NICHOLAS MCGEGAN CONDUCTS A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

Friday, April 22, 2022,  8 pm
Paramount Theatre, Oakland

Tonight, the Oakland Symphony is delighted to welcome Nicholas McGegan to our podium for the very first time.  

A commanding presence in Bay Area music for more than 30 years as Music Director of Philharmonia Baroque, we have been looking forward to Nic’s debut with us.   Just last month, he led Cantata Collective in Johann Sebastian Bach’s “St. John Passion” at Berkeley’s First Congregational Church.   Beyond our region Nic is renowned around the globe in concert and on record.  

Tonight, he brings three works:  The first by Libby Larsen, which he premiered with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.   Then, Mozart’s delightful “Turkish” Violin Concerto with co-concertmaster Natasha Makhigani.   And after intermission, Mendelssohn’s magical music for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” with Shakespeare’s beguiling prose read by Ellen Geer.  

Daughter of esteemed American actor Will Geer, Ellen has served as Artistic Director of his Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga Canyon since 1978.   She has been seen in movies, on television, and is a renowned Shakespearean actress and teacher.   Together with Nic, they will cap our evening with sublime enchantment. 

The final concert of the season features esteemed conductor Leonard Slatkin on May 20.  His program presents music of Cindy McTee, Alan Hovhaness, and Sir Michael Tippett’s “A Child of our Time,” composed between 1939 and 1941 in response and outrage to Kristallnacht.   But this deeply affecting work extends beyond its time to meditate on oppression across history.  Composed in England, it draws on the American spiritual.  These sit at the soul of the piece and will be sung by our own Oakland Symphony Chorus.   Tickets start at $20 each.   Call the Oakland Symphony at 510-444-0802 on Monday to  guarantee yours or order online.  

And I can now promise that you can enjoy the Oakland Symphony in July in our second series of SummerStage concerts across the community.  Watch your mailbox for information.  

I say it often, and each time I mean it more:  The Oakland Symphony has gotten through these past two years because of you, each of you, and all of you.   Thank you for the support that has inspired us all.   And so…

“You have but slumbered here,
While these visions did appear,
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding, but a dream.”    
Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Puck, Act V, Scene 1

Sincerely,

Dr. Mieko Hatano

EVENING IN THE PALACE OF REASON
Libby Larsen

VIOLIN CONCERTO NO. 5 IN A MAJOR, K. 219 (TURKISH)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

INTERMISSION

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM SUITE
Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

The 2021-2022 Season of Oakland Symphony is generously funded in part by the East Bay Music Fund at the East Bay Community Foundation; the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency; and supported by the Oakland City Council and funded by the City of Oakland’s Cultural Funding Program.