Oakland Symphony

HI! LocalGetaways.com is a VERY popular NorCal travel website and they included Playlist in this list. Best Things to Do in the East Bay This February... https://localgetaways.com//best-things-to-do-in-the-east-b Debbie Allen’s Playlist - February 12 The star of Broadway’s West Side Story and TV’s Fame and recipient of the 2021 Emmy’s Governors Award shares the music that transformed her life, as conducted by Rickey Minor at Oakland Symphony. More info: oaklandsymphony.org

Stage and screen star of Fame, Sweet Charity, and Grey’s Anatomy. Five-time Emmy winner. And a 2021 Kennedy Center honoree. Debbie Allen has also transformed the lives of California’s most talented disenfranchised youth through the Debbie Allen Dance Academy. Now, she shares the playlist of the music that has transformed her remarkable life - live in concert with the Oakland Symphony at The Paramount on Saturday, February 12 at 8pm. Tickets start at $25! Order here! https://www.oaklandsymphony.org/event-ca/tickets-available/

Stage and screen star of Fame, Sweet Charity, and Grey’s Anatomy. Five-time Emmy winner. And a 2021 Kennedy Center honoree. Debbie Allen has also transformed the lives of California’s most talented disenfranchised youth through the Debbie Allen Dance Academy. Now, she shares the playlist of the music that has transformed her remarkable life - live in concert with the Oakland Symphony at The Paramount on Saturday, February 12 at 8pm. Tickets start at $25! Order here! https://www.oaklandsymphony.org/event-ca/tickets-available/

Oakland Symphony MUSE student, Roman St Gerard continues to inspire others to dream! https://oaklandside.org//meet-the-16-year-old-skyline-stu/ Give today and support students throughout Oakland. www.OakSym.org/donate... #Oakland #Youth #Aspirations #Dreams Skyline High School - Oakland Tom Hanks Kev Choice

The end of year is near and the TIME IS NOW: For just $30, One Oakland student receives a private 30-minute lesson with an Oakland Symphony teaching artist. Give today and invest in a child's future! www.OakSym.org/donate

From Maestro Michael Morgan: "This month we celebrate the history of Black Americans, and their contributions to our culture. While many will pay particular attention this month, let’s all try to live this commitment for the next eleven months of the coming year. Cultural heritage has long been at the heart of every Oakland Symphony concert, and will be again when we return to the stage this fall."

A fantastic highlight of our incredible Chorus Director, Dr. Lynne Morrow!

We're so happy to be included on this list of exciting events and performances! For our archived presentation of Mass for Freedom, visit: https://www.oaklandsymphony.org/mass-for-freedom/

It's never too late to learn an instrument! Our MUSE Lifelong Enrichment resource can connect you with one of our incredible teaching artists - check it out today! https://www.oaklandsymphony.org/muse/lifelong-enrichment/

Happy Inauguration Day! Enjoy this excerpt from our Virtual Inauguration Ball, performed by members of the Oakland Symphony Chorus - and if you missed the premiere, you can still watch the FULL Inaugural Ball on-demand here: https://www.oaklandsymphony.org/oakland-salutes-madame-vic/

We are so excited to introduce a new virtual lecture series: The Soul Behind the Spiritual! Few can speak with such passion about the power of the voice. Over three live-streamed events, Oakland Symphony Chorus Director, Dr. Lynne Morrow, brings her brilliant insight into the soul of the spiritual. The first event, "Genesis and History," will take place on Friday, November 13, from 3pm-3:30pm, and will be available on demand after. In this first lecture, Dr. Lynne Morrow demo...nstrates the resilience of the spiritual in transformations from solo to choral to instrumental. Sign up now: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-soul-behind-the-spiritual- For more information about the series: https://www.oaklandsymphony.org/dr-lynne-morrow-series/

From Maestro Michael Morgan: "I hope everyone will vote who hasn’t already, and I really look forward to this being over. I’d like to think about something else for a change!"

Some of our youth musicians - and their instructors! - got into the Halloween spirit at a recent Zoom rehearsal! We hope you and yours had a safe and happy holiday.

Tonight's rePAST includes Ernest Bloch's "Schelomo," performed by cellist and 2013 Young Artists Competition Winner Matthew Linaman, and Beethoven's Seventh Symphony! Stream it here: oaklandsymphony.org/repast From Maestro Michael Morgan:... "In 2014, the winner of our Young Artists Competition was the gifted cellist Matthew Linaman. The Reno, Nevada native came to us via the San Francisco Conservatory where he has also won their concerto competition playing Ernest Bloch’s Schelomo, the great Hebraic Rhapsody. Bloch, who was born in Switzerland, wrote Schelomo in 1916 before coming to America, a journey that eventually led to his being named Emeritus Professor at UC Berkeley even though he’d never taught full-time there. Schelomo is perhaps the greatest product of Bloch’s musical exploration of his Jewish heritage. Based on the words of King Solomon, it is a tone poem for cello and orchestra. We’re pairing it tonight with a symphony that needs no introduction. The Seventh Symphony of Beethoven is one of the cornerstones of the orchestral rep, and has been played many times by the Oakland Symphony."

