All Symphony events are listed below

Music of War & Peace: Dona Nobis Pacem
part of season: Chorale Season 2011-2012
Saturday February 25, 2012


This concert takes place at Palo Alto First United Methodist Church.

Presented by the 80-voice Symphony Silicon Valley Chorale
and 22 members of the Symphony Orchestra

Symphony Silicon Valley Chorale invites you to experience the compelling power and eloquence of poetry through music: the wrenching agonies of war and aching pleas for peace, the sweetness and intimacy of triumphant spiritual love, and the pastoral pensiveness of the beloved American poet Robert Frost. In Dona Nobis Pacem and Five Mystical Songs, and in Frostiana: Seven Country Songs, compositions by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Randall Thompson bring alive and intensify the meaning in the verses. Please join us for an evening of beautiful poetry set to beautiful music!

Guys and Dolls
part of season: Broadway In Concert 2011-2012
Saturday 8:00pm March 17, 2012
Sunday 2:30pm March 18, 2012

sponsored by Joan & Michael Hackworth
Music & Lyrics by Frank Loesser
Book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows
Based on The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown by Damon Runyon

Songs like Adelaide's Lament, A Bushel and a Peck, I've Never Been in Love Before and Luck Be A Lady bring to life an irrepressible cast of characters in early 20th Century New York.

It all begins with a bet. Nathan Detroit bets high-rolling gambler Sky Masterson that Sky cannot persuade Save-A-Soul Missionary Sister Sarah Brown to accompany him on a trip to Cuba. While the worldly Sky works his charms on a wary Sarah, Nathan is doing his best to stay outside the matrimonial clutches of his long-suffering fiancée, Miss Adelaide. Guys and Dolls is a fable about what happens to gambling men and the women who long to tame them. Set in the colorful world of New York City in the mid 20th century, the romantic and funny story is populated with gangsters and gamblers, missionary dolls and scantily clad showgirls, and one of the great musical scores in the history of American theatre.

Broadway star Sarah Uriarte Berry, last seen as Eliza Doolittle in our concert version of My Fair Lady, will join us to play Sister Sarah.

Onstage with the Symphony Silicon Valley orchestra and chorus,  Broadway luminaries along with other national and local musical theater notables, will bring you the music and story of Frank Loesser's Guys and Dolls--In Concert!

Bach & Beethoven
part of season: Classics 2011-2012 10th Anniversary Season
Friday 8:00pm March 30, 2012
Saturday 8:00pm March 31, 2012
Sunday 2:30pm April 1, 2012

Beethoven’s Ninth is the unquestioned champion of the concert hall, a work that sums up the Classical age, looks forward to what would follow �" and has come to represent courage, hope and triumph around the world.  SSV performed it in 2007-08 to packed houses. The concert opens with Bach’s first Brandenburg Concerto, itself a supreme masterpiece of the Baroque. This combination was the first program ever conducted by our returning Maestro George Cleve; as he says, “How can you do better?”

Celebrating Our Tenth!
part of season: Classics 2011-2012 10th Anniversary Season
Saturday 8:00pm May 12, 2012
Sunday 2:30pm May 13, 2012

This concert originally scheduled for October 1 & 2, 2011

Bartok’s magnificent Concerto for Orchestra is the perfect choice for our season of celebration, -- a piece that spotlights each section of the orchestra in turn, full of melody, crackling rhythms and emotion. Popular Maestro Vajda pairs his Hungarian compatriot’s masterwork with Brahms’s rich, warm Second Symphony, which SSV first performed in 2004-05.  Together, these works showcase both Symphony Silicon Valley’s own virtuosos and the collective sound of the orchestra.

Northern Lights
part of season: Classics 2011-2012 10th Anniversary Season
Saturday 8:00pm June 2, 2012
Sunday 2:30pm June 3, 2012

Works from the Far North close our anniversary year.  Grieg’s dramatic Suite, filled with memorable tunes, conjures up tales straight out of Norwegian folklore. Ning An, ‘a formidable keyboard talent,’ takes on Rachmaninoff’s masterpiece. Melody was in Rachmaninoff’s bones, and the Rhapsody includes one of the greatest ever written for orchestra (Variation #18 -- but you’ll know it instantly).  Maestro Boughton, longtime conductor in Finland, ends with Sibelius’s heroic Second Symphony.  This passionate work highlighted Symphony Silicon Valley’s opening season, and brings our Tenth full circle.

Silver Jubilee Concert
part of season: Chorale Season 2011-2012
Saturday June 9, 2012


A selection of first and favorites from the 25-year history of the Chorale!  Featuring Will Todd's Mass In Blue and a new work by Will Todd commissioned by the Chorale specifically for this event.

Holst's Planets
part of season: Classics 2011-2012 10th Anniversary Season
Saturday 8:00pm October 1, 2011
Sunday 2:30pm October 2, 2011

This concert was originally scheduled for May 12 & 13, 2012

World music master David Amram joins us to perform his great Triple Concerto, a highlight of our triumphant 2005-06 symphonic jazz program. Like the Concerto for Orchestra later in our season, Amram’s concerto underscores the range of our musicians’ virtuosity, with three quintets: woodwind, brass, and jazz (including Amram on piano and Pakistani flute). With it, Maestro Polivnick will pair one of the most beloved of all symphonic works--and one SSV has not yet performed: Holst’s The Planets.  This musical interpretation of the stories told about our nearest neighbors in space is part mythology, a pinch of astronomy, and all bravura music.  The Planets features a 90-piece orchestra, the California Theatre's mighty organ, the women of the Symphony Silicon Valley Chorale and the voices of Cantabile Youth Singers of Silicon Valley.

