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LOMA PRIETA
April 20, 2024 7:30 PM
April 21, 2024 3:00 PM
Concert five is Loma Prieta. Loma Prieta Peak is located just north of Monterey County, part of the Loma Prieta fault line that was the locus of the disastrous 1989 earthquake. At the center of this concert-like the center of the quake that disrupted so many lives, is music about loss. Adolphus Hailstork's Epitaph to a Man Who Dreamed honors the life and work of Martin Luther King, Jr. The Britten Serenade for Tenor, Horns, and Strings is about ephemerality, night, sleep, and dreams. Arvo Pärt's Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten is written in memory...
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PINNACLES
May 18, 2024 7:30 PM
May 19, 2024 3:00 PM
The season closes with Pinnacles. The craggy ridges and valleys of Pinnacles National Park were formed around 23 million years ago, a product of eruption, cracking, stretching, and erosion. The landscape is otherworldly, something that is unique to the region. Austro-Bohemian composer Gustav Mahler said that "A symphony should be like the world. It must embrace everything." If each of his nine completed symphonies is a world, then the fifth occupies the world of love. Mahler wrote the Symphony No. 5 during his brief courtship of Alma Schindler in 1901...
 

Past Events

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Love Letter to Hollywood, Vol 1.
September 5, 2023 6:30 PM
September 6, 2023 6:30 PM
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Love Letter to Hollywood, Vol. 1
September 7, 2023 7:00 PM
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VENTANA
October 7, 2023 7:30 PM
October 8, 2023 3:00 PM
The season opens with Ventana. The Ventana Wilderness, part of the Santa Lucia Range in the Los Padres National Forest, was established as part of the Endangered American Wilderness Act in 1978. It is named for the Ventana Double Cone peak which is said to have once had an arch that looked like a ventana (Spanish for "window").

Like that geological ventana, this program provides not only a window into our season but also into composers' use of folk melodies endemic to their country of origin, like in Copland's Variations on a Shaker Melody and...
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PFEIFFER
November 18, 2023 7:30 PM
November 19, 2023 3:00 PM
Concert two, Pfeiffer, translates to whistler, and is guest conducted by Andrew Grahms. The Pfeiffer family were settlers in Big Sur who loved the land so dearly that they sold it to the State of California to be preserved as a State Park. The pieces in this program also show a connection to place, and draw from philosophical and poetic ideals. Anne Clyne borrows from a Scottish fiddle tune, and draws inspiration from her experiences in Edinburgh for her piece Pivot; Liszt draws from poems by Autran and Lamartine for Les Preludes; and Brahms utilizes the...
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PALO CORONA
February 17, 2024 7:30 PM
February 18, 2024 3:00 PM
Concert three, Palo Corona meaning Crown Tree, is a concert about transformation, transcendence, salvation, and overcoming personal setbacks. Weber's Der Freischütz is a story about the redeeming power of love. Jennifer Higdon's Blue Cathedral represents one's travels over a lifetime and toward the afterlife. Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 embodies bacchic, dance qualities, to the extent that Richard Wagner called it "The Apotheosis of Dance." All of these pieces reveal the deep and sometimes mystical connections between the natural and supernatural worlds....
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SANTA LUCIA
March 16, 2024 7:30 PM
March 17, 2024 3:00 PM
The Santa Lucia Preserve stretches from Carmel south to San Luis Obispo County. Lucia is Latin for "light," and Santa Lucia was famous for lighting her way to Christians hiding in Roman catacombs by wearing a candlelit wreath. With works such as Mozart's Overture to Don Giovanni and Wagner's Siegfried Idyll, Music Director Jayce Ogren compares the works on this program to the artistic technique of chiaroscuro-light and shadow. Listeners can feel connections between finding hope amid the darkness like in George Walker's Lyric for Strings, honoring...