New West will close season with the celebratory Beethoven’s Ninth
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The Springs fire, which threatened Thousand Oaks last week, is over. Temperatures are down. We’ve had a sprinkling of rain. Roads are open. Destruction can be surveyed. Spirits need lifting.
It’s time for Beethoven’s Ninth, the great symphony of rebirth and community. And that is what the all-but-psychic New West Symphony happened to program for the celebratory final program of Marcelo Lehninger’s first season as music director.
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A new west, indeed. The orchestra also chose to use this occasion to select four emerging vocal soloists from a competition it hosted over YouTube.
The choruses are local -- New West Symphony Chorus and Los Robles Master Chorale. But mainly all eyes and ears will be on the enthusiastic 33-year-old Brazilian music director in this, Lehninger’s first really big outing.
Concerts take place at the Oxnard Performing Arts Center (Friday), the Bank of America Performing Arts Center in Thousand Oaks (Saturday) and Santa Monica High School’s Barnum Hall (an intimate, too-overlooked gem with excellent acoustics). Let this be a spring fire that refreshes the soul, not scours the earth.
ALSO:
New West Symphony has reason to celebrate
Violinist Lara St. John with the New West Symphony
New West Symphony names Marcelo Lehninger as new music director
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