February 25th Program Notes

La Mirada Symphony
Alan Mautner, Music Director & Conductor
Sunday, February 25, 2018, 3:00 p.m.

“ROMANTIC RICHES”

Sorah Myung, Violin – Greg Adamson, Cello

Overture to “The Hebrides” (Fingal’s Cave), Op. 26 Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Concerto for Violin and Cello, Op. 102 Johannes Brahms
I Allegro (1833-1897)
II Andante
III Vivace non troppo

Sorah Myung, Violin – Greg Adamson, Cello

Intermission

Symphony No. 6 in D Major Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)
I Allegro non tanto
II Adagio
III Scherzo (Furiant), Presto
IV Finale, Allegro con spirito

Conductor

Alan Mautner, Music Director and Conductor
Alan Mautner is a native of Southern California. He received his Bachelor of Music Degree in cello performance from CSU, Fullerton. He has been very active as a freelance cellist performing with several symphony orchestras throughout Southern California. He has performed with such noted artists as George Benson, Andrea Boccelli, Glen Campbell, Phil Collins, Teddy Edwards, Crystal Gayle, Terry Gibbs, James Taylor, John Tesh, McCoy Tyner and Dionne Warwick. He currently performs with his string trio, “Vio-fonik.”

Mr. Mautner conducts the symphony orchestra at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, co-conducts its string ensemble and coaches string chamber music.

In January of 2014, Mr. Mautner became the Partnership Manager for YOLA at LACHSA, an initiative partnered with the Los Angeles Philharmonic bringing music into the lives of 4th grade students in the East LA area. He also conducts the Wildwood Music Camp Senior High Festival Orchestra, a position that was passed to him from his father, Arthur Mautner, in 2007.

Featured Artists

Sorah Myung – Violin
Sorah Myung has a busy musical career as a freelancer, chamber musician, and an orchestra player in Southern California. She was appointed as a concertmaster at La Mirada Symphony Orchestra in 2014. She also holds an assistant principal viola position at Mozart Classical Orchestra in Irvine, frequently subs with Pacific Symphony Orchestra in Costa Mesa and has a summer residency at American Institute of Musical Studies (AIMS) in Austria.

Ms. Myung received her BM degree from Oberlin Conservatory of Music and MM degree from Yale University School of Music. She is currently teaching at Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, Orange County School of Arts (OCSA), and conducting at Community Youth Orchestra Southern California (CYOSC).

Ms. Myung has a great passion for travel, adventures and food and wants to set foot on all seven continents someday.

Greg Adamson – Cello
Like most musicians, Greg Adamson wears many hats; cellist, composer, conductor, and educator. He has performed worldwide, in such diverse venues as Vatican City, Disney Hall, Hollywood Bowl, and Radio City Music Hall, to name but a few. He has performed with a broad range of artists including James Taylor, John Williams, Rod Stewart, Yo Yo Ma, Dr. Dre, Glenn Campbell, The Who, Guns ‘n Roses, and Elton John, and has been seen on numerous occasions performing on the MTV Awards as well as the American Music Awards.

In 2014 he founded the Fullerton String Orchestra. With help from the All the Arts for All the Kids Foundation, this orchestra (only in its fourth year) has over 60 student members from 4th-8th grade, most of whom participate at no charge. Mr. Adamson has taught K-6 music in Fullerton’s All the Arts for All the Kids program for 15 years. In that capacity, he was selected as a Teaching Artist to participate in a U.S. Department of Education study called Project Create, where he wrote and implemented arts curriculum for Fullerton School District.

Composers

Felix Mendelssohn
Mendelssohn was born in Hamburg, Germany and was a composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early romantic period. This work, though labelled as a concert overture, is intended to stand as a complete work. It does not tell a specific story and is not “about” anything; instead, the piece depicts a mood and “sets a scene”, making it an early example of such musical tone poems. Composed in 1830, it was inspired by one of Mendelssohn’s trips to the British Isles, specifically an 1829 excursion to the Scottish island of Staffa, with its basalt sea cave known as Fingal’s Cave.

He at first called the work To the Lonely Island but then settled on The Hebrides. He was so impressed that he scribbled the opening theme of the overture on the spot, including it in a letter he wrote home the same evening. However, in 1834, the year after the first publication, Breitkopf & Härtel issued an edition with the name Fingalshöhle (Fingal’s Cave) and this title stuck. At the age of 38, Mendelssohn died in Leipzig after a series of strokes.

Fun Fact: Mendelssohn was an enthusiastic visual artist who worked in pencil and watercolor, a skill which he enjoyed throughout his life.

Johannes Brahms
Brahms was a German composer and pianist of the romantic period. Also born in Hamburg, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. An uncompromising perfectionist, Brahms destroyed some of his works and left others unpublished. The Double Concerto was Brahms’ final work for orchestra and was the product of a rich lifetime of experience. It was composed in the summer of 1887 in Thun, Switzerland and premiered October 18, 1887. As it was initially performed, it was noted that Brahms treated the orchestra symphonically. This led to complaints that the solo parts were enormously difficult, it was impossible to hear them and there was not nearly enough of them.

Fun Fact: He worked on his First Symphony for 15 years before it was performed. He destroyed the slow movement and wrote a new one before it was published

Antonín Dvořák
Largely pastoral in nature and published in 1880, this symphony shows a resemblance to the Symphony No. 2 of Brahms, particularly in the outer movements, but not so much in the third-movement, Furiant, a vivid Czech dance. This was the symphony that made Dvořák internationally known as a symphonic composer.

From 1892 to 1895, Dvořák was the director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York City. He returned to Bohemia because of extreme homesickness. His main goal in America was to discover “American Music” and engage in it, much as he had used Czech folk idioms within his music. Two of his compositions while in the Untied States were the Symphony No.9, “From the New World” and the String Quartet in F (the “American”).

Fun Fact: The Symphony No. 6 was the first of his 9 symphonies to be published.

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We express our sincere appreciation to the following supporters whose contributions and encouragement of the La Mirada Symphony have enabled us to fulfill our mission in the community.

The City of La Mirada
Hennings-Fischer Foundation
Los Angeles Public Library Art, Music and Recreation Department
Musicians Union Local 47 Trust Fund

Thank you La Mirada City Council. We appreciate your support.

La Mirada City Council

Mayor – Ed Eng
Mayor Pro Tem – Lawrence P. Mowles
Councilmember – Steve De Ruse
Councilmember – John Lewis
Councilmember – Andrew Sarega
City Manager – Jeff Boynton

La Mirada Theatre For The Performing Arts
14900 La Mirada Blvd., La Mirada, CA 90638

Producing Artistic Director – B.T. McNicholl
Asst. to Producing Artistic Director – Jane Lynch
Technical Director – David Cruise
Master Electrician – Robert Felix
Audio Engineer – Josh Bessom
House Manager – Devis Andrade
Audience Development Coordinator – Elizabeth Carlock

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