Ignition: Rising Through Sound

Our season begins with sparks and surges of energy. ESYO alum Jacob Fanto’s Up We Go!—a brilliant, three-minute world premiere—sets the tone with an exhilarating burst of optimism, a spark catching fire at the very start of the season. The flame grows in Viet Cuong’s Re(New)al, a dazzling percussion concerto inspired by renewable energy, where water, wind, and fire (through solar power) are transformed into vibrant sound by our own soloists: Kingston Czaikovsky, Max Zhen, Angelina Pidgeon, and Zoli Arthur.

At the heart of the program stands Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, one of music’s most gripping confrontations with fate. From its opening, fate itself seems to pound at the door—bold, unrelenting, and impossible to ignore. Out of its turbulence rises a blaze of defiance and triumph, a testament to the fire within that refuses to be extinguished.

Later in the season, we will hear another vision of fire in Mahler’s First Symphony, which rises from silence and nature’s whispers to an ecstatic, triumphant finale. Together, these symphonies show us different ways to rise: one through conflict and catharsis, the other through transformation and renewal. Both invite us to play with fire—and to rise through it.