Westchester Symphony Society

Home

About Us

membership

"The Culver City
Symphony brings us
the best of both worlds;
wonderful, exciting
music presented in
a much more personal,
intimate manner than
any other symphony
I've seen.
Truly a joy to be there."
Carol Gross,
Former Culver City Mayor
and City Council Member

Film Studios

and Culver City

Music and motion pictures have been wedded almost since the inception of cinema in the last decade of the 19th Century. Thomas Edison in the U.S. and the Lumiere brothers of France almost simultaneously, but independently, created moving pictures. Music was soon incorporated to enhance the experience of this new art form. The accompaniment varied from a single pianist, to a small group, to the mighty theater organs to orchestras. The advent of talking pictures in 1927 with The Jazz Singer ushered in the replacement of live music with recorded sound tracks.(Note that a film musical was chosen as the first.) The variety, scope and dynamics of the film sound tracks continue to evolve with new recording techniques capturing the playing of studio orchestras. A few of the many American composers who have written for film include Aaron Copland, George Gershwin, Virgil Thomas, Leonard Bernstein, and John Corigliano. While Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring found its way into Disney’s Fantasia, he never composed a film score. If not directly using a piece from Classical Music, certain styles were copied in many film scores with the music of Puccini, Tchaikovsky and Wagner as the most popular models in the mid-Twentieth Century and current film composers using a wide palate modern styles for scores.

Studio production began on the East Coast, but it eventually decamped to Southern California’s for its weather which permitted year round shooting, and for the incredible natural lighting. Culver City has a long and rich history with many legendary studios producing in the city. The first was Thomas Ince’s studio operated with D.W. Griffith and Max Sennett which opened in 1915 with the iconic Colonnade on Washington Boulevard. This became the Samuel Goldwyn Studios, which then merged into the legendary studio MGM known particularly for its musicals (Music again). The lot is now Sony Studios, across the street from Veterans Auditorium. There was the Selznick studio producing its own historic films. The Culver Studios, with its own iconic buildings, is an active and storied studio once under the name of RKO. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers graced the RKO Studios and forever changed dance and film musicals.

Film production remains a vital part of Culver City economically, socially and culturally. Some of the films produced in Culver City:The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, The Thin Man, Citizen Kane, Rebecca, the original King Kong , Grease, Raging Bull, and ET. It seems only natural for The Culver City Symphony Orchestra to perform music from films.

47th Year / 2009-10 Season

Frank Fetta - Music Director and Conductor

Our funding comes from these sources.

Membership in the Westchester Symphony Society (the largest source), grants, our raffle, and donations-individual and corporate. Please consider your relationship with the orchestra, and the need for your financial support.

Let us help you help the orchestra in your estate planning

and gift giving. Through Merrill Lynch, your gift of stocks or bonds could be advantageous for you, your estate and for the orchestra. Contact us to begin the process of a targeted donation. We are accepting vehicle donations through People's Choice Charities.

Membership is available year-round. Your financial support through Membership and donations allows the orchestra to make the sound you hear at our concerts, and establishes the social events for your enjoyment. Please renew or join, and become a Member. The evidence of your support is directly seen and heard through our concerts.

Send us an e-mail to receive an application for membership:

membership

Or download the form: Membership Card

Summary of the 2009-10 Season

In a season of tight resources and difficulties in funding, variety and staying modern were the signposts we followed. To present within budget our standard season of four orchestra concerts, we employed a wide variety of orchestra sizes. The first concert illustrated this: the Stravinsky was two trumpets (granted, not quite an orchestra); the Copland and Hoffmeister works were mostly strings; and the Mendelssohn and Beethoven works employed the standard orchestra of strings, winds, brass and percussion. For our final concert, we presented a very large orchestra and works of two prominent American composers, Chadwick and Barber. 2010 is the Centenary of Barber's birth, and we presented two works to commemorate the anniversary: the Violin Concerto and the Piano Concerto.

For the second consecutive year, we presented an evening or works for a string orchestra. These turned out to be very successful evenings, and a very pleasant and exciting discovery of music for strings. This year we invited Guest Conductor, and the orchestra's Principal Violist, Sylvia Mann for the string orchestra concert.

