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JAYCE OGREN, MUSIC DIRECTOR

CONTENTS 5 8 13 14 18 23

Letter from Jayce Season At-a-Glance Letter from President and CEO Special Events Monterey Symphony Orchestra Jayce Ogren Biography Appalachian Spring + Alexi Kenney

27 Concert Program 29 Alexi Kenney Biography 30 Program Notes Slavonic Dances + Two Pianos 35 37 39 40 42

Concert Program Ran Dank Biography Soyeon Kate Lee Biography Program Notes Chen Yi Biography Tchaikovsky 5

45 46 47 47 48 50

Concert Program Alan Truong Biography Dylan Girard Biography Ruth Stuart Biography Program Notes About YMM Brahms: The Symphonies

53 Saturday Concert Program 53 Sunday Concert Program 54 Program Notes Biss Plays Beethoven 59 Concert Program 61 Jonathan Biss Biography 62 Program Notes Mahler: Resurrection 67 68 69 70 71 72

Concert Program Andriana Chuchman Biography Michelle DeYoung Biography Robert Geary Biography About VOLTI Program Notes

75 Christopher Anderson-Bazzoli Biography 78 Symphony Board & Administration 79 Donor Lists

Photo by Manny Espinoza

Table of contents

LEGACY I want to leave a legacy for future generations. The Community Foundation is a true partner in philanthropy.” – Tonya Antle, Donor Advised Fund Holder & Legacy Society Member Tonya with daughter Natalie and granddaughter Simone

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WELCOME TO THE MONTEREY SYMPHONY’S 2026-27 SEASON. Now in my fifth year as Music Director, I feel so fortunate to make music with this outstanding orchestra, and to be part of such an extraordinary community.

Our orchestra, staff, and board work together through the year—with love and dedication—to bring you concerts that inspire, entertain, and delight. We all believe in music’s power to make people’s lives richer and more fulfilling. The Monterey Symphony is a local treasure, with good stewardship and an incredibly bright future. We’re so happy you’re part of our family, and most of all, we’re so glad you’re here to share in this remarkable music.

The concerts are packed with iconic favorites like Copland’s Appalachian Spring, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 and Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances. In March, you’ll have the unique opportunity to hear all four Brahms symphonies in one weekend—an exploration of what many consider to be the greatest cycle of orchestral works. As always, we have an exemplary roster of soloists, with rising star violinist Alexi Kenney, the dynamic piano duo of Ran Dank and Soyeon Kate Lee, and the great Jonathan Biss with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4. We’ll close the season with the first ever Monterey Symphony performances of Mahler’s epic Symphony No. 2, Resurrection, in collaboration with the San Francisco-based chorus VOLTI and renowned vocal soloists Andriana Chuchman and Michelle DeYoung. Thank you for your support, your energy, your applause, and most of all, for your love of music. Enjoy the season! Yours,

Jayce Ogren Music Director, Monterey Symphony

I love our 26/27 season for so many reasons, and I’ll hold myself to sharing just a few of them here.

Letter from Music Director

is proud to support the Monterey Symphony!

Nurturing, Supporting, and Promoting the Arts. Learn more at Arts4mc.org Photographer: Manny Espinoza

2026-2027

Symphony Season SUNSET CENTER, CARMEL

SEASON SPONSOR – BERTIE BIALEK ELLIOTT

OCTOBER 17, 2026 7:30pm

OCTOBER 18, 2026 3:00pm

Alexi Kenney, violin

NOVEMBER 21, 2026 7:30pm

NOVEMBER 22, 2026 3:00pm

Ran Dank, piano Soyeon Kate Lee, piano

FEBRUARY 20, 2027 7:30pm

FEBRUARY 21, 2027 3:00pm

Dylan Girard, trumpet Ruth Stuart, English horn

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Mark Your Calendars! April 1, 2027 – 2027-2028 Subscription Renewals On Sale May 22, 2027 – Love Letter Tickets On Sale July 1, 2027 – NEW Early Access for Donors! Single Tickets On Sale July 15, 2027 – Single Tickets On Sale

MARCH 20, 2027 7:30pm

MARCH 21, 2027 3:00pm

APRIL 17, 2027 7:30pm

APRIL 18, 2027 3:00pm

Jonathan Biss, piano

MAY 22, 2027 7:30pm

MAY 23, 2027 3:00pm

Andriana Chuchman, soprano Michelle DeYoung, mezzo-soprano VOLTI / Roberty Geary, Chorus Master

Season-at-a-glance

Since 1935 | Celebrating 90 Years of Music in Carmel-by-the-Sea | July 2027

Tickets On Sale March 2027 | Learn More at BachFestival.org

Photo by Randy Tunnell

Photo by Manny Espinoza

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DEAR SYMPHONY FRIENDS, 2026 is a wonderful year for reflection— you could argue that almost any year is good for that! Monterey Symphony just finished its 80th anniversary season and now, we get to congratulate both Sunset Cultural Center and Carmel Music Society on their 100th anniversaries this season. For me, this marks my 10th season with the Monterey Symphony. My first concert weekend featured a 12-foot redwood drum in Big Sur: The Night Sun, colleagues from the Association of Symphony Orchestras (ACSO) in attendance, Symphony of Flavors, and packed youth concerts. I met so many people that first October weekend who I now run into and get to embrace as friends. We’ve had to say goodbye to several luminaries and key figures who have guided the way for this mighty organization, and we have welcomed many new faces. This summer we lost our Music Director Emeritus, Max Bragado-Darman, who was here when I started. I want to express my sincere gratitude to the patrons who honored his memory, and to Lee and Shirley Rosen for sponsoring the October concert.

Are you tired of looking for parking?

See Page 85 for a solution!

Just a few months ago, we said goodbye to Tom Little Bear Nason, the Chief of the Esselen Tribe of Monterey County who guided us on our path to honor the land in Big Sur through music. My boys were nine and five when I started at the Symphony, they are now 19 and almost 15—one graduated from Carmel High and is off to become a firefighter, the other one just started high school. A career in music is an incredible thing—there’s a great deal of working in spreadsheets and parsing words and then there’s the real thing. That is music and the orchestra—the great living and breathing creature that soothes us, calms us, and lets our minds wander to the corners where we need to go. The poet Mary Oliver says, “joy is not meant to be a crumb,” and I believe we get to have a whole loaf here at Monterey Symphony! Thanks to you and thanks to the community, we get to reflect on the joy and music that surrounds us. Here’s to you, and to many more years to come!

Nicola Reilly, President and CEO

Letter from President and CEO

2026-2027

Special Events SUNSET CENTER, CARMEL

PRE-CONCERT LECTURES Sunset Center Auditorium

Saturdays – 6:30-7:00 PM with Christopher AndersonBazzoli, Musicologist

Sundays – 2:00-2:30 PM with Jayce Ogren, Music Director & Conductor

SATURDAY POST-CONCERT TALK BACKS Sunset Center Lobby

October 17, 2026 November, 21, 2026 April 17, 2027 Immediately following the concerts with Jayce Ogren and guest artists

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SATURDAY PRE-CONCERT EVENTS SEASON OPENING CELEBRATION Sunset Center Lobby October 17, 2026 6:00-7:30 PM

YOUTH ARTS NIGHT Sunset Center Lobby February 20, 2027 6:00-7:30 PM

9TH ANNUAL WOMEN’S NIGHT OUT “Thank You, Dolly” Sunset Center Studio 105 March 20, 2027 6:00-7:30 PM

SUNDAY LOBBY SESSIONS 1:30-1:50pm

Sunset Center Lobby SPONSORED BY:

Oliver Moore, piano Zunhao Eric He, percussion Phil Keen, trombone Anne Ranzani, bassoon Dan Nebel & Sadie Glass, alphorns May Jeff Anderle, bass clarinet

October November February March April

Special Events

THE ORCHESTRA MUSIC DIRECTOR Jayce Ogren

VIOLIN I

Christina Mok, Concertmaster Thomas Yee, Associate Concertmaster Xander Abbe Alexandros Gavriilidis-Petrin Tingting Gu Tina Minn Jessica Poll Sue-mi Shin Jay Zhong Vacant Vacant Vacant

VIOLIN II

Zlata Grekov, Principal Vacant, Assistant Principal Sara Chazin Akiko Kojima Calvin E. Lewis, Jr. Kevin Matson Michelle Sheehy Eugenia Wie Vacant Vacant

VIOLA

Vacant, Principal David Allcott, Assistant Principal Valerie Bengal Fan Hu Chad Kaltinger Sarah Lee Scot Moore Alexander Volonts

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CELLO

Robin Bonnell, Principal Adelle-Akiko Kearns, Assistant Principal Drew Ford Nancy Kim Isaac Pastor-Chermak Saul Richmond-Rakerd Robin Snyder Vacant

BASS

Bruce Moyer, Principal Christy Crews, Assistant Principal Robert Ryan Ashley Christine Craddock Richard Duke Vacant

FLUTE

Dawn Walker, Principal Teresa Orozco

PICCOLO/THIRD FLUTE Vacant, Principal

OBOE

Vacant, Principal Vacant

ENGLISH HORN/THIRD OBOE Ruth Stuart Burroughs, Principal

CLARINET

Julia Sarah Bonomo, Principal James Pytko

BASS CLARINET/ THIRD CLARINET Jeff Anderle, Principal

BASSOON

Anne Ranzani, Principal Nicolasa Kuster

CONTRABASSOON/ THIRD BASSOON Alexis Zdanis, Principal

HORN

Daniel Nebel, Principal Caitlyn Smith-Franklin Beth Zare Sadie Glass Alicia Mastromonaco,

TIMPANI

Zunhao Eric He, Principal

PERCUSSION

Frank Wyant, Principal Victor Avdienko James Kassis

HARP

Karen Julie Kirk, Principal

PIANO

Oliver Moore, Principal

HARPSICHORD

Jonathan Salzedo, Principal

Assistant Principal/Utility

See page 83 for Musician Sponsors

TRUMPET

Dylan Girard, Principal Owen Miyoshi Curtis Nash

TROMBONE

Phil Keen, Principal Chase Waterbury

BASS TROMBONE/ THIRD TROMBONE

ASSOCIATE CONDUCTOR Brad Hogarth

MUSIC DIRECTOR EMERITUS Max Bragado-Darman (1945-2026)

Will Baker, Principal Bass

IATSE CREW

TUBA

(Sunset Center)

Forrest Byram, Principal

Pat Fitzsimmons, Technical Director Douglas Mueller, Technical Director (Forest Theater)

Rob Land, Stage Manager Arman Boyles, Recording Engineer Eric Parson, Audio Engineer Andrew Hurchella, Lighting Designer Craig Lowe, Rigging Engineer Jordan Hoskinson, Special Events Support

Monterey Symphony Orchestra

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Y YE EA AR RS S OF I CANTORI 2026-2027

DANIEL HENRIKS MUSIC DIRECTOR

2026-2027

DANIEL HENRIKS MUSIC DIRECTOR

ICANTORI.ORG

SANTA CRUZ SYMPHONY 2026-27 CONCERT SEASON

Oct 3/4, 2026

United Sounds of America

Nov 14/15, 2026 Tchaikovsky & Mendelssohn Jan 16/17, 2027

Rachmaninoff’s 3rd

Feb 28, 2027

Family Concert: Peter & the Wolf

Apr 3/4, 2027

The Firebird

May 1/2, 2027

Also Sprach Zarathustra

Jun 12, 2027

A John Williams Celebration

scan here to learn more

LEARN MORE AT SANTACRUZSYMPHONY.ORG TICKETS: 831-420-5260 OR SANTACRUZTICKETS.COM

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Photo by Manny Espinoza

JAYCE OGREN M U S I C D I RECTO R

Jayce Ogren has established himself as one of the most innovative and versatile conductors of his generation.

From symphonic concerts to multimedia collaborations to world premieres, he is a leader in breaking down barriers between audiences and great music.