Tonight's rePAST showcases Sergei Rachmaninoff's Second Symphony! Stream it now: oaklandsymphony.org/repast From Maestro Michael Morgan:... "Tonight we go back to a 2005 performance of a great masterpiece by a frequently underrated composer: The Second Symphony of Sergei Rachmaninoff. Always more renowned as a pianist during his life than as a composer, Rachmaninoff frequently lacked confidence in his own work, and even allowed people to make cuts in this symphony. Those cuts destroy the form and are not made in this performance. (In fact, I would never make them!) It’s a long piece and worth every minute. Some may recognize the third movement theme from its transformation into a pop ballad by Eric Carmen, but every movement is full of memorable themes that are brilliantly developed." See more

If you haven't gotten a chance to watch Maestro Michael Morgan's CURRENTS series, which he has curated and hosted with San Francisco Symphony - now you'll be able to see it live on your TV! Here's the broadcast schedule, starting this Saturday: Oct 24 at 11:30am on Telemundo 48 CURRENTS: ¡Viva México! (Spanish subtitles) ... Oct 24 at 3:30pm on NBC Bay Area CURRENTS: From Scratch Nov 28 at 3:30pm on NBC Bay Area CURRENTS: Bay Area Blue Notes Dec 19 at 3:30pm on NBC Bay Area CURRENTS: Enter the Pipa All four episodes are also available for streaming on the SF Symphony website!

Our friends at Oakland School for the Arts started their Step It Up programming yesterday - online! We are always inspired by our community's continued commitment to arts education.

Tonight's rePAST features two incredible works: Juhi Bansal Composer's "When Shadow Chases Light" and Jean Sibelius's Second Symphony. Stream them here: oaklandsymphony.org/repast From Maestro Michael Morgan:... "For our 2014 Notes from India concert, we commissioned a work from L.A. composer Juhi Bansal. The result is one of the most beautiful of the works we have premiered. Ms. Bansal’s mixing of Indian elements and the Western orchestra yields a piece full of color and expressiveness. We recognized immediately that this was a wonderful piece from an extremely talented composer, and it is a joy to hear it again here on rePAST. We are pairing it tonight with one of the most popular symphonies from the 20th Century The Second Symphony of Jean Sibelius. The Symphony was a success with audiences right from its 1902 premiere. Its grand, sweeping finale, having such a nationalistic character, was thought to be an expression of Finnish independence from the domination and suppression of Russia."

Tonight on a special edition of rePAST, we celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day with a performance of John Christopher Wineglass’s "Big Sur: The Night Sun," originally performed at our 2017 Notes From Native America concert. This mesmerizing work features the haunting voice of Kanyon Sayers-Roods, Native American singer from the indigenous California Costanoan Ohlone and Chumash Tribes. Stream it now: oaklandsymphony.org/rePAST

Tonight's rePAST features two incredible pieces and one of our favorite collaborators! Enjoy Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1, with soloist Sara Davis Buechner, and Ravel's La Valse. Stream it here: oaklandsymphony.org/rePAST From Maestro Michael Morgan:... "Tonight on rePAST, we go back to a 2009 performance that holds great sentimental value for us at the Oakland Symphony. This performance marked our first collaboration with the great Sara Davis Buechner, one of our favorite pianists and one who has returned to us several times since. On this occasion, she played the First Piano Concerto of Beethoven, and it is an association we have all come to enjoy. We end tonight’s presentation with the great poème chorégraphique La Valse by Maurice Ravel. The Frenchman Ravel wrote La Valse as a summing up and homage to the Viennese Waltz. This brilliant and colorful work dates from 1920, and this Oakland Symphony performance was in 2016."

Another playlist in our partnership with Pandora is now available - this one from our Youth Orchestra Principal Conductor, Omid Zoufonoun! https://www.pandora.com/playl/PL:281475075598634:1623100801?

Today's rePAST features Conrad Susa's "The Blue Hour" and Dvorak's Seventh Symphony! Stream them here: oaklandsymphony.org/repast From Maestro Michael Morgan:... "Tonight’s rePAST begins with the only orchestral work of the beloved opera composer and long-time San Francisco Conservatory Faculty member, the late Conrad Susa. His piece, 'The Blue Hour,' is about the time when daylight is beginning to transition into night. The sounds one might hear mixing at or near the beach. From private radios to music from cafes. We’re pairing Conrad Susa’s 'Blue Hour' with arguably the greatest of the Dvorak symphonies. The Seventh is full of the melodic Czech spirit one expects from Dvorak at the height of his creativity."

Some familiar faces in this video! Oakland's professional soccer team, the Oakland Roots, included the Oakland Symphony Youth Orchestra in their newest promo.