All Symphony events are listed below

A Hero's Tale
part of season: 2012-2013 Classics Season
Saturday 8:00 pm June 1, 2013
Sunday 2:30 pm June 2, 2013

Following Debussy’s sprightly dance, Jason Vieaux, hailed as the modern master of his instrument, performs the most popular guitar concerto in the classical repertory.  Rodrigo’s dream of Spanish gardens is followed by Ein Heldenleben, or A Hero’s Life, one of Strauss’s last and greatest tone poems.  Strauss employs all the resources of a large-scale orchestra to tell the story that he summarized as “a hero fighting his enemies.” A true orchestral showpiece, it concludes our 11th season on a note of triumphant opulence.

The Best of the British Romantics
part of season: Chorale Season 2012-2013
Friday 8:00pm June 7, 2013

Concert Takes Place At: Palo Alto First United Methodist Church
625 Hamilton Ave, Palo Alto, CA

Led by Artistic Director Elena Sharkova, the Symphony Silicon Valley Chorale will conclude its 26th season with an evening of British choral-orchestral and organ masterpieces by the best British romantic composers of the 20th and 21st centuries.  The concert will be performed at the acoustically brilliant Palo Alto First United Methodist Church on Friday, June 7th, at 8:00PM.  The chorale will be joined by members of Symphony Silicon Valley.

Tickets $24
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(408) 286-2600, ext.23
Box office hours: M-F, 10AM-5PM

Sounds of Summer
part of season: Target Summer Pops 2013
Saturday 7:00pm July 27, 2013

Maestro Peter Jaffe, Symphony Silicon Valley and violinist Christina Mok open the Festival with popular light classics, featuring selections from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons matched with Piazzolla’s tango-colored Four Seasons of Buenos Aires. An evening of full-orchestra favorites.

Concert takes place at San Jose State University's iconic Tower Lawn
(located behind the MLK Library at 4th and San Fernando)

The Wild Wild West
part of season: Target Summer Pops 2013
Sunday 5:30pm July 28, 2013

A family treat, with themes from Western films and TV classics – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the Wild Wild West, The Magnificent Seven, and many more. Come early to enjoy the Festival’s first Sunday ice cream social. All free, all on Tower Lawn.

Concert takes place at San Jose State University's iconic Tower Lawn
(located behind the MLK Library at 4th and San Fernando)

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
part of season: Target Summer Pops 2013
Friday 7:00pm August 2, 2013

Grab the chance to see this electrifying contemporary Swing Revival band live and free! From ’40s swing to Cab Calloway, boogie woogie to New Orleans blues, its rhythm section is beat only by its horns – or vice versa. “Go Daddy-O,” “Mr. Pinstripe Suit,” “The Jumpin’ Jive” – it doesn’t get better than this.

Concert takes place at San Jose State University's iconic Tower Lawn
(located behind the MLK Library at 4th and San Fernando)

Simply Sinatra
part of season: Target Summer Pops 2013
Saturday 7:00pm August 3, 2013

Steve Lippia leads a tribute to the timeless music of Frank Sinatra. Hear all your favorites by this Vegas headliner, whose concerts sell out from NYC’s Birdland and the Boston Pops to Europe and South America. But here in San Jose there’s no charge; just bring a picnic and enjoy.

Concert takes place at San Jose State University's iconic Tower Lawn
(located behind the MLK Library at 4th and San Fernando)

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...
part of season: Target Summer Pops 2013
Sunday 5:30pm August 4, 2013

STAR WARS "Where Science Meets Imagination" is coming to The Tech Museum of Innovation this October. Get a head start: join us for a summer evening filled with John Williams’s unforgettable music for this legendary cinematic saga. May the Force be with you – and free ice cream, too.

Concert takes place at San Jose State University's iconic Tower Lawn
(located behind the MLK Library at 4th and San Fernando)

Beethoven's 5th
part of season: 2012-2013 Classics Season
Saturday 8:00 pm September 29, 2012
Sunday 2:30 pm September 30, 2012

The most famous four notes in classical music launch our 2012-13 season: Beethoven’s mighty 5th, the keystone of an all-orchestra night. A lively Rossini overture introduces the concert, followed by Berlioz’s favorite of all his works. Romeo and Juliette was colored by the composer’s own love story; and audiences share his affection for its 'Love Scene,' from its atmospheric opening to its ecstatic conclusion. In the Rhapsody that follows, Liszt conjures up a carnival in 1840 Budapest, filled with Hungarian folk tunes and musical fireworks.