Mr. Ogren is Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Michigan, where he conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra, Contemporary Directions Ensemble and the Michigan Youth Symphony Orchestra. Additionally, he serves as Principal Guest Conductor of Philadelphia’s new music ensemble Orchestra 2001. Mr. Ogren began his career as Assistant Conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra and Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, an appointment he held from 2006-2009. In the years since, he has conducted many of the world’s most prominent orchestras, including the BBC Symphony, Boston Symphony, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, the Dallas and San Francisco Symphonies, and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Among the numerous progressive projects Mr. Ogren has conducted are Basil Twist’s The Rite of Spring with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Lincoln Center; the world premiere of David Lang’s symphony for a broken orchestra, bringing together 400 amateur and professional musicians in Philadelphia; Pierre Boulez’s Répons at the University of Michigan; and the world premiere of Jack Perla’s Shalimar the Clown at Opera Theatre of St. Louis. Mr. Ogren has maintained a close relationship with the Leonard Bernstein Office, conducting the New York premiere of Bernstein’s only opera, A Quiet Place, at Lincoln Center, as well as the European premiere of the film with live orchestra version of West Side Story at London’s Royal Albert Hall. A longtime collaborator of singer/songwriter/composer

Rufus Wainwright, Mr. Ogren conducted the U.S. premiere of his opera Prima Donna at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Scandinavian premiere at the Royal Swedish Opera, and led its recording with the BBC Symphony on Deutsche Grammaphon. In January 2026, he made his debut with the Martha Graham Dance Company, conducting Appalachian Spring as part of their 100th anniversary tour. A devoted educator, he was invited by renowned poet Paul Muldoon to create an interdisciplinary studio class at Princeton University for the 2017-2018 academic year. He has worked with students at the Bowdoin International Music Festival, Brevard Music Center, Cleveland Institute of Music, the Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, Music Academy of the West and Verbier Festival. In 2016, he presented a workshop in orchestral rehearsal techniques for music teachers at Carnegie Hall in collaboration with the Carnegie Hall Weill Music Institute and the Juilliard School Pre-College. As a composer, Mr. Ogren has received commissions from ensembles throughout the United States. His Symphonies of Gaia for symphonic wind ensemble has been performed extensively throughout the world, and is published by C. Alan Publications. Jayce Ogren holds degrees from St. Olaf College, New England Conservatory and the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, where he studied as a Fulbright Scholar with Alan Gilbert and Jorma Panula. His wife, Carly Berger Ogren, is an architect, and together they have an adventurous eightyear-old son, Alistair. An avid athlete, he has competed in the Big Sur, Boston, and New York City marathons, the JFK 50 Miler trail run, HYROX Vancouver, and the Ironman Lake Placid triathlon.

Sponsored by Herschel Loomis, Sherrie McCullough, and Janet McDaniel

Jayce Ogren Biography

IMPA SSI ON ED PER FOR MA NCE S

NOV MAXWELL

2026

QUARTET

MIRÓ 05 2026 QUARTET

DEC

CLAREMONT 2027 TRIO

JAN

CUARTETO 27 2027 CASALS FEB

APRIL JON

2027

NAKAMATSU

MAY MANHATTAN

08 CHAMBER 2027 PLAYERS

Years ANNIVERSARY

Performances 7:30 pm | Pre-concert talk 6:30 pm www.chambermusicmontereybay.org | 831-625-2212 |Sunset Center, Carmel

APPALACHIAN SPRING

ALEXI KENNEY

PROKO FIEV BARBER

BERWALD

COPLAND

APPALACHIAN SPRING + ALEXI KENNEY October 17 and 18, 2026 SU NSE T CE N T E R , CAR M E L

Sponsored by Jerry and Sally Flanzer

Goehr, Gabriela Lena Frank, Texu Kim, and Huang Ruo.

Soyeon Kate Lee Biography

Program Notes By Christopher Anderson-Bazzoli

SLAVONIC DANCES + TWO PIANOS Concert Synopsis

Romantic classics share the program with a dynamic world premiere. Pianists Ran Dank and Soyeon Kate Lee return to the Monterey Symphony for the debut of Chen Yi’s Toward the Future, a concerto for two pianos and orchestra that the couple co-commissioned with the Monterey Symphony to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Dr. Chen, a daughter of China’s Cultural Revolution who emigrated to America, forged a singular voice with a brilliant synthesis of Chinese and Western traditions. In 1816, the teenage Franz Schubert dazzled Vienna with his Symphony No. 5, a work of youthful optimism, rhythmic vitality, and Classical grace. The program concludes with selections from Antonín Dvořák’s folk-inspired Slavonic Dances.

Franz Schubert (1797–1828)

Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, D. 485 (1816) I. Allegro II. Andante con moto III. Menuetto: Allegro molto IV. Allegro vivace “I work every morning,” Franz Schubert reportedly once said, “and when I finish one piece, I begin another.” The Viennese composer’s productivity was indeed legendary. Of the many Schubert works still performed today, it represents only a fraction of the work he completed at the time of his death at the young age thirty-one. Schubert composed his Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major in the autumn of 1816, at age nineteen, completing it in little more than a month. Although he had not yet achieved fame, Schubert surrounded himself with a growing circle of loyal friends who passionately championed his music. These “Schubertians” gathered regularly to perform his works in private homes and organized amateur orchestral performances—circumstances under which the Fifth Symphony likely premiered. In striking contrast to Schubert’s most famous symphony, the dark-hued No. 8 in B minor,

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“Unfinished,” the Fifth Symphony sparkles with Mozartian charm. The first movement, Allegro, opens with a buoyant theme featuring ascending B-flat major arpeggios in the violins. A legato second theme has a descending contour setting up the contrasting elements of the movement’s development. The second movement, Andante con moto, displays Schubert’s melodic gifts as a composer of Lieder (art songs). The first theme unfolds as a song without words in the strings, featuring long phrases and gentle dissonances. The strings also present a spacious second theme before moving into darker shades where unexpected tonal shifts point toward the harmonic language of early Romanticism. The third movement, Menuetto, replaces courtly elegance with vigorous drive. The G-minor tonality and aggressive rhythmic accents anticipate the dramatic scherzos of later Romantic symphonies. The brighter trio section, in G-major, features a descending pastoral theme and provides a tranquil interlude before the return of the minor-key minuet. The finale, Allegro vivace, is brisk and effervescent, propelled by rhythmic vitality and crisp articulation. It crowns the symphony with a joyful synthesis of Classical balance, melodic invention, and youthful exuberance.

Chen Yi (b. 1953)

Toward the Future for two pianos and orchestra,

world premiere

Chen Yi has provided the following note for Toward the Future: From the very origins of all life on Earth to the nurturing rain and dew that sustain its growth, humanity has multiplied and flourished within the embrace of the natural world. In a society characterized by diverse development, we press ever forward—converging and integrating like a confluence of rivers—while simultaneously exploring the future amidst the boundless expanse of the universe. I am deeply grateful

I am deeply grateful to two friends of mine, Soyeon Kate Lee and Ran Dank—a married couple and wonderful pianists whose artistry harmoniously blends East and West…

to two friends of mine, Soyeon Kate Lee and Ran Dank—a married couple and wonderful pianists whose artistry harmoniously blends

Commissioned by Soyeon Kate Lee and

East and West—for granting me this opportunity

Ran Dank, and the Monterey Symphony

to pause, reflect, trace our roots, and

directed by Jayce Ogren, my double piano

compose this new work.

concerto “Toward the Future” traverses a

My composition Toward the Future for two

musical journey ranging from the tranquil and

pianos and orchestra is permeated by a motif and its development, which incorporates typical characteristic of traditional Chinese Peking Opera music with leaps of a fourth and a seventh. The music includes the motivic materials presented by the two pianos along with the timpani and brass ensemble in chord progressions; the crystalline, wide-ranging solo piano monologue supported by light percussion and string harmonics; the string section melody with large-interval glissando mimicking Peking Opera recitative; the dialogue between the two pianos in antiphonal and toccata textures responding to the sonic confrontation created by the woodwind section’s winding ascending chromatic scales. The concerto

sonorous opening—evoking the primordial chaos of the universe—to a rich textural tapestry symbolizing the scene of spring rains nourishing the earth and fostering the flourishing of all life. Furthermore, through the intricate interplay between the two pianos and the orchestra, the work vividly portrays the imagery of trickling streams converging into a vast, boundless ocean, ultimately propelling the music toward a climax brimming with vitality. It is my sincere hope that humanity may continue to engage in self-reflection and work together to foster the peaceful development of our society in the globe. – Chen Yi

concludes in an aleatoric orchestral tutti, bringing the music to a climax.

November Program Notes

CHEN YI COM P OS E R

As a prolific composer who blends Chinese and Western traditions, transcending cultural and musical boundaries, Dr. Chen Yi is a recipient of the prestigious Charles Ives Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2001. She is the Cravens/ Millsap/Missouri Distinguished Professor at the Conservatory in the University of MissouriKansas City. An Honorary Member of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) elected in 2024, she has been inducted to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2005, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2019.

Born in China, Ms. Chen has received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Central Conservatory in Beijing, and Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Columbia University in the City of New York. Her composition teachers included Prof. Wu Zu-qiang, Prof. Chou Wen-chung, and Prof. Mario Davidovsky. She has served as Composer-in-Residence for the Women’s Philharmonic, Chanticleer, and Aptos Creative Arts Center (93-96) supported by Meet The Composer, and on the composition faculty at Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University (96-98).

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Fellowships and commissioning awards were received from Guggenheim Foundation (96), American Academy of Arts and Letters (96), Fromm Foundation at Harvard University (94, 23), Koussevitzky Music Foundation at the Library of Congress (97), and National Endowment for the Arts (94). Honors include the first prizes from the Chinese National Composition Competition (85, 12), the Lili Boulanger Award (93), the NYU Sorel Medal Award (96), the CalArts/Alpert Award (97), the UT Eddie Medora King Composition Prize (99), the ASCAP Concert Music Award (01), the Elise Stoeger Award (02) from Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Friendship Ambassador Award from Edgar Snow Fund (02), the UMKC Kauffman Award in Artistry/ Scholarship and Faculty Service (06, 12, 19), the Lifetime Achievement Award for Choral Music from the World Youth and Children Choral Artists Association (22), the Outstanding Alumni Award from the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music (23) and the UMKC Chancellor’s Award for Career Contributions to the University (23), as well as a Pulitzer Prize Finalist with Si Ji (Four Seasons) for orchestra (2006). Honorary Doctorates are from Lawrence University (02), Baldwin-Wallace College (08), University of Portland (09), The New School University (10), and the University of Hartford (16). She has given numbers of whole evening concerts of her orchestral, chamber, and choral works around the world, and served as Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music and Tianjin Conservatory, among many other schools and institutions in China and in the United States.

Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904)

Selections from Slavonic Dances, Op. 46 (1878) & Op. 72 (1886) Op. 46 No. 1 in C major Op. 46 No. 2 in E minor Op. 72 No. 2 in E minor Op. 72 No. 3 in F major Op. 72 No. 4 in D-flat major Op. 72 No. 7 in C major Op. 72 No. 8 in A-flat major Op. 46 No. 8 in G minor

When composer Antonín Dvořák applied for an Austrian State Fellowship in 1874, he was about to meet the man who would change his life forever: Johannes Brahms. Living in Prague, Bohemia (now Czech Republic), the 32-year-old Dvořák worked as a church organist and private piano teacher to support his young family. Brahms served on the judging committee and was deeply impressed by Dvořák’s originality, craftsmanship, and gift for melody. Brahms not only saw to it that Dvořák won the grant, but subsequently recommended him to Fritz Simrock, one of Europe’s leading music publishers. Simrock enjoyed enormous commercial success publishing Brahms’ Hungarian Dances. Hoping for another bestseller, Simrock requested a similar collection inspired by the folk traditions of Dvořák’s native Bohemia. Dvořák completed Slavonic Dances, Opus 46, in 1878. Recognizing their symphonic potential, Simrock ordered an orchestral version almost immediately. Dvořák composed a second set of dances eight years later as Opus 72. The selection of works on this program draws from both sets. Unlike many of Brahms’s Hungarian Dances, which are arrangements or free adaptations of existing melodies, Dvořák wrote virtually all of his own themes, melodies so idiomatic that listeners assumed they were authentic. Slavonic Dances draws freely from several traditional dance forms. The bold and spirited furiant (literally “a swaggering fellow”) has

shifting accents that create a lively rhythmic ambiguity. The dumka (or “little thought”) originates from a Ukrainian ballad that alternates melancholic and joyous verses. The skočná, Czech for “to jump,” is playful and humorous while the kolo (or “circle”) features a repeated, driving rhythm associated with communal circle dances. Dvořák’s orchestrations play a crucial role in bringing these dances to life. What gives the dances their folk character is not exotic instrumentation, but the spirit of folk performance expanded for large symphony orchestra. The clarinets, for example, mimic the speech-like rhythms of folk singers. The first violins often assume the role of the individual folk performer, with ornate and virtuosic lines singing above the chordal accompaniment, while bass drum and crash cymbals strengthen the refrains of the full ensemble dance.

Dvořák wrote virtually all of his own themes, melodies so idiomatic that listeners assumed they were authentic. Slavonic Dances draws freely from several traditional dance forms. Slavonic Dances became the international sensation that Simrock had hoped for, establishing Dvořák as one of Europe’s leading composers. The two collections remain among his most frequently performed and widely appreciated works.

