Chrissy Williams
The San Fernando Valley Symphony will perform Franz Schubert’s unfinished symphony Sept. 27 in the Pierce College Performing Arts Building.Conducted by James Domine, the orchestra will feature solo performances by three young winners of the Music Teacher’s Association of California concerto competition.
A precocious performance
Bruce Tiu, 11, of the Chaminade College Preparatory in Chatsworth, will play Mozart’s Piano Concerto in C Minor. Bruce is also a featured soloist in the 2008-’09 season at the California State University, Northridge Youth Orchestra. He has won numerous piano competitions throughout Southern California, and also studies the violin, which he plays in the CSUN Chamber Orchesta.Jamie Kim, 15, from Harvard-Westlake School in North Hollywood, has been playing the cello since fifth grade. She was principal cellist of the All-Southern California Orchestra in 2006, when she was just 13 years old. After winning the Westside Music Foundation Santa Monica College (SMC) concerto competition last year, Jamie also soloed with the SMC Orchestra.The final soloist, Jacqueline Pabst, 16, from the Buckley School in Sherman Oaks, will play the violin. She won first place in the Southwest Youth Music Festival in 2006 and 2007, played at the Summit Music Festival in New York in 2006 and 2008 and has been the concertmaster of the string orchestra at the Colburn School. She has been playing since she was seven.
All SFVS performances hosted at Pierce
“It’s really convenient because it’s just right across the grass,” said James Bergman.His music appreciation students, as well as those of Dennis Parnell, can earn their classical concert credit by attending.
The Unfinished Symphony
Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 is commonly known as the Unfinished. “Everybody wants to know what that means,” Domine said. “If it’s unfinished, why are we playing it?”Schubert began writing Symphony No. 8 in 1822 but left it with only two movements, even though he lived for another six years.”Everyone presumes he died before he could finish it, be he actually went on to write another symphony and probably put this one away in a drawer and forgot about it,” Domine speculated. “We are playing the two movements that are finished.””It’s a great piece, a classic,” he said.
The SFVS will begin their performance at 8 p.m. Saturday in the Performing Arts Building.Tickets are $20 for students with school IDs, $25 for general admission and $15 for children under 12. More information is available by calling (818) 347-4807.