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North State Symphony Announces 2007-2008 Season of Concerts

“The best is yet to come!”

That is how North State Symphony conductor/music director Kyle Wiley Pickett describes the upcoming 2007-2008 season of concerts.

During his seven-year tenure Pickett has seen the NSS grow by leaps and bounds, getting better each new season and achieving more polished performances each year.

On the immediate horizon he sees more of the same.

“The North State Symphony’s 2007-2008 season is going to be our greatest musical year yet!,” he predicts.

From the spectacular show-stopper of Holst’s “Planets” to the monumental masterpiece of Mahler’s ”Resurrection Symphony,” the NSS “will be pulling out all the stops,” noted Pickett.

“This year we have a stellar lineup of guest artists — professionals and Young Artist Audition winners — and are joined by the beautiful voices of Chico State’s Choral Union.”

The NSS’ season of concerts will begin in mid-September and go through late April. As in previous years, performances of each concert will be offered in Chico and Redding with one of the programs also being performed in Red Bluff.

The NSS kicks off its 102nd season with Maestro’s Favorites, Saturday, Sept. 15 at 7:30 p.m. in CSU, Chico’s Laxson Auditorium and Sunday, Sept. 16 at 2 p.m. in the Cascade Theatre in Redding.

The concert is a collection of pieces chosen by Pickett for their musical contrast. Compositions include Sergei Prokofiev’s “Classical Symphony, Opus 25,” Richard Wagner’s “Siegfried Idyll,” and Johannes Brahms’ “Piano Concerto No. 1, Opus 15, D Minor,” featuring piano soloist Brian Ganz.

Pickett said Prokofiev’s so-called “Classical Symphony” was written to depict how Mozart would have written music in the 20th century.

Wagner’s piece takes a lighter tone for a composer who usually wrote on a grand scale.

“The Siegfried ‘Idyll’ is very atypical, very intimate and very sweet,” noted Keith Herritt, NSS viola player and Executive Director of the orchestra. “Wagner’s music is usually over-the-top.”

The main attraction of Maestro’s Favorites will no doubt be Brahms’ “Piano Concerto” featuring the internationally renowned Ganz on piano.

“He’s known as a very emotional pianist,” Herritt said. “This concerto is not just ‘show-offy,’ it has great emotional depth to it.”

Ganz is widely regarded as one of the leading pianists of his generation. Washington Post critic Joan Reinthaler has written that “One comes away from a recital by pianist Brian Ganz not only exhilarated by the power of the performance but also moved by his search for artistic truth.”

After performances with the St. Louis Symphony, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch critic wrote: “Note-perfect cascades of rippling arpeggios, melodies soaring into space and microscopically sculpted phrases only begin to describe Ganz’s breathtaking technique and spectacular musicianship.”

Ganz has won numerous performance awards and has appeared as soloist with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic (of Russia), the Baltimore Symphony, the National Symphony, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the City of London Sinfonia, L’Orchestre Lamoureux, and L’Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo.

He is a founding member of the Washington Chapter of Artists to End Hunger and has donated many of his performance fees to that organization.

The NSS’ second concert of the season, Resurrection: Sublime Voices, takes place Saturday, Nov. 17 at 7:30 p.m. at Redding’s Cascade Theatre, and Sunday, Nov. 18 at 2 p.m. in Chico’s Laxson Auditorium.

The orchestra will be performing just one work, the entire “Symphony No. 2, C Minor — Resurrection” by Mahler. For this monumental performance the NSS will be joined by mezzo soprano Elizabeth Madsen Bradford, soprano Joyce Parry Moore, and the University Choir from CSU, Chico.

Tony Duggan, writing on the internet site, MusicWeb International (www.musicweb-international.com), notes the immensity of “Resurrection.”

“...By the time he had finished the whole five movement symphony, helped towards the end out of a creative block by hearing a setting of Klopstock’s ‘Resurrection Ode’ at the funeral of the conductor Von Bülow, Mahler had created an audacious piece of concert hall theatre, part choral symphony, part oratorio, that delved in the most spectacular fashion into nothing less than the whole question of immortality. Using immense forces he ended up trying to dramatise in music the struggle of mankind towards eternal salvation...”

Duggan writes that any conductor and symphonic orchestra that takes on “Resurrection” will be challenged “to unite this diverse structure, both musically and emotionally....”

Herritt likens this enormous work to “entering into a world in which Mahler expresses through music a whole range of human emotions and human experiences.”

Following Valentine’s Day, the NSS will perform four dance-influenced pieces in a concert entitled Dance Mix. Performances take place Saturday, Feb. 16 at 7:30 p.m. in Laxson Auditorium, and Sunday, Feb. 17 at 2 p.m. in the Cascade Theatre.

