MAX BRAGADO-DARMAN AND THE MONTEREY SYMPHONY CONCLUDE THE 62^ND SEASON WITH PERFORMANCES OF MAHLER’S FIRST SYMPHONY, DEBUSSY’S NOCTURNES, AND THE WORLD PREMIERE OF ROBERT WAYNE PADGETT’S FANFARE FOR THE EAGLES, MAY 17, 18, AND 19, 2008.

April 28, 2008, Carmel, California: Monterey Symphony music director Max Bragado-Darman will conduct the final concert of the orchestra’s 62^nd Season on Saturday, May 17; Sunday, May 18, and Monday, May 19, 2008. The program opens with the World Premiere of Pacific Grove composer Robert Wayne Padgett’s Fanfare for the Eagles. It will be followed by Debussy’s three-movement impressionistic essay, Nocturnes, featuring the female voices of the Monterey Symphony Chorus, and concludes with Gustav Mahler’s monumental Symphony No.1 in D major, "The Titan."

Single tickets for the Saturday, May 17, 8:00 p.m. performance at Salinas’ Sherwood Hall are $38, $28, $18 and $16 students. For the Stage Door Performance at 3:00 p.m. (final rehearsal) tickets are $12 in advance, $15 at the door. Single tickets for the Sunday, May 18, 3:00 p.m. and Monday, May 19, 8:00 p.m. concerts at Carmel’s Sunset Theater are $60, $55, $50, $45, and $35—not including Sunset Center’s Facility Use Fee. Visa and MasterCard are accepted. Ticket buyers are urged to call immediately for tickets as the likelihood of sold-out performances is great. Call 831-624-8511 extension "0," for exact seat locations.

The Friends of the Symphony will present composer Robert Wayne Padgett at a special luncheon held at The Golf Club at Quail Lodge, on Friday, May 16, from 11:30 to 1:30. The cost of the luncheon is $45.

Robert Padgett, winner of the 2008 Max Bragado-Darman Fanfare Competition, was born in Carmel, California on July 20, 1969. This was the day that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon. His winning composition is entitled, "Fanfare for the Eagles." Mr. Padgett is an eighth-generation Californian whose Spanish Heritage can be traced to the Casa Boronda – the first and oldest adobe built outside the old Spanish Presidio in Monterey by his forefather, Don Manuel de Boronda.

Mr. Padgett studied violin with Michael Rosenker, a former associate concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic and student of Leopold Auer, and subsequently with Mr. Rosenker’s pupil, Mr. Owen L. Dunsford. Mr. Padgett studied piano with Renée Bronson and Sally Magee. As a sophomore in high school, he joined the Monterey Symphony as a section violinist and has performed under the direction of Haymo Taeuber, Clark Suttle, Max Bragado-Darman and Arthur Post.

After graduating from the Stevenson School in Pebble Beach, California, Mr. Padgett attended Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in psychology. At Vassar, he studied piano with Blanca Uribe, music theory and composition with Richard Wilson (a student of Aaron Copland), and played violin with the Vassar College Orchestra.

Robert Padgett is married with five children, performs violin and piano professionally, and is a Benefits Analyst with Genworth Financial. He has performed for Prince Charles, Lady Camilla, Governor Schwarzenegger, Maria Shriver, Steve Jobs, Van Cliburn, Joseph Silverstein, and many others. His original compositions have been performed at the Bohemian Grove, The Bohemian Club in San Francisco, and other private and public venues.

Monterey Symphony chorus director Leroy Kromm was appointed to his position by former music director Kate Tamarkin in 2001. His extensive experience as a professional singer, vocal coach and choral leader, has produced some of the finest collaborations between chorus and orchestra yet presented on the Monterey Peninsula. Thus far, Mr. Kromm has prepared the Symphony Chorus for Orff’s Carmina burana, Bruckner’s Te Deum, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Spring from Haydn’s The Seasons, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, and selections from Elijah. He has been instrumental in designing and presenting the annual holiday concerts in December. As a baritone, Mr. Kromm has sung performances with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Aspen Music Festival, Anchorage Festival of Music, Harvard University, San Jose and Sacramento Symphonies, and Midsummer Mozart Festival. His opera roles have included the title role in Tartuffe by Kirk Mechem, Figaro in Le Nozze di Figaro and Masetto in Don Giovanni, as well as several contemporary opera productions. Specializing in oratorios of all eras, Mr. Kromm has performed most bass-baritone oratorio roles in concert throughout the United States. A strong advocate for new music, he has worked directly with some of the most prominent composers of our day including George Crumb, Lou Harrison, Jake Heggie, Kirke Mechem, Ned Rorem, and, most recently, Henry Mollicone—presenting his critically acclaimed Beatitude Mass at Monterey’s Golden State Theater on Friday, April 25, 2008. Mr. Kromm is a full-time professor of voice at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

The Monterey Symphony Chorus was founded in 1990 by then music director Clark Suttle and led until his untimely death in 2001 by Ken Ahrens. Since its beginning, the Symphony Chorus has been a featured ensemble on one or more subscription concerts, all of the annual holiday concerts and on several special occasions.

The Monterey Symphony, under the artistic leadership of Max Bragado, is the only fully-professional orchestra serving the communities of the Monterey Bay, Salinas, Salinas Valley, Big Sur, and San Benito County. It provides triple performances of a seven-concert subscription series at Carmel’s Sunset Theater and Salinas’ Sherwood Hall, annual holiday concerts, and an extensive youth activities program, including more than 200 visits to classrooms by musicians, which culminates in concerts by the full orchestra for school children.

The Monterey Symphony is a nonprofit, public benefit corporation, supported, in part, through the fundraising efforts of the Friends of the Monterey Symphony; and grants from The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, The Harden Foundation, The Robert and Virginia Stanton Fund at the Community Foundation for Monterey County, The William and Flora Hewlitt Foundation, The Monterey Peninsula Foundation, The General Endowment Fund of the Community Foundation for Monterey County, The James Irvine Foundation, The Chapman Foundation, The Communities Advancing the Arts Initiative of the Community Foundation of Monterey County, The McGraw-Hill Companies, The Nunes Company, Upjohn California Fund, and many other generous foundations and individual donors.

For additional information, please call 831-624-8511 or visit our web site:

www.montereysymphony.org.

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MONTEREY SYMPHONY 62^nd SUBSCRIPTION SEASON 2007-2008

Max Bragado-Darman, conductor

Female Voices of the Monterey Symphony Chorus

Saturday, May 17, 2008, 8:00 p.m. Sherwood Hall, Salinas

Sunday, May 18, 2008, 3:00 p.m. Sunset Theater, Carmel

Monday, May 19, 2008, 8:00 p.m. Sunset Theater, Carmel

PROGRAM

Robert Wayne Padgett Fanfare for the Eagles

(1969- )

Claude Debussy Three Nocturnes for Orchestra

(1862-1918) I. Nuages

III. Sirenes

Female Voices of the Symphony Chorus

This program will be broadcast on KUSP 88.9 FM on Sunday, June 15 2008, 11:00　a.m.