One of only a handful of conductorless chamber ensembles in the world, New Century Chamber Orchestra includes 19 string players from the San Francisco Bay Area as well throughout the United States. Musical decisions are made collaboratively, resulting in an enhanced level of commitment from the musicians and concerts of remarkable precision, passion, and power. British violinist Daniel Hope serves as the ensemble’s Music Director, bringing a new era of vibrancy and leadership.
Pianist Awadagin Pratt joins Daniel Hope and New Century for this program of potent 20th century American works for strings that speak to our collective emotions. Coping with the senselessness of war is the heartbeat of the program’s first half, with composer Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson confronting his concerns about the Korean War through his work Grass. In contrast, composer David Diamond wrote his exuberant work Rounds to dispel the gloomy wartime mood of the 1940s in vivid fashion. The program closes with Leonard Bernstein’s Serenade (after Plato’s Symposium), an epic work for solo violin, strings and percussion inspired by the ancient Greek debate over love in its many forms.