In trying to stay relevant and contemporary, we presented works by three living composers: Charles Fernandez and his Elegy, for Oboe and Strings; Adrienne Albert and her Boundaries for string orchestra, and Matthew Hetz and his transcription for string orchestra of Villa-Lobos' Bachianas Brasileiras, No. 1.

The programs for this year are posted below. We hope you will join us for our 2010-11 Season, our 48th Year, and 11th in Culver City.

Saturday, October 24, 2009, 8:00P.M.

Season Premiere: City Music, Ten Years in Culver City

Program:

Frank Fetta - Conductor

Stravinsky: Fanfare for a New Theater (1964)
Mendelssohn: Hebrides Overture (1830) Two Hundredth Anniversary of his birth.
Copland: Quiet City (1940)
Hoffmeister: Concerto for Bass and Strings, No. 3 (1780), Aleksey Klyushnik-Bass United States premiere of the orchestra version
Beethoven: Symphony No. 7 (1812)

In cities are found symphony orchestras.

The parent organization of the Culver City Symphony Orchestra, the Westchester Symphony Society, Inc., was invited by the City of Culver City to perform there to see if this could work: a symphony orchestra going into a center of film and television production and administration - Culver City. This endeavor proved to be a good fit for the orchestra, and we believe we have slowly brought symphonic music to the city with consistently exciting concerts, which are very well attended, and sometimes we venture out of the standard repertoire. Many of our old friends followed us from Westchester-our former center, and we are grateful to them, and we have found new friends in Culver City, and elsewhere, and we are equally grateful for them.

In what is now standard for us, we presented a wide range of musical styles, in various orchestra sizes, with music stretching across nearly two-and-one-half centuries, from the Early Classical Period of the possible United States premiere of Hoffmeister's Bass Concerto, to Beethoven's symphonic masterpiece, to Mendelssohn's Romantic tone poem, to Stravinsky's modern work which, while short, provided plenty of electricity.

This performance is supported, in part, by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors

through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission.

____________________________________________________

Saturday, January 30, 2010, 8:00P.M.

The American Beat: Music of the Americas

Music in the Americas is the Music of the New World which looks back to the Old World for its structures, harmonies, melodies, absorbs these influences, then looks to its immediate surroundings to find its native musical language. Sometimes the Music becomes restless, and looks outsides the borders for inspiration.

The Beat is the pulse, the rhythm, which propels Music regardless of style or origin. Classical Music of North/Central/South America all share roots in European musical styles and structures. Each region, and its composers, are then influenced by their immediate culture. All of the music on the program has its own distinct personality and beat.

North America is represented by three American composers - Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland, and Charles Fernandez; Central America is represented a Mexican composer - Silvestre Revueltas; and South America is represented by a Brazilian composer - Heitor Villa-Lobos.

Some composers, such as Barber and Fernandez, chose to look to their immediate regions for inspiration. New England for Barber; and Louisiana and Southern California for Fernandez.

New York native Copland looked to Latin America for inspiration.

Revueltas innately used Mexican and Aztec influences to color his compositions, one which look back to Europe with his homage to a Spanish poet.

Brazilian sensibilities infused Villa-Lobos works, and for certain works he looked to the German Master Johann Sebastian Bach for inspiration.

This concert celebrates American composers who found inspiration and the Beat close to home, or sought it in far off lands while retaining their footing in their native lands.

PROGRAM:

Frank Fetta - Conductor

Villa-Lobos (Brasil): Bachianas Brasileiras, No. 1 (1932),
[Arranged for String Orchestra (2009)-Matthew Hetz (U.S.) (Premiere Performance)]

Charles Fernandez (U.S.): Elegy for Oboe and Strings (1998), Linda Mudgeridge-Oboe

Copland (U.S.): 3 Latin American Sketches (1972), Orchestra

Revueltas (Mexico): Homenaje a Federico Garcia Lorca (1936), Orchestra

Barber (U.S.): Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1940), Stirling Trent-Violin

Veteran's Auditorium before the concert / Midori and Stirling Trent-soloist in the Barber Violin Concerto

Left. Post-Concert: Orchestra members Anita Gendler and Isabelle Cabrerra,

Right. Composer Charles Fernandez, Conductor Frank Fetta, Violinist Stirling Trent

This performance is made possible in part by a grant from
the City of Culver City Performing Arts Grant Program Fund with support from Sony Pictures Entertainment.