November Program Notes

TCHAIKOVSKY NO.5 RAVEL•COPLAND COLEMAN

TCHAIKOVSKY 5 February 20 and 21, 2027 SU NSE T CE N T E R , CAR M E L

Jayce Ogren, Music Director and Conductor Dylan Girard, trumpet Ruth Stuart, English horn

Le Tombeau du Couperin

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

[running time 17’]

I. Prélude II. Forlane III. Menuet IV. Rigaudon Quiet City [10’]

Aaron Copland (1900-1990)

Seven O’Clock Shout [5’]

Valerie Coleman (b. 1970)

Conducted by Alan Truong, Youth Music Monterey (YMM) Music Director with YMM Honors Orchestra Members

INTERMISSION

Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64 [44’]

[20’]

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

I. Andante – Allegro con anima II. Andante cantabile, con alcuna licenza III. Valse. Allegro moderato IV. Finale: Andante maestoso – Allegro vivace

The February concert will be rebroadcast on KAZU’s HD2 Classical station on March 13th and 14th, 2027, both at 4 PM. Visit kazu.org/classical for more information about ways to listen. February Concert Program

ALAN TRUONG YMM CONDUCTOR and Donald Runnicles. In 2023, he served as Assistant Conductor for the Aspen Festival Orchestra, in addition to being a fellow at the Conducting Academy. In the Winter of 2022, he stepped in on 48 hours’ notice to conduct AXIOM, Juilliard’s New Music Ensemble in a concert of world premieres. In 2025, Alan came full circle when he was named the first alumni Music Director of Youth Music Monterey County, having spent formative years in the orchestras as an adolescent playing the Bassoon. A Salinas native, he is a galvanized advocate for music education in under-resourced communities, a result of being raised in his hometown’s Youth Orchestra of Salinas. He has has worked extensively with the Juilliard Pre-College Orchestra, the Northern Ohio Youth Orchestras, and is a regular guest conductor with the Rochester Youth

Alan Truong — conductor, educator, presenter — is a rising force in the sphere of American music, connecting

Philharmonic Orchestra.

music with the experiences of performers and

pedagogues, including Yannick Nézet-Séguin,

listeners alike. He was recently Cover Conductor for the New York Philharmonic’s Art of the Score concert series and has made public appearances with the Juilliard Lab Orchestra and the Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra. He has assisted some of the leading conductors of this generation, including Bertrand de Billy

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He has participated in masterclasses with some of today’s foremost conductors and Bertrand de Billy, Robert Spano, Cristian Măcelaru, and James Ross. Alan was a recipient of the Benzaquen Career Advancement Grant and the Bruno Walter Memorial Scholarship. As of 2024, he holds a Master of Music in Orchestral Conducting from the Juilliard School under the auspices of David Robertson.

DYLAN GIRARD

RUTH STUART

TRUMPET

ENGLISH HORN

Trumpeter Dylan Girard is a versatile performer, educator, and clinician across California and the West Coast.

Ruth Stuart holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Central Michigan University,

He has performed with the Los Angeles Opera, San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Ballet, Utah Symphony, Hawaii Symphony, and is Principal Trumpet with the Monterey Symphony. Girard has shared the stage with well-known artists including Yo-Yo Ma, Hugh Jackman, Weird Al Yankovich, among others. He has played sold-out shows at Outside Lands in Golden Gate Park, and was previously a featured recording artist at Skywalker Sound Studios.

Girard is an alumnus of the Manhattan School of Music and the University of Oregon, and he has held fellowships with the New World Symphony, Verbier Festival, Tanglewood Music Center, and Aspen Music Festival. He is a former instructor of trumpet at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Pre-College, and has returned to the University of Oregon as a visiting lecturer to give masterclasses and lessons. Girard currently resides in Los Angeles, California with his wife and two daughters.

where she studied with Roger Rehm, and a graduate degree from the Manhattan School of Music, where she studied with Joseph Robinson, former Principal Oboist of the New York Philharmonic.

Following the completion of her studies, Ruth performed with the Mexico City Philharmonic. Her career has also taken her around the world, including summer performances and engagements in Spoleto, Italy; Graz, Austria; and the former Soviet Union. Since 1995, Ruth has performed on both oboe and English horn with the Monterey Symphony. Throughout her career, she has also performed with many of the Bay Area’s leading orchestras and musical organizations, including the San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Ballet, San Jose Symphony and Opera, and the Oakland Symphony, not to mention running a small House Concert series in Oakland. Currently, Ruth performs on English horn with the Sacramento Philharmonic and plays oboe with the Sacramento Opera and Sacramento Ballet. In addition to her performing career, she maintains a private teaching studio at Forrest’s Music in Berkeley, where she shares her knowledge and experience with the next generation of musicians. She also assists families in navigating and managing care for their loved ones.

February Biographies

Program Notes By Christopher Anderson-Bazzoli

TCHAIKOVSKY 5 Concert Synopsis

Elegance gives way to exuberance in this compelling musical journey. Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin commemorates friends whom the composer lost in World War I, with each movement taking form of a French Baroque dance. Aaron Copland expresses the loneliness of modern urban life in his contemplative classic Quiet City, in which Monterey Symphony principals Dylan Girard (trumpet) and Ruth Stuart (English horn) step forward as soloists. Composed during the COVID-19 pandemic, Valerie Coleman’s Seven O’Clock Shout dramatizes the nightly phenomenon of people stepping outside to cheer, clap, and bang pots in support of frontline workers. The program closes with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s mighty Symphony No. 5, a work that grapples with fate and its acceptance.

Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)

Le Tombeau de Couperin (1914–1917; orch. 1919) I. Prélude II. Forlane III. Menuet IV. Rigaudon Just before the outbreak of World War I in 1914, French composer Maurice Ravel began composing a piano suite, Le Tombeau de Couperin. At the outset he intended to write a modern homage to eighteenth-century French keyboard music, particularly that of François Couperin (1668–1733). The war gave the project a deeply personal dimension. Ravel served in one of its most dangerous logistical assignments: driving military trucks that transported supplies to French forces near Verdun. As he completed the suite between 1914 and 1917, Ravel dedicated each movement to the memory of someone close to him who had perished in the war. The dedicatees included fellow musicians, artists, and the sons of close friends. Two years later, he created an orchestral version that has become one of his most beloved and frequently performed works.

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Despite its poignant origins, Le Tombeau de Couperin displays lightness and wit. The Prélude opens with a nimble oboe theme, whose plentiful ornaments reflect Ravel’s love of the French Baroque. The violins lead the lively Forlane—a courtly Venetian dance that figured prominently in Couperin’s keyboard music—punctuated by its recurring upwardleaping motif. The oboe returns to lead the elegant Menuet, the emotional center of the suite, harmonized with a simple chorale texture. The final movement, the exuberant Rigadoun, features a clarinet leading a rustic folk dance from France’s Provençal region. In his music and his life, Ravel resisted sentimentality. Le Tombeau de Couperin is less an expression of grief than an exquisitely crafted memorial urn, delicate in appearance yet enduring across centuries.

Aaron Copland (1900–1990)

Quiet City

(1939; concert version 1940–41) Famous for his unmistakable evocation of America’s open prairies, composer Aaron Copland turned his attention to an urban landscape in Quiet City. Originally composed as incidental music for Irwin Shaw’s short-lived stage play, Copland reworked the music into a single-movement concert work. “[Quiet City] is not intended to be descriptive of the play,” Copland said. “It merely uses the emotional background as a point of departure.”

The emotional background Copland describes is one of isolation, longing, and the search for connection in modern city life. At the opening, placid strings set the scene for the entrance of a solo trumpet, whose opening motif—six repeated notes in rapid succession— Copland marks as “nervous, mysterious” in the score. The emotional background Copland describes is one of isolation, longing, and the search for connection in modern city life. After a warm, plaintive English horn answers the trumpet’s austere question, the two soloists engage in quiet dialogue, each seeming to listen and respond to the other. At the work’s climax, the conversation grows more urgent before returning to its opening atmosphere of unease and mystery. Quiet City ends in peaceful introspection, inviting contemplation rather than providing resolution.

Valerie Coleman (b. 1970)

Seven O’Clock Shout (2020) Valerie Coleman is an internationally acclaimed composer, GRAMMY-nominated flutist, educator, and entrepreneur who has been recognized by The Washington Post as one of the “Top 35 Women Composers” and named Performance Today’s 2020 Classical Woman of the Year. Her music has received commissions from major institutions including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, and the American Composers Orchestra. Most recently, she served as the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra’s 2024–25 Sandbox Composer-in-Residence, producing All the People, commissioned by the orchestra and premiered in May 2025. In 2024, Coleman joined the composition faculty of The Juilliard School. Valerie Coleman has provided the following program note for Seven O’Clock Shout: Seven O’Clock Shout is an anthem inspired by the tireless frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and the heartwarming ritual of evening serenades that brought people together amidst isolation to celebrate life and the sacrifices of heroes. The work begins with a distant and solitary solo between two trumpets in fanfare fashion to commemorate the isolation forced upon humankind, and the need to reach out to one another. The fanfare blossoms into a lushly dense landscape of nature, symbolizing both the caregiving acts of nurses and doctors as they try to save lives and nature transforming and healing herself during a time of human selfisolation. Seven O’Clock Shout ends in a proud anthem in which we all come together with grateful hearts to acknowledge that we have survived yet another day. – Valerie Coleman

February Program Notes

YOUTH MUSIC MONTEREY COUNTY

Youth Music Monterey County seeks to inspire excellence in individual students and enrich our community by providing young people with opportunities to participate in, and gain

greater understanding of, music and its performance. Through our four programs, the Junior Youth and Honors Orchestras, South County Strings, Orchestra in the Schools, and YMMC Chamber Ensembles, YMMC has expanded its impact to provide access to high-quality music education, reaching over 250 students in 48 schools across Monterey County.

While our programs strive to provide excellence, we also recognize a deep purpose in creating community for the students in each of our programs. Our students build a strong work ethic through dedication to practice, but it is the strong community with other young musicians that creates the fabric of each ensemble. YMMC is dedicated to providing our students with additional enrichment through collaborations and partnerships with other local arts organizations through side-by-side performances, masterclasses, sectionals, and community outreach performances. Every year, YMMC offers a comprehensive slate of youth orchestra programs that support student musicians from their first notes through advanced ensemble performance. By providing access to quality music instruction and ensemble experience, YMMC is able to enhance current school music programs as well as provide critical music education to communities with no such programs. Furthermore, we are committed to making our programs accessible to all youth, regardless of financial circumstance. Tuition assistance, subsidized lessons, and free instrument loans, have always been, and will continue to be, an important part of YMMC. Through these efforts, we strive not only to inspire a lifelong love of music, but also to give young people the skills, confidence, and opportunities they need to thrive, building the next generation through music.

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Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893)

Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64 (1888) I. Andante – Allegro con anima II. Andante cantabile, con alcuna licenza III. Valse: Allegro moderato IV. Finale: Andante maestoso – Allegro vivace Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky composed his Symphony No. 5 in E minor during the summer of 1888, a period in his life marked by a profound contradiction. Outwardly, he enjoyed unprecedented success both in his native Russia and internationally. Inwardly, however, he remained haunted by self-doubt and anxiety over whether his creative powers were beginning to fail him. The Fifth Symphony marked Tchaikovsky’s return to the form after more than a decade. His previous attempt at the genre, the Manfred Symphony of 1885, had proved difficult and ultimately disappointing. Prior to beginning the new symphony, he confessed to his brother Modeste: “To tell the truth, at present I’ve no inclination at all to create. Have I really finally used myself up?” The resolution to Tchaikovsky’s doubts may be captured in this journal entry of April 15th: “Introduction. Complete resignation before fate.” His resignation finds expression in the hushed, minor-key theme heard in the low register of the clarinets. While the score contains primary and secondary themes like a traditional symphony, it is this opening Fate theme that binds the composition together. It appears in all four movements and evolves from a somber processional in the introduction into a majestic march in the finale. After the introduction, the first movement builds energy when the clarinets present the propulsive main theme that broadens to a commanding statement in the French horns. The violins release the tension with a gently rising second theme in B minor. An organgrinder-like effect in the woodwinds punctuates the movement’s darker dramatic passages with flashes of rustic humor.

