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"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

Funding comes from these sources:

Membership in the Westchester Symphony Society (the largest source), grants, our raffle and donation-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 could be advantageous for you, your estate and for the orchestra. Contact us to begin the process of a targeted donation.

Membership is available year-round. Your financial support through Membership and donations allow the orchestra to make the sound you hear at our concerts, and establish 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

SPRING SURRISE

A concert of music for string orchestra

SATURDAY, APRIL 3, 2010, 8PM, VETERAN'S MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM

4117 OVERLAND AVENUE at CULVER BOULEVARD

There is no admission charge for this concert.

Free parking, entrance from Culver Boulevard

Frank Fetta - Music Director

Sylvia Mann - Guest Conductor

Sylvia Mann is the orchestra's Principal Violist,

and is the conductor of West Covina Symphony Orchestra.

PROGRAM:

To be announced. Once the program is finalized, we will post it.

To receive e-mail updates on the program throughout the year,

please send us an e-mail request to be added to the e-mail list.

Click on the following link to send your request to E-mail updates

Funding comes from The Westchester Symphony Society, Inc., through Membership; Parness Young Artists Fund; Corporate and Individual donations; and the Recording Companies of the United States and Canada Fund, through the Music Performance Trust Fund, Local 47, American Federation of Musicians. The City of Culver City provides the performance spaces.

2009-10 Season.

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

Season Premiere: City Music, Ten Years in Culver City

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

The American Beat: Music of the Americas

(Program subject to change and admission charge.)

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

Spring Surprise - Music for String Orchestra

(Program subject to change and admission charge.)

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

Season Finale

with Winners of the Parness Young Artists

Concerto Competition
(Programs subject to change and admission charge.)

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A REVIEW OF THE 2008-09 SEASON

Frank Fetta-Conductor and Music Director

46th Season Finale

A Night with the Romantics

Music from Romantics, and a new work in memory of Romance.

Saturday, June 13, 2009 - 7:30PM

VETERAN’S MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM
4117 Overland Avenue
at Culver Boulevard.

Our 46th Season ended with a A Night with Romantics.

The Romantics were Franz Liszt - Mephisto Waltz No. 1,

Pyotr Tchaikovsky - Symphony No. 5,

Damian Montano, Sinfonia Concertante for Woodwind Quintet, Percussion, Harp and Strings, commissioned by Orchestra Manager Helene Mirich-Spear in memory of her husband, Clarinetist Julian Spear.

Photos from the concert and post-concert reception follow.

The Liszt was full of Romantic vapors, hard driving rhythms of a devil's dance, and those adventurous, chromatic harmonies.

Tchaikovsky's symphony is a large work, full of emotions, and we feel the orchestra rose to occasion and presented many powerful and emotional moments.

The orchestra quickly took to liking Montano's new work. The Calico Winds were superb, and I hope the concert premiere gave the work the care and excitement it deserves.

Other Romantics at the concert were music lovers and supporters of the orchestra,the musicians, the board of directors and the orchestra president. We hope you were able to attend to hear the orchestra give a splendid concert with Conductor Frank Fetta.

In a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, Calendar, there was a short article on the continuing decline in audience attendance for the Arts, and that more people are turning to the Internet for cultural events.

We believe in the use of modern technology, hence this Web-site. But we are also firm believers that nothing can substitute for a live musical performance. There are huge differences between natural, acoustic soundwaves (orchestra) and electronic sound waves (speakers). Our concerts also offer socializing, which is an integral part of the concert experience. We present these concerts because we love Music, and we want to share in that experience.

For the only time this season, there was an admission charge to hear the orchestra in a concert to benefit the orchestra. We will try to maintain our format of concerts without charge, but in today's economy, many questions face us in continuing the presentation of the majority of our season with free concerts.

For those of you attended our June 13 concert, we thank you. And we invite all to our next concert October 24, the start of our 2009-10 season. Please continue to check with this Web site for updates.

To be placed on our mailing list for e-mail updates and/or regular mail announcements, please let us know. You can send us an e-mail through this link: info@culvercitysymphony.org, or send us a letter through the Postal Service:

Culver City Symphony P.O. Box 4846 Culver City, CA 90231-4846

310-717-5500

Frank Fetta

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Calico Winds -David Kossoff, Oboe ;Theresa Treuenfels, Bassoon;Rachel Berry, Horn; Eileen Holt Helwig,Flute; and Kathryn Nevin, Clarinet.

