Youth Orchestra’s Fall Concert

Event Details:

Location: San Francisco Conservatory of Music

Date: Sunday, November 15, 2015

Time: 7:30pm

Program:

Verdi Nabucco Overture

Bloch  Baal Shem
           2. Nigun (Improvisation)
(Jaclyn Thach, Violin)

Shostakovich Chamber Symphony 

Prokofiev Selections from Romeo and Juliet 

Program Notes

Omid Zoufonoun

conductor

Jaclyn Thach

violin

The season opens with an ambitious program including selections from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, which is widely regarded as among the most brilliant modern ballet scores for its deep and nuanced emotional power and innate theatricality. Verdi’s Overture to Nabucco is based on biblical stories from the books of Daniel and Jeremiah, about which the composer commented, “this is the opera with which my artistic career really begins.” Composer-violinist Ernest Bloch was one of many international composers who made the Bay Area an important center for modern music in the mid-20^th century, and his Baal Shem (1939) was composed between his time as Director of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and when he taught at UC Berkeley. Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony is a masterful arrangement of his eighth String Quartet by Rudolf Barshai.