Dear Friend,
Over the past 10 years the Thousand Oaks Philharmonic has maintained a high standard of excellence, providing young soloists the opportunity to perform with a professional orchestra in front of a live audience.
So many generous donors helped us achieve unprecedented results; however, today more than ever, the need for private funding is at an all time high.
Each year we produce six concerts and at least 15 recitals, which require an annual budget of $90,000, all of which comes from supporters like you and from our generous, 100% volunteer Board of Directors. It is a privilege to work with so many talented, educated, wise and frugal board members who understand the value of money and the importance of using it carefully.
In 2010, the Thousand Oaks Philharmonic has two mandates: increase and expand senior attendance and produce a video that shares our story and the opportunities we provide for young music students.
The video will serve as a sales tool and showcase our brilliant soloists, to corporations, non-profit organizations, at private and public luncheons, events, and seminars. Our goal is to increase our core audience so we can expand our program from our current six concerts to seven per year. To produce this video, we need to raise $5,000; we hope you will help.
Please give the most you can to our video campaign and/or annual budget. When the video is complete we will send you a copy to enjoy and share with friends and family.
If, you believe supporting young musicians is important, please do the most you can to support them, by making a tax deductible donation today; please make it payable to Thousand Oaks Philharmonic, P.O. Box 4195, Thousand Oaks, CA 91359. Please mark your check; Video Campaign or Annual Campaign.
We also accept Visa, Master Card and Discover. Please visit our website: www.tophil.org
My sincerest gratitude and appreciation,
Klara Bergman
Donor Chairwoman
805-260-6444
Thursday, May 6, 7:30 pm
Ventura Bible Fellowship Church
6950 Ralston Street, Ventura
Rising Stars
Thousand Oaks Philharmonic Orchestra
Richard Rintoul, conductor
Rising Stars Overture Michael Glenn Williams (b. 1957)
Piano Concerto No. 21, K.467 (Elvira Madigan) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
II: Andante
Alicia Zhong, soloist
Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 16 Sergey Prokofiev (1891-1953) I: Andantino
Michael Aspinwall, soloist
Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26 Max Bruch (1838-1920)
III. Allegro energico
Evan De Long, soloist
Cello Concerto No. 1, in A Minor, Op. 33 Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921)
II-III: Allegretto con moto-Tempo primo
Matthew Chen, soloist
Intermission
Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18 Sergey Rachmaninov (1873-1943),
I: Moderato
Charles Su, soloist
Concertino for Flute & Orchestra, Op. 107 Cecile Chaminade (1857-1944)
Rachel Flowers, soloist
Stabat Mater Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868)
Cujus Animam (Through her weeping heart)
Brandon Hynum, soloist
Rhapsody in Blue George Gershwin (1898-1937)
David Fraley, soloist
Student Performers
Alicia Zhong, piano, is a Medea Creek Middle School student from Oak Park.
Michael Aspinwall, piano, is a sophomore at Calabasas High School.
Matthew Chen, cello, is a middle school student from Oaks Christian in Westlake Village.
Charles Su, piano, is a senior at Ventura High School.
Brandon Hynum, tenor, of Newbury Park, is a student at the Thornton School of Music-USC.
Rachel Flowers, flute, is a high school student from Oxnard.
David Fraley, piano, is a Monte Vista Middle School student from Camarillo.
Evan De Long, violin, is a home-schooled high school student from Newbury Park.
Conductor
Richard Rintoul holds a DMA in Conducting from UCLA, a MM in Orchestral Conducting from USC, and a BFA in Viola Performance from Cal Arts. He works as a conductor, teacher, clinician, and violist. In addition to the T.O. Phil, Dr. Rintoul conducts the orchestra at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he also teaches conducting; and the Orchestra da Camera (which he founded in 1987) at the Colburn School of Performing Arts in Los Angeles.
