Spring Concerts
Our Spring Concert Series features the music of Mason Bates, universally recognized as one of the most important and widely performed living composers. We feature his Devil’s Radio, a short tone poem for large orchestra composed in 2014. Our Young Artist Competition winner and Principal Clarinetist, Raymond Wyant, will perform Aaron Copland’s Concerto for Clarinet, composed for jazz great Benny Goodman. This scintillating work is characterized by both supremely elegant and romantic passages as well as jazz-inspired harmonies and snappy rhythms, with wonderful interplay between the solo instrument and the orchestra. We will round out the program with Serge Prokofiev’s magnum opus for orchestra, his Symphony no. 5, described in the composer’s own words as “a hymn to free and happy Man, to his mighty powers, his pure and noble spirit”.
Leo Eylar, conductor
Ray Wyant, clarinet
Bates: Devil's Radio
Copland: Clarinet Concerto (Ray Wyant, soloist)
Prokofiev: Symphony No. 5
Young Artist Competition Winner
Mr. Raymond (Ray) Wyant, age 16, is a junior at Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose, California. Ray began his study of music at the age of 7 on the piano under the tutelage of Ms. Kirsten Stone of Saratoga, California.
CYS Young Artist Competition
Each spring the California Youth Symphony holds its Young Artist Competition to select soloists for the following season. The Competition is open to pianists and instrumental soloists under age 19. Two young artists will be chosen by a panel of three judges to perform with the CYS Orchestra during the November or March concert series of the following season.
Application form now available!