The second movement features a yearning French horn solo, one of Tchaikovsky’s most beloved melodies. It engages in dialogue with an oboe that introduces a second theme, marked animato (“animated”) in the score, as the movement builds toward a passionate climax. The brass and timpani abruptly shatter the movement’s lyrical calm with a forceful presentation of the Fate theme, after which the orchestra slowly regains its composure in a sequence for soft pizzicato strings. The third movement is an elegant waltz. As the main theme unfolds in the violins, the pizzicato accompaniment below often avoids playing on the first beat of each measure, giving the dance an intriguing instability. Unlike its disruptive appearances in the second movement, the Fate theme, again in the clarinets, quietly join the texture—eliciting a fortissimo orchestral outburst to end the movement. The Fate theme undergoes its most extensive transformations in the finale, appearing first as a noble hymn in E major in the strings, then as an agitated statement for the brass in the Allegro section, and finally as a proud, ceremonial declaration for the full orchestra. Despite the grandeur of its final bars, the finale seems to stop short of unequivocal resolution. Even Tchaikovsky later expressed doubts about the effectiveness of the ending, and critics have long debated whether the work is truly resolved. Nevertheless, the Fifth Symphony restored Tchaikovsky’s confidence as a symphonist. He conducted the premiere in St. Petersburg on November 17, 1888, and the Fifth Symphony has since become one of his most beloved works. In the end, Tchaikovsky’s doubts gave way to a simple affirmation: “I think that I have not miscalculated, that it has turned out well.”

February Program Notes

RA H M S

BRAHMS: THE SYMPHONIES March 20 and 21, 2027 SU NSE T CE N T E R , CAR M E L

Sponsored by Beverly Hamilton Tracy and Todd Perkins, in memory of William and Carolyn Perkins

Jayce Ogren, Music Director and Conductor Saturday Program: Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90 [running time 33’]

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

I. Allegro con brio II. Andante III. Poco allegretto IV. Allegro INTERMISSION

Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68 [45’]

[20’]

Johannes Brahms

I. Un poco sostenuto – Allegro II. Andante sostenuto III. Un poco allegretto e grazioso IV. Adagio – Più andante – Allegro non troppo, ma con brio

Sunday Program: Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73 [running time 43’]

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

I. Allegro non troppo II. Adagio non troppo III. Allegretto grazioso (quasi andantino) IV. Allegro con spirito INTERMISSION

Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98 [39]

[20’]

Johannes Brahms

I. Allegro non troppo II. Andante moderato III. Allegro giocoso Allegro energico e IV. passionato

The March concert will be rebroadcast on KAZU’s HD2 Classical station on April 10th and 11th, 2027, both at 4 PM. Visit kazu.org/classical for more information about ways to listen. March Concert Program

Program Notes By Christopher Anderson-Bazzoli

BRAHMS: THE SYMPHONIES Concert Synopsis

For 150 years the symphonies of Johannes Brahms have remained essential cornerstones of the orchestral repertoire. The works chart a remarkable artistic journey: the longgestated struggle of the First gives way to the confident serenity of the Second; the introspective complexity of the Third leads to the austere grandeur of the Fourth. This complete Brahms symphony cycle offers a rare opportunity to journey deep into the heart of the Romantic era. Maestro Jayce Ogren leads Symphonies No. 3 and No. 1 on Saturday evening followed by No. 2 and No. 4 on Sunday afternoon.

Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)

Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90 (1883) I. Allegro con brio II. Andante III. Poco allegretto IV. Allegro

Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68 (1855–1876) I. Un poco sostenuto – Allegro II. Andante sostenuto III. Un poco allegretto e grazioso IV. Adagio – Più andante – Allegro non troppo, ma con brio “I shall never write a symphony!” Brahms reportedly made this gloomy prediction in the early 1870s, as a young composer confronting the legacy of Beethoven. Yet he ultimately composed four symphonies that rank among the enduring masterpieces of the genre and reveal how he freed himself from the weight of history and found his own voice. The First Symphony took more than two decades to complete. The three that followed came within the next decade, each revealing a different facet of Brahms’s art. 54

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His Symphony No. 3 in F major distills Brahms’s symphonic language into a compact yet mysterious form. Its structure is built around a three-note motif, F–A♭–F, heard at the opening. This musical motto is one of several instances of Brahms infusing his music with personal significance. Its note names stand for the initials of the German phrase “Frei aber froh” (“free but happy”). The saying pokes fun at his friend and frequent collaborator, violinist Joseph Joachim, whose own motto about his longtime bachelorhood was “Frei aber einsam” (“free, but lonely”). The three notes take on a mysterious quality when Brahms reveals the harmony that unfolds beneath them. The opening initially suggests F major, but the appearance of A-flat introduces a chromatic inflection that momentarily darkens the harmony before A-natural restores the major mode. It’s a microcosm of the tension between light and shadow that persists throughout the symphony and, in various forms, much of Brahms’s music. The motto then moves down to the cellos and basses as the sweeping first theme unfolds in the violins above. A plaintive woodwind chorale opens the second movement, presenting a theme Brahms marks semplice (“simple”) in the score.

The movement takes on urgency as more active rhythmic textures appear throughout the orchestra, separated by moments of near silence. The third movement—one of Brahms’s most beloved creations—features a wistful melody in the cellos. Its falling gestures suggest sighing breaths, often interpreted as a musical tribute to Brahms’s close friend and confidante Clara Schumann, who called the movement “a pearl, but one…dipped in a tear of woe.” Brahms returns to a Beethovenian restlessness in the finale, with a powerful opening theme that suggests a decisive conclusion. Rather than ending with an affirmation, the symphony’s final moments transform the opening into a quiet farewell, including a gently descending theme from Robert Schumann’s “Rhenish” symphony. Like the three preceding movements, the finale ends with a fade into silence.

“I shall never write a symphony!” Brahms reportedly made this gloomy prediction in the early 1870s, as a young composer confronting the legacy of Beethoven. Yet he ultimately composed four symphonies that rank among the enduring masterpieces of the genre… Seven years separate the composition of Brahms’s First and Third Symphonies. The contrast between them reveals just how far the composer had traveled. The journey began in 1853, when, at age twenty, Brahms found himself thrust into the musical spotlight. Robert Schumann’s famous essay “New Paths,” in Germany’s New Journal of Music, identified Brahms as the long-awaited composer destined to give “ideal expression to his times”—

an extraordinary endorsement that immediately raised expectations. Soon after, Brahms began sketching ideas. More than two decades would pass before he considered his First Symphony complete. It has a gripping introduction: a relentless timpani pulse establishes the work’s heartbeat, while two violin lines diverge in opposite directions. To quote Leonard Bernstein, the “schizophrenic theme pulls itself apart,” introducing the anguish and conflict that will shape the symphony’s dramatic journey. The second movement answers with warmth and quiet introspection. The sweetness of its opening E-major phrase in the strings proves deceptive as minor-key inflections and a constantly searching tonality pervade the movement. A light and airy clarinet theme opens the third movement, Un poco allegretto e grazioso (“moderately fast and graceful”). In place of a traditional scherzo, Brahms substitutes this relaxed intermezzo—literally an “in-between” piece. Brahms revised the finale repeatedly as he worked to unify its contrasting episodes. In the slow introduction, the first movement’s tension reappears when the violins present a fateful minor-key theme. The music then tiptoes along in pizzicato strings until the sun breaks through the clouds with the famous “Alphorn” theme, introduced by a prominent French horn. This theme had another personal resonance for Brahms: in 1868, while traveling in the Swiss Alps, he heard an alphorn call and incorporated it into a birthday card sent to Clara Schumann. After a soft trombone chorale, a noble violin theme—perhaps a nod to Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”—propels the symphony toward its radiant conclusion.

March Program Notes

Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73 (1877) I. Allegro non troppo II. Adagio non troppo III. Allegretto grazioso (quasi andantino) IV. Allegro con spirito

Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98 (1884–1885) I. Allegro non troppo II. Andante moderato III. Allegro giocoso Allegro energico e IV. passionato The hard-won success of his First Symphony inspired Brahms to begin work on his Symphony No. 2 in D major soon afterward. He completed it in just four months, giving each movement a major-key foundation and creating an overall impression of warmth and ease. Yet beneath that surface lies a darker undercurrent, adding an emotional complexity characteristic of his music. The first movement begins, like the Third Symphony, with a three-note motif that becomes a nucleus for the entire work. The cellos and basses enter with the note D, followed by its lower neighbor C-sharp, and a return to D. Arnold Schoenberg cited the transformations of this motif as a prime example of Brahms’s technique of “developing variation.” An illustration comes in the French horn’s answer to the cellos: a melody featuring E, its upper neighbor F-sharp, and a return to E—reshaping the contour into a subtle new form. A melancholy trombone chorale darkens the movement’s pastoral warmth, a moment to which Brahms gave an ominous image: “black wings flapping above us.” Similar shadows cover the second movement’s introduction, in which two low instrumental voices—cellos and bassoons—present melodies that diverge in opposite directions, a softer recollection of the tumultuous opening of the First Symphony.

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In the third movement, the symphony’s opening three-note cello motif transforms into a light, dancing theme in the oboe. Brief shifts to the minor mode hint at the tragic undercurrent beneath the movement’s gentle country waltz. The finale opens with a restless theme in the violins, marked sotto voce (“in a soft voice”). An outburst from the brass and timpani unleashes a surge of energy. The trombones, the “black wings” of melancholy from the first movement, return transformed, bringing the symphony to its bright D-major conclusion.

Beneath that surface lies a darker undercurrent, adding an emotional complexity characteristic of his music. Shortly before its premiere, Symphony No. 4 in E minor received a private performance in a version for two pianos, given by Brahms himself and his friend and fellow pianist Ignaz Brüll. Among those present were the most influential musical figures in Brahms’s circle, including conductor Hans Richter and critic Eduard Hanslick. The work’s brilliant development of minimal musical materials, its use of Classical and Baroque forms, and its minor-key ending prompted Hanslick’s poetic observation: “It is like a dark well; the longer we look into it, the more brightly the stars shine back.”

The opening theme in the violins illustrates his point. It consists of a repeating twonote motif, first gently descending and then leaping upward. Its unceasing uniform rhythm makes the theme an unlikely candidate for development in the traditional sense. Although it changes remarkably little, its harmonic context continually shifts, giving each successive statement a different character. With each new phrase, the theme disappears further into an increasingly busy texture, as Brahms develops not the melody itself as much as the material surrounding it. This subtle approach to development can make Brahms’s transformations challenging to discern, but, as Hanslick suggested, they reveal themselves more clearly the longer we listen. The second movement, Andante moderato, features a relaxed yet confident French horn theme. The unceasing rhythmic repetition recalls the previous movement, reflecting Brahms’s skillful production of varied music from minimal material. The third movement,

Allegro giocoso (“fast and joyous”), opens with a vigorous, rhythmically driven theme for the full orchestra. Listen for the main theme’s descending contour to reverse direction, echoing the ways Brahms reshapes motifs in the Second Symphony. The finale ranks among Brahms’s greatest achievements. It unfolds as a passacaglia, a Baroque form built around a repeating chord progression. Brahms bases its theme on the final chorus of J. S. Bach’s Cantata No. 150, Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich. Over this foundation, Brahms constructs a series of variations that explore a wide range of textures, dynamics, and emotional states. No matter how dramatically the music varies—from quiet passages to full orchestral climaxes—the underlying harmonic progression remains unyielding. Brahms ultimately drives the movement toward a solemn brass chorale and a final, stark return to E minor. The Fourth Symphony, again quoting Swafford, “allows the darkness to stand [and] gives tragedy the last word.”

The finale ranks among Brahms’s greatest achievements… The Fourth Symphony, again quoting Swafford, “allows the darkness to stand [and] gives tragedy the last word.”

March Program Notes

biss plays

tho ven strauss bartók

BISS PLAYS BEETHOVEN April 17 and 18, 2027 SU NSE T CE N T E R , CAR M E L

Sponsored by The William H. and Patricia M. Smith Family Foundation

Jayce Ogren, Music Director and Conductor Jonathan Biss, piano

Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58 [running time 34’]

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

I. Allegro moderato II. Andante con moto III. Rondo: Vivace

INTERMISSION

[20’]

Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, Op. 28 [15’]

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin [20’]

Béla Bartók (1881-1945)

The City Awakens – The Girl’s Dance – The Three Tramps and Their Victims – Entrance of the Mandarin – The Chase

The April concert will be rebroadcast on KAZU’s HD2 Classical station on May 8th and 9th, 2027, both at 4 PM. Visit kazu.org/classical for more information about ways to listen. April Concert Program

JONATHAN BISS P I A NO

Montereysymphony.org

Pianist Jonathan Biss is recognized globally for his “impeccable taste and formidable technique” (The New Yorker). Praised by The Boston Globe as “an eloquent and insightful music writer,” Biss published his fourth book,

Adam Haslett for a panel discussion on

Unquiet: My Life with Beethoven, in 2020.

anxiety, depression, and creativity. Biss is the

Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas for an online audience of more than 280,000 people. In 2024, Biss participated in Princeton University Concert’s Healing Through Music Series, appearing alongside author

The book was the first Audible Original by a

recipient of numerous honors, including the

classical musician and one of Audible’s top

Leonard Bernstein Award, the Andrew Wolf

audiobooks of the year.