Orchestra
The Thousand Oaks Philharmonic was founded in December of 2000 as a California registered non-profit educational organization. Its mission is to provide exceptional music students of the area, an opportunity to be featured as soloists with a professional orchestra in front of a live audience. When formed by Edward Francis, the Thousand Oaks Philharmonic was an idea which would bring musical opportunities to young artists as well as other members of local communities. The Thousand Oaks Philharmonic (friends call us the T.O. Phil) is made up of professional musicians that include college faculty, music industry personnel and private teachers from areas all over the Southland. The orchestra has performed more than 60 concerts. The annual concert season includes a composer project presentation that has a scholarly perspective. The T.O. Phil also maintains a recital hall in Westlake Village, where smaller ensembles, solo recitals and master class seminars are held on a regular basis. Since 2009 the organization enjoys an artistic partnership with Steinway & Sons.
Composers
Michael Glenn Williams (b. 1957), composer, columnist, pianist and board member of the Thousand Oaks Philharmonic, was educated at Cal State University Northridge and the Eastman School of Music. He is founder of The Chopin Project and his wide-ranging works—including jazz, film scores and electronica— have been performed worldwide.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) composed the Piano Concerto in C Major during an extraordinarily successful period of rush and bustle. The sublime beauty of the second movement Andante—made famous by its use in the film Elvira Madigan—with its few notes and bare outline exhibits a classic example of how Mozart left himself room to improvise during performance.
Sergey Prokofiev (1891-1953) bridged pre- and post-revolutionary Russia as one of the twentieth century’s great original composers and pianists reinvigorating many musical idioms. As a youth he studied with Gliere and Rimsky-Korsakov before his exodus to American and Europe. However, he returned to the Soviet Union before WWII to create the ballet score for Romeo and Juliet and, after evacuating Moscow before the Nazis, composed his War Sonatas, opera War and Piece and ballet Cinderella on the lam. He survived his later years of Stalinist censorship writing patriotic music and died the same day as the dictator. The four-movement Piano Concerto No. 2, full of pyrotechnics and lyricism, contains a grand cadenza (one of piano’s most demanding) in the sonata-like opening Andantino.
Max Bruch (1838-1920) The concerto was first completed in 1866 and the first performance was given on April 24, 1866 with Bruch himself conducting. The concerto was then considerably revised with help from celebrated violinist Joseph Joachim and completed in its present form in 1867. The third movement, the finale, opens with an extremely intense, yet quiet, orchestral introduction that yields to the soloist's statement of the exuberant theme in brilliant double stops. It is very much like a dance that moves at a comfortably fast and energetic tempo. The second subject is a fine example of Romantic lyricism, a slower melody which cuts into the movement several times, before the dance theme returns with its fireworks. The piece ends with a huge accelerando, leading to a fiery finish that gets higher as it gets faster and louder and eventually concludes with two short, yet grand chords.
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921), a reader at 2 and composer at 3, is best remembered for his Samson et Dalila opera, “Organ” Symphony No. 3 and Carnival of Animals’ zoological fantasy. Contrast is a driving force in the three-part Cello Concerto No. 1 with the first and last movements sharing a triplet theme and the second a minuet with cello countermelody.
Sergey Rachmaninov (1873-1943), a formidable pianist and last of Russia’s great Romantic composers, received Tchaikovsky’s encouragement in his youth and accolades during his first tour in America, where he made his home (with Switzerland) after fleeing the Soviet Revolution in 1917. As a keyboard performer he was known for astounding technique—marked by precision, clarity, finger extension and power—and a profoundly articulate interpretation of a work’s inner voices. Trance therapy roused the composer from a failed performance of his first symphony, depression and alcoholism to create this major work—and its celebrated first movement melody—that turned his life around.
Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868) had immense impact on opera. Prolific early in his career – he composed his first opera at age eight – Rossini created almost 40 operas in less than 20 years before giving up that genre in 1829 with William Tell and, in 1842, the final version of his ten-movement requiem, Stabat Mater, a core piece of choral repertory. His setting of the solemn 13th century poem, The Sorrowful Mother Stood – a meditation on the suffering of Mary during Jesus’ crucifixion – is highly theatrical, like his operas, creating a continuous musical fabric of sheer tunefulness full of direct, even simple, immediacy and sweeping intensity. The difficult tenor aria Cujus animam in the second section requires both a vocal line of springing yet dignified naïveté and a high D in its final moments.
