Donato Cabrera, Music Director of the California Symphony | Photo courtesy of California Symphony
You can stream the latest California Symphony broadcasts. Highlighting each performance is a work by one of their “Young American Composers in Residence”, the unique opportunity that allows a composer a partnership with the orchestra for three years. Hosted by Brian Lauritzen and with comments from Music Director Donato Cabrera, it’s a chance to hear old favorites from Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms and Grieg mixed with brand new works, played by the ensemble they were written for.
See what’s available on demand below:
Sunday, May 22, 2022
On the May edition of the California Symphony Broadcast, we’ve got Bernstein, Beethoven, and Frank. From a September 2018 concert, Donato Cabrera leads the orchestra in a concert bookended by Bernstein’s Candide overture and the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. Plus, Three Latin-American Dances by Gabriela Lena Frank, and soloist Charlie Albright joins them for Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3.
Sunday, April 24, 2022
For April’s California Symphony Broadcast, we’ll revisit a concert they gave in November of 2021, called “Four Seasons.” Violinist Alexi Kenney was soloist for Vivaldi’s classic set of concertos, on a program that also included George Walker’s Lyric for Strings, Jessie Montgomery’s Starburst, and Schubert by way of Mahler… Gustav Mahler’s arrangement for string orchestra of Schubert’s Death and the Maiden quartet. It was an all-strings program, and also a bit of a homecoming… Kenney was once the concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra at the time when Music Director Donato Cabrera was conductor.
Sunday, March 27, 2022
From a February 2020 concert program called “Brahms Fest,” the California Symphony plays a couple of Hungarian Dances, the Third Symphony, and the Concerto for Violin and Cello with guest soloists Alina Kobialka and Oliver Herbert.
Sunday, February 27, 2022
From a 2017 concert, Donato Cabrera and the California Symphony are joined by soprano Maria Valdes for Samuel Barber’s evocative Knoxville: Summer of 1915 and Mahler’s Symphony No. 4. Rounding out the program is a work by Bay Area composer Nathaniel Stookey called Yield to Total Elation, with the composer as soloist on an electro-acoustic instrument called the OOVE.
Sunday, January 23, 2021
There are jazz-inspired works from some of the 20th Century’s great composers on this concert from January of 2016: Stravinsky’s Scherzo a la Russe (written for the Paul Whiteman Symphonic Jazz Orchestra); Darius Milhaud’s La creation du monde (The Creation of the World); Leonard Bernstein’s Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs; the suite Little Three-Penny Music by Kurt Weill, with tunes from his Three-Penny Opera; and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. The piano soloist is Charlie Albright, joining Donato Cabrera and the California Symphony.
Sunday, November 28, 2021
On this month’s California Symphony Broadcast, in a concert from March of 2018, Donato Cabrera and the members of the California Symphony are joined by the singers of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Chorus. The program begins with Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, which was inspired by a choral work – and then two choral masterpieces: the Te Deum by Arvo Pärt, and Mozart’s Requiem.
Sunday, October 24, 2021
Concert from January 20, 2018 – Donato Cabrera conducting
Bedrich Smetana: Vlatava (Die Moldau)
Max Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 1 (Soloist: Alexi Kenney, violin)
J.S. Bach: Prelude from Partita No. 3 in E Major (Alexi Kenney encore)
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 (“Pastoral”)
Sunday, September 26, 2021
The California Symphony Broadcast season launches with the music of Beethoven, plus songs for mezzo-soprano and orchestra by Gustav Mahler and Gabriela Lena Frank. Music Director Donato Cabrera leads the orchestra in the Creatures of Prometheus Overture and the Fifth Symphony, and Rachel Calloway joins them for Lieder and the song cycle “The Keeper and the Dove”.
