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 (downloadable PDF full season brochure)
To purchase online, please use "Add to Cart" below. If you would like to purchase tickets for more than one show, select "Continue Shopping" from the PayPal shopping cart.
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Our 38th Season! 2022-2023
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(downloadable PDF order form) |
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Seven regular concerts featuring Music Director and Conductor Dwayne Milburn, our wonderful Chamber Orchestra and outstanding guest artists.
All single tickets are $35 each. You can still save by subscribing to a special package for our four 2023 concerts. After online payment is complete, tickets are held at Will Call. You may also download a PDF order form to pay by check.
All concerts are Friday at 8:00 pm. "Liner Notes with Tom Neenan" precedes each concert.
We want you and our musicians to feel safe and secure so that you can fully
enjoy our concerts. To that end, everyone attending our live concerts will need to
show proof of full vaccination at least two weeks prior to the concert and will be
required to wear a mask. We will continue to follow the advice of medical
authorities and update this policy when it is safe to do so.
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COMING UP NEXT IN SEASON 38
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Inna Faliks, piano
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March 24, 2023 at 8pm
Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Grainger, Delius
We’re pleased to open this concert with the Overture in C major by Fanny Mendelssohn. Although the social strictures of her time prevented her from pursuing a professional career, she composed over 450 works in numerous genres and served as a tireless advocate for her younger brother Felix and other women composers, including Clara Schumann.
In a nod to the changing seasons, the orchestra performs Frederick Delius’ Two Pieces for Small Orchestra. As miniature tone poems, On hearing the first cuckoo in spring and Summer night on the river, call to mind myriad images of those seasons.
Percy Grainger is best known for his treatment of folksongs from the British Isles that are staples of the literature for wind ensembles. Written as a birthday present for his mother, Molly on the Shore continues to be a favorite in this and other incarnations. “
A concert pianist of the highest order,” Inna Faliks makes a long-awaited return to St. Matthew’s to perform the Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, by Ludwig van Beethoven. Premiered in 1808 by the composer, it was the last time Beethoven appeared as a soloist, but many pianists have since taken on this most elegant of his piano concertos.
 
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Tickets purchased online are held at Will Call beginning at 7pm on the night of the concert |
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Photos courtesy of
Stephen K. Mack
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Tickets purchased online are held at Will Call beginning at 7pm on the night of the concert
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Tyler Hunt, steel drum
David Conte, composer
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June 2, 2023 at 8pm
Season Finale – World Premiere of
David Conte's "Hymn To Life" –
A Music Guild Commission in memory
of Fred Doering
Combining classical forms with his unique harmonic approach, Sergei Prokofiev remains one of the most intriguing composers of the 20th century. His Sinfonietta was his youthful attempt “to create a transparent piece for small orchestra.” The style he mastered in the Sinfonietta blossomed fully in the familiar Classical Symphony and other later works.
Los Angeles-based composer Dante De Silva makes his St. Matthew’s Music Guild debut with Hermitage, an exciting piece that combines the distinctive timbre of the steel drum with the classical orchestra.
The Choir and Soloists of St. Matthew’s Parish take the stage to present the world premiere performance of a Music Guild commissioned work, "Hymn To Life" by David Conte, one of today's most sought-after composers. Conte has composed more than 150 works published by E.C. Schirmer and his latest piece was composed in memory of long-time SMMG board member Fred Doering.
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Tickets purchased online are held at Will Call beginning at 7pm on the night of the concert
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PAST EVENTS
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Movses Pogossian
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October 14, 2022 at 8pm
Season Opener
We open our season with Mozart’s sparkling Symphony No. 34 in C major. Even though the 24-year-old genius was increasingly frustrated with limitations found in the cultural backwater of Salzburg, he still found the means to satisfy the tastes of his audience while crafting this delightful and sophisticated work.
Los Angeles-based composer Allen Menton makes his Music Guild premiere with an evocative essay, Unspoken. Conjuring images of the sea and magical landscapes, Unspoken is a lush work that will stimulate the imagination of the listener.
