Joseph Young, in his first year as Berkeley Symphony’s music director, will conduct the orchestra’s season-opening concert on October 24 at Zellerbach Hall, a program featuring Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major with soloist Conrad Tao, and Olly Wilson’s Shango Memory, inspired by the Yoruban god of thunder and lightning. Also planned in 2019-20 are world premieres by Chinese composer Xi Wang and Los Angeles-based composer Derrick Spiva Jr. The Xi Wang score was commissioned by the League of American Orchestras as part of the Women Composers Readings and Commissions program, a League initiative in partnership with American Composers Orchestra and supported by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation. The orchestra will also perform five Bay Area premieres: Bryce Dessner’s Voy a Dormir for orchestra and mezzo-soprano, with soloist Kelley O’Connor; Mary Kouyoumdjian’s Become Who I Am with the San Francisco Girls Chorus; Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Trumpet Concerto with trumpeter Sean Jones; Roxanna Panufnik’s Three Paths to Peace; and Gunther Schuller’s Journey into Jazz with the Berkeley High Jazz Combo.
Posted October 24, 2019