Cecile Chaminade (1857-1944), a child piano prodigy, became one of the few women composers of her time to achieve great popularity, first in Paris, then all over the world, especially in Britain and the U.S. where fan clubs sprang up. Half of her nearly 400 compositions are short piano pieces and 125 are songs, but she also composed a ballet, comic opera, dramatic symphony, chamber works and orchestral suites. The wide-ranging Concertino for Flute, composed in 1902 as an examination piece for Paris Conservatoire flute students, provides quite a workout as well as graceful melodies for the soloist.
In his short life George Gershwin (1898-1937) proved himself to be both a great tunesmith and gifted composer bridging the classical, jazz and popular music worlds, scoring (with brother Ira as lyricist) Broadway shows (Lady Be Good) and the folk opera Porgy and Bess and composing the most popular work for piano and orchestra ever written by an American, Rhapsody in Blue. Inspired by James Whistler’s painting Nocturne in Black and Gold, Gershwin completed the work in less than a month and retained an improvised gag during rehearsals that became the famous opening clarinet glissando.
Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto in C Minor, First Movement
Lawrence B. Blonquist, PhD
My reaction to the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1883-1943) when I first heard it as a young man was negative. I couldn’t believe that anyone could indulge in such sentimentality. I was repulsed by the blatant, teen-aged emotionalism. In an objective mood, I was embarrassed for the composer. In a subjective mood, I was angry and resistant to what I felt was an effort to engage my emotions and then manipulate them to some unknown but dangerous purpose. When forced to listen, walking into a room where someone else was playing either his 2nd or 3rd piano concerto on a record, I was immediately on guard, suspicious and disdainful of the poor taste of anyone taken in by such unabashed immaturity. I would have agreed with the 1954 Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians that Rachmaninoff’s music was “effective (I would have said affective) but monotonous in texture” and that it consisted “in essence (good word, I would have said) mainly of artificial and gushing tunes (well put, I would have said) accompanied by a variety of figures derived from arpeggios. The enormous popular success some few of Rachmaninoff’s works had in his lifetime is not likely to last.” How could this last? I would have asked. I was not in the business of predicting, but I certainly would have agreed with this harsh pronouncement.
Well, I was about 15 at the time, as I remember. Now, more advanced and mature in years, I agree with the 1980 and the 2001 edition of Grove: “At its most inspired, Rachmaninoff’s lyrical inspiration is matchless….he revealed a sure grasp of idiomatic piano writing and a striking gift for melody.” The Grove goes on to declare: He wrote music “couched in melancholy and nostalgia.” I say yes to that and to the “sumptuous harmonies and broadly lyrical, often intensely passionate melodies” and to “colors subdued and subtly varied, textures carefully contrasted” and to “concise writing.” No wonder they say, “Youth is wasted on the young.” My final acceptance of the public display of deeply private emotions was conditioned by reading Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther. Goethe is known as the last Renaissance man whose brilliance covered every field of human interest, scientific, philosophical, and aesthetic. If he could write an autobiographic novel like “The Sorrows,” I reasoned, then there was a place in the world for Rachmaninoff’s 2nd and 3rd Piano Concertos.
Musicologists assert that the musical inspiration for Rachmaninoff was not folk tunes, but rather, Orthodox liturgy. (The Dies Irae theme is found in several pieces.) The extra-musical sources of his “sumptuous harmonies and intensely passionate melodies” were said to derive from the values and character of the lower aristocratic class. Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (which Rachmaninoff certainly knew) immediately comes to mind. Related aesthetic cousins include Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and Dante’s depiction of Paolo and Francesco, an adulterous couple condemned to eternal circular spiritual flight without ever arriving at a destination in his 5th Canto of the Inferno. When asked to explain his inspiration for Madame Bovary, the protagonist, Flaubert said: “Madame Bovary? C’est moi.” Ah yes, one can easily recognize how Rachmaninoff’s romantic themes provide a fitting backdrop to the passion that drives these tragic and melancholy narratives.
Rachmaninoff’s first twenty years were difficult. His father wasted the family fortune forcing relocations and the sale of property to pay debts. His sister died of diphtheria, and his parents separated. His mother settled the family in St. Petersburg where Rachmaninoff was accepted into the conservatory of music. He received a general education and training as a pianist. With the uncertainty and stress at home it is no surprise that he failed his end-of-term examinations in general subjects in 1885. His scholarship threatened, he moved away from his family to Moscow, at age twelve, where he spent his next three years studying, semi-privately, with a harsh task-master, Nikolay Zverev. In 1888, at age 15, still in Moscow, he transferred to the Conservatory where he added the study of composition to his piano training. Excelling in both composition and piano performance, he was graduated a year early and awarded the coveted Great Gold Medal.
