FRIDAY, MAY 12, 2006

Marsee Auditorium, El Camino College

Crenshaw Blvd. at Redondo Beach Blvd.

FREE ADMISSION and FREE PARKING

Concert time: 8:15 p.m., pre-concert lecture: 7:30 p.m.

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

PROGRAM

Piano Concerto No. 2 in F (first movement): Dmitri Shostakovich
Rachel H. Chung, soloist
Piano Concerto No. 1 in F sharp (first movement): Sergei Rachmaninoff
Ian Counts, soloist
Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor (first movement): Karl Goldmark
Kristie Su, soloist
Piano Concerto No. 3 in D major, “Youth Concerto” (first movement): Dmitri Kabalevsky
Kathryn Wu, soloist
Also featuring:
Barber of Seville Overture: Gioachino Rossini
Capriccio Espagnol, Op. 34: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

MUSIC TEACHERS ASSOCIATION OF CALIFORNIA,
SOUTH BAY BRANCH
2006 ARTISTS OF THE FUTURE

RACHEL HYOJAE CHUNG, who is 12 years old, is a student of Mihyang Keel and has been studying piano since the age of four. She has accumulated numerous competition prizes, including the Southwest Youth Music Festival open categories and the Cypress Piano Competition. By the age of eight, she had performed in many concert halls, notably Zipper Hall in Los Angeles, where she performed the Haydn Piano Concerto in D major. In 2003 she won first place in the Los Angeles Korea Times Piano Competition, and in summer of 2005 she was first place winner at the Puigcerda International Piano Competition in Spain. She has performed recitals in New York City’s Steinway Hall and Yamaha Hall, and in November she performed as an invited guest with the Nasung Symphony Orchestra.

In 2006 Rachel has already performed with the Culver City Symphony Orchestra as a winner of its annual Concerto Competition. She has also been selected a semi-finalist in the current Edith Knox Competition with the finals yet to come. She received Honorable Mention in the 2006 Antelope Valley Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition for young adults. She is an honor roll student at Ridgecrest Intermediate School in Palos Verdes and enjoys being the pianist in her school orchestra. Her other interests include mathematics, art, dance, and playing with her Yorkshire terrier, Chopin, named after her favorite composer.

IAN COUNTS, who was also an Artists of the Future winner in 2003, is a fifteen-year-old sophomore at Palos Verdes Peninsula High School and a member of his school’s symphonic orchestra. He began formal piano lessons at age seven and has been a student of Hyeja Chong Ganahl since 2001. Ian is a six-time prize winner in open categories at the Southwest Youth Music Festival, including first place in Open Solo and Open Chopin Ballade categories. He took first prize at the Southern California Junior Bach Festival Complete Works Audition in 2002. In 2004 he won the Lubie Award at the MTAC South Bay Branch Scholarship Audition and received Honorable Mention at the Music Teachers National Association State Junior Performance Competition. Ian was awarded First Alternate in MTAC Concerto (Southern Division) in 2005 and an Honorable Mention in the MTAC Scholarship Audition.

In 2005 Ian performed twice in master classes with Dr. Dean Kramer of the University of Oregon. Last summer he also appeared in his first international recital in Yucatan, Mexico. Most recently, he won his audition with the Young Musicians Foundation and will perform this spring with a piano trio under the direction of Ben Hong of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In addition, he is a Spotlight Awards semi-finalist for 2006, and he performed in March at a master class with USC professor John Perry.

KRISTIE SU, age ten, began studying violin with her father, Elmer Su, at age three. She has won several competitions, including first place and grand prize at the American String Teachers Association Greater Los Angeles Finals in 2005. In February she won the 2006 Bellflower Young Artists Concerto Competition and played with the Bellflower Symphony Orchestra on April 8.
Kristie attends Soleado Elementary School in Rancho Palos Verdes. She is a straight-A honor student whose hobbies include playing handball, drawing cartoons, and reading.

Elmer Su and his daughter Kristie

KATHRYN WU, who is fourteen years old, has been playing piano since age five. For the past two years her teacher has been Sylvia Ho. Kathryn has won the Bach Regional Festival and the Hollywood Winter Fest. She has also earned prizes at the Southwest Youth Music Festival, including first place in the Piano Solo category.

Kathryn is an eighth-grader at Bert Lynn Middle School and attends honors classes at West High School. A GATE (Gifted And Talented Education) student, she has been on the honor roll for three consecutive years. Currently she is treasurer of the California Junior Scholarship Federation as well as a member of Youth Act. Early this year, she was first place winner for AMC 8 (American Mathematics Contest) at her school, where she was also chosen captain of the MathCounts team. In addition, she is the accompanist for the Bert Lynn School Chorus.

For the past seven years, Target Corporation has generously supported our annual Artists of the Future concert. The Beach Cities Symphony Association wishes to thank Target in Torrance for their dedication to fostering young talent in the musical arts.

