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Betti Foundation
Reserved Seating at Signal Hill Ranch
One of the best perks of being a Festival donor is the opportunity to secure reserved seating for the summer Centerstage concerts.
- You donated at least $300 and you also purchased season tickets, or
- You donated at least $1500.
Each night at the Festival, you will find a seat marked with your name on it when the theater doors open at 6 PM. Here is how we do it:
- Before 6 PM our staff will remove personal items from the theater and set out seat cushions for our guests with reserved seating.
- At 6 PM we will unlock the doors, allowing other patrons to choose from the remaining seats.
- Ushers will be available in the theater from 6 PM to 7:30 PM to help people locate good seats, ensure that all empty seats are filled, and keep the chairs and reserved seat markers in their designated places.
1874-1935
Joseph Suk was a violinist, violist, chamber musician, composer and a student of the famed Czech composer Dvorak. This piano trio was written as an assignment from Dvorak who was so taken with the finished product that he selected it for the graduation awards concert, which prompted the composer to have it published as Op.1. Incidentally, Suk married Dvorak’s daughter, and their son, became a famed violinist and composer and who was also named Joseph, and in turn his son carried on the family name with yet another son named Joseph who was of course a violinist and leader of the renowned chamber group Suk Trio whose recordings are still available.
1881-1945
Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer, pianist and an ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; and he and Liszt are regarded as Hungary's greatest composers. Through his collection and analytical study of folk music, he was one of the founders of comparative musicology, which later became ethnomusicology. The fascination with Folk Music pervades all of his writing including his 6 String Quartets, which were written between 1908 and 1928 including Op. 17, written in 1917. In spite of the influences of other composers like Richard Strauss and Debussy, the angular quality of the music is uniquely Bartók.
b. 1979
Born in South Carolina, Andy Akiho is a virtuoso percussionist, based in New York, and much of his fame derives from his compositions for Steel Pan; however he uses various instrument in combination to great effect, in this case Marimba. Listen with an open mind – you will be charmed for sure.
1809-1947
The traditional string quartet (2 violins, viola, cello) had been developing over several decades in the 19th century, it wasn’t until the young Mendelssohn came upon the concept of an Octet that the form came into being. While there is one precedent – that of Louis Spohr, in which the two groups play against each other in a more or less antiphonal style -- it was Mendelssohn who integrated the eight players in a much more complex and satisfying piece. His Octet Op. 20 is one of the greatest pieces of the classical small ensemble.
1923-2006
György Sándor Ligeti was a Hungarian-Austrian composer of contemporary classical music. He has been described as one of the most innovative and influential among progressive figures of his time. Much has been written about the avant-garde aspect of his music and its influence on film makers like Stanley Kubrick. Nevertheless, it has a richness that is fascinating. With its occasional strange noises, his opera, Le Grand Macabre, is both a witty satire on death and a chilling apocalyptic vision.
1833-1877
Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin was a Russian Romantic composer of Georgian-Russian origin, as well as a doctor and chemist. He was one of the prominent 19th-century Russian composers known as The Mighty Handful, a group dedicated to producing a uniquely Russian kind of classical music, rather than imitating earlier Western European models. The String Sextet in D minor (1860) is a light charmer full of tunefulness and warmth yet remains unfinished and is seldom played, especially when compared with many of his other works.
1678-1741
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was an Italian Baroque musical composer, virtuoso violinist, teacher and cleric. Born in Venice, he is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread across Europe. He composed many instrumental concertos, for the violin and a variety of other instruments. “L’Estro Armonico” was his first set of 12 concertos to be published (in Amsterdam) in 1711.
1756-1791
The String Quartet No. 23 in F major, K. 590, was written in June 1790. It is the third of the so called Prussian Quartets by the most prolific of composers. Even today it is mind-boggling to contemplate what he might have produced had he lived past the age of 41. In this case, Mozart had written 23 String Quartets by age 39.
1906-1975
The Symphony No. 15 in A major, Op. 141, Dmitri Shostakovich's last, was written in a little over a month during the summer of 1971 in Repino, outside St. Petersburg. The Chamber version was completed shortly thereafter. The full symphony was first performed in Moscow on 8 January 1972 by the All-Union Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra under Maxim Shostakovich. The chamber version is easier to perform in smaller settings.
1732-1809
Haydn wrote 68 String Quartets, more than any other composer. In fact he is as well-known as the “Father of the String Quartet” as he is the Father of the Symphony and of the Piano Trio.
