SEASON OPENER CONCERT

Join Maestro Eylar as he celebrates the 35th anniversary of his very first concert with CYS! Our season opener takes a deep dive into the world of programmatic music, featuring four works that explore storylines ranging from the magical to the profound. We open our 74th season with Richard Strauss’s brilliant tone poem Don Juan, which took the music world by storm after its premiere performance in 1889. Strauss brings to life the passion and the swashbuckling character of his eponymous hero with some of the most dazzling and demanding orchestral writing of his career. Don Juan remains the gold standard for orchestral virtuosity for every major orchestra in the world, and we are delighted to present it as we open our season. 

CYS welcomes our Young Artist Competition winner Aiden Kim as he joins us to perform Ernest Bloch’s profoundly moving Schelomo: Rhapsodie Hébraïque for Violoncello and Orchestra, the final work of Bloch’s “Jewish Cycle”. In 1920, the Italian essayist Guido M. Gatti confirmed the consensus that Bloch's compositional abilities had indeed reached a pinnacle with the greatest masterwork of this period, Schelomo, writing that “Bloch has reached the perfection of his music with the Hebrew Rhapsody for solo violoncello with orchestra, which bears the name of the great king Schelomo (Solomon). In this, he has given free course to his fancy; the multiplex figure of the founder of the Great Temple lent itself, after setting it upon a loft throne and chiseling its lineaments, to the creation of a phantasmagorical entourage of persons and scenes in rapid and kaleidoscopic succession. The violoncello, with its ample breadth of phrasing, now melodic and with moments of superb lyricism, now declamatory and with robustly dramatic lights and shades, lends itself to a reincarnation of Solomon in all his glory, surrounded by his thousand wives and concubines, with his multitude of slaves and warriors behind him. His voice resounds in the devotional silence, and the sentences of his wisdom sink into the hearts as the seed into a fertile soil.” 

We continue the program with the world premiere of Slipping by one of CYS's very own musicians: violinist and composer Saarthak Shankavaram.

We close our with Paul Dukas’ masterpiece of pictorial music, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. The work is based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s 1797 ballad of the same name. It tells the tale of a young apprentice who enchants a broom to fetch water, only to lose control as the broom works relentlessly, flooding the workshop until the sorcerer returns to restore order. Dukas brings the story to life through colorful orchestral writing: shimmering strings evoke the magical atmosphere, a jaunty clarinet theme embodies the broom, and muted brass suggest the incantation. The music builds toward a whirling, chaotic climax before subsiding with the master’s decisive intervention. 

We invite you to join us for an unforgettable afternoon of storytelling through music!
 

PROGRAM

Richard Strauss (1864-1949): Don Juan, op. 20
Ernest Bloch (1880-1959): Schelomo: Rhapsodie Hébraïque for Violoncello and Orchestra - Aiden Kim, cello
Saarthak Shankavaram (b. 2008): Slipping (world premiere)
Paul Dukas (1865-1935): The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Young Artist Competition Winner

Aiden Kim, cello

Aiden Kim, age 16, is a junior and a Conservatory Honors Fellow at Valley Christian High School in San Jose, California, and a recipient of the conservatory merit scholarship. He began studying the cello at the age of seven and currently studies under Jonathan Koh. Aiden is a 2025 National YoungArts Winner and the California Youth Symphony Young Artist Competition Winner. He also won the 2024 DVC/HNU Young Artist String Competition and received the Ariel Witbeck Award for his performance as a soloist with the Diablo Valley College Philharmonic Orchestra. In addition, Aiden has been awarded top prizes in numerous other competitions, including the Cal ASTA San Francisco Solo Competition, the Burlingame Music Club Young Musicians Competition, the KAMSA Music Competition, and the US Open Music Competition. Furthermore, he has been invited to perform at the Junior Bach Festival for the past three years.

As an avid chamber musician, Aiden participates in the Young Chamber Musicians program and plays in the Valley Christian School Chamber Ensemble, his trio has won first prizes at both the US International Music Competition and the Santa Cruz Baroque Youth Chamber Music Competition. Aiden is currently the Co-Principal cellist of the California Youth Symphony Senior Orchestra. He has attended numerous summer music programs, including the Music@Menlo Chamber Music Institute Young Performers program in 2024 and 2025, Chamber Music Northwest Young Artist Institute with full scholarships for both programs, and the Heifetz International Music Institute in 2022 and 2023. Aiden has performed in masterclasses and studied with David Finckel, Dmitri Atapine, Brinton Smith, David Geber, Jonathan Swensen, Peter Stumpf, and Edward Arron. He actively shares his music and volunteers with the community through the Back to BACH Project and the HopeBox Club.
 

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 becomes available in January!

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