NOW HEAR THIS: Young Audience Previews! For the first time, young audience members who come to the Artists of the Future concert will be able to attend their own pre-concert lecture. While Music Director Barry Brisk enlightens grown-ups at his regular 7:30 p.m. presentation, children and teens from grades one through high school will be invited to the mezzanine level. Four students have been chosen by their music teachers and coached by Anli Lin Tong, who heads the Artists of the Future competition and is the innovator of this program. The young presenters will talk about the composers and concertos which competition winners will be playing later in the evening. Audio clips will enhance the lectures, and the more adventurous students have been encouraged to role-play by assuming the identity of their subjects: Goldmark, Kabalevsky, Rachmaninoff, and Shostakovich. Presenters will be rewarded by gift certificates donated by Sandra Clay, owner of A’Muse. Look for lobby signs directing young people to this very special event at 7:30 p.m. on May 12.

Program Notes

Overture to The Barber of Seville
Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868)

On December 15, 1815, Rossini signed a contract to write an opera based on the comedy The Barber of Seville by Beaumarchais. Only two months elapsed between the signing of the contract and the opera’s opening night in Rome. It was with such rapidity and confidence that Rossini established his reputation as the leading figure in early 19th century opera. Working at such a pace during the years 1813-1826 (he retired at age 37 from composing), he sometimes wrote and supervised the music for four or five productions in one year. He obviously had some tricks to meet these hectic schedules, and recycling overtures from previous operas was among them. The overture to The Barber of Seville as it is now known was originally written for Aurelian in Palmira, produced in Milan in December of 1813, and later reused for Elizabeth, Queen of England, produced in Naples in October of 1815. Both were serious, even tragic, operas! It is ironic--and shows how little the overture in Rossini’s day had to do with the operas they preceded--that this overture should attain immortality for Rossini’s greatest comedy. The form is typical of Rossini’s overtures: slow introduction, quick main section with two themes repeated; concluding cadences. Following each statement of the lyrical second theme, listen for the famous “Rossini crescendo.” Not just an increase in volume, this crescendo becomes wildly exciting through a buildup of orchestral forces, upward movement of pitch, increase in articulation, and increasingly rapid rhythmic patterns.

--Bill Malcolm

Concerto No. 1 for Violin and Orchestra in A minor, Op. 28
Karl (Károly) Goldmark (1830-1915)

The son of a poor Jewish cantor, Goldmark was sent from his native Hungary to study music in Vienna, which became his home for most of his life. He worked as a theater violinist, gave lessons (Sibelius was one of his students for a short period), wrote music criticism, and began to compose. Goldmark wrote six operas and numerous orchestral and chamber works. The A minor Violin Concerto, which never had a successor, had its première in 1877 and was quite popular in the late nineteenth century. The opening movement captures attention with a decisive marching tempo which is answered with the soloist’s lyrical virtuoso passages and a full Romantic cadenza reminiscent of Mendelssohn’s more famous violin concerto. While the Goldmark was infrequently performed for a time, it is again becoming popular. Its more recent performers include the late Nathan Milstein, Ruggiero Ricci, and Joshua Bell.

--Toni Empringham

Concerto No. 3 for Piano and Orchestra in D major, Op. 50: The “Youth Concerto”
Dmitri Kabalevsky (1904-1987)

Kabalevsky, who was born in St. Petersburg, was originally a student of mathematics and economics but found himself instead drawn to learning the piano. He entered the Moscow Conservatory in 1925 to study composition and began to develop his earliest significant works. He wrote instrumental music, operas, choral works, incidental music for plays, and film scores, and became a prominent member of the Union of Soviet Composers. An important part of Kabalevsky’s legacy was music for young performers, including the sprightly Third Piano Concerto. He also developed and taught a system of music education for children. His books about music for young people appeared in the 1970s and 1980s; Music and Education is available in a 1988 English translation.

--T. E.

Concerto No. 1 for Piano and Orchestra in F sharp minor, Op. 1
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)

Although Rachmaninoff came from an affluent Russian family, his parents’ separation had a disruptive effect on his education. He was therefore dependent on scholarships to study music at the St. Petersburg and Moscow Conservatories. His primary efforts were in performance, but he gradually became more involved in composition. He wrote the First Piano Concerto at the age of 17 while studying for his piano finals and premièred the first movement at a student concert in 1892. One of his inspirations was said to be the Grieg A minor piano concerto, which his cousin Alexander Ziloti was practicing during their summer holidays at the family retreat. Rachmaninoff revised the concerto in 1917, and it is this version which is now performed. After the Russian Revolution in October of 1917, Rachmaninoff emigrated to the United States and supported his family by giving concerts and recitals as well as by conducting. During his last two decades he made many recordings, leaving a priceless record of his artistry and compositions. He died in Beverly Hills in 1943.

--T. E.

