Torrance Symphony

by Kari Sayers, 6/21/12, Daily Breeze

Following up on last year's warm reception, the Taiwan United Fund co-sponsored another "Taiwan Night" with the Torrance Symphony. And Saturday's concert at the James Armstrong Theatre again featured one of Taiwan'sforemost composers, the 74-year-old Tyzen Hsiao.

In January 2011, the Torrance Symphony, under the baton of maestro Frank Fetta, introduced audience members to Hsiao's "1947 Overture" and "Requiem di Formosa." For Saturday's concert, the maestro opted for the composer's Violin Concerto in D, with Russian-born soloist Alex Treger, former concertmaster of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Like his European counterparts, Hsiao infuses his music with native folk melodies. A synthesis of Eastern and Western sounds, the concerto is surprisingly accessible, with gorgeous themes, colorfulorchestration and exciting contrasts. It's at times melancholy, even disturbing, but also urgent.

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Dedicated followers of the Torrance Symphony who attended Saturday's concert at the James Armstrong Theatre in Torrance saw firsthand how boldly a conductor puts his thumbprint on an orchestra's performance.

Maestro Frank Fetta, the symphony's longtime regular conductor, had another obligation, and under dynamic guest conductor Mikael Avetisyan, artistic director and principal conductor of the Glendale Philharmonic Orchestra, our local orchestra sounded like an entirely different group of players.

From the very first trumpet calls in Robert Schumann's Symphony No. 1 in B-flat major, "Spring," composed in 1841, Avetisyan, a native of Armenia, infused the orchestra with an intense energy. .... (more)

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Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 #3 - Torrance Symphony Centennial Concert - Torrance

Click here for the entire centennial concert playlist on Torrance Citicable

The Daily Breeze Review of Torrance Symphony Cenetennial Concert

Pianist's virtuosity keys up Torrance Symphony celebration
by Kari Sayers
Posted: 01/26/2012 08:06:37 PM PST

Torrance Symphony, under the baton of maestro Frank Fetta, honored its home city with "The Torrance Centennial Celebration" concert Saturday at the James Armstrong Theatre. For the occasion, the orchestra secured a formidable young pianist, Beiyao Ji, a 2011 Young Artists Concerto Competition winner. He gave a dazzling performance of Rachmaninoff's challenging Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor. The piece, composed in 1909, starts innocently enough with a simple theme before the notes start to fly off the page. ....

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Violinist Mayumi Kanagawa, 16, of Japan, has won the 26th annual Irving M. Klein International String Competition held June 4 and 5 on the campus of San Francisco State University.

Kanagawa takes home the Marvin T. Tepperman Memorial Prize, which includes $12,200 and performances with the Peninsula and Santa Cruz symphonies, and Noontime Concerts, among others. Kanagawa also won the $200 Allen and Susan Weiss Memorial Prize for the Best Performance of the Commissioned Work and the $500 Pablo Casals Prize for the best performance of the solo Bach work.

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First Annual "Torrance Symphony Idol" was an artistic success. The caliber of the young musicians was a real class act!

5 young musicians are winners and will perform with the Symphony Orchestra during the upcoming season. CONGRATULATIONS!!

The Torrance Symphony took the stage for its third concert of the season Saturday at the James Armstrong Theatre, in a program intriguingly titled "March Musical Madness."

Despite the promise of "madness," the opening of Jean Baptiste Lully's "Roland Suite" seemed to speak more to the subtle baroque and classical styles to come. The suite's six movements represented selections from Lully's opera "Roland." A tragic opera, the mood of each movement seemed to build on the previous, from somber at the start to a mournfully passionate conclusion. ...

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