Symphonie Espagnole
part of season: 2012-2013 Classics Season
Saturday 8:00 pm October 20, 2012
Sunday 2:30 pm October 21, 2012

Concert Takes Place at Center for the Performing Arts, 255 Almaden Blvd, San Jose Directions | Seat Map

A delightful concert of large-scale Romantic music: Lalo’s passionate Symphonie Espagnole is more violin concerto than symphony. Written for the supreme Spanish virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate, it tests the most skilled of violinists, and we have invited the young international sensation, Mayuko Kamio, to perform this work for us. The program closes with the first of Dvorak’s great symphonies, packed with color and melody.

Bluegrass Meets Choral
part of season: Chorale Season 2012-2013
Sunday 5:00pm October 21, 2012

Concert Location: Montgomery Theater, 271 S. Market St, San Jose, CA
  Seat Map | Directions

A combined concert with Cantabile Youth Singers featuring Carol Barnett's The World Beloved: A Bluegrass Mass with bluegrass band.  Also on the program, soulful tunes from the film O Brother, Where Art Thou? and a delightful set of folk songs arranged by two-time Grammy winners, folk legends Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer.

Serkin, Brahms & Tchaikovsky
part of season: 2012-2013 Classics Season
Saturday 8:00 pm December 1, 2012
Sunday 2:30 pm December 2, 2012

"…what one carries away from a Serkin Brahms performance is of a startling intimacy, expressed on a heroic scale."  --Boston Globe

Brahms and Tchaikovsky together should be enough for any concert. But to cap this one off, we have engaged master pianist Peter Serkin to perform the D-minor Concerto with his frequent collaborator, Maestro George Cleve. Our December program marks Serkin’s first San Jose appearance in over two decades. Brahms’s concerto is paired with the deeply dramatic symphony that Tchaikovsky himself called "the best thing I ever composed or ever shall compose."

Carols In The California
part of season: Chorale Season 2012-2013
Saturday 7:00pm December 8, 2012

Features selections from Benjamin Britten's Ceremony of Carols and Conrad Susa's Carols & Lullabies: Christmas in the Southwest plus sing-a-long carols and the Chorale's own rendition of the 12-Days of Christmas.

Join us for our traditional holiday performance.

Kurt Weill: Berlin, Paris, New York
part of season: 2012-2013 Classics Season
Saturday 8:00 pm January 12, 2013
Sunday 2:30 pm January 13, 2013

Great numbers of artists left Europe for America in the 1930s and 40s, and the move transformed both them and their new home. Kurt Weill was one of these, and his music mirrored his journey.  In this concert / cabaret, we hear first 1920’s Berlin (Three Penny Opera, with its immortal ‘Mack the Knife’); then Paris (Seven Deadly Sins, part opera, part theater); and finally New York, where Weill helped shape the music of Broadway. Lisa Vroman, ‘a musical and theatrical marvel,’ (S.F. Chronicle) joins the orchestra in Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins and in unforgettable Broadway melodies from ‘My Ship’ to ‘Lost in the Stars.’  Lisa is joined by Josheph Meyers, tenor; Adam Flowers, tenor; Jordan Shanahan, baritone; Kirk Eichelberger, bass.

Verdi's Requiem
part of season: 2012-2013 Classics Season
Saturday 8:00 pm March 23, 2013
Sunday 2:30 pm March 24, 2013

To celebrate Verdi’s 200th anniversary, the orchestra and chorale perform his dramatic Requiem in the resonant and resplendent California Theatre. Written for the concert hall rather than the cathedral, the Requiem moves from the awe and majesty of Judgment Day to the tenderness of a prayer for peace. Summer Pops favorite Maestro Jaffe, in his regular season debut, conducts this moving work by the great Italian master of vocal magic.

An American In Paris
part of season: 2012-2013 Classics Season
Saturday 8:00 pm May 11, 2013
Sunday 2:30 pm May 12, 2013

Our American sampler program offers us two city portraits: George Gershwin’s high-spirited visit to busy Paris streets and crowded cafes, and Bernstein‘s vision of New York’s excitement, brutality, and hope. They are prefaced by Cárdenes, Cuban-born Tchaikovsky Violin Competition winner, performing Korngold’s concerto.  A musical prodigy, Korngold fled pre-war Vienna to the U.S, where he wrote movie scores (The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Sea Hawk) that revolutionized film music.