____________________________________________________

Saturday, April 3, 2010, 8:00P.M.

Spring Break - Music for String Orchestra

It was Spring. The days became longer, flowers started blooming, birds made nests, new sprouts emerged. It was time for a break. A Spring Break, with a concert for string orchestra.

The string section can be the workhorse for an orchestra, though our friends in the other sections - winds, brass and percussion - may disagree. The strings (Violins 1 and 2, Violas, Cellos and Bass), supply harmonies, rhythmic foundations, and can sing melodies with the best of the other sections. We have nothing against our friends in the other sections of the orchestra, but we feel it's time for another concert of string music.

The range of sounds and styles from the strings is wide and dynamic. The variety of timbres is nearly endless, and the strings have the ability to speak directly to the listener. And they don't have to breathe into their instruments to make sounds. Hence a string instrument can, in theory, play a note forever. As a string player in the orchestra, it can seem like forever, taking into account the amount of playing from the string sections needed in symphonic works.

Program

Sylvia Mann, Guest Conductor

Hovhaness: Psalm, Op. 40 (1940)

Holst: Saint Paul’s Suite (1912/ revised 1922)

Adrienne Albert: Boundaries (1994/ revised 2005)

J. S. Bach: Air, From Orchestra Suite, No. 3 (ca. 1729-31)

Warlock: Capirol Suite (1926)

Mozart: Divertimento, K. 136 (1772)

Sibelius: Canzonetta (1903/ revised 1911)

Grieg: Holberg Suite (1884)

Sylvia Mann during rehearsal, Adrienne Albert, Film Sculpture in front of Veteran's Memorial Auditorium

____________________________________________________

Saturday, June 12, 2010, 7:30P.M.

Young Artists and American Music

Season Finale with Winners of the

Parness Young Artists Concerto Competition

This season we presented a wide variety of works not often performed.Some were works of the 20th Century, which for some, causes a retreat when preconceived notions of modern music are brought to mind. These newer works have proved to be pleasant surprises with the audience in their accessibility and acceptance. For the June 12 concert, we presented works of two notable American Composers which follows this season's exploration of the new - New Englanders Chadwick and Barber. The Barber Piano Concerto is a work which deserves wider recognition and we are pleased to have presented in our concert.

While the concert was a benefit for the orchestra, which is traditional for us for our last concert of the season, what is unusual is that we presented the winners from the orchestra sponsored Parness `Young Artists Concerto Competition, which is always an exciting evening. The audience enjoyed hearing these winners, supported by the Culver City Symphony Orchestra. For this concert will presented our largest orchestra of the season in the warm and vibrant acoustics of Veteran's Auditorium.

Ticket holders were invited to a post-concert reception to meet orchestra members, socialize, and experience the excitement of our raffle as the winning tickets are pulled.

This concert was dedicated to the memory of Albert Vera, a man of vision and great supporter of the orchestra.

PROGRAM:

Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto, No. 1 (1875) - Third movement, Ben-han Sung, Piano (Intermediate Division Winner)

George Whitefield Chadwick: Symphonic Sketches (1895-1904)

Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto (1878) - First movement, Kristie Su, Violin (Junior Division Winner)

Samuel Barber: Piano Concerto (1962), Julian Toha, Piano (Senior Division Winner)

(l. to r.) Kristie Su, Ben-Han Sung, Julian Toha

____________________________________________________

The Culver City

Symphony Orchestra

Photo Gallery

Frank Fetta-Conductor and Music Director

Frank Fetta, Calico Winds, Damian Montano / Post Premiere Ovation

Post-concert reception.

Film Strip Sculpture in front of Veteran's Memorial Auditorium.

___________________________________________________________

Film Strip Sculpture, Vet's Auditorium---------- Vet's lobby, raffle table

Orchestra set-up, Veteran's Auditorium.Come hear us when the orchestra

is seated and ready to perform.

Orchestra Manager Helene Mirich-Spear and Concertmaster Nancy Roth--The lower sounds

Frank Fetta and Ruslan Biryukov continue to work on the pieces after the rehearsal

"Excuse me, but I believe it's that note." --------The orchestra and Biryukov at rehearsal

Backstage ------------------------------------------- Orchestra founder Dora Bomber and Biryukov

(Photos: Hermes)

__________________________________________________________________________________________