Oakland East Bay Symphony Releases Schedule for 2015-2016 Season

Oakland, CA, April 21, 2015 - Music Director and Conductor Michael Morgan and the Oakland East Bay Symphony have announced an unusually eclectic season for 2015-2016 including premieres, guest artists and music spanning 300 years from Bach to today in seven concerts at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland. Highlights of the 27th season include guest artists Kenneth Renshaw, Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ, Tracy Silverman And Amy Likar Plus Toland Vocal Arts Competition And Young Artist Competition Winners. In keeping with its programming philosophy of presenting an insightful and innovative palette of music that represents a variety of traditions-and creating a few-Maestro Morgan and the Symphony will perform music by Mason Bates, John Adams, Martin Rokeach, David Conte, Bendix, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Bernstein, Cherubini, Stravinsky, Ravel and Frank Sinatra. Of special note are thematic programs including Notes From Vietnam, which will introduce audiences to music and guest artists from symphonic traditions other than the mainstream, a new annual "Lost Romantics" series in which Morgan will conduct gorgeous and compelling but somewhat forgotten music by composers who were better known in their time than ours and vocal soloists who have won the Oakland-based James Toland Vocal Competition in their debuts. All concerts will be preceded by a pre-performance talk one hour before curtain, free to all ticket-holders. For complete season information, visit www.oebs.org and follow the Symphony at www.facebook.com/OEBSymphony , Twitter@OakSym and Youtube: oebsym

Subscriptions are priced $80-$355. Current subscribers may renew their subscriptions now through May 15 to retain their seats and other benefits.

The 2015-2016 Season is supported by Art Works, National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council, City of Oakland, Grubb & Co, Wells Fargo, Bell Investment Advisors, MN Builders and Chevron

OAKLAND EAST BAY SYMPHONY 2015-2016 SEASON
Michael Morgan, Music Director and Conductor
Lynne Morrow, Oakland Symphony Chorus Director (10th Anniversary Season)
Omid Zoufonoun, Oakland Symphony Youth Orchestra Principal Conductor

Michael Morgan conducts unless otherwise noted. All performances at the Paramount Theatre, 2025 Broadway in Oakland. Programs and artists subject to change.

Renshaw & Rachmaninoff

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2015, at 8 pm

Mason Bates: Devil's Radio (West Coast Premiere); Prokofiev: Violin Concerto no. 2 (Kenneth Renshaw, violin); Brahms: Liebeslieder Waltzes selections conducted by Lynne Morrow, celebrating 10 Years as Oakland Symphony Chorus Director; Rachmaninoff:Symphonic Dances

Two internationally acclaimed local artists--composer Mason Bates, who has worked with the Symphony since early in his career, and Menuhin Competition winner and Crowden School alumnus Kenneth Renshaw--take the stage for what promises to be a sensational season opening. Bates's Devil's Radio (2014) swings and grooves from quietly propulsive to shimmering melodic "lures" to a bluesy bassline. Kenneth Renshaw brings a formidable technique and interpretive flair to Prokofiev's virtuoso concerto. Oakland Symphony Chorus Music Director Lynne Morrow celebrates ten years on the podium conducting selections from Brahms's lyrical Liebeslieder Waltzes and Rachmaninoff's lush Symphonic Dances complete the program.

Lost Romantics

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2015, at 8 pm

Bach/Stokowski: Toccata and Fugue in D minor; Mendelssohn: Piano Concerto no. 1, (Llewellyn Sanchez-Werner, piano) Composers and works TBA featuring 2015 Toland Voice Competition winner; Victor Bendix: Symphony no. 3

Continuing a long-standing and celebrated tradition of introducing some of the most compelling young artists on the international music scene, Maestro Morgan has invited the winner of the 2015 James Toland Vocal Arts Competition, based in the Bay Area, for their Oakland East Bay Symphony debut. Phenomenal young pianist, Llewellyn Sanchez-Werner returns following his triumphant debut last season on Notes from Mexico. The Symphony will roll out the first in a new series exploring dazzling lost Romantic works. Danish composer Victor Bendix's Third Symphony (1894) features unusually rich harmonic textures, beautiful string interludes and majestic winds. Conductor Leopold Stokowski's orchestration of Bach's monumental Toccata and Fugue in D minor-which has one of the3 most recognizable opening themes in all music - helped spark a mid-20th century flood of interest in Bach's sublime works, and its beingfeatured in Disney's 1940 Fantasia brought it to the attention of millions.