Evolutionary | Revolutionary
part of season: Special Events 2011-2012
Saturday 7:00pm October 15, 2011


This event takes place at the Flint Center in Cupertino.

A spectacular multi-media orchestral performance produced by UC Santa Cruz that chronicles the history of life through the imagery of National Geographic photographer Frans Lanting with music composed by Philip Glass, performed by Symphony Silicon Valley.

Petrushka & The Violin
part of season: Classics 2011-2012 10th Anniversary Season
Saturday 8:00pm October 22, 2011
Sunday 2:30pm October 23, 2011

Maestro Bisanti’s initial appearance with SSV last season won raves: ‘a glowing thrill-ride’ and ‘the orchestra’s most inspired performance.’ Bisanti returns with one of our favorite guests, Korean violinist Ju-Young Baek, who has previously joined us to perform Sibelius, Piazzolla and Brahms. Her gift for our Tenth Anniversary will be Beethoven’s supremely lyrical and expressive concerto.  It follows a work from SSV’s first concert in November, 2002: Stravinsky’s magical story of the puppet with a broken heart.

Nakamatsu Concital
part of season: Special Events 2011-2012
Friday 8:00pm December 2, 2011


sponsored by
Catch Jon Nakamatsu as you've never seen him before--with a full evening of virtuoso piano performances both solo and with the orchestra.  What's a concital? An exciting new concert format that explores the full range of an individual artist.  In the first portion of the program, Nakamatsu will play solo recital repertoire.  The second half adds the full orchestra, showcasing Nakamatsu as a concerto artist performing Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1.  Not a recital and not a symphonic concert, but both: A Concital.  Tickets: $39-75 and are available now.

Nakamatsu Plays Chopin
part of season: Classics 2011-2012 10th Anniversary Season
Saturday 8:00pm December 3, 2011
Sunday 2:30pm December 4, 2011

sponsored by
Our tenth season would not be complete without the return of local legend and van Cliburn award winner Jon Nakamatsu. The L.A. Times calls his Chopin interpretations “brilliant, poetic, heroic, and spontaneous;” this is a must-hear concert.  Maestro Novo adds treats in his SSV debut that are sure to blow the roof off the California Theatre: Milhaud’s ballet score filled with Brazilian rhythms, Kodaly’s Gypsy-inspired dances, and Marquez’ Danzon No. 2, dubbed ‘the people’s national anthem of Mexico.’

Carols In The California
part of season: Special Events 2011-2012
Saturday 7:00pm December 10, 2011


sponsored by
Ring in the holidays at the California Theatre with a festival of carols sung by the Symphony Silicon Valley Chorale!  The Symphony's resident chorus and its conductor Elena Sharkova are joined by the world-acclaimed Sonos Handbell Ensemble in a program of delightful holiday music.

You’ll hear and sing along with the season's beloved carols -- sacred and secular, joyful and meditative -- this San Jose holiday tradition is guaranteed to put you in the mood to decorate the tree

Repertoire highlights include Benjamin Britten's Festival Te Deum, Bay Area composer William Ludtke's Christmas Suite for Chorus, Handbells and Organ and a world premier of Lullay by Sonos' artistic director Jim Meredith that invites members of the audience to improvise with handbells.

Mozart & Tchaikovsky
part of season: Classics 2011-2012 10th Anniversary Season
Saturday 8:00pm January 14, 2012
Sunday 2:30pm January 15, 2012

Some of SSV’s most exciting concerts feature our own gifted artists as soloists; and for the new year we turn our spotlight on Viola Principal Patricia Whaley. The viola was Mozart’s own favorite instrument, and he probably wrote the demanding part in his Sinfonia concertante for himself. Whaley has invited SSV concertmaster Robin Mayforth to join her in this brilliant double concerto. Maestro Klein will also lead Tchaikovsky’s great Symphony No. 5, reprised from Symphony Silicon Valley’s 2004/05 season.

Gypsy
part of season: Broadway In Concert 2011-2012
Saturday 8:00pm January 21, 2012
Sunday 2:30pm January 22, 2012

Music by Jule Styne
Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by Arthur Laurents
Based on the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee

Gypsy is the ultimate show-biz story of a strong-willed stage mother and her brood of young performers. Join Mama Rose, her daughters June and Louise and a cast of lovable misfits in their trip across the United States during the 1920's, when vaudeville was dying and burlesque was born. Jule Styne's music and Stephen Sondheim's lyrics include the hummable Let Me Entertain You, Some People, If Momma Was Married, All I Need Is the Girl, Everything's Coming Up Roses, You Gotta Get A Gimmick, Together Wherever We Go and the powerhouse Rose's Turn.

Broadway star Christine Andreas will perform the legendary role of Mama Rose.  Andreas was last seen here playing Katharine in Kiss Me Kate and just concluded a celebrated Broadway run of La Cage Aux Folles.

Onstage with the Symphony Silicon Valley orchestra and chorus, Broadway luminaries along with other national and local musical theater notables, will bring you the music and story of Gypsy--In Concert!