Memorial Chamber Music Award, an Avery

Biss has appeared as a soloist with some of the world’s foremost orchestras, including the Los Angeles and New York Philharmonics, the Boston Symphony, the Royal Concertgebouw, the London Symphony and more. He has served as the Co-Artistic Director of the Marlboro Music School and Festival alongside pianist Mitsuko Uchida since 2018. He served on

Fisher Career Grant, the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, and a Gilmore Young Artist Award. His albums for EMI won the Diapason d’Or de l’Année and Edison awards. He was an artist-in-residence on American Public Media’s Performance Today and was the first American chosen to participate in the BBC’s New Generation Artist program. Biss is a third-generation professional

the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music for

musician; his grandmother is Raya

ten years, and has been a guest professor at

Garbousova, one of the first famous female

schools such as the Guildhall SOMAD and

cellists (for whom Samuel Barber composed

the New England Conservatory of Music.

his Cello Concerto), and his parents are

Biss is also the author of Unquiet: My Life

violinist Miriam Fried and violist/violinist Paul

with Beethoven, in which he examines music

Biss. Growing up surrounded by music, Biss

and his own life’s journey through the lens of

began his piano studies at age six, with his

Beethoven’s last piano sonatas.

first musical collaborations alongside his

Coinciding with the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth in 2020, Biss recorded the composer’s complete piano sonatas, and offered insights to all 32 landmark works via his free, online Coursera lecture series

mother and father. He studied with Evelyne Brancart at Indiana University and Leon Fleisher at the Curtis Institute of Music.

Sponsored by Carol Lee Holland

Exploring Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas. In March 2020, Biss gave a virtual recital presented by 92NY, wherein he performed

Jonathan Biss Biography

Program Notes By Christopher Anderson-Bazzoli

BISS PLAYS BEETHOVEN Concert Synopsis

Vivid narratives animate a program that is all at once intimate, playful, and intense. In the Piano Concerto No. 4, Ludwig van Beethoven diverges from his hallmark heroism with a piece that transforms solitary introspection into ebullient joy. The Monterey Symphony is joined by pianist Jonathan Biss, an artist the Chicago Tribune calls “one of today’s foremost Beethoven exponents.” A mischievous trickster gets himself in hot water in Richard Strauss’s dazzling tone poem Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks. The concert concludes with a disturbing tale of violence and obsession in the suite from Béla Bartók’s expressionist ballet The Miraculous Mandarin.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)

Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58 (1805-1806) I. Allegro moderato II. Andante con moto III. Rondo: Vivace As Ludwig van Beethoven sat down at the piano to give the first public performance of his Fourth Piano Concerto, he had a surprise in store. His audience would have expected a fast Allegro theme presented first by the orchestra, which the solo piano would then take up and elaborate—a convention that had goverened the openings of concertos for generations. Instead, Beethoven played a solitary G major

Beethoven entered what scholars call his “middle period”—a time of bold experimentation that would define his mature style…

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chord, extended it with a few simple melodic phrases, and then paused. What was Beethoven up to? Was this an improvisation? Perhaps a different piece? Characteristically, Beethoven transformed the very public concerto genre into something unexpectedly private. The performance took place as part of Beethoven’s famous marathon concert at Vienna’s Theater an der Wien on December 22, 1808—a concert that also featured the premieres of his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, among other works. The concerto emerged in the years following the profound personal crisis Beethoven expressed in his famous Heiligenstadt Testament, written as he confronted the growing seriousness of his hearing loss. In the years that followed, Beethoven entered what scholars call his “middle period”—a time of bold experimentation that would define his mature style, challenging musical conventions in ways that helped usher in the Romantic era.

After the concerto’s gentle opening piano theme, Beethoven once again offers a surprise by having the orchestra respond in the distant key of B major. This dissonant exchange begins a dialogue between two opposing voices— the piano and the orchestra—that gradually find common ground. Throughout the first movement (Allegro moderato), soloist and orchestra revisit and transform the opening idea, building toward a majestic orchestral climax. The music then darkens to E minor for a more rhythmically active second theme in the violins. In the development section and the solo piano cadenza, Beethoven finally unleashes the kind of virtuosity his audience expected.

The finale (Rondo: Vivace) opens with a principal theme built from rapid scales and frequent harmonic shifts, recalling the music of Beethoven’s youth. He then introduces a contrasting melody in the piano, more elaborately ornamented than the principal theme and suggesting an echo of the slow movement. The rondo theme returns, leading to increasingly energetic exchanges between piano and orchestra before the concerto races to its conclusion.

Beethoven transformed the very public concerto genre into something unexpectedly private. The performance took place as part of Beethoven’s famous marathon concert at Vienna’s Theater an der Wien on December 22, 1808.

The second movement (Andante con moto) opens with insistent staccato phrases in the strings, while the piano responds with a gentle, legato theme. One music critic likened the movement to the Greek god Orpheus (represented by the piano) taming the Furies, the goddesses of vengeance (represented by the strings). The comparison seems especially apt near the end of the movement, where a series of long trills in the solo piano gradually calms the strings that fade to a whisper at the movement’s close.

April Program Notes

Richard Strauss (1864–1949)

Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, Op. 28 (1894–1895) A master of the late Romantic orchestra, German composer Richard Strauss transformed symphonic music into a living narrative. His distinctive themes and astonishing instrumental effects portray characters and dramatic events with vivid clarity. The tone poem Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, completed in 1895, draws on German folk tales to evoke the story of a mischievous trickster who wreaks havoc on an unsuspecting medieval town. The piece opens with a sweet, storybook introduction in the violins before presenting two themes that represent the titular lead character. First, the French horn introduces an extended jaunty theme that climbs triumphantly upward only to stumble and, musically speaking, fall flat on its face. Next, the clarinet presents a short, playful motif that becomes a recurring musical signature of Till’s irreverent character. In the next section, a galloping rhythm in the orchestra sets Till on his merry way. A dizzying series of episodes follows in which Till mocks local law enforcement (heard in the orchestra’s heavy stomping gestures), courts a young woman (heard as surging Romantic melodies), and thumbs his nose at academics (heard as fastidious musical counterpoint). The work soon finds Till fleeing the consequences of his actions. These musical sequences, in their swashbuckling style, helped define the sound of Hollywood’s Golden Age.

The tone poem...draws on German folk takes to evoke the story of a mischievous trickster who wreaks havoc on an unsuspecting medieval town.

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A thunderous drum roll suddenly depicts Till’s arrest and appearance before a court. Between stern brass pronouncements from the judge, you can hear the defendant’s rebellious retorts in the return of the playful clarinet motif. Till soon finds himself facing the executioner as high woodwinds begin a long descending glissando that lands with a thud in the basses, depicting the precise moment of our anti-hero’s expiration. Many accounts report that, when asked whether Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks had some deeper metaphysical intention, Strauss responded simply: “Oh, no—I only wanted to give the people in the concert hall a good laugh for once.”

Béla Bartók (1881–1945)

Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin, Op. 19 (1918–1924; suite 1927)

The City Awakens – The Girl’s Dance – The Three Tramps and Their Victims – Entrance of the Mandarin – The Chase Hungarian writer Melchior Lengyel’s disturbing story The Miraculous Mandarin emerged from a Europe profoundly shaken by World War I and the ensuing social upheaval. First published as a short story in 1916, its plot centers on three “tramps” (or “pimps,” in modern parlance) who use a prostitute (known simply as “the girl”) as bait to lure men into their room, where they rob and attempt to kill them. The grim and explicit subject matter shocked its audience, but also reflected genuine and widespread anxieties. Many thinkers and artists of the time—including psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and the Expressionist painters—sought to uncover the irrational drives beneath civilized behavior. Lengyel’s fellow countryman, composer Béla Bartók, immediately recognized the story’s social relevance and dramatic possibilities. He began to compose music based on the plot in 1918 intending to present it as a one-act pantomime, but difficulties brought on by the war prevented him from completing the score until 1924. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Bartók also had a difficult time securing a performance. The Miraculous Mandarin eventually premiered in 1926 at the Cologne Opera in Germany, where, following a public outcry, Cologne’s mayor Konrad Adenauer (later West Germany’s first chancellor) prohibited further performances. Bartók subsequently extracted a concert suite that distills the work’s most powerful episodes. The suite, a singlemovement work comprising five sections, quickly became the most widely performed version, allowing the music to gain recognition apart from the controversial stage production. The opening section, “The City Awakens,” depicts a bustling urban scene with jagged rhythms and clashing harmonies led by swirling figures in the violas. Next, “The Girl’s Dance” introduces a seductive clarinet theme that serves to draw in her unsuspecting clients. In “The Three Tramps and Their Victims,”

aggressive trombone gestures depict the tramps as they run up the stairs to barge in on their victims. The story takes a sharp turn in “The Entrance of the Mandarin.” Historically, a mandarin referred to a high-ranking official in imperial China. To European audiences of the early twentieth century, the term also carried broader associations of wealth, power, distance, and exoticism. What makes this particular mandarin miraculous is that, unlike the previous victims, he proves to be a mysteriously potent figure who defies the tramps’ attempts to subdue him.

Many thinkers and artists of the time—including psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and the Expressionist painters—sought to uncover the irrational drives beneath civilized behavior.

Evoking the Mandarin’s seemingly supernatural power, strident downward glissandos in the trombones create an atmosphere of menace. Following a return of the girl’s seductive dance, relentless rhythms and violent stabs from the orchestra drive the final section, “The Chase,” as the Mandarin pursues the fleeing girl. A spine-tingling orchestral outburst accompanies her collapse into the Mandarin’s arms, bringing the concert suite to its abrupt and unresolved conclusion.

April Program Notes

MAHLER R NOITCERRUSER

2 NO

MAHLER: RESURRECTION May 22 and 23, 2027 SU NSE T CE N T E R , CAR M E L

Sponsored by Bill and Nancy Doolittle with special support from Bill Lynch

Jayce Ogren, Music Director and Conductor Andriana Chuchman, soprano Michelle DeYoung, mezzo-soprano VOLTI Robert Geary, Chorus Master

Song to the Moon from Rusalka, Op. 114

Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)

Te Deum from Quattro pezzi sacri [15’]

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)

[running time 6’]

INTERMISSION

Symphony No. 2 in C minor, “Resurrection” [80’]

[20’]

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)

I. Allegro maestoso II. Andante moderato III. In ruhig fließender Bewegung IV. “Urlicht” (Primeval Light) – Sehr feierlich, aber schlicht V. Im Tempo des Scherzos – Finale

The May concert will be rebroadcast on KAZU’s HD2 Classical station on June 12th and 13th, 2027, both at 4 PM. Visit kazu.org/classical for more information about ways to listen. May Concert Program

ANDRIANA CHUCHMAN SOPRANO

Ukrainian-Canadian soprano Andriana Chuchman has earned acclaim for her performances across a wide range of repertoire, from the heroines of Mozart and Handel to 20th-century masterpieces and the premieres of new operas and orchestral works. In

the 26/27 season, she debuts with Calgary Opera in the title role of Massenet’s Cendrillon and appears as Violetta in La traviata with Canadian Opera Company, Vancouver Opera, and Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra. In concert, she returns to Kansas City Symphony for Handel’s Messiah and to her hometown of Winnipeg for Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, and tours Canada with the Axios Men’s Ensemble in the Ukrainian War Requiem National Tour.

Ms. Chuchman has appeared with leading opera companies including The Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, The Dallas Opera, LA Opera, San Diego Opera, Washington National Opera, The Glimmerglass Festival, Opera Omaha, Glyndebourne Festival Tour, Salzburg Whitsun Festival, and Hamburg

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State Opera. In her native Canada, she has appeared with Canadian Opera Company, Vancouver Opera, Manitoba Opera, Pacific Opera Victoria, and Edmonton Opera. Her repertoire includes Rigoletto (Gilda), I Capuleti e i Montecchi (Giulietta), La fille du Régiment (Marie), L’elisir d’amore (Adina), Giulio Cesare (Cleopatra), Le nozze di Figaro (Susanna), Hansel and Gretel (Gretel), The Merry Widow (Valencienne), Orphée et Eurydice (title role), and Gianni Schicchi (Lauretta). She has also garnered acclaim for her performances in contemporary opera, including Joby Talbot’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Sandrine/ Mercédès), Jake Heggie’s It’s a Wonderful Life (Mary), John Adams’s Nixon in China (Pat Nixon) and A Flowering Tree (Kumudha), and the world premiere of Jack Perla’s Shalimar the Clown (Boonyi/India), as well as Show Boat (Magnolia) and Camelot (Guinevere). In concert, Ms. Chuchman has appeared at Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival in staged performances of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater and with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Rhode Island Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, Cincinnati May Festival, and Ravinia Festival. Born in Winnipeg, Ms. Chuchman holds a Bachelor’s degree in Voice Performance from the University of Manitoba. She is an alumna of the Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago and San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program. Her honors include San Francisco Opera’s 2019 Emerging Star of the Year, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis’s 2017 Mabel Dorn Reeder Award, and a prize at the finals of the 2009 Neue Stimmen Competition in Germany.

