Ukiah Symphony to present Spring Concert
The Ukiah Symphony Orchestra is excited to welcome three distinguished artists from the counties to the north and south of us as soloists for its Spring Concert, with performances at Mendocino College on Saturday, April 6 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, April 7 at 2 p.m.
Music Director and orchestra Conductor Phillip Lenberg will give a preconcert informative talk in the Center Theater starting one hour before each performance, at 6:30 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. on Sunday.
Daniela Mineva, Professor and Director of Keyboard Studies at Cal Poly Humboldt, will be at the piano playing Clara Wieck Schumann's brilliant Piano Concerto, written when the composer was still a teenager. Dr. Mineva has won top prizes from numerous international and national piano and chamber music competitions in this country and in Europe. She has been featured as a solo recital artist and as soloist with orchestras in some of the most prestigious venues in the USA, Italy, France, Russia, Germany, Costa Rica, Thailand, Bulgaria and China.
Also making their first appearance with the USO will be husband and wife violinists Anna Washburn and Aaron Westman from Sonoma County, featured in the much- loved Concerto for Two Violins by J. S. Bach. Best known locally for their collaboration with the group AGAVE, Washburn and Westman have performed Baroque and contemporary music with orchestras and string ensembles all over California, and they have taught and performed throughout the U.S. and in Europe. Aaron is a member of the music faculty at Sonoma State University. He also co- directs the AGAVE ensemble, which received a GRAMMY® nomination for their 2021 album American Originals.
Rounding out the program will be Richard Wagner's “Siegfried Idyll,” a gentle pastoral piece written in celebration of the birth of Wagner's son, and Beethoven's Symphony Number 2, a nod to the influence of Haydn but with Beethoven taking the music in his own new, larger direction.
In fact, USO Conductor Phillip Lenberg explained, the Spring Concert program began with the logical decision to perform Beethoven's Second symphony following the USO performance of the First Symphony last season. “It's a real showpiece,” he said, “and with its dynamic shifts and orchestral outbreaks it very much leads toward the expansiveness of Beethoven's Third Symphony, ` The Eroica'.”
Wagner's “Siegfried Idyll” has been one of Lenberg's favorites, with its “storybook opening,” as he describes it. It was a good fit, particularly because, as Lenberg noted, Wagner was a great fan of Beethoven, and viewed his own work as taking Beethoven's music to its next level.
Lenberg is also committed to highlighting the works of women composers, and the Schumann Concerto, with its orchestration echoing that of the “Idyll,” was a natural addition. With the Bach Concerto, the whole program presents some of the best of the best German composers, from the broad and sweeping to the intimate and tender. It has also provided the opportunity, after a year of discussion and planning, to bring this group of immensely talented soloists to the USO stage.
Advance tickets for what promises to be a festive finale to the 2023-2024 USO season may be obtained from www.ukiahsymphony. org.