SM SYMPHONY, from page 3 Symphony plays on in 2005
By D’LYNN WALDRON Special to the Daily Press
Nearly 2,000 people came out earlier this month to celebrate the Santa Monica Symphony’s 60th anniversary and the group’s salute to the community.
On Dec. 12, the Santa Monica Symphony’s held its “Salute to the Community” concert in the Civic Auditorium. The symphony, under the baton of music director and conductor Allen Robert Gross, was joined by acclaimed Santa Monica baritone Jubilant Sykes, and by students of the Santa Monica Crossroads Chamber Orchestra.
The program opened with Gross introducing the audience to a new symphonic composition “Momentum” by Chen Yi. Gross gave a description of how the piece depicts the thunderous power of lava, the sweeping strokes of Chinese calligraphy, and incorporates traditional Chinese melodies. The orchestra provided a sample of each to the applause of the audience.
The orchestra then played “Momentum,” which gives all the percussion, especially timpanist Alan Peck, a unique opportunity to unleash all the power of their instruments.
Next on the program, the Crossroads Chamber Orchestra was conducted by its director, Alexander Treger in Tchaikovsky’s richly melodic “Souvenir of Florence,” a composition for strings.
The 18 students in the Crossroads Chamber Orchestra, who range from 12 to 17 years old, received a standing ovation. At the intermission, children in the audience were overheard telling their parents and grandparents that they also wanted to play an instrument, and each had already decided, from seeing the orchestra, just which instrument that was.
After the intermission, international concert and recording artist Sykes, a native of Santa Monica who lives here with his wife and three young sons, performed American folk songs and spirituals in his baritone voice that is famed for its richness, range and emotional expression.
Sykes’ first song was the deeply felt “City Called Heaven” in an arrangement for harp and orchestra. Sykes brought to the song an emotional quality few singers are capable of.
In a complete change of mood, Sykes next delighted the audience with Aaron Copland’s arrangement of the folk song “I Bought Me a Cat,” in which the singer emulates, with the orchestra, the sounds of all the animals he acquires, and finally the wife to go with them.
The audience didn’t stop applauding until Sykes gave them an encore, which was “Witness,” the narrative of a spiritual journey set to a beautiful melody.
For the last piece on the program, members of the Crossroads Chamber Orchestra sat beside their counterparts in the Santa Monica Symphony to play Dvorak’s Eighth Symphony, under the baton of Gross.
The 60-year tradition of free concerts is made possible by the city of Santa Monica and the generosity of the symphony’s donors and sponsors.
There will be two more free concerts in the 2004-2005 season: ■ Sunday, March 13: The program will include Mozart’s melodic overture to the “Abduction from the Seraglio” and “Sinfonia Concertante,” and Shostakovich’s Eighth Symphony. ■ Sunday, May 29: The 60th Anniversary season finale will include Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, “The Choral” for which the orchestra will be joined by four soloists and two full choruses.
Concerts are in the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium at Main Street and Pico Boulevard. Concerts begin at 7:30 p.m., with a pre-concert talk by Raymond Knapp in the auditorium’s meeting room at 6:45 p.m.
For more information, log onto www.smsymphony.org, or call (310) 996- 3260.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 29, 2004. Read the original PDF.