Set to open this weekend, Santa Cruz Symphony’s 2025-26 season offers temptation aplenty for music lovers of every stripe. From the smoldering Scheherazade Suite, with its ear-candy tales of One Thousand and One Nights, to the soaring soundtrack classics of modern movie masterworks, the season is programmed for maximum appeal. Exactly as Maestro Daniel Stewart has planned.
Guest artists such as Jonah Kim and Emad Zolfaghari join Santa Cruz Symphony’s tenured performers, such as first violinist Nancy Zhou, in bringing to life work from orchestral giants Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Paul Hindemith and Gustav Holst.
The fifth concert of the season shines a spotlight on Amadeus, with a blend of Mozart’s music, the sublime choral sections performed by the Cabrillo Symphonic Chorus, led by new director Carlin Truong, interwoven with live dramatic narration by Santa Cruz Shakespeare actors adapted from Peter Shaffer’s celebrated play.
“I am beyond excited about the collaboration between the Cabrillo College Choirs and the Symphony,” Truong says. “The Symphonic Chorus is slated to perform with the Symphony for Gustav Holst’s The Planets in early November, Amadeus in March, and Beethoven’s Ninth in May. Our Cabrillo Youth Chorus is slated to perform with the Symphony for the Family Concert in March,” the new director revealed.
“I’m a sucker for collaboration,” Truong admits. “I love meeting other people who are as excited about the performing arts as I am, whether it be performers, support staff, or audience members. And I am particularly excited to work with Danny.”
Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus imagines a passionate rivalry between two Viennese Baroque-era composers, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, each vying for lucrative commissions—and fame—at the court of Emperor Joseph II roughly 1783–1825. Winning a 1981 Tony Award for Best Play, Amadeus was adapted by Shaffer for the Oscar-winning film in 1984. The play is organized into flashbacks, narrated by the now-elderly, forgotten Salieri, who recounts his admiration for Mozart’s genius and disgust for the celebrity’s childish behavior.
The third concert on this season’s program, March 28–29, takes a deep dive into a dramatic presentation of Peter Shaffer’s play, interweaving an adapted script by maestro Daniel Stewart—crafted to bring this smoldering tale of Baroque rivalry to life—in league with actors from Santa Cruz Shakespeare and powerful choral selections performed by the Cabrillo Symphonic Chorus. Musical excerpts include the overtures to Don Giovanni and the Marriage Figaro, as well as the Requiem’s thundering Rex Tremende, Confutatis and the gorgeously tragic Lacrimosa, all featured in the movie Amadeus, so well known to symphony-goers.
SPOTLIGHT ON ‘AMADEUS’
Maestro Daniel Stewart recalls how the exciting concert emerged. “Quite literally, it occurred to me during the drive home following last season’s Symphonic Shakespeare concerts. There was such an electrifying synergy between our orchestra, actors, featuring the brilliance of Charles Pasternak and Allie Pratt, and similarly wild reactions from our audiences that when I found myself making a short list of subjects for another collaboration for our Symphony, I very quickly set my sights on Amadeus. I set to work reviewing every word of the original play and movie, and confirming the availability of Charles, as well as the Cabrillo Symphonic Chorus under their new director Carlin Truong.”
“I loved working with the Symphony last year,” recalls Charles Pasternak, Artistic Director of Santa Cruz Shakespeare. “I think Danny is such a wonderful cultural leader for Santa Cruz. And after our Romeo and Juliet program, I realized that he was also a wonderful collaborator. He empowered me to take ownership as a collaborator, rather than as the hired hand. So that was a real joy. My hat’s off to Danny and how he manages collaboration.”
Stewart maintains that what most excited and motivated him was “the possibility of presenting a uniquely immersive and comprehensive selection of Mozart’s music within the context of this beloved and amazingly entertaining story.”
After Stewart’s passionate ideas poured forth, Pasternak asked, “Well, where do you see me? I’m certainly a little old for Mozart, but I may be a little young for Salieri, but he said, No, no, I see you as Salieri—you’re Salieri.’ But we want to hire some other artists, right?”
And there will be four actors involved in the intriguing musical narrative, but Pasternak didn’t want to provide names yet, “because this could really change, but I’ll just say the plan is to hire a few other artists.”
“My aim was to enhance the total experience by increasing the musical presence and content while distilling the plot down to four actors,” says Stewart, “actors who could bring the most famous scenes to life in a kind of symphonic/theatrical hybrid of the play and movie.”
