Our friend the Grandmaster Orchestral Music Society is co-hosting the First Alice and Eleonore International String Competition with the City of Hong Kong this year. The competition “aims to enrich the culture of music by recognizing and promoting highly gifted young musicians.” Applications are open until May 15. If you are interested in applying, please check out their competition homepage here.

It’s been a busy couple weeks here for us at SSO – we just had our final concert at Dinkelspiel Auditorium before we officially move into Bing Concert Hall, our new home! Our concerto competition winner (and SSO violinist!), Eric Wu ’13, played Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 magnificently, and we rounded out the performance with Beethoven’s iconic Symphony No. 5

We also started rehearsals in Bing this month! It is truly a marvelous venue, and we are so incredibly fortunate to be able to call it our new home. We are looking forward to helping usher in a new era for SSO and the arts at Stanford in January!

Finally, we’ve got a new Facebook page! Make sure to head on over to facebook.com/StanfordSymphonyOrchestra and “like” us to stay in touch, receive up-to-date news and concert info, and get exclusive behind-the-scenes sneak peeks of all our activities!

We were fortunate enough to hold a string sectional recently with Nancy Wu, associate concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera! Thanks to Nancy and all the other local musicians who have come in to make sectionals possible for everyone in the orchestra!

Our first look at the nearly-completed Bing Concert Hall, our new home, opening in January 2013!

Following the hecticness of auditions, SSO started rehearsals last week. The first few rehearsals have been quite eventful: first, all of our musicians came together for the first time this season last Thursday, and we’re proud to have a talented and diverse group of musicians. SSO then held our annual retreat at Monte Toyon, a camp and conference center nestled among the redwood forests near Santa Cruz. It was a fun but productive two days as SSO musicians rehearsed and got to know each other a little better!

SSO members bond over the campfire with s’mores!

Finally, SSO hosted members of the Shanghai University String Orchestra on Monday, who delighted us with a brief performance and rehearsed jointly with us. It was a great opportunity to welcome our peers and fellow musicians from Shanghai!

Dear friends,

The Stanford Symphony Orchestra is extremely excited to announce our 122nd season. This season marks a new chapter in SSO history, as we prepare to move into Stanford’s new Bing Concert Hall in the beginning of 2013. We are also pleased to announce a partnership with Stanford Live (formerly Stanford Lively Arts), as well as the Beethoven Project, a season-long celebration of Beethoven’s artistic genius. This ambitious project encompasses performances of all nine of Beethoven’s symphonies, as well as the entirety of his piano concertos (with Van Cliburn gold-medal pianist Jon Nakamatsu), and will be highlighted by a tour to Europe – in Beethoven’s footsteps – in the summer of 2013.

Your orchestra committee has been busy preparing for this exciting season. First, we’re pleased to announce this re-launched webpage, which has a brand new design. Thanks to Golf, Ben-han, and Dean, who have worked hard on this all summer; we hope that the new webpage is easy to access and makes it convenient to find information. We’ve also been planning our annual fall retreat, and getting ready for our first rehearsal – we can’t wait to get started with everything!

Whether you are returning to SSO as a musician, thinking about joining us in this historical season, or looking to enjoy our concerts this year,  we look forward to a thrilling season!

Best,

Jeremy and Candice

SSO committee presidents

On behalf of the entire SSO board