Photo courtesy of St. Matthew's
By JOHN HARLOW | Editor-in-Chief
Tomaz Golka, the forward-looking, young Polish-American conductor, will be taking over the baton in St. Matthew’s 2017-18 concert season at St. Matthew’s Church on Bienveneda Avenue.
He has guest-conducted around the world, from Baden-Baden to Bogotà, from the traditions of the Tanglewood festival to the new frontiers of Lubbock, Texas.
He has won a cabinet of classical music awards including the Eduardo Mato Conducting Competition, where judges complimented him on both his passion and control.
He mixes up the masters, from Mozart to Tchaikovsky, with premieres by sometimes-controversial contemporary composers such as Thomas Adès.
This globe-trotting maestro is only available because, right now, he is the music director of the Riverside Philharmonic, where his wife Anna Kostyuchek is an associate concertmaster.
The series opens on Friday, Oct. 13, with Zoltan Kodaly’s colorful “Dances of Galanta,” Saint-Saens’s fiery “Symphony No. 2” and features the head of the UCLA piano department, Inna Faliks, performing Mozart’s emotional “Piano Concerto No. 20.”
On Nov. 10, virtuoso violinist Annelle Gregory takes the stage to perform Tchaikovsky’s beloved “Violin Concerto.” Also on the program is Schubert’s lyrical “Sixth Symphony” and the hypnotizing “Kaleidoscope” by legendary Miklos Rozsa, composer of countless film scores, including “Ben-Hur” and “Spellbound.”
The Music Guild ushers in the holiday season on Dec. 8 with the Chamber Orchestra of St. Matthew’s joined by the Choir and Soloists of St. Matthew’s Parish for Part 1 of Handel’s epic “Messiah.” Organist Haesung Park will be featured in Bach’s “D Minor Keyboard Concerto.”
Also on the program is an audience favorite—Corelli’s “Christmas Concerto,” led from the violin by Maestro Golka.
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