at La Scala in
Milan before being appointed orchestra director of the Cordoba Symphony in
Argentina. He taught viola, violin, and chamber music and served as guest
conductor throughout South America before moving to the United States with his
wife and family some 40 years ago.
After 4 years of teaching at the University of
Hartford in Connecticut, Mr. Forzanti joined the Dallas Symphony Orchestra as
Assistant Conductor and became its principal violist soon thereafter. He
retired from that position in 1999 at the age of 84, sold his instruments, and
stopped playing entirely.
In June of 2004, Mr. Forzanti came to live with his
daughter and her husband in the South Bay. We are benefiting from his decision
to begin playing viola again. We are also benefiting because his son-in-law is
John Cather, Principal Trumpet of the Beach Cities Symphony. Lionello Forzanti
honors and enriches this orchestra by his background, his experience, and his
presence.
BEACH CITIES
SYMPHONY 2005-2006 CONCERT SEASON
October 21, 2005
Burton Goldstein: Concert Suite, world première
Camille Saint-Saëns: Suite algérienne
Johannes Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat,
op. 83. Mikhail Gorachev, soloist
January 27, 2006
Virgil Thomson: Suite from “The Plow That Broke the
Plains”
Aaron Copland: Clarinet Concerto. Bradley Cohen,
soloist
Howard Hanson: Symphony No. 2, “Romantic”
March 24, 2006
Carl Maria von Weber: Euryanthe Overture
Jean Sibelius: Violin Concerto in D, op. 47. Elmer Su,
soloist
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 7 in A, op.
92
May 12, 2006
Gioachino Rossini: Barber of Seville Overture
MTAC Artists of the Future soloists: to be announced
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Capriccio espagnol, op. 34
WELCOME TO OUR NEW BEACH CITIES ASSOCIATION MEMBERS:
John W. Dykstra
Paul & Holly Harrie
Dottie Rodman
Mary Simpson
Thank you for supporting our organization!
John Gonzalez (Torrance) and C. R. King (Manhattan Beach) won CDs
in the members’ raffle at our concert on March 25. Mary Simpson (Torrance) won
the floral arrangement. Gus and Dee Gustavson (Redondo Beach) won the special
raffle, a one-year family membership to the Los Angeles Zoo.
MAY
CONCERT PROGRAM NOTES
By Toni Empringham and Bill Malcolm
Georges Bizet (1838-1875)
Carmen, an
opera in four acts, is based on the 1845 novel by Prosper Mérimée. Its title
character is a Gypsy whose beauty and passion determine her fate: death by
stabbing at the hand of a jealous lover. When the opera premièred in March of
1875, Carmen’s death on stage was considered risqué and scandalous; despite (or
because of) its controversial subject matter, this work was immediately
successful and enjoyed a run of 37 performances, unusual for its time. Bizet’s
untimely death within months of its opening resulted in several posthumous
orchestrations of music from the opera. Carmen Suite No. 1 includes the most
famous of its tuneful melodies, beginning with the Preludes to Act I and Act IV
and ending with the unforgettable “March of the Toreadors” that begins the
story’s action.
--Toni Empringham
Concerto in A Major for Violin and
Orchestra, K. 219 (first movement)
Concerto in G Major for Flute and
Orchestra, K. 313 (first movement)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
In his
first important position as concertmaster to Archbishop Colloredo at Salzburg,
Mozart composed five violin concertos in addition to a number of other
significant early works. Concerto No. 5 for Violin and Orchestra, completed in
December of 1775, is notable for the slow, lyrical solo that introduces the
violin following the orchestral opening in the first movement. From the lively
dance in the last section, the piece derives its common nickname of the
“Turkish” concerto.
By 1777
Mozart had become bored with the provincial atmosphere of Salzburg and began
searching for a more cosmopolitan place to live and earn money. He spent five
months in Mannheim between October 1777 and March 1778; during this time the
wealthy amateur flautist Ferdinand Dejean offered him 200 gulden for three
concertos and two flute quartets. The G major concerto, designed to showcase
Dejean’s abilities, begins with an Allegro maestoso movement that includes
octave and double-octave leaps, rapid 16th-note passages, and signature
Mozartean dotted rhythms. Unfortunately, the composer received less than half
the promised fee from his Dutch patron.