Concerto No. 2 for Piano and Orchestra in F major, Op. 102
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)

In contrast to the other Russian composers on tonight’s program, Dmitri Shostakovich can be heard taking a giant step away from the Romantic tradition of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Shostakovich grew up surrounded by piano music: his mother was a graduate of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, and his father was an accomplished amateur pianist. Both parents opposed systematic musical drills and encouraged young Dmitri’s eagerness to experiment during his daily keyboard practice. At the age of 13, Shostakovich entered the Conservatory and focused on piano performance until 1927, when he managed to impress the great conductor Bruno Walter with a keyboard rendition of his first symphony. Walter premièred the symphony in Berlin later that year, and Shostakovich was launched upon his career as composer.

Shostakovich dedicated many works to close family members and friends. The Second Piano Concerto is dedicated to his son, Maxim, who was its première performer in 1957 while a junior at the Moscow Conservatory.

--T. E.

Capriccio Espagnol, Op. 34
Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)

As a cadet in the naval academy at St. Petersburg, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov heard his first live opera. He was overwhelmed by the experience, especially the glorious sound of a full orchestra. After completion of his naval training, as a young Russian naval officer he traveled to Cadiz, Spain, among other ports. At the end of the two-year tour of duty, however, he "pulled some strings" thanks to his aristocratic family’s connections, and got himself a shore assignment. His duties were nominal, requiring only a couple of hours a day, leaving him plenty of free time for his new passion: to study music and learn to compose. In 1871, with the help of his mentor, Mily Balakirev, Rimsky-Korsakov became professor of composition at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. He retired from the navy two years later. When he set about writing a work based on Spanish melodies, he had some idea of what he was dealing with—he had actually been to Spain during his naval tour. He completed his Capriccio Espagnol in the summer of 1887, and conducted the first performance in Saint Petersburg on October 31 that year.

The work is laid out in five brief sections, which fall into two larger divisions. The first of these larger divisions comprises a vigorous “Alborada” for full orchestra, a set of five “Variations” on a theme announced by the horns, and a repetition of the “Alborada” with certain changes in the instrumentation. The second major division is a two-part finale whose first section, the “Scene and Gypsy Song,” is a sequence of five cadenzas for various solo instruments or small groups, capped by the impassioned and soaring Gypsy song in the strings. This is broken off by the assertive arrival of the “Fandango of the Asturias,” in which themes from the preceding sections are recapitulated along the way to the tumultuous conclusion.

Tchaikovsky, who saw the score before the work's première, ended a letter to Rimsky-Korsakov with the declaration that “Your ‘Spanish Capriccio' is a colossal masterpiece of instrumentation, and you may regard yourself as the greatest master of the present day." The letter was followed up on the day after the première with a gift of a silver laurel wreath. The musicians in the orchestra were no less enthusiastic, interrupting rehearsals frequently to applaud the composer-conductor. At the première itself, the audience demanded a full repetition as soon as the first performance ended. When the score was published, Rimsky-Korsakov saw to it that the dedication was not merely to the orchestra as a collective body, but to every one of the musicians, whom he named individually.

--Bill Malcolm

Raffle Prizes

In the members’ raffle at our March 24 concert, Barbara Malmo (Torrance) and Shirley Browne (Redondo Beach) won CDs donated by Borders Books and Music in Torrance, while Gary Swinson (Torrance) won the floral centerpiece from Lily’s Flowers and Gifts. Gina Felando (Rancho Palos Verdes) won the gift certificate for dinner at Second City Bistro in El Segundo, and Lenore Snodey (Manhattan Beach) won the special Beethoven-themed arrangement from The Gifted Basket.
Special raffle prizes at the May 12 concert will again include dinner for two at Second City Bistro. Also offered: a one-day pass, including parking, for a family of four to Disneyland, approximate value $200.

Beach Cities Symphony Partners with eScript and Albertsons/Sav-on

Help support the Beach Cities Symphony by registering at http://www.escrip.com. Our group number is 500001512. You can use our web site link by going to http://BeachCitiesSymphony.org and clicking on Supporters. There you will also find information about registering your Albertsons and Sav-On card. Or call our information number to sign up: 310-379-9725. And don’t forget to go through our web link (http://BeachCitiesSymphony.org/supporters) when you buy anything from http://Amazon.com.

Photos from the March Concert

Click here for photos from the March 2006 Beach Cities Symphony concert.

Beach Cities Symphony 2006-2007 Concert Season

Click here for the programs in the next Beach Cities Symphony concert season.

Membership Renewal: It's That Time Again

We need your financial support to take us into our 57th year of providing free classical music concerts for the South Bay communities. In this mailing you will find a letter from Beach Cities Symphony Association President Bob Peterson, along with an envelope for you to renew your subscription for the 2006-2007 season. Please respond as soon as possible, and thank you for being part of our loyal audience. Click here for a BCSA 2006-2007 membership form.

Information

Beach Cities Symphony Association, Inc.

P.O. Box 248

Redondo Beach, CA 90277-0248

Beach Cities Symphony News information: 310-379-9725, 310-539-4649, or http://BeachCitiesSymphony.org or info@BeachCitiesSymphony.org.

Editors: Toni Empringham, Margaret McWilliams

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Last modified April 24, 2006

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