MICHELLE DEYOUNG MEZZO SOPRANO Rex, and Herodias in Salome. She also created the role of the Shaman in Tan Dun’s The First Emperor at the Metropolitan Opera.

Mezzo-Soprano Michelle DeYoung has appeared with many of the celebrated orchestras, opera companies, and festivals of the world during her distinguished career. She appears regularly

with the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic, the Concertgebouworkest, and the Sydney Symphony. She has also performed at the prestigious festivals of Ravinia, Tanglewood, Saito Kinen, Edinburgh, and Lucerne.

Equally at home on the opera stage, Ms. DeYoung has appeared with the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Teatro alla Scala, Bayreuth Festival, Berliner Staatsoper, and the Paris Opera. Her many roles include Fricka, Sieglinde and Waltraute in The Ring Cycle; Kundry in Parsifal, Venus in Tannhäuser, Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde, Eboli in Don Carlos, Amneris in Aida, Santuzza in Cavellaria Rusticana, Ježibaba in Rusalka, Marguerite in Le Damnation de Faust, Dido in Les Troyens, Judith in Bluebeard’s Castle, Jocaste in Oedipus

A multi-Grammy award winning recording artist, Ms. DeYoung’s impressive discography includes Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, and Götterdämmerung with the Jaap van Zweden and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra (Naxos), Kindertotenlieder, Mahler’s Symphony No. 3, and Das Klagende Lied with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony (SFS Media), Les Troyens with Sir Colin Davis and the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO Live!), and Mahler Symphony No 3 with both the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Bernard Haitink (CSO Resound) and the Pittsburgh Symphony and Manfred Honeck (Challenge Records International). Her most recent recording of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra (Deutsche Grammophon) was released in July 2021 and she is a featured soloist in the Met Opera’s Verdi’s Requiem: The Met Remembers 9/11 which was nominated for a 2023 GRAMMY Award for Best Choral Performance. Ms. DeYoung is the founder and conductor of Ensemble Charité, an organization which aims to support various charities while also fostering young, emerging musicians through community performances of chamber concerts with seasoned professional musicians. She was also recently named to the vocal faculty of the famed Jacob School of Music at Indiana University.

May Biographies

ROBERT GEARY CHORUS MASTER Robert Geary, founding Artistic Director of VOLTI, the Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir, and the Golden Gate International Choral Festival, also serves as Artistic Director of the San Francisco Choral Society. His lifelong commitment to the choral arts has led him and his choirs to national and international prominence. VOLTI, under his direction since its founding in 1979, is recognized as one of the most important and accomplished new music ensembles in the USA.

For 37 years, until stepping down as Artistic Director in 2019, Geary built and led the Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir, an education and performance program whose record of success in competition is at the highest international standard. With his guiding vision, the Golden Gate International Children’s and Youth Choral Festival has become part of the international choral environment, bringing thousands of young singers from dozens of countries to California. For 28 years he has led the San Francisco Choral Society as a keeper of the traditional repertoire and an innovative force commissioning and performing new works for chorus and orchestra. Geary has received the KDFC Music Educator of the Year Award and the Lois Blair Rawlings Educational Inspiration Award. Most recently he received Chorus America’s Michael Korn Founders Award for a lifetime of significant contributions to choral art. Geary has prepared choirs for conductors including JoAnn Falletta, Helmuth Rilling, Robert Shaw, Kurt Herbert Adler, Edo de Waart, Krzysztof Penderecki, Herbert Blomstedt, Dale Warland, Kent Nagano, Michael Morgan, Michael Tilson Thomas, Ludovic Morlot, and Esa-Pekka Salonen.

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VOLTI VOCAL ENSEMBLE VOLTI, one of the leading professional vocal ensembles in the United States, has a primary purpose of performing contemporary American music. Having

commissioned more than 120 new works, by a diverse group of emerging as well as established composers, VOLTI is the only seven-time winner of the Chorus America/ ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music, and the 2023 recipient of Chorus America’s highest award, the Margaret Hillis Award for Excellence. Volti has been guided by founding Artistic Director Robert Geary since 1979. In addition to presenting concerts and creating recordings of leading-edge unaccompanied music for vocal ensemble, VOLTI enjoys frequent collaborations. Recent collaborations have included: revivals of Joby Talbot’s Path of Miracles, a site-specific installation performance co-created with KT Nelson and ODC/Dance (at SF’s Grace Cathedral, 2023 and Saint Joseph’s Arts Society, 2026); Huang Ruo’s Angel Island Oratorio with the Del Sol Quartet,

including the on-site concert premiere at Angel Island immigration detention center (2021), and dance versions with the Oakland Ballet (2025, 2026) featuring original choreography by Asian American choreographers; and the premiere of Chris Castro’s Babel, a setting of myths and musings on the creation of the world, in collaboration with the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble and live story-teller Susan Strauss (2026). Past collaborations include the première of Denial, an oratorio on climate change themes by Michael Gilbertson, with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra; the première of Dreamers, an oratorio on immigration themes by Jimmy Lopez and Nilo Cruz, with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London conducted by Esa Pekka Salonen for Cal Performances; and performing and recording Terry Riley’s Sun Rings with the Kronos Quartet (GRAMMY Award for Best Engineered Classical Album, 2019). Listening to VOLTI is like visiting a contemporary art gallery—they stimulate the mind, the imagination, and the heart. May Biographies

Program Notes By Christopher Anderson-Bazzoli

MAHLER: RESURRECTION Concert Synopsis

Monterey Symphony’s season finale features Gustav Mahler’s monumental Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection”—an epic meditation on the deepest questions of life, death, and transcendence. The work calls for massive forces: a heavily-expanded orchestra, choir, vocal soloists, and organ. VOLTI joins the orchestra along with celebrated soloists Andriana Chuchman (soprano) and Michelle DeYoung (mezzo-soprano). The program includes two additional Late Romantic treasures. In Antonin Dvořák’s Song to the Moon (from his opera Rusalka) the water nymph Rusalka appeals to the moon to convey her love to a distant human prince. Giuseppe Verdi’s sacred choral work Te Deum is among the composer’s final works and culminates in a profound expression of the struggle between faith and doubt.

Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904)

Song to the Moon from Rusalka, Op. 114 (1900–1901) The city of Prague welcomed Czech composer Antonín Dvořák as a national hero when he returned home after three prosperous years in the United States. From 1892 to 1895, Dvořák served as director of the National Conservatory of Music of America and achieved international acclaim, notably with his Symphony No. 9, From the New World. Settled back in his homeland, Dvořák increasingly turned to opera, a genre that allowed him to further explore his Czech heritage. In 1900 Dvořák began a collaboration with librettist Jaroslav Kvapil on Rusalka, an opera blending elements of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid with Slavic folklore and the Czech fairy-tale tradition. The story centers on Rusalka, a water-spirit who longs to leave her enchanted world behind and enter the human realm in pursuit of love. Song to the Moon appears in Act I as Rusalka sits on the shore of a lake, imploring the moon to carry her message of love to a distant prince.

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The aria unfolds in three expressive phases. The opening is an invocation: “Moon, stand still awhile and tell me, where my beloved is.” The harp evokes the shimmering surface of the water while muted strings convey the placid, moonlit landscape. The middle section becomes a more impassioned plea, animated by pizzicato strings: “Tell him, silvery moon, that I am embracing him.” A despondent melody in the English horn leads to the aria’s final dramatic crescendo as Rusalka pleads, “Moonlight, don’t disappear!”

Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901)

Te Deum from Quattro pezzi sacri (1895–1896) “I know several of the old Te Deums,” Giuseppe Verdi wrote as he began work on his own setting of the ancient Latin hymn, “ and I’ve never been convinced by the way this canticle has been interpreted.” The Te Deum (“To thee, God, we praise”) has one of the longest and richest histories of any sacred text in Western music. For centuries it accompanied thanksgiving ceremonies, royal occasions, military victories, and major ecclesiastical celebrations. Verdi’s setting reimagines that tradition. Famous as the composer of some of the most compelling operas of the late 19th century, Verdi composed his Te Deum for double chorus and orchestra in 1895–96 as the largest work in the collection later known as Quattro pezzi sacri (Four Sacred Pieces). Rather than offering a simple hymn of praise, Verdi—then in his 80s— created a setting spanning an emotional range from awe to humility. The form unfolds as a series of contrasting episodes, shifting between massive choral and orchestral sonorities and quiet moments of reflection. The opening is hushed and mysterious, as the men of the chorus enter on the chant-like declamation “Te Deum laudamus” (“Thee, God, we praise”). The atmosphere of ancient ritual gives way to a surging crescendo on the text “Sanctus” (“Holy”), leading to a gentle supplication on “Te ergo quaesumus” (“We beseech Thee”). After an impassioned climax on “In te, Domine, speravi” (“O Lord, in Thee have I trusted”), the music fades into a soft, tentative prayer: “Non confundar in aeternum” (“Let me never be confounded for eternity.”) Somber brass and low sustaining strings reinforce the work’s unsettled, searching conclusion. When Verdi died in 1901, he left strict instructions regarding his funeral service: a modest ceremony with only “a priest, a candle, and a cross.” Verdi’s letters also expressed his wish to be buried with the score of his Te Deum.

Gustav Mahler (1860–1911)

Symphony No. 2 in C minor, “Resurrection” (1888-1894, rev. 1903)

I. Allegro maestoso II. Andante moderato III. In ruhig fließender Bewegung IV. “Urlicht” (Primeval Light) – Sehr feierlich, aber schlicht V. Im Tempo des Scherzos – Finale A piano, a table, a chair, and a stove: these were the only furnishings in Gustav Mahler’s “little composing hut” on the shore of Lake Attersee in Austria, where, in the summer of 1894, he completed his monumental Symphony No. 2 in C minor, “Resurrection.” Beyond the modest hut’s three windows lay the lake and the mountains; inside, Mahler worked in solitude on music of extraordinary dimensions. Mahler’s First Symphony, written six years earlier and subtitled “Titan,” evokes the journey of a hero, tracing a path from the wonder of youth through the discovery of suffering and death, to a triumphant affirmation of life. His next symphony, the “Resurrection,” confronts the hero’s death and grapples with questions of redemption and spiritual renewal. Unfolding over five movements, the symphony calls for a massive orchestra, chorus, organ, and soprano and alto soloists. Mahler describes the first movement as a Totenfeier (“funeral rite”) for the hero of his “Titan” Symphony. A ferocious motif for basses and cellos opens the work in an atmosphere of agitation and unrest. The composer later described the scene as a loved one standing over the hero’s grave, asking: “Why did you live? Why did you suffer? Is it all some kind of frightful joke?” The basses and cellos carry the opening motif into a hushed march rhythm that gradually gathers force over the course of the movement. Along the way, a somber English horn solo and a prominent minor-key theme in the French horns emerge from the growing tension. The passage ultimately erupts into one of the most ear-splitting orchestral climaxes in the repertoire. continued >>>

May Program Notes

The second and third movements serve as interludes that provide respite from the existential weight of the first. The second movement is a gentle Ländler, a waltz-like Austrian folk dance, that evokes a nostalgic, dream-like vision of life and innocence. In dramatic terms Mahler described it as “memories of happier times.” The third movement is the symphony’s scherzo, an ironic and restless movement featuring swirling, hypnotic lines in the violins. Mahler described it as the mourner trying to resume daily life, only to find futility in its endless repetition. Its melody comes from a song in Mahler’s cycle Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy’s Magic Horn), based on the legend of Saint Anthony preaching to the fish. They listen intently to his sermon, only to return to their routines unchanged when it ends—a wry image of the futility Mahler described. The migration of themes between Mahler’s songs and symphonies became a defining feature of his music, linking works that the composer conceived as part of a larger creative vision. Mahler again turns to song in the fourth movement: Urlicht (Primeval Light), another setting from Des Knaben Wunderhorn. It acts as a bridge between the despair of the third movement and the transcendence of the finale. The solo alto represents a voice of faith, proclaiming with profound sincerity: “I am from God, and will return to God.” The finale synthesizes the work’s musical and philosophical threads. It begins with an anguished orchestral outburst that shocks the listener out of the serenity of primeval light. The movement proceeds through a vast sequence of episodes that include a distant, noble theme for French horns performed from behind the stage, a recapitulation of the first movement’s funeral march, and brief interludes of eerie stillness. Eventually, the chorus enters softly, intoning Friedrich Klopstock’s hymn “Aufersteh’n” (Rise again). The radiant conclusion in E-flat major provides the answer the rest of the symphony has been seeking: resurrection and eternal life.