The four pieces — covering a variety of dance styles, everything from tango to ballet — will include Antonin Dvorak’s “Slavonic Dances,” Astor Piazolla’s “Tangazo,” Bela Bartok’s “Hungarian Sketches,” and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake Suite.”

All these pieces are in one way or another inspired by different types of dance from around the world, noted Pickett.

“‘Swan Lake’ has some of the most beautiful melodies ever written,” Pickett said, “and as you listen, it’s easy to picture the dancers, costumes and set of a staged ballet.

“But the real heart of this concert is rhythm: musical beat, the rhythm of a piece, is one of music’s most important aspects, along with melody and harmony. It’s fascinating and fun to hear how dance rhythms can inspire composers in many different ways, from Tchaikovsky’s elegance to the visceral impact of Bartok. And the most fun of all is the chance for us to play a concert tango by the great Argentine master, Astor Piazzolla.”

The NSS will close its 2007-2008 season with Final Frontier Saturday, April 19 at 7:30 p.m. at the Cascade Theatre; Sunday, April 20 at 2 p.m. at Laxson Auditorium; and Sunday, April 20 at 7:30 p.m. at the State Theatre in Red Bluff.

Four classic pieces will be featured — Claude Debussy’s “Nocturnes,” Alexander Arutiunian’s “Trumpet Concerto, Movement 1,” Dmitri Kabalevsky’s “Violin Concerto, Movement 1,” and Gustav Holst’s “The Planets.”

“‘The Planets’ is a piece with several movements and each movement describes a different planet in the solar system,” Herritt said.

Special guest Young Artist Winner Ayako Nakamura, a Japanese exchange student at Chico State, will perform the trumpet solo in Arutiunian’s “Trumpet Concerto.” Fellow Young Artist Winner Chelsea Morden, a Humboldt County high school student, will perform a violin solo for the “Violin Concerto, Movement 1” by Kabalevsky.

Kabalevsky and Arutiunian both lived in the former Soviet Union and composed, according to Pickett, energetic and sparkling works influenced by folk music.

Pickett offers a free talk one hour before each Chico and Redding performance.

Season tickets and individual tickets are currently available at the University Box Office at CSU, Chico (898-6333) and the Cascade Theatre Box Office (243-8877). For Red Bluff ticket information call 529-2787. Individual tickets range from $40 for premium seats (Cascade Theatre only) to $5 for children (Laxson Auditorium only). There is discounted seating for seniors, students, and children. Call the box office at the venue you will be attending for more information.

To make the symphonic music experience more accessible to young people, the North State Symphony is offering new lower priced tickets for children. The NSS will also be reaching out to children and young adults by presenting youth concerts in Chico and Redding, and a special Youth Music Fair on Saturday, Sept. 15 from 11 a.m.– 2 p.m. at Laxson Auditorium

The Fair is an exhibit-style gathering of community music organizations for children and students of all grades, noted Herritt.

“Students with an interest in music can meet music teachers, representatives from performing groups, and instrument providers.”

The Youth Music Fair will begin with an open dress rehearsal for the North State Symphony’s first concert of the season. Guided by volunteers from the Chico Guild, students at the Music Fair will observe and hear the various orchestra instruments in action.

Music Fair exhibits will open at 12:15 p.m., giving students the opportunity to become involved in music themselves by making contact with the teachers, ensembles, and vendors represented at the Fair.

Participants include: Broadway Music, Chico Country Day School Strings, Children’s Choir of Chico, The Music Connection, North Valley Youth Orchestra, and Paradise Youth Symphony.

In addition to the Youth Music Fair, the NSS will be presenting several other events during the 2007-2008 season. A Prelude Party takes place Sunday, Sept. 9; the annual Mozart Mile fundraiser is scheduled for Sunday, Oct. 7; Young Artist Auditions have been set for Sunday, Feb. 24; the 2008 Scholarship Fanfare Plus! will take place Sat. March 29; and Starlight Buenos Aires, another fundraiser for the NSS, is scheduled for Saturday, Feb 2.

For more information on NSS fundraising events, the Young Artist Auditions, or to enquire about other ways of supporting the North State Symphony, call the NSS Office, 898-5984.

The North State Symphony’s 102nd season is being sponsored by Tri Counties Bank, with additional support from Matson and Isom, the Mercy Medical Center Redding, and the North Valley Community Foundation. NSS support also comes from CSU, Chico’s School of the Arts and the Department of Music. Chico concerts are also funded, in part, by Instructionally Related Activity Fees.

To request a 2007-2008 brochure, please call 898-5984, or send an e-mail to Herritt (symphony@csuchico.edu). Information on the upcoming season of concerts, as well as the many ways of becoming a symphony supporter, is also available at the NSS website — northstatesymphony.com.