2007-2008 25th Anniversary Concert Series
This year the Coastside Community Orchestra will explore a wide variety of music in three new venues conveniently located in downtown Half Moon Bay. The Ted Adcock Community Center provides us with a spacious informal space for Pops Concerts, while the Community United Methodist Church provides us with two venues. The Historic Chapel with spectacular modern stained glass windows by a local artist is an intimate setting for chamber music. The new Sanctuary provides a larger, elegant space for more powerful orchestral works while maintaining close contact between the orchestra and the audience with seating that surrounds the orchestra on three sides. We hope you will join us at these concerts.
Spring Anniversary Concert
Saturday, May 3rd, 8PM
Featuring Guest Conductor William Coye
Marche Slave, opus 31. . . . . . . . . . Tschaikovsky
Cello Concerto, B flat major . . . . . . . . . . Boccherini
Soloist Charles Calvert, cello
INTERMISSION
Presentation of Student Scholarships
Symphony No. 8 in B minor, "Unfinished" . . . . . . . . . . . . Schubert
Community United Methodist Church Sanctuary
777 Miramontes Ave, Half Moon Bay
May 3rd, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Tickets Available at the door
About the Artist
Charles Calvert
Two of Charles Calvert's most memorable cello experiences were with the Coastside Community Orchestra: Playing the Dvorak concerto in 2002 and playing the Brahms Double Concerto with violinist Joseph Gold in 2004. Other unforgettable moments were getting Pablo Casals' autograph on his copy of the Dvorak ("It's hard, isn't it?" the great master asked the young Calvert) and ferrying the legendary Mstislav Rostropovich and his instrument across the Bay Bridge in a Volkswagen bug.
Calvert began cello studies at age 11 with August Heilbron, principal cellist of the Sacramento Symphony Orchestra, and at age eighteen he became the youngest member of the orchestra. He studied with Colin Hampton and Margaret Rowell from 1961 to 1968. As a teenager, he won a concerto contest playing the Elgar cello concerto and performed it with the Camellia Symphony in Sacramento. In 1965, he played the concerto for the distinguished cellist Zara Nelsova, who took him as a student at the Aspen Festival in Colorado for two summers. Calvert continued his cello studies with August Weintzinger at the Basel Conservatory in Switzerland. Later, Rostropovich referred him to his friend Vladimir Orloff at the Vienna Academy of Music, and it was with Orloff that Calvert first studied the Schumann concerto.
From 1974 to 1993, Calvert played and taught music in England. He gave recitals at Wigmore Hall (the English counterpart to Carnegie Hall), St. Martin-in-the-Fields and other London halls and had a solo performance in a British Broadcasting System film scored by composer Carl Davis, a London neighbor and friend. As a member of the Union Musicians' Registry, he played with a number of orchestras including a small ensemble at the Edinburgh Festival.
Calvert had lessons with William Pleeth, whose more famous students included the Prince of Wales and Jacqueline du Pre (she called Pleeth her "cello daddy"), and he studied with Karine Georgian in 1980 and 1981. In 1991, on a visit back to California, Calvert played the Haydn C Major concerto with the Coastside Community Orchestra, then conducted by his old friend Robert Smith. In 1993, Calvert took an early retirement from the British school system. After a stint in New Jersey and Philadelphia, he returned to the Sacramento orchestra, now called the Philharmonic, and played with them during the 1997-1998 season.
He married CCO pianist Michaele Benedict in summer of 1998 and moved to the Coastside. Besides the Haydn C Major and the Elgar (2000),Calvert performed the Dvorak B minor concerto with the orchestra in 2002, the Haydn D Major concerto in 2003, and the Brahms Double in 2004. Calvert's cello, whose back is lightning-struck maple from Cremona, was made by Carlos Vi tanza of San Francisco in 1996. Calvert refers to the instrument as a bull fiddle. Calvert has been principal cellist of the Coastside Community Orchestra since 1998 and of the Master Sinfonia Chamber Orchestra since 2001. He has two grown children, Edward and Nora. He enjoys playing chamber music, hiking with his friend Michael Scott in England and biking with Grant Hansen on the Coastside Trail. He paints Byzantine-style icons and plans an icon-related trip to Mount Athos in Northern Greece next month. He is a member of the American Federation of Musicians, San Francisco Local 6.