SANTA MONICA SYMPHONY CONCERT DELIGHTS AUDIENCE
article & Photos by D’Lynn Waldron 2004

An enthusiastic audience of nearly 2000 had a wonderful evening Sunday, December 12, at the Santa Monica Symphony’s “Salute to the Community” concert in the Civic Auditorium, celebrating the Symphony’s 60th Anniversary Season.

The Santa Monica Symphony, under the baton of Music Director and Conductor Allen Robert Gross, was joined by acclaimed Santa Monica baritone Jubilant Sykes, and by the very talented young students of the Santa Monica Crossroads Chamber Orchestra.

The program opened with Gross introducing the audience to a new symphonic composition “Momentum” by Chen Yi. Gross gave an animated description of how the piece depicts the thunderous power of lava, the sweeping strokes of Chinese calligraphy, and incorporates traditional Chinese melodies. The orchestra provided a sample of each to the applause of the audience.

The orchestra then played ‘Momentum’, which gives all the percussion, especially timpanist Alan Peck, a unique opportunity to unleash all the power of their instruments.

Next on the program, the Crossroads Chamber Orchestra was conducted by its Director, Alexander Treger in Tchaikovsky’s richly melodic “Souvenir of Florence”, a composition for strings.

The eighteen students in the Crossroads Chamber Orchestra, who range from 12 to 17, amazed everyone with their mastery of their instruments and of the music, and received a standing ovation.

At the intermission, children in the audience were overheard telling their parents and grandparents that they also wanted to play an instrument, and each had already decided, from seeing the orchestra, just which instrument that was.

After the intermission, international concert and recording artist Jubilant Sykes, a native of Santa Monica who lives here with his wife and three young sons, thrilled the audience with American folk songs and spirituals in his marvelous baritone voice that is famed for its richness, range and emotional expression.

Sykes’ first song was the deeply felt “City Called Heaven” in an arrangement for harp and orchestra. Sykes brought to this song an emotional quality few singers are capable of.

In a complete change of mood, Sykes next delighted the audience with Aaron Copland’s arrangement of the folk song “I Bought Me a Cat”, in which the singer emulates, with the orchestra, the sounds of all the animals he acquires, and finally the wife to go with them. This was especially enjoyed by the children in the audience who laughed with delight.

Audience would not stop applauding until Sykes gave them an encore, which was ‘Witness’, the narrative of a spiritual journey set to a beautiful melody.

For the last piece on the program, the young students of the Crossroads Chamber Orchestra sat beside their counterparts in the Santa Monica Symphony to play Dvorak’s Eighth Symphony, under the baton of the Symphony’s Music Director Allen Robert Gross. The rich melodic lines of this much loved symphony were enhanced by having the seventeen very talented young musicians from the Crossroads School augment the orchestra.

The audience thoroughly enjoyed their evening with the Santa Monica Symphony, Jubilant Sykes, and the Crossroads Chamber Orchestra. This 60 year tradition of free concerts is made possible by the City of Santa Monica and the generosity of the Symphony’s donors and sponsors.

There will be two more free concerts in the 2004-2005 Season.

Sunday, March 13, 2005 the program will include Mozart’s melodic Overture to the “Abduction from the Seraglio” and “Sinfonia Concertante”, and Shostakovich’s powerful Eighth Symphony.

Sunday, May 29, 2005, the 60th Anniversary season finale will include Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, “The Choral” for which the orchestra will be joined by four soloists and two full choruses.

Concerts are in the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium at Main and Pico. Concerts begin at 7:30 and there is a very popular pre-concert talk by Raymond Knapp in the auditorium’s Meeting Room at 6:45.

ALLEN ROBERT GROSS has conducted orchestras world-wide to great acclaim. He has been Music Director and Conductor of the Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra in California for the past fifteen years.

Dr. Gross is also Professor of Music at Occidental College and at the California Institute of Technology. He is Director & Conductor of the Occidental-Caltech Symphony, Director of the Occidental College Chamber Music Ensembles, and Conductor of the Pasadena Summer Youth Chamber Orchestra.

Invitations to be a guest conductor, and tours of the Santa Monica Symphony, have taken Allen Gross to Europe, Asia and Latin America.

Allen Gross was born in New York City and was selected for the famed music & arts high school and fondly remembers his years there. He took his Masters in Music from Berkeley and his Doctorate in Music from Stanford University.

Allen Gross began his professional conducting career in Germany, where he served as Musical Director of the Heidelberg Castle Festival, Conductor of the Junges Kammerorchester Heidelberg, and held conducting positions in the opera houses of Freiburg and Aachen. He made a number of studio recordings for the South German Radioith with the Junges Kammerorchester Heidelberg.

Coming to Los Angeles in 1983, Dr. Gross joined the music faculties of Occidental and Caltech Universities and became director of the Occidental-Caltech Symphony.

Allen Gross has an avid interest in working with developing players. He served as Music Director/Conductor of the Pasadena Young Musicians Orchestra from 1987 through 1991, and has been the conductor of the Pasadena Summer Youth Chamber Orchestra for the past seventeen years.