California Symphony

This brand-new orchestral radio series celebrates the California Symphony’s mission of combining audience-favorite classics with works from contemporary composers supported by CA Symphony’s Artist-in-Residence program. In their debut radio season, the CA Symphony features work by Christopher Theofanidis, Kevin Puts, Nat Stookey, Dan Visconti, Gabriela Lena Frank, Katherine Balch, DJ Sparr, Viet Cuong, and Jessie Montgomery.
The orchestra includes musicians who perform with the San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Ballet, and others, and is based in Walnut Creek at the Lesher Center for the Arts with additional recent performances around the region in Napa Valley, Concord, Oakland, and Berkeley.
Outside of the concert hall, the Symphony actively supports music education as a driver for social change through its El Sistema-inspired Sound Minds program at Downer Elementary School in San Pablo, CA, which brings intensive music instruction and academic enrichment to schoolchildren in an area where 94% of students qualify for the federal free or reduced price lunch program, at no cost to the students who participate. The Orchestra also hosts the highly competitive Young American Composer-in-Residence program and its current composer, Viet Cuong. California Symphony has launched the careers of some of today’s most well-known artists, including violinist Anne Akiko Meyers, cellists Alisa Weilerstein and Joshua Roman, pianist Kirill Gerstein and composers such as Mason Bates, Christopher Theofanidis, and Kevin Puts.
“These days in the Bay Area, the California Symphony may be the most forward-looking music organization around.”
– Mercury News
In 2017, the California Symphony became the first orchestra with a public statement of a commitment to diversity. The statement underscores our commitment, on stage and off in order to make our organization as robust as possible. To read more about our commitment to Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion read our full statement here.
The mission of the California Symphony is to enhance the lives of those it serves in Contra Costa County and the extended San Francisco Bay Area by performing the full range of orchestral repertoire of the highest quality with special attention to the work of American composers, presenting talented young performers in their first professional concert appearances, featuring performances by world class artists, and providing education outreach programs for the children and adults of our community.
Founded in 1986 under founding Music Director Barry Jekowsky, our vision is to become a 21st-century orchestra, making classical music relevant to those we serve, bringing in new audiences along the way, and ultimately more fully living up to our name across the state of California. Hide full description

This brand-new orchestral radio series celebrates the California Symphony’s mission of combining audience-favorite classics with works from contemporary composers supported by CA Symphony’s Artist-in-Residence program. In their debut radio season, the CA Symphony features work by Christopher Theofanidis, Kevin Puts, Nat Stookey, Dan Visconti, Gabriela Lena Frank, Katherine Balch, DJ Sparr, Viet Cuong, and Jessie Montgomery.The orchestra includes musicians who perform with the San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Ballet, and others, and is based in Walnut Creek at the Lesher Center for the Arts with additional recent performances around the region in Napa Valley, Concord, Oakland, and Berkeley.Outside of the concert hall, the Symphony actively supports music... Show full description