Please join us for the opening concert of our 10th anniversary season!!

Our concert, entitled "New Worlds, New Sounds," features music inspired by new sounds, new experiences, and new worlds.

The concert opens with a set of pieces by Leonora Duarte, a 17th- century Flemish composer, featuring the SSU Brass Ensemble, led by Dan Norris.

Next on the program is Gabriella Smith's Field Guide. Smith, a Bay Area native, was inspired to write this work based on bird-watching experiences on the Point Reyes National Seashore. The work is an homage to bird song, and demands that the orchestra members imitate the sound of birds in unexpected and fascinating ways.

The first half of the concert concludes with John Mackey's Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra, featuring 2024 Concerto Competition winner Colin Bartlett. The concerto draws on several different types of "new sounds" - Indian and African modes and rhythms in the first movement, and 70's rock n'roll in the second movement.

The second half of the program features the most iconic work of "new sounds" in all of orchestral music - Antonin Dvorak's Symphony No. 9, "From the New World." Dvorak wrote this piece as a love letter to America while he was in the country teaching at the newly-created National Conservatory of Music in New York. It features quotations of African-American spirituals, Appalachian fiddle playing, and myriad references to Longfellow's epic poem "Hiawatha," all mixed with the composer's signature Czech palette.

CONCERT PROGRAM LINK

Program:

Leonora Duarte, - Sinfonia No.1 (SSU Brass Ensemble, Dan Norris, Conductor)

Leonora Duarte, - Sinfonia No. 2 (SSU Brass Ensemble, Dan Norris, Conductor)

Gabriella Smith, Field Guide

John Mackey, Percussion Concerto (Colin Bartlett, soloist and 2024 Concerto Competition Winner)

Antonin Dvorak Symphony No. 9, “From the New World”