UC Davis Symphony Orchestra: “Fate and Alter Ego”  

Christian Baldini, director and conductor

TICKETS HERE
 
Baldini conducts the symphony orchestra on the Jackson Hall stage. The photograph is taken from stage left and shows Baldini and the first violin section playing

June 3, 2023 – 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Christian Baldini, music director and conductor

This program features Philip Glass’s popular first concerto for violin, with his iconic sound: open, full of motion, and yet without a lot of tonal changes. The soloist is Chase Spruill, who is a champion of Glass’s violin music. This contrasts with Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony: regal and full of dueling themes, and which also features one of his best waltzes.

Philip Glass: Violin Concerto No. 1 
with Chase Spruill

Philip Glass’s First Violin Concerto was his first piece written for the concert hall. Unlike many of his previous works—operas, film scores, and more—the piece is thrilling on its own without added audio-visual elements. The piece features a moving first movement, a romantic second, and a rousing finale that fades gently away like a wonderful memory. As the composer said in a biography, “I composed the piece in 1987 thinking, let me write a piece that my father would have liked. . . . A very smart nice man who had no education in music whatsoever, but the kind of person who fills up concert halls. They’re the people that keep the whole business going.”

Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 

Tchaikovsky’s Fifth is—to borrow a phrase from Star Wars—a duel of fates. He half-attempted suicide only a year before by wading into the ice-cold Moscow River, hoping to catch a fatal illness. Tchaikovsky struggled with how he was viewed by the public (which he feared suspected his homosexuality), and his Fifth Symphony might reflect this struggle.

Franz Joseph Haydn:Allegro from Trumpet Concerto in E-Flat Major
Katie Sharp – Winner of the Concerto Competition