Upon his graduation, Rachmaninoff established his reputation as a composer and conductor quickly. At age 22, riding on the success of his piano pieces, songs, a two-piano Fantasie-tableux, and a choral piece written and performed after graduation, he became a fixture of Russian culture. He knew and mixed with Tchaikovsky, Tolstoy, and Chekhov among others. It is no surprise that he felt confident enough to assign himself a major project: step in the ring with Beethoven and compose a symphony. His Symphony No. 1 in D minor was performed on March 27, 1897 with Glazunov, a famous composer/conductor, on the podium. Rachmaninoff was stunned at what he called Glazunov’s poor preparation and lack of passion and musicianship. He fled the theater in despair. Years later Rachmaninoff’s wife spitefully claimed that Glazunov was drunk while conducting. Neither the audience nor the critics, particularly Cesar Cui - a composer and critic - responded positively to the piece. Cui’s most acerbic quip is now famous: “.,..if there was a conservatory in hell, Rachmaninoff would get the first prize for his symphony, so devilish are the discords he places before us.” Cui’s critical review wounded Rachmaninoff’s sensitive nature to the point where his imagination was paralyzed for three years. The First Symphony is seen as a first effort containing generally recognized structural problems. We hasten to say that this was not the first or last event where the first performance of a contemporary work was poorly prepared. Whatever the source of the problem, whether it was the performance or weakness within the music itself, the negative reception of the piece was devastating to Rachmaninoff’s delicate ego.
Fortunately, close on the heels of this failure, a wealthy patron financed his third career; the Moscow Private Russian Opera hired him as a conductor for the 1897-8 season. Despite success and the expanded experience with Russian and Western opera repertoire, any desire to compose languished in self-doubt. Concerned friends suggested that he seek medical help, and they referred him to Dr. Nikolay Dahl. Dahl was undoubtedly excited to help his new patient since he had achieved a fairly competent level of performance as an amateur violist. He repeated “affirmations” to his hypnotized patient planting in his subconsciousness a “cheerfulness of spirit, energy, a desire to work, and confidence in his abilities.” Within a few months of seeing Dr. Dahl, Rachmaninoff engaged in a flurry of compositional activity producing vocal works (one of which was a love duet for Francesca da Rimini whom, as we have mentioned, Dante condemned to eternal circular flight with her adulterous lover Paolo) and his “enduringly” (Grove) popular Second Piano Concerto. Rachmaninoff was so thrilled with the return of his powers of creativity that he dedicated his Second Piano Concerto to Dr. Dahl. Rachmaninoff gave the first performance himself on November 9, 1901.
The journey from conducting opera in Russian and throughout Europe to a distinguished career late in life as a pianist in Europe and the United States where he died in his home in Beverly Hills, California is filled with challenges, brilliant success, and homesickness for his Mother Russia.
In summary, Rachmaninoff’s life is an example how perseverance and talent overcome challenges. He rose above the problems of poverty and insecurity in his youth to distinguish himself as a virtuoso pianist and gifted composer in his early twenties. He moved through failing his general examinations at age 12 to winning the Great Gold Medal at the Moscow Conservatory at age 18. He moved his wife and children out of Russia during times of great social and political upheaval to the uncertain and unknown culture of Western Europe and the U.S. He then created a successful career in his 40’s as a virtuoso pianist, stunning audiences with his own master works as well as the masterpieces in the repertoire at the time. He arrived in New York on November 1, 1918 and wasted no time in establishing the foundation of a career as a pianist. Recognizing his stature as a musician, Steinway gave him a piano before he launched his career in the U.S. (In that same spirit of generosity, Steinway supports and endorses the Thousand Oaks Philharmonic Orchestra today.) Within four months of his arrival in New York, Rachmaninoff would play 40 concerts. Inside a year, he had a recording contract with the Victor Talking Machine Company. Rachmaninoff recorded most of his piano music on piano rolls leaving to posterity his interpretations of his music. These are available on CD today.