Let Us Break Bread Together - Sinatra Style

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2015, at 4 pm

Celebrating 100 years since the birth of an American legend

Celebrate the 100th birthday of "Ol' Blue Eyes," one of the most versatile and popular American music icons of the 20th century, as part of the Bay Area's most beloved non-traditional holiday tradition: Let Us Break Bread Together. In addition to holiday music from many cultures and observances, the afternoon will feature choral arrangements of Sinatra songs and guest artists including Mt. Eden High School Choir, Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, Oakland Symphony Chorus and Vocal Rush from Oakland School of the Arts.

Notes from Vietnam

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2016, at 8 pm

Dvo?ák: Carnival Overture, Concerto TBA featuring Oakland East Bay Symphony 2015 Young Artist Competition winner; other works to be announced
Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ: Lullaby for a Country (Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ, dan tranh zither) (World Premiere)

Emmy Award-winner, Academy Award contributing composer and Vietnamese dan tranh(Vietnamese zither) virtuoso Vân-Ánh Võ headlines this year's edition of Oakland East Bay Symphony's Notes from . . . series that has brought more than a dozen world symphonic music traditions to the stage. Võ's genre-bending work has clearly struck a chord with a fusion of Vietnamese and American idioms and sound. Additional Vietnamese artists and music will be announced and the program also features the Oakland East Bay Symphony debut of the winner of the 2015 Young Artist Competition.

Beethoven's Choice

FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 2016, at 8 pm

Cherubini: Requiem with the Oakland Symphony Chorus; Martin Rokeach: Piccolo Concerto with Amy Likar, piccolo (WORLD PREMIERE); Beethoven: Symphony no. 2

Beethoven is said to have preferred Luigi Cherubini's 1815 Requiem to Mozart's better-known and more widely performed one. Composed to commemorate the regicide of France's Louis XVI, it showcases brooding and majestic melodies, smoldering Byronic harmonies and a pulse-pounding Offertorium in the form of a fugue. Beethoven's Second Symphony (1802) bears the marks of the energetic and iconoclastic composer at full stride. Bay Area musicologist Robert Greenberg asserts that the work's opening bars evoke the composer's hiccups due to gastric problems, and who but Beethoven could spin a symphony from such humble material? Bay Area Composer Martin Rokeach's new Piccolo Concerto featuring the Symphony's own Amy Likar promises to showcase the instrument's uniquely beautiful voice and what the composer calls "its haunting low register."

Stravinsky & Silverman

FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2016, at 8 pm

Stravinsky: Symphony of Psalms; 2014 Toland Voice Competition Winner (Nicole Greenidge, soprano) work TBA John Adams: The Dharma at Big Sur with Tracy Silverman, electric violin; Ravel: La Valse

Bay Area composer John Adams composed The Dharma at Big Sur for the opening of Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles in 2003 with Tracy Silverman as its electric violin soloist. In addition to an unusual solo instrument, its playful orchestration includes electronic samplers, ten gongs and two flower pots. Dharma's sinuous solo passages and descriptive orchestral writing emerge as if from a fog into crystal clear phrases in homage of American composers Lou Harrison and Terry Riley. Adams composed it to evoke what he calls the "shock of recognition" that happens when reaching the end of a continental land mass in a spectacular place like Big Sur, CA. Stravinsky's neoclassical choral symphony and Ravel's ebullient, impressionistic dance-hall romp are the perfect bookends to Adams' amazing concerto.

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