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The migration of themes between Mahler’s songs and symphonies became a defining feature of his music, linking works that the composer conceived as part of a larger creative vision.

CHRISTOPHER ANDERSON-BAZZOLI MUS I CO LO G IST Christopher Anderson-Bazzoli’s innovative compositions for the concert stage, his deeply felt scores for the studio and independent film worlds, and his skilled musical direction for artists from across the pop music spectrum earned him a reputation as a musician with a collaborative spirit and a broad vision.

Anderson-Bazzoli’s most recent work is Carmel Point, an elemental choral setting of visionary California poet Robinson Jeffers. I Cantori di Carmel—an ensemble with which he also performs as a bass—premiered the work as part of “Songs After Sunset” at Carmel Mission in September 2026. Nominated for an Emmy Award at age twenty-one, AndersonBazzoli composed scores for twenty feature and short films including the Venezuelan thriller Ellipsis (Fox) and the technology documentary Revolution OS (7th Art). He received a Sundance Composer Fellowship and served as copyist or orchestrator on over three hundred films and TV shows including Spiderman: Brand New Day (Marvel/Sony), Encanto (Disney), and Whalefall (Fox). As a conductor he worked with recording artists Michael Bublé, Dr. Dre, Christina Aguilera, and She & Him (Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward) and served as editor and copyist for eminent composer-conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen. While growing up in Pacific Grove, California, Christopher Anderson-Bazzoli began playing tuba at age eleven and went on to earn an M.A. in Music Composition from UCLA. In 2022 he relocated from Los Angeles to Carmel where he was thrilled to join the Monterey Symphony team as musicologist providing program notes and lectures—a position he once held at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He lives with his wife Donna Eshelman, a neuromuscular therapist and choreographer.

Musicologist Biography

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BOARD OF DIRECTORS & ADMINISTRATION BOARD OFFICERS Donn Wilkerson – Chair Kathryn Smith – Vice Chair Pinkie Terry – Treasurer Jeffrey Wallace – Secretary Charles Schimmel – Immediate Past Chair BOARD OF DIRECTORS Jeryl Abelmann Mollie Hedges Wendi Kirby Jenny Kuan Bruce Lindsey Jan Loomis Liz Lyman Diane Mall Alan Mason Sherrie McCullough Brenda Murdock Lee E. Rosen Maureen Sanders William Sharpe LEGAL COUNSEL Mark O’Connor HONORARY COUNCIL Bill Doolittle Roberta Elliott Gabrielle Hahn Carol Lee Holland Joanne Church Taylor

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ADMINISTRATION Nicola Shangrow Reilly, President and CEO Noemi Vera, Director of Operations Virginia Marine, Director of Marketing and Events Julie Lim, Director of Patron Services Kelsey Woods, Donor Relations Manager Drew Ford, Orchestra Personnel Manager and Librarian PROGRAM BOOK ART DIRECTOR Virginia Marine PROGRAM BOOK DESIGN Steve Averitt, Averitt Creative MONTEREY SYMPHONY PHYSICAL: SW corner of 7th and San Carlos, Hampton Ct. Suite 7 (upstairs) MAILING: PO BOX 7130, Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA 93921 (831) 646-8511 info@montereysymphony.org montereysymphony.org

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DONOR LIST 2025-2026 Donations between July 1, 2025 and June 30, 2026 Please send listing corrections to kwoods@montereysymphony.org

We are profoundly grateful to the community of over 300 dedicated donors whose generosity brings our season to life. The music you hear today, our educational programs, and our vital community initiatives are all made possible through your investment. Your support transforms musical scores into living, breathing performances that inspire and unite audiences of all ages. Thank you for your vision, your passion, and your beautiful partnership in making this music possible. It is our privilege to recognize the individuals, corporations, and foundations whose support ensures that exceptional symphonic music continues to thrive.

$25,000+ Bill and Nancy Doolittle Bertie Bialek Elliott Mrs. Beverly Hamilton Shari and Mark Lasher Dr. Herschel H. Loomis, Jr. Mrs. Sherrie McCullough Mrs. Janet McDaniel

Tracy and Todd Perkins Mr. and Mrs. Lee E. Rosen Mr. and Mrs. William F. Sharpe William H. and Patricia M. Smith Family Foundation Mrs. Joanne Church Taylor

$15,000-$24,999 Mrs. Kevin Ann Cartwright and Stephen Eimer Lawrence G. Finch Ms. Carol Lee Holland

Wendi Kirby and Brian Hoppe Ms. Janette Loomis Norie Mitteldorf Kathryn and Kendall Smith

$10,000-$14,999 Tonya Antle Ms. Mollie Hedges Mrs. Valera Lyles Alan Mason and Timothy Rodrigues Mrs. Grace Merrill

Berniece and Pat Patterson Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Taylor Lois and John Tennant Mrs. Judi Zaches

$5,000-$9,999 Mr. and Mrs. Ron and Jeryl Abelmann Therese Adams and John Buswold Gary and Caroyln Bjorklund Nan Borreson Ms. Katharine Comstock Mrs. Susan W. DuCoeur

Dr. John Enbom Frances Elgan & Werner Kunkel Fund of the Community Foundation for Monterey County Joanne Irmas Dr. and Mrs. Robert W. Janzen continued >>> 2025-2026 Donor List

$5,000-$9,999 (continued) Diana and Gerald Kitchen Jennifer Kuan and Lawrence Yang Judith MacClelland Mancina Family Trust Judith and Frank Marshall Jane and Paul Quiring Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey Riehl Mrs. Barbara Schilling and Mr. Richard Carr

Janet Tague Pinkie and Dennis Terry The Todd Lueders Fund for the Arts of the Community Foundation for Monterey County Karen and James Tyler Mrs. Nancy Verska Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey Wallace Mr. and Mrs. Cyril J. Yansouni

$2,500-$4,999 Sandie Borthwick and Gloria Souza Dale and Margaret Byrne Family Fund of the Community Foundation for Monterey County Sandra Dewey Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Heston Thomas Hout and Sonja Ellingson Hout Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Lindsey Noelle and John Micek

Brenda Murdock Mr. Gilbert Neill Kim and Mark O’Connor Natasha and Todd J. Palmaer Jerome Politzer Ann and Jeffrey Roberts Mrs. Maureen Sanders Mr. and Mrs. Samuel S. Trust Mr. and Mrs. Neal Whitman Mr. and Mrs. Gerald and Dorothy Williams

$1,000-$2,499 Suzanne and Geoffrey Ashton Mrs. Jane Barry Barbara and James Caltagirone Julie Capili and David Glickman Mrs. Sharon Chibidakis Bonnie and Chuck DeWitt Mr. and Mrs. John and Nancy Durein Dr. Anne R. Fitzpatrick Frisone Family Foundation Marcia Hayes Julie Howe and Dana Gordon Huth Family Fund of the Community Foundation for Monterey County Ms. Patricia Jacobs Dr. and Mrs. Norman Jacobson Mr. and Mrs. Rob Kerr Ellen B. Kimmel

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Lisa Lapin and Steve Steinhart Mr. Brooks Leffler Ms. Laurel Lembo Edward and Lynn Lohmann Diane J. Mall Mrs. Mary McCary Mr. and Mrs. John B. McCoy Francine and Ken Meadors Shirley and Wayne Moon Ms. Patricia Morgan Rachel A. Mueller Dr. Lloyd P. Nattkemper Russell Planitzer Georgie and Allan Polley Alexander F. Victor Foundation Carol and Craig Rossi

Amy Roth Carlleen and Lary Scott Joanne Storkan John Talley and Lance Fung Mrs. Alice Tao Mary Jane and Martin Vonnegut Charles Wall

Ward D. and Mary T. Ingrim Fund of the Community Foundation for Monterey County Mrs. Deanna A. Woodhour Anonymous (1)

$500-$999 Jerry Ainsworth Jacqueline Atchison Mr. and Mrs. Roger Bolgard Linda and Wayne Cruzan Ms. Victoria Davis Nancy and Stephen Donaldson Jennifer Doyle Robert Evans Donna Eshelman and Christopher Anderson-Bazzoli Mr. and Mrs. John Flanagan Mrs. Frances Gaver Mr. and Mrs. Edward and Jeanne Gavrin Sarah and Jack Grandcolas Constance Irish Hess and Kenneth Lafferty Hess Monia and James Hlavacek Kyoko Ito and Robert Sykes Dr. and Mrs. Paul G. James Mira Katz and Chris McCrum Carol and Chuck Keller Ms. Katherine Kennedy Mr. Don R. Kuehn Tom and Vikki Logan Mr. Skip Lord Dr. and Mrs. Michael and Mary Ellen McCormick Dr. Carlotta Mellon Deva Munay and John Krasznekewicz Julie and David Nee

Irene and Rudy Patton Deborah Ryan and Richard Basham Mr. Charles Schimmel Ms. Mary Seiersen Mr. Nicholas Sturch Janet Torelli and Rene Torrado Ms. Joan Ungs Bonni and Joel Weinstein Katherine and Floyd Wenglikowski Jenny and Donn Wilkerson Renate-Karin Wunsch Philip Yarbrough Diane and John Young

2025-2026 Donor List

$1-$499 Stephen Abate Mark Acker Regina Adams-Piazza Ms. Robin Aeschliman Anne and Peter Albano Leonard Anable Oscar Antillon Mr. and Mrs. George and Kristina Baer Lillian and Grant Barbeito Mr. David P. Beach Jullie Work Beck Sandra and Roger Bergam Linda and Robert Berger Paul Best Fay Biddle Margot Black and Mark Peters Ms. Barbara Bleadon Dr. Sissy Bouchard Mrs. Jean L. Brenner Demi and Richard Briscoe Susie and Stanley Brusa Kay Burbidge Ms. Janet Swan Bush Megan Cahalan Melody and Tom Carrato Sharon Cast Barbara Chambers Chongnin John Chan Ranjana and Michael Clark Kristin and Erik Cushman Kevin D’Angelo Patricia Dally Shannon Wood and Jan Damnavits Cory Deines Tara and Dan Devlin Jr. Barbara Diamond Peggy and Edward Dickson Carol and Daniel Dobberpuhl Mr. and Mrs. Roger Dolan Diana and Dennis Dolley Linda Donovan Patricia Doran Linda Dowd Eve and John Duddy Martha Dunn Francoise and Philip Duterme Priscilla and Bill Eckert

Montereysymphony.org

Dr. Bee Epstein-Shepherd Mr. and Mrs. Nick P. Fettis Dr. and Mrs. Robert Flanagan Gary Fontana Jeffrey Fowler Jeannette Fowler Renee Franken Dennis Fregger Mrs. Judith Furman Maria Garcia Michele Garside Priscilla Gilbertson Ms. Margaret Goodman Ms. Rosanne Gould Terry and Harry Hanson Jacx Harmer Dr. and Mrs. David Hart Despina Hatton and John Swendseid Janice and Jeffrey Hawkins Doug Herrman Mr. and Mrs. Don Hilburn Joachim Hoffmann Dr. Astrid Holberg and Mr. David Awerbuck Gail Hurvitz and Jerry Newton Dr. Robert Hylton Donna Ikeda Jim Jenifer Robert Johannsen Mr. and Mrs. Patrick and Susan Jones Sharon Jones Timothy Jones Karen Judkins and Steven Wade Susan Kaufman Marsha and Brian Kelly Marion Keyworth Mr. and Mrs. Thomas and Shirley Kiatta Jean Killacky Neville Kirby Ila and David Kleinman Mr. Richard Koepcke Jr. Susan and John Koza Robert Kramer Michael Krause Ms. Margaret Kylander Richard R. LaFace

Mr. and Mrs. Rodger Langland Irina and Igor Liner Mel Lopez Mrs. Marjory Nash Lord Frauke Lina Mrs. Elizabeth Lyman Suzanne Macahilig Robin Clark and Mary Mackiernan Lynne and Milton Marquard Jr. Shayne and Andrew Matthews Ms. Kate McKenna Beccie Michael Alexanne Mills Joe Mironov Beverly and Carl Mitchell Barbara Moore Darianne Murphy Beverly and Daniel Nussbaum Bette Nybakken Catherine Obrien Mrs. Gay O’Connor Jayce Ogren and Carly Berger Therese Omnes Ms. Mary Alice Osborne Stephanie and Peter Oshman Victor Pacheco Karen Parker and Joe Fusco Mia Paul Dorothy Phillips Jeanne and Mack Player Irina Poliakiva Pam Pollace Ms. Mary Pommerich Carol and James Press David Reichard Marcia Renzullo Barbara Ricciardi James Richards and Pascale Richards-Deliens Sidney Ridgway Jean Rigg

