“Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg says her New Century Chamber Orchestra will have its ‘most ambitious season’ in 2015-16, writes Janos Gereben in Tuesday’s (5/26) San Francisco Classical Voice. “The NCCO music director today announced a series of innovative concerts, featuring several works by Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Higdon [including] a commissioned world premiere…. The series of four weekly programs, performed in Berkeley, Palo Alto, San Francisco, and San Rafael, begins Sept. 17-20 with Higdon’s ‘Strings’ from Concerto for Orchestra, ‘String Lake’ from All Things Majestic, and To the Point. The unusual program includes the Letter Scene from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, sung by soprano Susanna Phillips, Shostakovich’s Elegy and Polka, and Rachmaninov’s Vocalise, and Arvo Pärt’s Trisagion…. NCCO’s ‘Holiday Lights’ program [in December] will have several works by Bach, including ‘Sheep May Safely Graze’ and ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.’ The San Francisco Girls Chorus will participate along with klezmer and jazz clarinetist David Krakauer. Violinist Daniel Hope will be guest concertmaster … leading a [February] program of works in tribute to his mentor, Yehudi Menuhin.” The season ends in May with “the Higdon premiere, Stravinsky’s Apollon musagète, the ‘Dance of the Seven Veils’ from Richard Strauss’s Salome, and, for a bit of virtuosic froth, Khachaturian’s ‘Sabre Dance.’ ”
May 28, 2015
Pictured: The New Century Orchestra, with Music Director Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg. Photo by Matthew Washburn
