Overview
2024–2025 is the 62nd season of LAS.
Livermore Valley Arts gala on September 7, 2024.
Pops concert on September 28.
Free family concert on the afternoon of December 7.
Evening concert dates are December 7, 2024; Feb. 15, April 12, and May 31, 2025.

 
Brilliance at the Bankhead
Gala with Katharine McPhee
Sat. September 7, 2024, at 5:30 p.m.
The most spectacular fundraiser of the year for Livermore Valley Arts featured the incomparable Katharine McPhee live on stage. Star of Broadway’s Waitress, TV’s Smash, and runner-up on the fifth season of American Idol, Katharine McPhee is a singer, actress, and songwriter who delighted the Tri-Valley with her enchanting and soulful vocal talents, alongside the Livermore-Amador Symphony.

POPS on the Green
September 28, 2024 at 3 p.m.
For the fourth year in a row, our annual Pops concert was al fresco on the Shea Stage in the Bankhead Plaza on an autumn afternoon. Many in the audience brought a picnic or snack and something to sit on while enjoying the music from our wonderful Symphony. Free admission, but donations were collected happily. This concert was sponsored by our Symphony Guild, and all donations go to supporting the Symphony.

Family Concert
December 7, 2024 at 3 p.m.
In coordination with Livermore Valley Arts and in partnership with Valley Dance Theatre, the Symphony Association presented its annual family concert inside Livermore’s Bankhead Theater. This was a short, fun-filled celebration of the holiday season with a Sugar Plum Fairy dancing, a Sound of Music medley to sing along with, a taste of “Clarinet Candy,” and even an “instrument petting zoo” to visit after the concert!
 
Festive Fairy Tales
December 7, 2024 at 8 p.m.
(No preconcert talk—holiday parade day.)
Barber: Die Natali
Bizet: L’Arlésienne Suite No. 1
Ravel: Ma mère L’Oye (Mother Goose Suite)
This was an evening full of joyful sounds of the holiday season. Familiar holiday carols were heard in the music of both Georges Bizet and Samuel Barber, and Maurice Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite brought magical fairy tales to life with excitement and poignant beauty. This heartwarming music was perfect for the holidays.
See the concert program.
 
Expressions of Youth
Reena Esmail, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and Johannes Brahms
February 15, 2025 at 7:30 p.m.
(Inside the Music, 7–7:15 p.m.)
Brahms: Academic Festival Overture
Coleridge-Taylor: Symphonic Variations on an African Air
Esmail: Ram Tori Maya
Plus solos by the winners of the 2024–2025 Competition for Young Musicians
The talented winners of our annual Competition for Young Musicians, Ariel Pawlik-Zwiebel and Olivia Luan, were featured soloists in this evening packed with musical inspiration and variety. Olivia performed as soloist for the 1st movement of the Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 16, by Grieg, and Ariel was soloist for the 1st movement of the Violin Concerto by Sibelius. The opening work was a unique collaboration among LAS, the Cantabella Children’s Chorus, and two dancers performing “Ram Tori Maya,” beautiful music of Indian-American composer Reena Esmail. Johannes Brahms caused a sensation with his marvelous “Academic Festival Overture,” using raucous melodies sung by students. The sweeping sounds of young Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s “Symphonic Variations on an African Air ” embellished a rarely performed masterwork.
See the concert program.

 
Romantic Masterpieces
April 12, 2025 at 7:30 p.m.
(Inside the Music, 7–7:15 p.m.)
Tchaikovsky: “Polonaise” from Eugene Onegin
Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto
Elizabeth Pitcairn, soloist
Franck: Symphony in D Minor

Violin virtuoso Elizabeth Pitcairn returned to Livermore to perform Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s thrilling violin concerto, playing her legendary 1720 Red Mendelssohn Stradivarius. We also heard Tchaikovsky’s grand treatment of a stately Polish national group dance, the polonaise. The concert concluded with one of the most deeply spiritual and exciting symphonies of the Romantic era, César Franck’s Symphony in D minor. It was an evening loaded with virtuosity and beautiful familiar melodies.
Listen to the Inside the Music preconcert talk by Lara Webber and Elizabeth Pitcairn (28.2MB mp3).
See the concert program.

 
Celestial Sounds
May 31, 2025 at 7:30 p.m.
(Inside the Music, 7–7:15 p.m.)
Debussy: Clair de Lune
Duparc: Aux étoiles (To the Stars)
Dvořák: Song to the Moon, from Rusalka, and
K. Erickson: I Sang to You and the Moon, from Chicago Songs
Heidi Moss Erickson, soprano
Holst: Mars, Venus, and Jupiter, from The Planets
Strauss, R.: Opening from “Also sprach Zarathustra”
Williams: Star Wars Suite

Lift off with the symphony as we explore the universe in all its celestial wonder. You’ll hear music inspired by planets, comets, moons, and stars accompanied by images from our galaxy and beyond. Intermission will include an opportunity in the lobby to talk about the cosmos with scientists from Quest Science Center and Las Positas College. Tri-Valley Stargazers will have telescopes in the courtyard during intermission and after the concert. “Clair de Lune,” selections from Gustav Holst’s Planets, John Williams’s Star Wars Suite, and more will bring our season to a spectacular conclusion.
Buy Tickets to this concert.

The audience and performers are invited to enjoy a reception featuring Livermore Valley wines and hosted by the Livermore-Amador Symphony Guild in the lobby after each evening concert.

Next Season, 2025–2026
LVPAC gala starring LeAnn Rimes on August 23, 2025.
Pops concert on September 27, 2025.
LVPAC family concert on the afternoon of December 6, 2025.
Concert dates are December 6, 2025; Feb. 14, April 11, and June 6, 2026.
(Early-purchase season tickets are available now. Please see our Tickets page.)

Programs subject to change.
© Livermore-Amador Symphony Association