Culver City Symphony Orchestra welcomes back Concerto Winners

For the first time since the pandemic, audiences will be able to experience a live performance by one of the winners of the Parness Concerto Competition. The Culver City Symphony Orchestra’s second concert of the 2025-26 season, titled “America PLUS,” will be on Sunday, January 25, at 4 p.m. in the Robert Frost Auditorium. This free concert will feature a symphony by Johannes Brahms and will include works by American composers Aaron Copland and Samuel Barber.

The Parness Concerto Competition began when the Maurice K. Parness Youth Fund was established in 1974 in memory of Maurice Parness, a longtime sponsor and member of the Orchestra’s Board of Directors. The youth fund supported the Parness Concerto Competition, with the first winners performing at the Westchester High School Auditorium on December 7, 1974.

In the 50 years since the competition began, soloists who have performed with the orchestra have progressed to participate in prestigious international competitions. 

Stephen Turk, President of the Board of Directors for the Orchestra, recalled when one previous winner, Nigel Armstrong, returned to play with the orchestra and left the next day for the renowned International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.

“We were able to give him a final practice of a full performance,” Turk said. “It’s wonderful to be able to do that for the students, and that’s why [teachers] will send their students to us.”

2024 Senior Division winner Esme Arias-Kim, who will be performing Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto, Op. 14 on Sunday, is already taking part in multiple international competitions. At 19 years old, Arias-Kim has already played with many major symphonies, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. She has been featured on NPR’s radio station “From the Top” and Chicago’s classical station WFMT’s “Introductions.”

The concerto, written in 1939, was commissioned by wealthy businessman Samuel Fels for his protege, Iso Briselli, to play. The process of composing the music was contentious: Barber began composing the piece in Sweden, but the outbreak of World War II interrupted his work, forcing him to move back to the US to complete it.

Once Barber finished the final movement, Briselli felt it was too musically disconnected from the other movements and gave up first-performance rights. However, since its successful premiere in 1940, this concerto has become a popular piece in the violin repertoire.

In the theme of works by American composers, the orchestra will be performing Aaron Copland’s An Outdoor Overture. While overtures are often music played before ballets, operas, and plays to set the scene, Copland’s overture, written in 1938, was commissioned as a way to introduce a campaign for “American Music for American Youth” at the High School for Music and Art in New York. 

On the orchestra’s website, Music Director Clyde Mitchell describes Copland’s music, noting, “An Outdoor Overture sounds like fresh air, big horizons, and a confident, comfortable stride forward. Think of Abe Lincoln, John Wayne, Robert Redford, John Williams, or Bruce Springsteen.”

Working their way through all of Brahms’ symphonies, the Culver City Symphony Orchestra will arrive at Brahms’ Third Symphony as the finale for their concert on Sunday. Composed in the summer of 1883 in Wiesbaden, Germany, Brahms’ Third Symphony is the shortest out of his four symphonic works. The common musical theme heard throughout denotes Brahms’ motto “Frei aber froh,” meaning “Free but happy.”

“The Brahms will showcase the orchestra at its best,” Turk commented. “I think it’ll be a fun concert and I hope a lot of people come to it.”

To learn more about the Culver City Symphony Orchestra, visit their website.