Berkeley Symphony Presents INHERITANCE

Maestro Kent Nagano, Berkeley Symphony’s Music Director Laureate, returns to the East Bay for a program tracing the enduring legacy of J. S. Bach through the works of Felix Mendelssohn and into the present day. The curtain rises on Mendelssohn’s haunting overture The Hebrides (Fingal’s Cave), followed by the world premiere of Vater unser, a new work by Argentine composer Alex Nante which takes a Bach chorale as its point of departure, transforming inherited musical material into a luminous new sound world. Pianist Mari Kodama, renowned for her “delicate virtuosity,” joins Nagano onstage for Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 1, and the composer’s magnificent Symphony No. 5, “Reformation,” brings the program to a powerful conclusion.