2022-23 Season
2022-23 Season
The 2023 Stanford Summer Symphony concert was sold out! The SSS played to a full house in Bing Concert Hall on Saturday, 29 July 2023, performing:
STILL Afro-American Symphony (No. 1)
PERRY The Silent Years
West Coast premiere
Michael Chertock, piano
DVORAK Symphony No. 9 in E major, op. 95, “From the New World”
Guest composer William Perry attended the concert, which included his composition The Silent Years, presented with film and featuring piano soloist Michael Chertock.
On Friday, 19 May, and Saturday, 20 May 2023, the Stanford Symphony Orchestra under the direction of conductor Paul Phillips presented the California premiere of Jennifer Higdon’s Cold Mountain Suite on its Spring Concerts in Bing Concert Hall. The program also featured Roger Xia ’24, a winner of the 2023 Concerto Competition, as soloist in Serge Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2, and concluded with Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique.
On Saturday, 13 May 2023, Stanford Philharmonia performed Robert Schumann’s Manfred Overture, Franz Doppler’s Concerto for Two Flutes in D minor, André Waignein’s Rhapsody for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra, and Jean Sibelius’s Symphony No. 7 on its Spring Concert in Bing Concert Hall. The concert featured three winners of the 2023 Concerto Competition, flutists Jenny Xiong ’24 and Daniel Sun ’25 and alto saxophonist Zachary Lin ’26.
Less than a week after classes began in Fall 2022, the SSO performed a joint concert with the University of Stuttgart Academic Orchestra on 1 October. The concert, which concluded USAO’s North American tour, presented both orchestras performing three works together – Tragic Overture and Academic Festival Overture by Johannes Brahms and Theme from Jurassic Park by John Williams – with a combined total of 180 musicians performing together on the stage of Bing Concert Hall. The Stuttgart Orchestra also performed Béla Bartók’s Viola Concerto and Symphony No. 4 by Robert Schumann. USAO music director Mihály Zeke and SSO music director Paul Phillips shared the conducting duties.
On Friday, 28 October, the Stanford Symphony Orchestra and Stanford Wind Symphony presented the annual Halloween Concert in Dinkelspiel Auditorium, with SSO performing Randy Newman’s “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” from Toy Story; Aaron Copland’s Four Dance Episodes from Rodeo, led by four conducting students of Professor Phillips; and Global Warming by Michael Abels.
On 12 November, Stanford Philharmonia performed its Fall Concert in Bing Concert Hall, performing Symphony No. 95 in C Minor by Franz Joseph Haydn, Pavane for a Dead Princess by Maurice Ravel, Finding Rothko by Adam Schoenberg, and Alfred Schnittke’s Concerto for Piano and Strings with soloist Elizabeth Schumann, Lecturer in Piano at Stanford.
The SSO’s Fall Concerts took place on 2nd & 4th of December in Bing Concert Hall. The program included the Overture to La Forza del Destino by Giuseppe Verdi, Global Warming by Michael Abels, Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto featuring 2022 Concerto Competition winner Jessica Lee ’24, and Lukas Foss’s Symphony No. 1 celebrating the centenary of the composer’s birth. As a tribute to Geoff Nuttall (1965-2022), Go Perfect Into Peace, a short work by Paul Phillips, was added to the program.
SP and the Stanford Chamber Chorale performed the annual Friends of Music Holiday Musicale in Memorial Church on 3 December 2022. The program included music by Rameau, Debussy, Handel, Rutter, and MacKinnon, plus additional choral works sung by the SCC.
SP performed Siegfried Idyll by Richard Wagner, Violin Concerto No. 3 in B minor by Camille Saint-Saëns, and Symphony No. 6 in F major, “Pastorale”, by Ludwig van Beethoven on its Winter Concert, which was conducted by Paul Phillips and took place on Friday, 24 February 2023 in Bing Concert Hall. Internationally famed violinist Francisco Fullana was the concerto soloist.
On 10 March 2023, the Stanford Symphony Orchestra and Stanford Symphonic Chorus presented the West Coast premiere of A Knee on the Neck, a new requiem with text by Herbert Martin and music by Adolphus Hailstork, with a repeat performance on Sunday, 12 March. Martin and Hailstork attended both performances in person and also met with groups of Stanford students during their visits. The concerts, conducted by Paul Phillips, began with Maurice Ravel’s Alborada del gracioso and Richard Strauss’s Don Quixote with cello soloist Christopher Costanza. The mezzo soprano soloist in A Knee on the Neck was Stanford alumna Samantha Williams; the tenor and baritone soloists were Alexander Taite and Wilford Kelly, both of whom are members of the San Francisco Opera Chorus.