Between 1918 and his death in 1943 Rachmaninoff only wrote six compositions. Explanations include a busy career and homesickness for Mother Russia. Perhaps he overcame his loss of Mother Russia by building a home on Lake Lucerne in Switzerland for he composed three of the six major works of this period at this estate. The most well-known of these compositions is his popular Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, which he wrote in 1934.
Rachmaninoff fell ill during a concert tour in late 1942 and was diagnosed with melanoma. Prophetically, his last concert on February 17, 1943 at the Alumni Gymnasium of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville included Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 2, which contains the famous Marche funebre (Funeral March). A statue, “Rachmaninoff: The Last Concert,” installed in the World’s Fair Park in Knoxville commemorates that event. He returned to his home in Beverly Hills where he died on March 28, 1943.
Rachmaninoff was a powerful, sober figure. Stravinsky remarked after a performance that he was a “six foot, six inch scowl.” He had extremely large hands and a “gigantic finger stretch.” Some have suggested that his physical appearance, including his slender frame, long limbs, narrow head, prominent ears and thin nose were indications of Marfan syndrome, a hereditary disorder of the connective tissue. If true, this could explain other minor ailments including back pain, arthritis, eyestrain, and bruising of the fingertips.
This is enough words without music; let’s consider the piece before us. Our guest artist, Charles Su, will play the 1st movement of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto in C Minor, a challenging task for any pianist. Nearly every concerto from the European (German) repertoire of the previous century, the Classical Period, begins with a statement of the primary theme by the orchestra followed a restatement and development by the soloist. Mozart delightfully prepares us for what is to come with his orchestral expositions. Not so Rachmaninoff. He begins his concerto quietly in medias res with the piano playing a series of full chords punctuated by bass octaves suggesting great bells. The crescendo from soft to loud gives us a sense that a huge mass of energy is moving toward us and soon we are enveloped by a rich melodic line in the lower strings (cellos and violas) over piano arpeggios --- the chords of the first measures broken into colorful bits and pieces that fill what has now become the background. The key is C Minor, and the mood is dark, somber, and nostalgic. From a standing start, we are quickly swept away by a turbulent and irresistible force, willing or not. The narrative develops rapidly, and at the two-minute mark, the orchestra rises to a climactic pause slowing the pace in preparation for a rich, lyrical theme played by the piano with intermittent comments by the lower strings. The context is replete: every space in this rich tapestry is filled either by the upper register of the piano or the lower register of the orchestra. There is simply too much to keep track of mentally, and if we didn’t give into the power of the initial call of the bells in the lowest register of the piano at the outset, we surrender here. We suspend logic and embrace the irresistible emotional content that seems to fill every nook and cranny in the room and our minds. The dynamic contrast between loud and soft holds our attention as we hear a dialogue between the piano and various wind and string sections. Without pause or preparation another transition carries us deeper into the development of the thematic material. We’re just five minutes into this piece, but we’ve been carried a far distance from the quotidian into a lush, rich world of sensation.
At the seven-minute mark, various voices in the orchestra exchange brief comments with the piano, pursuing and carrying us to a climax followed by a brisk march forward. A brief solo piano comment stimulates a variety of responses from sundry voices in the orchestra which gradually descends dynamically and harmonically to a welcome pause. At the moment of completion and resolution a solo horn rises above the entire ensemble in a triumphant restatement of the melody. The theme is then passed from woodwinds, to cellos, to violins with the piano adding its lacey filigree. Imperceptibly we have entered the coda where all ideas, questions, challenges, dialogues, and assertions will be resolved. Kindly, Rachmaninoff gently brings us back home, though the world feels different because of what we have just experienced. As required by the conventions of concerto writing, the movement finishes with a climactic, final flourish.
When the concerto is performed in its entirety, we would experience a second slow movement of calm and tranquility, though of course lush and opulent, followed by a third fast movement starting with excitement, and finishing with an ultimate climax that brings us to our feet. If you are of a certain age, as you listen to the 3rd movement, you’ll be reminded of Frank Sinatra’s “Full Moon and Empty Arms.” Rachmaninoff doesn’t disappoint us, and I encourage you to buy a CD and turn yourself over to his lyrical and unapologetic emotion and romance for half an hour.
