This Friday, enjoy a night out at the Oakland East Bay Symphony, and spend time with one of our local, cultural treasures. Maestro Michael Morgan, Music Director and Conductor of the Oakland Symphony, brings his audience to destinations that are wonderful to listen to, informative, and beyond the norm. The highlight of Friday evening’s performance is Dvořák’s New World Symphony.

The program includes:
Antonín Dvořák Symphony No. 9 in E Minor (From the New Word)
Symphony No. 9 is nicknamed New World because Dvořák wrote it during the time he spent in the U.S. in the 1890s. His experiences in America (including his discovery of African-American and Native-American melodies) and his longing for home color his music with mixed emotions. It is Dvorak’s spiritual and emotional journey: from his intense longing for his beloved home to the thrill of the “new world” and its varied peoples, to thoughts of going home.

Dvořák’s New World Symphony was composed in 1893, while he was the director of the National Conservatory of Music of America. It is one of the most popular symphonies, and a copy of the recording was taken to the moon by Neil Armstrong during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969. At the premiere in Carnegie Hall, the end of every movement was met with thunderous clapping, and Dvořák felt obliged to stand up and bow.

Gabriela Lena Frank Concertino Cusqueño
Bay Area composer Gabriela Lena Frank has always been fascinated by the intersections of culture and heritage–her father is an American of Lithuanian Jewish heritage and her mother is Peruvian of Chinese descent. Her Concertino Cusqueño imagines the composer Benjamin Britten journeying with her to Cusco the original capital of the Inca empire Tawantinsuyu. Rich in mythology and spirit, Frank opens the conversation of home- in heaven and here on earth.

Anton Bruchner Te Deum
Bruckner‘s glorious hymn of praise–theTe Deum– journey’s to the other-world. It’s text is also a plea for salvation.The Oakland Symphony Chorus raise their voices to the heavens in this transcendent work, with soloists Hope Briggs, Betany Coffland, Amitai Pati, and Anthony Reed.

Hope Briggs, soprano
Betany Coffland, mezzo-soprano
Amitai Pati, tenor
Anthony Reed, bass
Oakland Symphony Chorus
Saint Mary’s College Chamber Singers & Glee Club

Friday, March 31st at 8 PM

The Paramount Theatre
2025 Broadway
Oakland, CA

For tickets, visit the Oakland East Bay Symphony website.