Culver City Symphony Orchestra February 23, 2013


The Culver City Symphony Orchestra
is Presented by:
The Westchester Symphony Society, Inc.
P. O. Box 4846
Culver City, CA 90231
www.culvercitysymphony.org
e-mail: [email protected]
ph. 310-717-5500

An orchestra starts somewhere, at a certain time, at a certain size. The CULVER CITY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA presents a concert “To the Source” since we began as a string orchestra, and in our Fiftieth Year in the orchestra’s 2011-12 Season we return to the source with a concert of music for string orchestra.

The concert is Saturday, February 23, 2013, 8:00P.M., at Veteran's Memorial Auditorium, 4117 Overland Avenue, Culver City; at the corner of Culver Boulevard and Overland Avenue. Free parking is available. This concert is under the direction of Guest Conductor-Andrew Shulman. Frank Fetta is the Music Director.

There is a wealth of under appreciated music for string orchestra, and this concert presents some of the most glorious of these works.

Admission Charge. NEW: Free for Westchester Symphony Society
Members, present your membership card at the box office.
Membership available at the concert on our website.
Non-Members: $10 GEN ADMN. Box Office opens at 7PM

For additional information please visit our web site: www.culvercitysymphony.org or call 310-717-5500, or send an e-mail to [email protected].

To the Source
Program:
Andrew Shulman - Guest Conductor

W. A. Mozart - Divertimento, D Major, K 136 (1771)

Ralph Vaughn Williams - Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910)

Pyotr Tchaikovsky - Serenade for String Orchestra (1880)

Donations and membership to the Westchester Symphony Society, Inc. are welcome. Members of the Westchester Symphony Society are entitled to reserved concert seating, and to a pre-concert talk given by Guest Conductor Shulman. Membership is available at the concert.

The Westchester Symphony Society, Inc., presents The Culver City Symphony Orchestra, The Marina del Rey Summer Symphony, and produces the Parness Young Artists Fund Concerto Competition.
The Culver City Symphony Orchestra is now in its twelfth year performing in Culver City, and begins its 49th season. It has performed in many regional venues in the communities of Westchester, Venice, Los Angeles, San Gabriel, and now Culver City.

In addition to presenting the standard orchestra repertoire and concert dramatizations of operas, the orchestra has presented unique concerts devoted to Black American, Hispanic, and Women composers. It is the parent orchestra of the Marina del Rey Summer Symphony which performs at Burton Chace Park. The orchestra has performed at The Los Angeles Street Festival, on live-radio music broadcasts from the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History.

Andrew Shulman, principal cellist with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and Professor of Violoncello at the University of Southern California (USC) was the first British winner of the United States 'Piatigorsky Artist Award'. Shulman's careers as 'cellist and conductor have taken him all over the world. As soloist, he has directed and performed all the major 'cello concertos with the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, the City of Birmingham Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Utah Symphony, the Singapore Symphony and orchestras all over Europe, the United States and the Far East.

Shulman has given recitals at Wigmore Hall, London, the Royal Palace in Stockholm, and Buckingham Palace, London. He has also performed Strauss' great tone poem 'Don Quixote' twice at the Royal Festival Hall, London (with Sir Simon Rattle and Benjamin Zander)

As a cellist he was offered the first chair position with London's Philharmonia Orchestra, at the age of 22, by conductor Riccardo Muti. He has performed as soloist with Sir Simon Rattle, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Semyon Bychcov, Franz Welser-Möst and Esa-Pekka Salonen, amongst others. He has also recorded over twenty-five CD's as 'cellist of the Britten Quartet (exclusive to EMI Records), solo 'cello on Elton John's 'Candle in the Wind 1997', a tribute to Diana, Princess of Wales, the highest selling single of all time.

Shulman was bestowed with an 'Honorary RCM' by The Queen Mother in 1986, and subsequently became a professor at the historic Royal College of Music in London. Since coming to Los Angeles he has given many classes, among them those at the University of Southern California (USC), the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the Corwin Awards Masterclass at the Los Angeles Music Center, as well as playing and teaching at the Aspen, La Jolla, Blue Mountain, Ojai, Las Vegas and San Diego's 'Mainly Mozart' festivals. In the fall of 2011 he joined the faculty of USC as Professor of Cello and was a guest soloist at the first Piatigorsky International Music Festival in Los Angeles.

As conductor, he has performed extensively in the UK, Germany, Ireland and Scandinavia. Last season he made his US conducting debut with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. His performances have included the symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Haydn, Mahler, Mozart, Sibelius and Tchaikovsky and major orchestral works by Bartok, Debussy, Dvorak, Elgar, Holst, Rachmaninoff, Ravel, Strauss and Stravinsky. He has given performances of Haydn's symphonies under the auspices of H.C. Robbins Landon at the Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh, with the Britten-Pears Orchestra, and has conducted the world premieres of several major works, as well as collaborating with some notable soloists, including Rafael Wallfisch, Colin Carr and Bernard D’Ascoli.

In 1999 he was appointed principal cello of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and also resumed his activities as one of the most sought after solo 'cellists working in the TV and Movie music industry. At the end of 2002 he left the Philharmonic in order to expand his solo, chamber music, teaching and conducting activities still further, having made his family's home in the beautiful Santa Monica Mountains. In 2007 and 2008 he recorded three new cello concertos written specially for him (composed by Christopher Stone, Nathaniel Levisay and Maria Newman). Shulman also composes, and recently premiered his own ‘Smaller Music For Strings’ in the UK, as well as collaborating with the legendary German rock/classical guitarist Uli Jon Roth in performances in Hollywood, California (playing his electric cello/guitar instrumental 'H.A.N.D', which was a winner in the International Songwriting Competition of 2007). In 2008 he was appointed principal cello of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. The 2010/2011 season saw the beginning of an exciting collaboration with pianist and conductor Jeffrey Kahane, culminating in several performances and a recording of the complete works for piano and cello by Beethoven. He conducted two concerts in the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra main series, performing works by Mozart and Walton

He lives in the Santa Monica mountains with his wife, also a cellist and Alexander Technique teacher, two children (both musicians too) and (sadly) just one cat.