You’ll be thrilled by the eleven minutes of Rachmaninoff that Charles Su provides us during the Ventura Music Festival on May 6 at the Ventura Missionary Church at 6950 Ralston Street in Ventura, May 7 in Camarillo at the United Methodist Church at 291 Anacapa Drive or May 9 in Thousand Oaks at the Civic Arts Plaza, Forum Theater.
Rachmaninoff Concerto #2 Discography
By Edward Francis Jr.
This work here is one of the most recorded in the piano concerto repertoire. There are countless performances to choose from. Those that I can recommend from personal preference and from legendary status include:
1. Evgeny Kissin and V. Gergiev on RCA
2. Earl Wild (recently passed away, but was very well-known as a Romantic virtuoso. This is his repertoire. Recordings have been released on various labels.
3. Vladimir Ashkenzy and Andre Previn on London. Ashkenazy has recorded all the concertos, and probably all the solo works, and they are given masterful performances.
4. Van Cliburn. This is one of the pieces that Cliburn brought back from his triumphant win at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Russia. It is frequently paired with the Tchaikovsky First and is always a favorite. RCA recordings.
5. Rachmaninoff himself recorded his concertos several times. They are important from a scholarship standpoint, and are rather dry and fast to my ears. They were recorded towards the end of his concert career, and I read that they were completed with some haste. Available on various labels.
6. Rubinstein. Need more be said of one of the great Romantic virtuosos of all-time? RCA recordings.
7. Stephen Hough. The pianist, composer, writer and artist is brilliant. His recording is from a complete set with Andrew Litton and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Terrific. Hyperion label.
8. Leif Ove Andsnes. Contemporary pianism, thoughtful tone production and an important pianist on the current scene. With Berlin Philharmonic.
9. A. Lugansky. In a recent article for International Piano magazine published in the UK, Dmitry Rachmanov wrote an extensive article on the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. He lists this contemporary recording at the top of his list. It is from a complete set of the 4 concertos and the rhapsody, and it is excellent.
The Audition
One might be interested in knowing how soloists are chosen to perform on our OPUS concerts with the Thousand Oaks Philharmonic. We have a collaborative relationship with two professional educational groups in the region: the Music Teachers’ Assn. of California-Conejo Valley Branch, and the Conejo Valley Youth Orchestras. Those two groups serve thousands of young people in the performing arts, giving them opportunities in education and in public performances beginning with their first lessons and lasting into their college years. The MTAC has held a concerto competition for many years. They began sponsoring students to play with the TO Phil about five years ago. Their auditions are open to all students of teacher-members. Typically, their auditions attract about 40 students each year. They have two audition categories divided by ages: 14 and under and 15-18. The CVYO also have their own audition process for concerto appearances with the TO Phil, and all students in their programs are eligible. They usually audition about 15 students per year. In addition to these, the TO Phil offers an “open” audition for other area students who do not have a relationship with those two organizations. We just finished these Open Auditions, and 15 more students were heard. Various panels of judges are comprised of music professionals in either the educational area, usually university-level professors, outside music teachers with outstanding reputations, or music industry professionals. The TO Phil always has a representative from the board present, to break any ties, or to simply observe the process for parliamentary procedure.
The process for students and teachers is stressful. Even when our volunteer board members or fellow teachers greet the students with a warm welcome, the audition is challenging. Each student arrives with their accompanist. The accompanist plays a reduction of the orchestra part, so that themes and harmonic support usually provided by the orchestra can be present, and the judges can determine the competency of the soloist to play in ensemble.