Mr. and Mrs. Stewart and Meryl Robertson Ms. Gwynneth Romano Suzanne Safar Carolyn Samson and Darius Sadeghi Mrs. Carmen Scholis Monika Scott Mrs. Elizabeth Sebring Deborah W. Sharp Jonathan Showe Jonathan Simon Mr. Everett Anton Tony Singer Svetlana Sinitskaia Mrs. Margaret Smith Andrea Spungen Mr. Richard Stanley Mr. and Mrs. Gary Stotz Gail Straith Maj. Charles Sullivan Cath Tendler and Jan Valencia Joan Brophy Thomas Susan Thoms Annette and Paul Tomaselli Laurie and Ben Trainer Chris Treptow Vanessa Vallarta Elizabeth Vanderpan Mr. Anthony Foster and Mr. Scott Vandrick Semone Verrette Edward Waggoner Carol and James Walsh Mr. and Mrs. John and Patricia Walworth Michaelin and David Watts Mr. and Mrs. Lowell Webster Malcolm Weintraub Mr. and Mrs. Donovan White Mrs. Susan Johnson Willey Franklin Williams Maryellen and Michael Wilson Ann Wright Dr. Christopher Zalewski Malgorzata Zasztowt

2026-2027 MUSICIAN SPONSORSHIPS Suzanne and Geoffrey Ashton sponsoring Nancy Kim and Beth Zare Carolyn and Gary Bjorklund sponsoring Christina Mok and Bruce Moyer Nancy and John Durein sponsoring Drew Ford Jill and Jim Gabbe sponsoring Zunhao Eric He Mark and Shari Lasher sponsoring Christine Craddock and Zunhao Eric He Alan Mason and Timothy Rodrigues sponsoring Sarah Bonomo and Ruth Stuart Lloyd Nattkemper sponsoring Forrest Byram, Teresa Orozco, and Dawn Walker Kathryn and Ken Smith sponsoring Sadie Glass Janet and Jeff Wallace sponsoring Dylan Girard Elaine and Neal Whitman sponsoring Zlata Grekov and Dawn Walker

2025-2026 Donor List

GIVING LEVELS & SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES All donors at all levels will be listed in the program book.

To better celebrate your vital support, we are proud to introduce our newly redesigned giving levels for this season. These updated tiers are crafted to deepen your personal connection to our music, our musicians, and our community engagement efforts. By restructuring these levels, we aim to offer closer access to the creative process, from intimate rehearsals to special social events with our artists, while providing a clearer look at how your gift directly sustains our artistic mission.

GIVING LEVELS

Annual contributions are gratefully acknowledged within our new giving structure. CONDUCTOR’S CIRCLE ($2,500 - $4,999) • Invitation to a Q and A session with Jayce Ogren • Invitation to a donor lounge and post-concert reception • Invitation to season closing party PRINCIPAL PLAYER’S CIRCLE ($1,000 – $2,499) • Name a principal player to support – get to know the orchestra! • Invitation to a donor lounge and post-concert reception • Invitation to season closing party ORCHESTRA MEMBER’S CIRCLE ($500 - $999) • Name an orchestra member to support – get to know the orchestra! • Invitation to season closing party SYMPHONY SUPPORTERS ($1 - $499) • Early access to single ticket presale

JOIN OUR FAMILY OF DONORS!

Every gift opens new doors to extraordinary musical experiences! Thank you for keeping the music playing! To support the symphony, upgrade your current giving, or learn more about our giving program, you can: 1. Visit www.montereysymphony.org/giving 2. Contact Kelsey Woods, 831-645-1125 or kwoods@montereysymphony.org 3. Scan the QR code to donate now

Montereysymphony.org

NAMED SPONOSRSHIP OPPORTUNITIES

For leadership-level gifts, these specialized categories offer unique opportunities to directly champion specific artists, concert productions, or entire symphonic initiatives. SEASON SPONSOR ($50,000+) • Reserved parking at Sunset Center for the entire season • Reserved parking at Forest Theater for a Love Letter concert • Dinner with Jayce Ogren • Invitation to an open rehearsal at Sunset Center • Invitation to season closing party

CONCERT SPONSOR ($25,000+) • Reserved parking at Sunset Center for the entire season • Named sponsorship of a main concert • Dinner with Jayce Ogren • Invitation to an open rehearsal at Sunset Center • Invitation to season closing party

HELLO, we heard you are tired of looking for parking at Symphony concerts.

MUSIC DIRECTOR SPONSOR ($25,000+) • Reserved parking at Sunset Center for the entire season • Named sponsorship of Jayce Ogren • Dinner with Jayce Ogren • Invitation to an open rehearsal at Sunset Center • Invitation to season closing party

Check out these sponsorship opportunities and secure your reserved parking spot today!

SOLOIST SPONSOR ($15,000+) • Reserved parking at Sunset Center for one concert • Named sponsorship of a soloist • Dinner with artists, as the schedule allows • Invitation to an open rehearsal at Sunset Center • Invitation to season closing party

LOVE LETTER SPONSOR ($10,000+) • Reserved parking at Forest Theater for a Love Letter concert • Named sponsorship of Love Letter • Invitation to an open rehearsal at Forest Theater • Invitation to season closing party

LOBBY SESSIONS SPONSOR ($5,000+) • Reserved seating at lobby sessions • Invitation to a donor lounge and post-concert reception • Invitation to season closing party

Giving Levels and Sponsorship Opportunities

LEGACY SOCIETY “Growing up I studied ballet and that’s where my love for classical music emerged. For many years I attended the Monterey Symphony and was previously the chair of the board. Since Jayce Ogren’s arrival, I have a new and in-depth appreciation of the music I hear. His explanations give us a better understanding of the pieces and therefore much more enjoyment. I never miss a symphony concert as they have brought so much joy and emotion to my life. I want to see this wonderful music continue for generations to come and so I have, in my estate planning, a legacy gift to the Monterey Symphony in honor of our Music Director, Jayce Ogren. Part of the gift will be available for Jayce to bring exciting guest artists to our stage. The remaining gift will be in an endowment fund in Jayce Ogren’s honor. My hope is that others will add to this fund or establish funds of their own for the Monterey Symphony!” Sherrie McCullough, Legacy Society Member

Montereysymphony.org

OUR LEGACY SOCIETY is made up of those individuals who wish to be a part of the future of the Monterey Symphony. We honor and celebrate this amazing group of individuals annually, and we cordially invite you to join the Legacy Society. Let us know that you have included the Monterey Symphony in your planned giving. Greta Alexander

Sally Maggio

The Dorothy L. Becker Trust

Sherrie McCullough

Bethany Beckman*

Janet McDaniel

Gary & Carolyn Bjorklund

Dick* & Grace Merrill

Jacqueline M. Clampett-Jones

Mr. Don Newmark

Katharine Comstock

John Philips & June Dunbar

Alan and Sandy Cordan*

Nicola Reilly

Leland E.* & Gloria U. Dake

Lee & Shirley Rosen

Bill & Nancy Doolittle

Barbara Rupp*

Susan DuCoeur

Virginia Ruth

William & Nancy Fisher*

Everett Anton “Tony” Singer

Helen Grady

Joanne Church Taylor

Mollie Hedges

Elizabeth Haywood Watt*

Dr. & Mrs. Michael Hendrickson

Mr. & Mrs. Neal Whitman

Peter & Patti Hoss

Donald* & Renate Wunsch

Kyoko Ito and Robert Sykes Herschel & Shirley* Loomis

*deceased

Skip & Liz* Lord

If you are interested in joining the Legacy Society, please contact Nicola Shangrow Reilly, President and CEO, at nreilly@montereysymphony.org or call our office at (831) 645-1131.

Legacy Society

INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORTERS The Monterey Symphony would like to thank the following Institutional Supporters: Arts Council for Monterey County Berkshire Foundation Carmel Gives Fund of the Community Foundation for Monterey County City of Carmel-by-the-Sea The Community Foundation for Monterey County, Community Impact Creative Planning Harden Foundation KAZU, 90.3 FM

94.7 FM

n p r

Montereysymphony.org

KRML, 94.7 FM

LS’ R A DIO S

Lauralie and J. Irvine Fund and the June P. Sheppard Fund for the Performing Arts of the Community Foundation Monterey County Montage Health Monterey County Weekly Monterey County Gives! Fund of the Community Foundation for Monterey County Monterey Peninsula Foundation, host of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and PURE Insurance Championship Impacting the First Tee Music Performance Trust Fund Pebble Beach Company Foundation The Robert and Virginia Stanton Fund of the Community Foundation The Symphony Fund at the Community Foundation for Monterey County

Institutional Supporters

IN HONOR OF GIFTS Jeryl Abelmann

by Barbara and James Caltagirone and Julie Howe and Dana Gordon

Nancy Evans Fowler by Jeffrey Fowler

Brenda Murdock

by Carol and Craig Rossi

Joanne Taylor and YOSAL by Susie and Stanley Brusa

Doug Tendler by Cath Tendler and Jan Valencia

IN MEMORY OF GIFTS Susan Britton

by Mollie Hedges Joan Chapman by Mary Jane and Martin Vonnegut

Daniel E. Gilbertson by Priscilla Gilbertson

Joanne Hatch

by Mollie Hedges

Martina Hlavacek

by Monia and James Hlavacek

Judith Weintraub

by Malcolm Weintraub

Jackie Lynch

by Mollie Hedges

Gene McFarland by Mollie Hedges

Richard O. Mueller by Rachel A. Mueller

Tien Fan Tao

by Mrs. Alice Tao

In Honor / In Memory of Gifts

Photo by Randy Tunnell

IN MEMORY OF MAX

Our October concerts are dedicated to Music Director Emeritus Max BragadoDarman who passed away on June 6, 2026. Max was the Music Director of the Monterey Symphony for 15 years. Originally from Madrid, Spain, Max studied at Oberlin and the University of Michigan as well as the Royal Conservatory of Music. He held various prestigious positions including with la Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León and the Louisville Symphony; he was also a prolific guest conductor. Max will be remembered for his delicious paella cook-offs, passion for musical excellence, love of a good party, and fierce dedication to the Monterey Symphony.

Thank you to the following donors for their generous gifts in memory of Max: Mrs. Beverly Hamilton Ms. Mollie Hedges Susan and John Koza Mr. and Mrs. Lee E. Rosen Mrs. Maureen Sanders Mrs. Margaret Smith Mr. and Mrs. Neal Whitman Renate-Karin Wunsch Mr. and Mrs. Cyril J. Yansouni Diane and John Young

To donate in Max’s memory, contact Kelsey Woods, Donor Relations Manager, at (831) 645-1125 or kwoods@montereysymphonyony.org

In Memory of Max

LEADERSHIP GIFTS

The Monterey Symphony is grateful for the receipt of the following legacy gifts:

LEADERSHIP GIFTS Mr. and Mrs. W. Austin Barrows The Richard and Betty Bell Music Director Fund The Frances M. Benton Estate The Estate of Susan Britton The Dewar Family Trust The Conway and Norma Esselstyn Trust Mr. and Mrs. Hilton Bialek The Robert and Betty Jo Graham Trust The Louise Guard Estate The Rodney Guifoil Estate The Estate of Ruth Hartmann The Esther Haskins Trust The Adrienne Herman Estate The Jill Himonas Estate The Erling Lagerholm Estate The Shirley Loomis Estate The Lois Mayol Estate The Sara E. Mitchell Estate The M. Kathleen Morgan Estate The Eugene Noxon Estate The Helen Oehler Estate The Chris and Kevin Rabe Estate The Margaret Radunich Estate William & Kristine Schuyler The Shedlin Estate The Georgina M. Shooter Estate The Shelia Webster Estate

ENDOWED ORCHESTRA CHAIRS Robert O. & Catherine L. McMahan

RDML Edward J. & Ruth Hall

Sally Jo Snorf

Robert & Virginia Stanton

Miriam M. Godwin

Reginald & Mary Swaner

Concert Master’s Chair Timpani Chair Musician Chair

Montereysymphony.org

O’Donnell Musician Chair Musician Chair Musician Chair

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PROUD SUPPORTER OF THE MONTEREY SYMPHONY LISTEN AT 94.7FM - STREAMING AT KRML.COM

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SCAN TO SEE WHO’S COMING TO THE STAGE!

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AN EVENING WITH CHRIS BOTTI Master Trumpeter, Composer & GRAMMY Award Winner

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