Pasternak continues, “With Danny’s incredible leadership of the symphony, I’m sure that we will find within Shaffer, an incredible framework to transplant into an orchestral evening so that the audience, while not getting the full Amadeus play, will get snatches of it. Snippets of the play to drive us to fuller performances of Mozart’s work. I think the evening will probably be either more 50/50 or even more symphonic than it is performative.”
The performative aspects will be able to act as a gateway to the audience, to engaging with the work. “And who doesn’t love Mozart? We’re talking about one of the masters, in the way that Shakespeare is,” Pasternak says.
And maestro Stewart agrees. “Ultimately, I would love nothing more than for the audience to vividly experience the profound love, unique genius, and overwhelming humanity that Mozart shared with the world. And discover anew why he, along with Shakespeare, endlessly inspire us as one of those supremely creative forces of nature.”
Pasternak couldn’t help adding. “I think the more that our art, artistic and cultural institutions can collaborate and throw focus to each other through events like this, I think it benefits not only the organizations themselves, but the cultural fabric of Santa Cruz itself. And I’m passionate about that. I’m really excited to do this with Danny, and I think that any and all collaborations that we can find in future between both Santa Cruz, Shakespeare and symphony, but also with other organizations, will be all to the good for everyone. So I feel passionately about that. I just want to add that as a thought.”
MORE MUSIC!
More surprises this coming season include Concert 2’s world premiere, Voices by local composing prodigy and violinist Benjamin Goodwin. Making music since the age of four, Goodwin studied chamber music composition with renowned Bay Area composer Chris Pratorius. In his senior year of high school, his The Middle of Nowhere, was premiered by the Santa Cruz Youth Symphony in 2023.
As violinist Goodwin was Santa Cruz County Youth Symphony concertmaster. He enjoys video game music and has also written electronic music. He attends the Oberlin Conservatory as a composition major, studying with Jesse Jones, Michael Frazier, Stephen Hartke, and Soomin Kim.
Another influential figure in local arts and tech culture, Jaron Lanier will premiere a very new Piano Concerto, joined by guest artist Serene to perform the new work. Lanier’s dreadlocks are almost as legendary as his eclectic résumé, which includes computer scientist and philosopher of AI technology.
A pioneer in developing software for virtual reality, Lanier has combined his ethnomusicology interests with his role as a Microsoft researcher. Lanier both collects and plays hundreds of instruments from diverse worldwide cultures. Lanier, whose oeuvre eludes any single category, was the subject of a 2023 New Yorker profile in which he confessed that he’s become a compulsive explorer of new instruments.
His upcoming piano concerto was written for, and will be performed by Serene, with whom Lanier has collaborated in the past. But don’t expect straightforward classical concerto from Lanier. Expect innovations in his score for the Symphony’s 2025-26 season.
And for those passionate about the classics, almost nothing succeeds like Gustav Holst’s boundary-pushing The Planets, created in the early 20th century before the term “science fiction” was popularized. The suite, illustrating in musical terms the astrological personality of each one of our familiar planets, reached ahead into the future literally creating a soundtrack of the solar system.
Each planet is given a unique aural signature, invoking the classical gods for whom they were named. The threatening aspect of Mars, Jupiter’s triumphs, each planet fills the listener’s cinematic consciousness with richly detailed imagery. Holst’s music gives us the feeling of cosmic unity, making us feel at home in the universe.
What to expect from the upcoming Santa Cruz Symphony 2025-26 season:
* Season opener Oct. 4 & 5, the ultra-romantic suite Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov featuring Concertmaster/Artist in Residence Nancy Zhou portraying the storyteller Scheherazade on her violin
* Deep roots in local collaboration: Santa Cruz Shakespeare actors join orchestra for Amadeus; world premiere of Benjamin Goodwin’s Voices; a new piano concerto from Santa-Cruz based tech pioneer Jaron Lanier
* The Symphony debut of Cabrillo Symphonic Chorus director Carlin Truong
* Three programs featuring collaboration with the Cabrillo Symphonic Chorus including image-laden space voyage The Planets by Gustav Holst; an evening of Amadeus showcasing soaring selections from Requiem, The Magic Flute, Don Giovanni, and The Marriage of Figaro, and Beethoven’s unparalleled Symphony No. 9, featuring soloists from the Metropolitan Opera
* Cabrillo Youth Chorus performing for the Family Concert March 1
* Movie Night with Oscar-winning favorites from Titanic, Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean and many more
* Finale Street Party – June 13, at 5pm before Movie Night
Think of it as the most ambitious Santa Cruz Symphony season ever!
