Oakland Symphony to Present World Premiere of Rokeach Piccolo Concerto, 3/18

The world premiere of a new piccolo concerto by Bay Area composer Martin Rokeach highlights the Oakland Symphony's concert scheduled Friday, March 18, at 8 pm at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland. Music Director Michael Morgan will conduct and the program also includes Cherubini's Requiem featuring the Oakland Symphony Chorus, Lynne Morrow, Director, and Beethoven's Second Symphony. The evening begins at 7 pm with no-host drinks, free pre-concert lobby entertainment and a pre-concert talk. Tickets are priced $20-$75 and may be purchased at www.OaklandSymphony.org or by calling 510-444-0802.

Beethoven is said to have preferred Luigi Cherubini's 1815 Requiem to Mozart's better-known and more widely performed one. Composed to commemorate the regicide of France's Louis XVI, it showcases brooding and majestic melodies, smoldering harmonies and a pulse-pounding Offertorium in the form of a fugue. Beethoven's Second Symphony (1802) bears the marks of the energetic and iconoclastic composer at full stride. Bay Area musicologist Robert Greenberg asserts that the work's opening bars evoke the composer's hiccups due to gastric problems, and who but Beethoven could spin a symphony from such humble material? Bay Area Composer Martin Rokeach's new Piccolo Concerto featuring the Symphony's own Amy Likar promises to showcase the instrument's uniquely beautiful voice and what the composer calls "its haunting low register."

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