Many thanks!

We would like to thank all the volunteers who offered their time last week to help with the ticket mailings. Because of them, we were able to send out all the subscription orders by the end of the week! Many thanks to the following volunteers, we couldn't have done it without them:

Al and Natalie Davis
Luce Denney
Jubillee Gee
Ellen Thiel
Marcia Wire
Pat Wolf

A needed change of perspective

Most of our staff will be attending the Association of California Symphony Orchestras 42nd Annual Conference this Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Much like the League of American Orchestras earlier this summer, ACSO is sounding notes of a minor key: "Orchestras and choruses are struggling. Slashed funding, declining attendance, and increased costs are just a few of the problems we have to wrestle with as a community. Join your colleagues... to learn new techniques and acquire new tools that are necessary to remain competitive and viable in this ever-changing world."

We recently read two articles that suggest that we need to shift our perspective a bit to realize just how vital classical music is to our world today.

In 66 days...

... we'll get to see our Nic conduct Mozart here in the Bay Area. For now, we'll just have to read about him conducting Mozart elsewhere.

For you impatient fans out there, subscribers will begin to receive their tickets this week(!) and single tickets go on sale in 15 days on August 5.

Japanese Handel?

Is of course courtesy of our Music Director! Who else did you expect!

Read more.

FREE-harmonia Baroque Orchestra...

Don't miss a FREE performance by a small ensemble of musicians from the orchestra. On Sunday, September 26,  at 5 p.m. the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra Ensemble performs at Hertz Hall on the UC Berkeley Campus. Part of the Cal Performances Open House "Free For All," the ensemble performs Haydn's Quartet for Oboe and Strings in C major and String Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 64, No. 6, as well as Mozart's Quintet for Oboe and Strings in C minor. The event is free and open to the public. This will be the perfect way to warm up for our all-Mozart concert with fortepianist Robert Levin later that evening.

TRIVIA: Austrian composers Haydn and Mozart were contemporaries – though there was a substantial age difference (Haydn being 24 years older than Mozart). Were the two friends? Find out here.

Hint: The above engraving is supposed to be a portrait of Mozart & Hadyn in Mozarteum, Salzburg.

Gonzalo in the Wall Street Journal

One of the volunteers who is helping us with our season ticket mailing mentioned this morning that Gonzalo Ruiz is featured in today's Wall Street Journal. He talks about transcribing Bach's "Orchestral Suite No. 2," with it's famous flute solos, for oboe. We played this back in October 2008 to rave reviews.


Hear for yourself: 

Speaking of jokes...

Alex Ross posted (and Scott thankfully forwarded) this hilarious spoof radio commercial from 1977 that ever so gently jibes the more contemporary compositions that you will probably never hear our orchestra perform, not even on period instruments.