Of course, some of the students rise to the occasion and play beautifully, with precision, musicality and great confidence. Some have unexpected miscalculations, which affect their presentation and ultimate success. There is an underlying sense of support and a nurturing spirit that permeates all of our events. Every professional…from the teachers, to the judges, to the members of the orchestra…all have a vested interest in each student’s success. It is remarkable that so many people show such incredible support. Our audience at the concerts see only the final product…the real work and transformation begins at the first rehearsal…a private and individual situation with the conductor, the student and their accompanist. Held about one week before the orchestra rehearsals begin, it gives the conductor and student an opportunity to discuss tempos, difficult cuing and ensemble areas, as well as general interpretive refinements. Usually the teacher is also present, and important matters are discussed amongst the group. Once rehearsals start with the orchestra, time is of the essence. In order to give the young soloists as much time in rehearsal as possible, they are tightly scheduled, with one passing the other going to and from the stage. It is a grueling process that is especially taxing to the conductor and members of the orchestra. Yet nobody complains…instead, everybody is focused and concentrated on the task of making it the best experience possible for the young soloists as well as reaching the highest artistic level possible for the composer and his work. The educational experience is tremendous and absolutely priceless.
The results are astonishing. Words are inadequate to properly describe the final product. One must see and hear it to believe it. Amazingly, we will be doing it for the 27th and 28th time, for our remaining two concerts of the season.
We invite you to attend and experience the astonishment yourself. See you at the concert!
Harmoniously,
Edward A. Francis, Jr.
Founder/Chairman
Thousand Oaks Philharmonic
Notes on the Rising Stars Overture
The Rising Stars Overture was commissioned by the Thousand Oaks Philharmonic to commemorate their first performance with the Ventura Music Festival, at the Rising Stars Concert. The work is lively, grand and depicts the hope, energy, the joyous highs and depths of the pressure a young musician can experience when facing the internal and external struggles of becoming an artist. Using the term ‘stars’ in a more literal sense, the work might also be listened to as depicting the emergence of stars as they are born. One beauty of music is that it can inspire many thoughts and visions, differing for each listener. The composer Michael Glenn Williams, is Composer in Residence this summer at the Lake Como Festival at Lake Como, Italy. He studied orchestration with Samuel Adler, author of the standard conservatory and university textbook, and won the Howard Hanson prize for orchestral composition.
An album of his piano music titled “Digital Animation” was just released by Stradivarius Records, Milan.
Our young soloists
By Joyce Osborn
Andrew Marlin is a graduate of Westlake High School. He was a performer on our Opus 18 and Opus 20 concerts. During his high school years he studied bassoon with Duncan Massey, bassoonist in many LA orchestras, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
In the summer of 2008, after high school graduation, he attended the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara for a two-week chamber music program. That fall he began his college studies at the University of Washington in Seattle, and will be completing his two years there in May. He is a bassoon performance major and studies with Seth Krimsky, the principle bassoonist in the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and Seattle Opera. Seth is a Southern Californian, and was principle bassoon in the CSUN Youth Orchestras under the direction of our past conductor, Thomas Osborn. Andrew is continuing the tradition of becoming a premiere bassoonist from Southern California.
He is also testing for his 4th degree masters rank in martial arts this coming July.
Orchestra Members
Nancy Bonds...
has been Principal Clarinet in the Thousand Oaks Philharmonic since the beginning. One orchestral highlight has been the opportunity to play the clarinet solos in Rhapsody in Blue. She comes from Ontario, Canada. Her degrees include a Bachelor of Music, a Master of Music, and a Doctor of Musical Arts in clarinet. A lover of both classical and jazz music, she became a member of the Westlake Chamber Ensemble, and teaches clarinet privately and at Moorpark College. Her interests in the outdoors are camping, hiking, water skiing, Joshua Tree, Yosemite, Sequoia, and Redwoods. She has volunteered for Girl Scouts, Band Boosters, and the Conejo Valley Homeless Shelter. We are thrilled to have her in the orchestra.
Collaborations
Speakers from the T.O. Phil Board have been presenting an interesting program to local service clubs. We share information about the organization, about our upcoming events, and feature short performances by one of our young musicians. Michael Glenn Williams made the latest presentation to the Newbury Park Rotary Club. Evan Delong, 15 from Newbury Park, performed excerpts of the Bruch Violin Concerto and a Bach Violin Partita. The Rotarians were amazed at Evan's virtuosity, and that such a talent comes from their own neighborhood. If you are a member of a service club or other organization and would like to have a performance from the youth who perform with the T.O. Phil orchestra and a presentation of our mission at one of your meetings please contact us at tophilharmonic@gmail.com. If you publish a calendar of events for your membership, please mention the Chopin Project and the three May concerts that are mentioned above.