SEASON OPENER CONCERT
Join Maestro Eylar as he inaugurates the 73rd season of the California Youth Symphony with a scintillating program featuring the award-winning and internationally recognized Senior Orchestra. Our program opens with Devil’s Radio, composed by Bay Area superstar composer Mason Bates. Bates holds the distinction of being the second-most performed living composer, as well as being a Grammy award-winning composer and the Musical America Composer of the Year (2018). Devil’s Radio is a wonderfully evocative and thrilling wild ride for large orchestra. In the composer’s own words:
“'Rumor is the Devil’s radio,' goes an evocative Southern phrase, and ever since hearing it, I’ve fantasized about a fanfare with equal parts darkness and groove. What began life as a brief piano étude quickly swelled way beyond its bounds, and the opportunity to write for a massive orchestra in Sun Valley seemed the perfect chance to give the Devil his due."
The work alternates between motoric, propulsive motion and soaring melodic lines, interspersed with bluesy Southern-style solos for the Concertmaster and Principal Second violin.
CYS welcomes our Young Artist Competition winner Huisun Hong as he joins us to perform what is one of the most-beloved cello concertos in the concert repertoire: Dvorak’s Cello Concerto in B Minor. Composed in 1894 during his “American” period (Dvorak taught in America from 1892-95), the work so impressed Johannes Brahms that Brahms wrote: “If I had known that it was possible to compose such a concerto for the cello, I would have tried it myself!”
Our opening program concludes with a performance of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, orchestrated by Maurice Ravel. Originally composed in 1874 as a piano solo work (and one of the most difficult in the pianist’s repertoire!), Pictures has been orchestrated by over twenty composers in the last 150 years. By almost universal agreement, Ravel’s orchestration is certainly the gold standard. Be prepared for an aural and visual extravaganza as we have a multimedia presentation of the work complete with a visual accompaniment to the orchestra’s performance. You don’t want to miss this!
Mason Bates
Antonin Dvorak
Modest Mussorgsky
Leo Eylar, conductor
Huisun Hong, cello
Bates: Devil's Radio
Dvorak: Cello Concerto in B minor (Huisun Hong, soloist)
Mussorgsky, arr. Ravel: Pictures at an Exhibition
Young Artist Competition Winner
Huisun Hong, 17, is a senior at Amador Valley High School in Pleasanton, California. He began playing the cello at the age of eight and currently studies under Eric Sung at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Pre-College Division...
CYS Young Artist Competition
Each spring the California Youth Symphony holds its Young Artist Competition to select soloists for the following season. The Competition is open to pianists and instrumental soloists under age 19. Two young artists will be chosen by a panel of three judges to perform with the CYS Orchestra during the November or March concert series of the following season.
Application form becomes available in January!