For more information on the Calico Winds, click on the link: Calico Winds

Damian Montano For information on

Mr. Montano,please click the following link: Damian Montano

PHOTOS FROM THE JUNE 13, 2009, CONCERT

Box Office

Frank Fetta, Calico Winds, Damian Montano

Post Premiere Ovation

Post-concert reception.

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

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2008-09 Season

Saturday, October 25, 2008, Season Premiere-New Worlds and New Perspectives

Saturday, January 31, 2009, On Our Way Up

Saturday, April 4, 2009, Springtime Mirth, Dance, and Night Music

Saturday, June 13, 2009, Season Finale, A Night With the Romantics

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The Culver City

Symphony Orchestra

2008-09 Season

Past Concerts

Saturday, April 4, 2009, Springtime Mirth, Dance and Night Music

In the face of economic realities, we presented a concert with only the string sections of the orchestra. This reduced our costs of salaries, but we missed our friends, the Winds, Brass and Percussion. For our final concert of the 2008-09 Season, we bring them back for two large scale, Romantic masterpieces.

While smaller in number, the string sections proved that a we just skimmed the wealth of music for String Symphony. The pieces ranged a large time span from the Baroque of Vivaldi, to the 20th Century Danse from the Dean of Black American Composers, William Grant Still, who called Los Angeles home for most of his life.

Orchestra Concertmaster Nancy Roth not only led the ensemble from her first chair seat, she vacated the seat to Rebecca Rutkowski so she could then play with magnificence two Violin Concertos of Vivaldi: La Tempesta de Mare and the evergreen Spring from The Four Seasons.

Mendelssohn's youthful Sinfonia No. 2, written when was 12 years old burst along with youthful vigor. Barber's Adagio for Strings was the somber rain, but it felt nourishing to stop and reflect amidst the youthful vigor and foot stomping joys of Grant Still's Danses de Panama. Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusic ended the evening and the night was a joyous time.

Photos will be posted in the future under the "News" tab. Please check back later for them and for more information on our June 13, 2009, Season Finale concert.

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

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Saturday, January 31, 2009, On Our Way Up

The concert featuring Winners of the Parness Young Artists Concerto Competition is usually an exciting one where Veteran's Auditorium is abuzz from the audience's excitement on the superlative performances. This year's concert was no exception.

The soloists were Juan-Salvador Carrasco-Cello-Elgar: Cello Concerto (4th Movement); Mayumi Kanagawa-Violin, Wieniawski: Violin Concerto No. 1 F# Minor(1st Movement); and Weston Mizumoto-Piano,Liszt: Piano Concerto, No. 2. (For bios and photos of the soloists, please go to the Young Artists page.)

The Shostakovich Symphony No. 9, Eflat Major filled out the program, under the direction of Frank Fetta. This was the type of concert in which the energy from the music lifted spirits through the night. If you were there you know, if you were not, please consider our next concert.

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

Mayumi Kanagawa Juan-Salvavdor Carrasco

Weston Mizumoto

For bios on the artists, please go the Young Artists page.

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Saturday, October 25, 2008, 8PM, Season Premiere

New Worlds-New Perspectives

The Season Premiere featured siblings Leah and Austin Hansen, Winners of the 2007 Parness Young Artists Competition.

A large audience voiced their approval of the two young soloists. Leah Hansen played the 4th Movement of the Cello Concerto of Edward Elgar; and Austin Hansen played the 4th movement of the Violin Concerto by Pytor Tchaikovsky.

Zachary Opera Vocal Competition Winner Haqumai Sharpe sang the National Anthem. Frank Fetta is the music director of this prestigious competition. Veterans in the audience were brought to their feet when the music for their respective branch of service was performed in the Medley of the Themes of The United States Armed Forces.

The orchestra's spirited account of the Symphony from a New World, by Antonin Dvorak showed the group in top form, eliciting a comment from a music teacher and coach that the orchestra is the hidden gem Culver City. We think we're achieving something special. Come join the audience to hear what the noise is all about.

Orchestra set-up, Veteran's Auditorium.

Come hear us when the orchestra is seated and ready to perform.

Leah Hansen, Frank Fetta, Austin Hansen-post performance

Leah Hansen

Austin Hansen

(photos of concert and reception:hermes)

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PHOTO GALLERY OF PAST REHEARSALS AND CONCERTS

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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

Post Concert Backstage discussion (Photos: Hermes)

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