SOMA’s spring concert features music associated with the North. The concert opens with the world premiere of the Janus Overture by West Orange composer Evan Hause. Following the overture, Maestro Culbertson’s son Matthew will be featured as soloist in the A Minor Piano Concerto of Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg. The second half of the program will be devoted to the Second Symphony (Romantic) of American composer Howard Hanson, an unjustly neglected work by one of the leading lights of his generation of American composers.

Our winter concert, Cryptic Currents, features music of the sea and hidden messages. We open with Mendelssohn’s overture Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, followed by Elgar’s beloved Enigma Variations. The second half of the program will feature soloist Michael Emery in Shostakovich’s fiery first Violin Concerto, a piece full of coded references to the composer and his brutal treatment under Stalin.

Program here

Our fall concert features three wildly disparate works written in the same year - 1830. We begin with Bellini’s Overture to his opera I Capuleti e i Montecchi, based on the Romeo and Juliet story. Next on the program will be Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, a highly virtuosic work that Mendelssohn himself premiered at the keyboard. Our soloist will be Seiran Tozlian.

The second half of the program is devoted to the still shocking Symphonie Fantastique of Hector Berlioz, a piece that tells the story of a hopeless love, a masked ball, a day in the country, a march to the scaffold and an opium-influenced dream of a witches sabbath.

Our final concert of the season features three works covering a broad swath of the American continent and experience. We open with the lively Sinfonietta para Orquesta (1945) by Mexican composer/pianist/conductor José Pablo Moncayo. Our featured soloist, Sharon Bjorndal Lavery (a graduate of Clifton High School), will join the SOMA orchestra to perform the one-movement Piano Concerto (1934) of Florence Price, one of the first female symphonists in America. The concert will conclude with the Symphony No. 2 (1909) of New England composer Charles Ives, a heartfelt work of Yankee ingenuity, filled with quotations from American popular song, hymns, and folk music.

Our winter concert features Sir William Walton’s Viola Concerto with soloist Lillian Platte, one of the great masterworks of 20th century music for solo instrument and orchestra. Also on the program are the stirring Overture to the Creatures of Prometheus of Beethoven, and Fauré’s tender and lyrical Suite from his incidental music to Pelléas et Mélisande. The program will conclude with the Symphony no. 7 of Jean Sibelius, the composer’s last completed symphony.

The SOMA Orchestra will perform Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, with soprano soloist Nadine Robinson, along with Sibelius’ stirring Finlandia. The concert will open with a long-time SOMA favorite, the Overture on the American National Air of Dudley Buck.

Roots and Branches of American music

Czech composer Antonín Dvořák made a profound impression on American musicians through his insistence that American composers find a way to make use of native elements in pursuit of a truly national music. In this program, we hear two of the flowering branches of that pursuit, and a masterpiece by the composer whose vision was an inspiration.

The program will open with excerpts from “Omar,” the opera for which Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Music. We will hear the Overture as well as Julie’s Aria, with GaDa Lambert, soprano. “Omar” tells the story of Omar Ibn Said, an Islamic scholar who was captured and enslaved in the early nineteenth century, and incorporates elements of American music, along with Arabian and West African sources .

The Poem for Orchestra by William Grant Still, a composer who was deeply inspired by Dvořák’s vision for American music, rounds out the first half of the program.

The second half will feature Dvořák’s Cello Concerto, one of the towering masterpieces of the romantic era, with soloist Jameson Platte, a long-time collaborator with our orchestra.

The program will feature the premiere performance of Five Places by New Jersey composer Evan Schwartzman, Ravel’s ravishingly beautiful song cycle Shéhérazade, sung by soprano Samantha Blossey, and the “Song to the Moon,” from Dvořák’s opera Rusalka, also sung by Ms. Blossey. The program will close with the profoundly American Third Symphony of Roy Harris.

Our opening concert on November 6th will feature concertmaster Susan Heerema performing the magnificent and belovedViolin Concerto of Felix Mendelssohn. The program will also feature works of Prokofiev and Franz Berwald.

The thrilling Organ Symphony of Saint-Saëns, along with music of Sibelius and Copland.

Our first concert of the new season will feature Matt Culbertson, son of Maestro Culbertson, performing Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. The program will open with the Serenade to Music, one of Vaughan Williams’ most beloved works, in honor of the 150th anniversary of his birth. Our concertmaster, Susan Heerema, will perform the solo violin part, along with singers from St. Paul’s church.

The program also includes Benjamin Carr’s Federal Overture and Virgil Thomson’s Suite from The River, which was written for a W.P.A. documentary.

Our winter concert featuring two Beethoven masterpieces: the stirring Coriolan Overture and the ebullient 8th Symphony. Sandwiched between them are two vocal works, the Biblical Songs of Antonin Dvorak, and the touching Knoxville: Summer of 1915 by American composer Samuel Barber. The baritone John Andrew Fernandez is our soloist in the Dvorak, and the soprano solo in the Barber will be sung by Stacia Thiel.

Please note this concert will be performed at Prospect Presbyterian Church, 646 Prospect Street, in Maplewood, NJ.

Our fall concert, featuring renowned cellist Jameson Platte, in the NJ premiere performance of Stephen Albert’s Cello Concerto, along with music of Haydn and Brahms.

Music of Miklós Rózsa, Roberto Sierra, Morton Gould, Maurice Ravel and more. Featuring world-renowned flute soloist Carol Wincenc.

SOMA’s concertmistress, Susan Heerema, performs music of Vivaldi, Godard, Corelli, Rachmaninoff, Bruch, and Monti, with pianist David Maiullo, on the “Music for a Sunday Afternoon” series at the First Presbyterian Church of Ridgewood.

Featuring opera’s dazzling divas! Beverages, wine and a nosh are included. See SRO Website for details.

Mark your calendar for the MEA’s 49th Annual Piano Competition Winners’ Recital on Sunday, March 17, at 2:00 p.m. in the beautiful Leshowitz Hall at Montclair State University, 1 Normal Ave., Montclair.

These outstandingly talented young musicians, ages seven through eighteen, will be performing an all Bach program of solos, duets, duos, and concertos. Everyone is welcome to attend this wonderful free concert.

Juilliard musicians performing the music of Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Arensky, and Schumann. More information at JCC Metrowest website.

The Chamber Trio—violinist Soo Yeon Kim, cellist Eunbi Kim, and clarinetist Gunhwan Jung—presents a variety of music, including Beethoven's Clarinet Trio, Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio, Khachaturian’s Trio, and Dahl’s Trio as well as music by Haydn, Sarasate, Wieniawski, and Paul Jeanjean. More information at Weill Hall website.

Beethoven, excerpts from Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus (The Creatures of Prometheus), Op 43

Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 21 in C, K. 467
Drew Petersen, piano

Schubert, Symphony No. 3 in D Major, D. 200

Our June concert, with guest soloist Halley Gilbert.

Music of Ibert, Ravel, Debussy, Delibes, Offenbach, and Bizet.

The Montclair Music Club presents a Young Artists Showcase at the Montclair Women's Club. Award-winning young musicians will present works of Chopin, Ravel, Mozart, Scriabin and others, for harp, piano, and voice.

A $10 suggested donation will be used for the 2018-19 Scholarship Fund.

A reception to meet the artists will immediately follow the performance.

Nancy Galbraith, Midnight Stirring (world premiere of small orchestra version)

Haydn, Sinfonia Concertante in B♭

Mozart, Le Nozze di Figaro, Overture

Leoš Janáček, Suite, Op. 3

Manuel de Falla, Suite 1 from "The Three-Cornered Hat"

A collaboration with the State Repertory Opera company and Columbia High School.