MUSIC ON
ALL LEVELS

2023–2024 SEASON

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Music can impact us in so many ways, from the deep emotional pull of a resurfacing memory to the dazzling impact of a masterwork’s beautiful design. This season, Music Director Daniel Hope and New Century Chamber Orchestra invite you to connect on many levels with music you’ll love, through concert programs designed to sweep you away into moments of deep reflection, technical brilliance, and good old-fashioned delight.

UPCOMING CONCERTS

LEONARD BERNSTEIN’S SERENADE
2023/24 Season Ryan Jones 2023/24 Season Ryan Jones

LEONARD BERNSTEIN’S SERENADE

May 2–4, 2024

Pianist Awadagin Pratt joins Daniel Hope and New Century for this program of potent contemporary American works for strings that express the full range of orchestral color. Winner of the 2024 GRAMMY for best contemporary classical composition, Jessie Montgomery’s “Rounds” uses a delicate, interconnected musical geometry to evoke patterns found in nature. Similarly, composer David Diamond wrote his exuberant work “Rounds” to dispel the gloomy wartime mood of the 1940s by writing music to celebrate American landscapes. 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.

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DANIEL HOPE IN RECITAL
2023/24 Season Ryan Jones 2023/24 Season Ryan Jones

DANIEL HOPE IN RECITAL

April 30, 2024

See another side of Daniel Hope in this charming recital program with pianist and frequent collaborator Simon Crawford-Phillips. Romantic showpieces for violin and piano share the evening with the US premiere of a new work by beloved San Francisco composer Jake Heggie, inspired by Beethoven’s 1803 residency at Vienna’s Theater an der Wien.

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PAST CONCERTS

Featured
ANNUAL GALA DINNER
Past Concerts
ANNUAL GALA DINNER
Past Concerts

March 9, 2024

Join us for our biggest fundraising event of the year! New Century's annual gala celebrates our community of supporters and raises money to fund our ongoing artistic programs. Guests will be treated to special musical performances by Music Director Daniel Hope and cellist Sterling Elliott, along with a three-course Italian dinner catered by McCall's.

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Past Concerts
PLAYING WITH STRUCTURE
Past Concerts
PLAYING WITH STRUCTURE
Past Concerts

March 8–10, 2024

Embrace the elegant structure and exquisite restraint of Austrian composer Joseph Haydn, one of music’s most prominent “architects” during the Classical period. American cellist Sterling Elliott joins Daniel Hope and New Century for Haydn’s beloved first cello concerto, a virtuoso showpiece for the instrument. In the second half of the program, selections from Igor Stravinsky’s playful ballet Pulcinella offer a contrasting 20th century response to Haydn, using the amorous hijinks of the famous Italian clown to tinker unpredictably (and to the delight of modern audiences) with the shapes and patterns of centuries-old melodies.

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Past Concerts
VISITATIONS
Past Concerts
VISITATIONS
Past Concerts

November 2–5, 2023

Journey into the beyond with Daniel Hope and New Century as they offer music for communing with spirits, whether connecting with those we’ve lost or outwitting death for another night! Mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor and a haunting chorus of eight voices join our musicians in a candlelit, otherworldly setting to examine connections with the afterlife from many cultural angles, such as Paul Dukas’s playful tone poem The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Argentinian composer Ariel Ramírez’s resplendent Misa Criolla. Composer Nicolás Lell Benavides premieres a new work commissioned by New Century, a piece for violin and strings that summons the spirit of Doña Sebastiana, Lady Death of the American Southwest.

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Past Concerts
Wu Tsang’s MOBY DICK; or, The Whale
Past Concerts
Wu Tsang’s MOBY DICK; or, The Whale
Past Concerts

November 8, 2023

Award-winning filmmaker and visual artist Wu Tsang and the collective Moved by the Motion embark upon a feature-length, silent-film telling of Herman Melville’s great American novel. The film includes original music composed by Caroline Shaw and Andrew Yee with Asma Maroof, performed live by New Century Chamber Orchestra.

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Past Concerts
CHRISTMAS ORNAMENTS
Past Concerts
CHRISTMAS ORNAMENTS
Past Concerts

December 15–17, 2023

Usher in the holiday season with the glittering opulence of the Baroque era, as Daniel Hope and New Century are joined by French trumpeter Lucienne Renaudin Vary for a vibrant Christmas program whose charms are more than ornamental. Festive favorites like Corelli’s Christmas Concerto and J.S. Bach’s third Brandenburg Concerto mingle with rare gems like Neruda’s Trumpet Concerto, creating a blizzard of music that delivers audiences to the hushed, wintry soundscape of Copland’s Quiet City. Hope and Vary close out the program with a medley of popular holiday tunes certain to bring glad tidings and good cheer.

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Past Concerts
SONIC ECOSYSTEMS
Past Concerts
SONIC ECOSYSTEMS
Past Concerts

January 19–20, 2024

Context is crucial in New Century’s first collaboration with the students of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, featuring music that harnesses the sights and sounds of nature. American violinist Alexi Kenney leads the combined forces of New Century and SFCM in this unique multimedia program that immerses the audience on a journey from the Puerto Rican beaches of Angélica Negrón’s Marejada to the stark beauty of Joshua Tree National Park in Gabriella Smith’s Desert Ecology. A lush garden of sound blooms during the second half as our combined string ensemble performs Georges Enescu’s romantic masterwork, the Octet for Strings.

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Past Concerts