2024 VALLEJO SYMPHONY FUNDRAISER

Vallejo Naval Museum

Friday May 24, 2024 7:00PM

Tiffany Austin, who sang Bess in "Porgy and Bess",  will perform on Friday, May 24, 2024 at the Vallejo Naval Museum at 7:00PM. She will sing music of "George Gershwin and Others" as a fundraiser for the Vallejo Symphony.

Tickets are on sale for $125.

2023/24 SEASON

We are thrilled to be celebrating and sharing our 91th season with you. The Vallejo Symphony was founded on the shared belief that music is a powerful force for bringing our community together and that live music is an essential part of a richly lived life.

Our upcoming Sound Explorers! program will begin in the fall, going into Hogan Middle School to guide a diverse group of young people as they create their own music. We take pride in serving as a home for cultural exchange in our growing city, and we strive to present vibrant music for all. This season is not to be missed.

We invite you to join us and to be a part of our artistic journey!

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““The Symphony milked almost all the slow and medium-tempo music gratifyingly and the undisputed highlight of the entire evening came when Taddei boldly shaped the end of the Lento–Largo movement into a hollowing deconstruction of the material presented earlier. This intention manifests on some level in the notes that Shostakovich put on the page, of course, but I’d never heard it the way I’m now convinced it should be heard until Sunday. Surely that alone constitutes reason enough to return to the Empress Theatre.”
”
— San Francisco Classical Voice
““After an extended COVID wait the Vallejo Symphony returned to the city’s Empress Auditorium April 23 and 24 with a program that easily proved the long layoff didn’t lessen the VSO’s legendary quality...

One of the highlights of the afternoon was the seldom-heard Rachmaninoff F-Sharp Major Concerto, the early work that was a lifetime favorite of the composer, and featured San Francisco-based pianist Jeffrey LaDeur in a powerhouse performance that at the end generated a standing ovation.

As good as the Concerto performance was, Beethoven’s F Major Symphony, Op. 68, produced the afternoon’s finest playing. Mr. Taddei, without score, drew from his Orchestra a sweeping reading that was at times explicitly rich and at times artfully suggestive. Control of dynamics and balancing phases in instrumental sections found Mr. Taddei in fine form, making the most of this ingratiating music that in his hands was deftly crafted and never sounded repetitive. Melanie Keller’s perky flute solos characterized the Andante Molto Mosso, and the transition to the storm movement was appropriately seamless.””
— Classical Sonoma

2023/24 SEASON

Rhapsody in Blue

Rhapsody in Blue - George Gershwin

Jeffrey LaDeur, piano

A Jazz Symphony - George Antheil

Jeffrey LaDeur, piano

Symphony No 7, Op131 - Sergei Prokofiev


Saturday, September 30, 2023 (8:00pm)

Sunday, October 1, 2023 (3:00pm)

An American in Paris

An American in Paris - George Gershwin

Concerto for Clarinet, Strings, and Harp - Aaron Copland

Todd Palmer, Clarinet

Symphony in C - George Bizet


Saturday, January 13, 2024 (8:00pm)

Sunday, January 14, 2024 (3:00 pm)

Porgy and Bess

arr. Russell Garcia

Porgy and Bess - George Gershwin


Saturday, April 20, 2024 (8:00pm)

Sunday, April 21, 2024 (3:00pm)

Sound Explorers!

Composer-in-Residence : Trey Makler

““I believe this is the key to the survival and flourishing of classical music: we must expand into the community, beyond the concert hall, in order to meet people where they are in life rather than expecting them to always come to us. A more equitable exchange between listener and performer, the creative support of young people within the community, and a union between composer, audience, and ensemble will enhance the renaissance of the city of Vallejo, its symphony, and its residents.”

”
— Trey Makler

Meet Trey Makler, Vallejo Symphony’s first Composer-in-Residence, who will work with Vallejo schools to establish Sound Explorers!, a free program for Vallejo students, in Hogan Middle School.

This program will guide a diverse group of 20 young people as they create their own music. Instruction will focus on hands-on, experiential learning that encourages the development of students’ individual identities and voices. Beyond enjoying a one-of-a-kind musical experience, students will also strengthen their own self-confidence through their creativity and self-expression. Additional support will be provided by our Music Director, Marc Taddei, and the musicians of the Vallejo Symphony. At the end of the program’s first phase, the Vallejo Symphony will perform the students’ compositions at a streamed and live concert for Vallejo Schools.

Sound Explorers! will stand out as the only program of its kind in the Bay Area, and will continue to foster the Vallejo Symphony’s joyful, all-age concert culture. The program’s first year has been funded through a $19,000 matching grant from the California Arts Council. Generous donors from the community are contributing an equal match so that the program can thrive. Can we count on your help? We hope to make this program self-sustaining and to continue to expand it over the next several years. If you care about the future of music education, please donate what you can at VallejoSymphony.org, and mark your donation for Sound Explorers! so it will be sure to count towards the match.

Trey Makler’s background as both composer and educator with some of the world’s leading classical music institutions makes him uniquely qualified for the role of Composer-in-Residence with the Vallejo Symphony. His music ranges from solo to chamber, orchestral to opera, and he is pursuing a PhD in Theory and Composition at the University of California-Davis and holds degrees from The Juilliard School and the University of Missouri. During his tenure as a teaching artist with the New York Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers program and The Juilliard School’s Music Advancement program, he witnessed first-hand the ability of music to transform the lives of young people.

Mr. Makler’s new work for orchestra, “you echo in me” will be featured at our May 2023 concerts.

School Concerts

Vallejo Symphony presents two free concerts a year for students from Vallejo schools. Music Director Marc Taddei presents a brief talk before each performance, introducing the instruments and giving the students historical and musical background to the works. We offer students an educational, inspiring concert experience in a concert hall—not a school all- purpose room—to make students feel like full-fledged members of their community who have a right to enjoy two of Vallejo’s greatest artistic assets: VSO and the Empress Theatre! This year’s school concerts will present music composed by participants in the Sound Explorers! Program.

We can’t wait to hear it!

 

Welcome to the Vallejo Symphony’s 91st season!

Your orchestra is one of the oldest in the United States, and it is a joy to lead them! It is also rather humbling, as this success is due entirely to your support, and our shared belief that the arts matter in society.

From the joy and sense of wonder that I see on young people’s faces as they enter the beautiful Empress Theatre for the first time in their lives to hear live music, to the thrill of experiencing a standing ovation in that marvelous acoustic, it seems clear to me that music has the power to bring communities together, and to contribute to the quality of life enjoyed in Vallejo and Solano County. Your commitment to Vallejo’s orchestra underlines the role that the arts must play in society. We do not take this role lightly, and, in addition to presenting programs of exciting, vital and relevant music, your orchestra also has a deep commitment to the education of our children.

As we embark on our 10th decade of presenting concerts to our communities, your orchestra will tell classical music’s vital stories by presenting masterpieces that speak to the very heart if what art can mean to a community. This vivid and exciting program also alludes to how we at the Vallejo Symphony feel about you. We are going to have fun with the season— three witty masterpieces for the stage combine with virtuosic monuments of the 19th century in a way that I hope you will find engaging, entertaining, and inspiring!

Your support means everything to us. Your belief in the power of live music to inspire emotion, deepen understanding, and connect communities shows that orchestral music performed in a great hall is so much more than entertainment. It is a constant source of inspiration to me. See you at the Empress!

 

Click on the video for a special greeting from Marc!