--T.E.
Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, op. 15
(third movement)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
The
concerto form achieved popularity during the Romantic Age because, like the
period it represents, it epitomizes the struggle between the individual and
society. From the 19th century perspective, the orchestra and soloist are
adversaries: the powerful, richly varied statement of the former versus the
uniquely nuanced interpretation of the latter. We see this in the C Major
concerto, op. 15, which is actually Beethoven’s third but is numbered his first
because it appeared in print before the other two. Despite its echoes of Mozart
and Haydn, the work contains distinct forward-looking elements, including the
syncopation that emerges in the third movement Rondo finale. Beethoven gave the
first public performance of this concerto in Prague at the end of 1798, on the
threshold of the Romantic era. The composer Václav Tomásek, who was in the
audience, wrote: “His grand style of playing . . . had an extraordinary
effect
upon me. I felt so shaken that for days I could not bring myself to touch the
piano.”
--T.E.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice by Paul Dukas
Dukas composed The Sorcerer¹s Apprentice in
1897 and premiered it that year.
The score calls for two flutes and piccolo,
two oboes, two clarinets and
bass clarinet, three bassoons and
contrabassoon, four horns, four trumpets,
three trombones, timpani and percussion, harp
and strings.
Paul Dukas (1865 - 1935) possessed great
talent and was deemed a bright
composer and orchestrater, but he wrote
sparingly. He entered the Paris
Conservatory in 1882, where his musical appetite
could be satisfied. His
fame was established with The Sorcerer's
Apprentice (tonight¹s selection)
and, later, his opera La Péri (from which the
brass section of our Beach
Cities Symphony played the fanfare a few
seasons ago).
Unfortunately, he found an early musical
career as a critic. He wrote a few
other large compositions in the last years of
his life, but he destroyed
them because he felt they did not meet his
earlier standards. It is a pity
Dukas didn¹t do as Camille Saint Saëns did
with his delightful Carnival of
the Animals and simply withhold it from
publication until after his death to
avoid any misgivings he had about his
works. But alas Dukas is remembered
almost exclusively for The Sorcerer's
Apprentice.
If one is to be considered a ³one work²
composer as Jim Sveda called him,
this one work couldn¹t be finer. The orchestration is on a par with
Rimsky-Korsakoff and most modern
orchestration texts reference Dukas as an
example of bassoon scoring or other technical
wonders. It was surely Dukas¹
transparent orchestration and vividly created
tone poem that led the Disney
Studios to select this work for the feature
film Fantasia and not the notion
that Mickey Mouse would look cute in a pointy
sorcerer¹s hat.
Dukas was true to Goethe¹s poem (synopsis
below) in his musical form. The
story depicts the constant return of the
bucket-bearing broom, and Dukas
cleverly shapes his symphonic poem in rondo
form, which brings the same
music back again and again, giving us a
musical image of that manic broom!
The Sorcerer's Apprentice Synopsis:
The story, based on a ballad by Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe, is a simple one:
A powerful magician must go out for a time,
and he leaves his young
apprentice in charge, with the particular order
that he take a couple of
buckets to the well and carry water back into
the house. The apprentice
finds this tedious work, and he decides to
try what he has learned so far.
He knows an enchantment that will bring the
old broom to life and make it
carry the buckets of water for him. His idea
works brilliantly until the
cistern is full and he realizes, to his
horror, that he has never learned
the command to stop the magic broom. In
desperation he takes an axe and
chops it into tiny pieces. But the magic causes
each little chip to grow
into a full-sized broom carrying buckets. The
poor apprentice is on the
verge of drowning because of his own spell
when the master returns and
quickly puts everything right again<with
the water in the cistern at its
original level. Then he hands the apprentice
the buckets and orders him to
get back to work.
--Bill Malcolm
Beach
Cities Symphony News
Text:
Toni Empringham Graphics: Ralph
Dame Editor-in-Chief: Margaret
McWilliams
BCSA,
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