1833-1897
Johannes Brahms wrote some of the most endearing chamber music we know, and he composed it throughout his life. This first of two String Quintets he composed in 1882 in the spa town of Bad Ischl, Upper Austria, was first performed at a chamber music evening in Frankfurt-on-Main on 29 December 1882. The mood is more contemplative than some of the more muscular pieces of his early years, yet it still bears the stamp of our beloved Brahms.
1797-1828
The Piano Trio No. 2 was one of the last compositions completed by Schubert, in November 1827. It was published as Op. 100 in late 1828, shortly before the composer's death, and first performed at a private party in January 1828 to celebrate the engagement of Schubert's school friend Josef von Spaun. The Trio was among the few of his late compositions Schubert heard performed before his death. Like Schubert's first piano trio, this is a comparatively larger work than most piano trios of the time, taking almost 50 minutes to perform. The second theme of the first movement is based loosely on the opening theme of the Minuet and Trio of Schubert's G major sonata.
1732-1809
The six string quartets by Joseph Haydn are among the works that earned Haydn the sobriquet "the father of the string quartet". The quartets are considered a milestone in the history of composition; in them, Haydn develops compositional techniques that were to define the medium for the next 200 years.
1685-1750
Bach was a master of the keyboard, which in his day was the harpsichord. This Toccata is a virtuoso piece of music typically for a keyboard or plucked string instrument featuring fast-moving, lightly fingered or otherwise virtuosic passages, with or without imitative or fugal interludes, generally emphasizing the dexterity of the performer's fingers. Put the two together and magic is created. Listen and be amazed.
1833-1897
The Clarinet Trio in A minor, Op. 114 is one of four chamber works composed by Johannes Brahms featuring the clarinet as a primary instrument. It was written in the summer of 1891 for the clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld, and is considered by scholars as part of a rebirth for the composer who, in 1890, had declared his String Quintet in G Major to be his final work.
1875-1937
Written in 1907 for voice or for other instrumental combinations, it is a short but captivating piece.
1897-1957
The Sextet in D major is Korngold’s finest chamber work and is a direct descendant of the sextets of Brahms. Combining the melodic sweetness of late German romanticism with the rich textures and epic pictorial imagery of the Viennese Jugendstil, the work is nevertheless decisively stamped with Korngold’s distinctive personal style.
1756-1791
Mozart's Quintet in A major for Clarinet and Strings, K. 581, was written in 1789 for the clarinetist Anton Stadler. Although originally written for bass clarinet, in contemporary performances it is usually played on a clarinet in A or B-flat. It was Mozart's only completed clarinet quintet, and is one of the earliest and best-known works written especially for the instrument. It remains to this day one of the most admired of the composer's works.
1879-1936
Ottorino Respighi was an Italian violinist, composer and musicologist best known for his three orchestral tone poems: Fountains of Rome, Pines of Rome, and Roman Festivals. His musicological interest in 16th-, 17th- and 18th-century music led him to compose pieces based on the music of these periods. He also wrote several operas.
1833-1897
Two Songs were written by Brahms for the singer Amalie Schneeweiss and her husband, violinist Joseph Joachim. The first, Geistliches Wiegenlied (Sacred Lullaby), was given to the couple in celebration of their wedding in 1863, then revised with the birth of their first child, named Johannes in honor of the composer. The second, Gestillte Sehnsucht (Stilled Longing), followed two decades later, with the hope that the divorce proceedings Joachim had filed against his wife would go no further. With Brahms writing a letter of support in Amalie’s defense, read in court, a rift was soon to develop between violinist and composer. Both songs, two of Brahms’s greatest, open with expansive instrumental introductions, establishing the mood and main musical material. The similarity in timbre between mezzo voice and viola is expertly exploited, often as though in a vocal duet.
1841-1904
Antonin Dvorak, the first Bohemian composer to achieve worldwide recognition, is noted for turning folk material into 19th-century Romantic music. His technical fluency and abundant melodic inspiration helped him to create a large and varied body of work. Born near Prague to a middle class family, Dvorak's style is notable for its lyrical freshness, engaging rhythms, and an uncanny ability to absorb folk elements into a highly personal language. This, the second of his Piano Quartets, was composed in 1888 and is oft-played to the delight of music lovers everywhere. A four movement piece, it ends in typical energetic fashion.