Violinist Movses Pogossian, who wowed Music Guild audiences in 2019, joins the Chamber Orchestra in Samuel Barber’s Concerto for Violin. Composed in 1939 for fellow Curtis Institute of Music graduate Iso Briselli, the soulful and virtuosic concerto is well-suited to Pogossian, whose playing has been hailed as “fiery, centered, and highly musical.”
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Tickets purchased online are held at Will Call beginning at 7pm on the night of the concert
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Boris Allakhverdyan, clarinet
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November 11, 2022 at 8pm
Allakhverdyan and Danielpour’s “Four Angels”
Featuring the orchestra’s strings section, the concert begins with the Sinfonia No. 10 in B minor, composed at age 14 by Felix Mendelssohn. It is one of many early works that demonstrated the enormous potential he realized later in his career.
The program continues with the Los Angeles premiere of Four Angels for clarinet and strings by Grammy Award-winning composer Richard Danielpour. Originally composed for clarinet and string quartet, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Principal Clarinet, Boris Allakhverdyan, joins the orchestra in bringing this elegy to life, with the sonic splendor of a full string orchestra.
The program also includes Latin Grammy Award winner Yalil Guerra’s Clave para Cuerdas y Percusión, an effervescent work that evokes the rhythms and harmonies of his native Cuba.
Inspired by sixteenth-century Italian architecture, our program closes with Karl Jenkins’ suite for strings, Palladio.
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Tickets purchased online are held at Will Call beginning at 7pm on the night of the concert
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Annual Holiday Concert
Yi-Huan Zhao, violin
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December 9, 2022 at 8pm
Annual Holiday Concert
The Chamber Orchestra sets the scene for this popular concert with “Winter” from Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. The music draws inspiration from a sonnet that describes weather uncommon in Southern California: “shivering, frozen amid the frosty snow...”
The program continues with equally descriptive music from an equally prolific composer, Georg Philipp Telemann. A more cosmopolitan contemporary of JS Bach, Telemann’s Ouverture des nations anciens et modernes paints lively pictures of Germany, Switzerland, and Denmark.
The Choir and Soloists of St. Matthew’s Parish join the orchestra to present Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s Magnificat. Oldest son of JS Bach and godson of Telemann, CPE Bach composed this youthful work in 1749. Fittingly, some of the music demonstrates the influence of his father, while much of the piece anticipates Haydn and Mozart. It is an exciting way to end the concert and begin the holiday season.
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Tickets purchased online are held at Will Call beginning at 7pm on the night of the concert
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David Kaplan, pianist
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February 10, 2023 at 8pm
Quasi una fantasia
“Quasi una fantasia” takes its name from the original title given to two sonatas by Beethoven: the famous “Moonlight” (Op. 21, No. 2) and its companion, the Sonata in E-flat Major, Op. 21, No 1). The two Beethoven sonatas will frame music by Couperin, Brahms and Schumann as well as more recent works by Ligeti, Anthony Cheung, Kaija Saariaho and Andrea Casarrubios.
Kaplan has been called “excellent and adventurous” by the New York Times and was praised by the Boston Globe for “grace and fire” at the keyboard. He has performed with orchestras throughout the world, including the Britten Sinfonia and Sinfonie Orchester Berlin and has performed recitals at the Ravinia Festival, Sarasota Opera House, and National Gallery, to name a few. He has participated in chamber music festivals such as the Seattle Chamber Music, Bard, Mostly Mozart, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Chamber Music Northwest, and Barge Music. He has recorded for Naxos, Nonesuch, and Marquis Records.
As a core member of Decoda, the Affiliate Ensemble of Carnegie Hall, he performs frequently in New York’s most exciting venues, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art to National Sawdust, as well as creating innovative residencies as far away as Abu Dhabi, Mexico, and Scotland. A resident of Los Angeles, since 2016 he has been a member of the piano faculty at UCLA. A pre-concert lecture, “Liner Notes with Tom Neenan,” begins at 7:10pm and is free and open to the public.
 
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Tickets purchased online are held at Will Call beginning at 7pm on the night of the concert
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