Symphony teams with prodigy for virtual NYE
The San Diego Symphony will ring in the new year with music, virtually speaking. The orchestra will be joined by Riverside-based teen piano prodigy Ray Ushikubo for a performance of George Gershwin’s jazzy 1924 orchestral opus, “Rhapsody in Blue.”
Led by music director Rafael Payare, 43 members of the 82-piece symphony last week filmed what is being billed as the first “New Year’s Eve Celebration” in the 110-year-old orchestra’s history. Money raised from the concert, which will be streamed online Dec. 31, will be matched dollar-for-dollar by an anonymous donor. Funds raised will benefit the Symphony Stabilization Fund.
The symphony has not been able to perform for live audiences since the coronavirus pandemic shuttered concert halls and performance venues everywhere in mid-March. The pandemic prompted the cancellation of the orchestra’s spring, summer, fall and winter seasons.
In November, Payare and 45 of the symphony’s musicians reconvened at downtown’s Copley Symphony Hall for the first time in eight months to film the orchestra’s first streamed online concert. Titled “Together Apart: Strings, Wind & Brass,” the socially distanced performance was filmed and recorded over three days, then edited.
Similar steps were undertaken to film last week’s “New Year’s Eve Celebration” concert. It will feature 26 string players, seven wind players, six brass players and two percussionists from the orchestra performing in different configurations.
The concert will mark Ushikubo’s second time here with the symphony. His first was at a 2017 Bayside Summer Nights concert. In addition to “Rhapsody in Blue,” the Dec. 31 repertoire will include Duke Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady,” Johannes Brahms’ Selected Hungarian Dances and two pieces by Johann Strauss, the Radetzky March and the Emperor Waltz.
The concert will stream Dec. 31 at 7:30 p.m. and be available online for the following week to anyone making a suggested minimum donation of $25 or more. Tickets and additional information are available at sandiegosymphony.org/ tickets-events/2020-21-season/new-years-eve-at-home/