Tracy Press/Press staff report Wednesday, 14 March 2007

Press staff report

Press file photo - PLAYTIME:Chris Brubeck, an award-winning composer, will narrate “Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra” at Thursday evening’s Stockton Symphony concert.

Award-winning symphonic composer Chris Brubeck will narrate “Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra” as the climax of Thursday evening’s Tracy performance of the Stockton Symphony.

The symphony’s 24th annual Tracy Family Concert is sponsored by Tracy Friends of the Stockton Symphony at Tracy Community Church.

In narrating Britten’s “Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra,” Brubeck will take his audience on a tour of the orchestra, its members, instruments and symphonic concepts.

Brubeck, son of jazz legend Dave Brubeck, is in the midst of his second yearlong Music Alive residency in Stockton. He is composing a work for an orchestra, soloist and chorus, using texts written by high school students in the San Joaquin Valley. He has won the Deems Taylor Award for his previous compositions.

In addition to his composition efforts, Brubeck tours with his two bands, the Brubeck Brothers Quartet and Triple Play.

This afternoon, Brubeck will be at Jefferson School to talk with students about symphonic music as part of the symphony’s educational program.

The 70-piece Stockton Symphony will be conducted Thursday evening by Peter Jaffe, conductor and music director, who is making his 12th visit to Tracy. He is a graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio and has a doctorate from Stanford. For 14 seasons, he was a member of the faculty of the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado.

Thursday’s program will include the Central Valley Youth Symphony’s performance of “Scherzo” from Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 9” and the Stockton Symphony’s performance of Christopher Brubeck’s “Music Is My Getaway,” featuring vocal soloist Yvette Couvson.

Pianist Junyao Peng, a junior at Laguna Creek High School in Elk Grove, will be a featured soloist in Beethoven’s “Piano Concert No. 3 in C Minor, Opus 37.”