Erich Wolfgang Korngold is primarily remembered today as a seminal film composer. But the German emigre, who spent the bulk of his adult life in Los Angeles, was also a prolific composer of concert music.
Alas, the upcoming classical season in the Southland will not provide any opportunities to hear his massive and rarely performed Symphony in F-sharp. But the Colburn School’s 2024–2025 schedule of concerts will highlight Korngold’s chamber music on three programs.
Two of them will feature the Calidore String Quartet, which was formed at Colburn in 2010 and is returning to its alma mater for a residency this fall. As part of the Colburn Presents series of distinguished guest artists, the ensemble will perform Korngold’s three string quartets on Nov. 12 in Zipper Hall, on the school’s downtown Los Angeles campus.
Three days later, the Calidore will join with Quartet Integra, Colburn’s chamber ensemble-in-residence, for an ambitious program featuring Korngold’s little-known Sextet and Felix Mendelssohn’s well-known Octet.
Then, on Feb. 16, 2025, in Thayer Hall, violinist Adam Millstein and pianist Dominic Cheli will perform two more Korngold works: “Marietta’s Lied” and the Serenade from Der Schneemann. The recital will be one of three presented as part of the ongoing Recovered Voices initiative, which is dedicated to the music of composers whose lives were lost or disrupted during the Nazi era in Europe.
That series will also feature a program dedicated to another underrated composer, Mieczysław Weinberg, a close friend and valued colleague of Dmitri Shostakovich. Three of the Polish composer’s works, including his Chamber Symphony No. 1, will be performed on March 15, 2025, in Zipper Hall.
The Colburn Orchestra will perform six concerts at locations around Southern California this season. The first, Sept. 28 at Pasadena’s Ambassador Auditorium, will feature Brahms’s Third Symphony conducted by Carlos Miguel Prieto. Bence Bubreg will be the soloist in Carl Nielsen’s Clarinet Concerto.
Esa-Pekka Salonen, who leads the school’s Negaunee Conducting Program, will oversee a program of mostly Jean Sibelius on Oct. 26 at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Ray Ushikubo will be the soloist in the Finnish master’s Violin Concerto.
Further concerts at Ambassador Auditorium will take place on Nov. 23, with Lidiya Yankovskaya leading the orchestra in music of Claude Debussy, Richard Strauss, and Reena Esmail, and Feb. 1, 2025, with Duncan McDougall performing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto under the baton of Yehuda Gilad.
Stéphane Denève will conduct a program of audience favorites, including George Gershwin’s An American in Paris and Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8, on April 12, 2025, at The Soraya in Northridge. Chi-Jo Lee will be the soloist in Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto.
The Colburn Chamber Music Society series will kick off with three programs featuring world-class guest artists performing with faculty and students. The Sept. 15 concert will feature violinist Jennifer Koh. Oct. 13 will be pianist Louis Lortie, and Nov. 10 will be cellist Paul Watkins. The first two programs will feature Gabriel Fauré’s two piano quartets, while the third will include Benjamin Britten’s Sinfonietta.
The Jan. 19, 2025, concert in the series will feature the debut of violist and newly appointed professor Jonathan Brown, a longtime member of the Cuarteto Casals. The program will include Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht and Steve Reich’s Different Trains.
Also among the many distinguished guest artists are cellist Steven Isserlis and pianist Connie Shih, who will perform a recital of Beethoven, Bohuslav Martinů, and Edvard Grieg on Feb. 14, 2025. The duo will also lead master classes, as will Koh, Watkins, and the Calidore Quartet.
For more information on the upcoming season, go to the Colburn School’s website.
