SFCM Orchestra with Edwin Outwater & Aaron Diehl

The SFCM Orchestra closes out its season with three monumental works. Student conductor David Baker leads the orchestra in Tchaikovsky's uber romantic masterpiece inspired by the Shakespearean play Romeo and Juliet. Edwin Outwater takes over the podium in a performance of what Strauss writes in his autobiography, “With Zarathustra I have given humankind the greatest present that has ever been made to it so far.” The concert then concludes with Outwater joining forces with Opus 3 Artist and pianist Aaron Diehl and his trio, for a performance of Mary Lou Williams’ Zodiac Suite, a series of dedications to fellow musicians born under each astrological sign.

Program

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet Overture
Richard Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30
Mary Lou Williams: Zodiac Suite

Artists

Aaron Diehl, piano
Edwin Outwater, conductor
David Baker, student conductor

About Edwin Outwater

Considered “one of the most innovative conductors on the scene today,” Edwin Outwater works with orchestras and institutions throughout the world, producing, curating, and conducting unique concert experiences. He frequently premieres new works and connects audiences with repertoire beyond the mainstream. Recent wide-ranging projects include collaborations with Renée Fleming, Yo-Yo Ma, Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, John Lithgow, and Metallica. Outwater has a long association with the San Francisco Symphony. He regularly conducts and curates their SoundBox series, and has conducted and hosted “Holiday Gaiety”, an LGBTQ holiday concert he created with drag performer Peaches Christ. He was Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra leading them on a highly acclaimed European tour, and also served as San Francisco Symphony Director of Summer Concerts. Outwater is Music Director Laureate of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, where he returns regularly. Recent guest appearances include the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, National Symphony, Brussels Philharmonic, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra.

“Diehl has developed an organic, sophisticated approach”
— DownBeat
Pianist and composer Aaron Diehl mystifies listeners with his layered artistry. At once temporal and ethereal, his expression transforms the piano into an orchestral vessel in the spirit of beloved predecessors Ahmad Jamal, Erroll Garner and Jelly Roll Morton. Following three critically-acclaimed leader albums on Mack Avenue Records — and live appearances at historic venues from Jazz at Lincoln Center and The Village Vanguard to New York Philharmonic and the Philharmonie de Paris — the American Pianist Association’s 2011 Cole Porter fellow now focuses his attention on what it means to be present within himself. His forthcoming solo record promises an expansion of that exploration in a setting at once unbound and intimate.

Aaron conjures three-dimensional expansion of melody, counterpoint and movement through time. Rather than choose one sound or another, he invites listeners into the chambered whole of his artistry. Born in Columbus, Ohio, Aaron traveled to New York in 2003, following his success as a finalist in JALC’s Essentially Ellington competition and a subsequent European tour with Wynton Marsalis. His love affair with rub and tension prompted a years-long immersion in distinctive repertoire from Monk and Ravel to Gershwin and William Grant Still. Among other towering figures, Still in particular inspires Aaron’s ongoing curation of Black American composers in his own performance programming, unveiled this past fall at 92nd St. Y.

Aaron has enjoyed artistic associations with Wynton Marsalis, Benny Golson, Jimmy Heath, Buster Williams, Branford Marsalis, Wycliffe Gordon, Philip Glass and multiGRAMMY award-winning artist Cecile McLorin Salvant. He recently appeared with the New York Philharmonic and the Cleveland Orchestra as featured soloist. Aaron holds a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Studies from Juilliard. A licensed pilot, when he’s not at the studio or on the road, he’s likely in the air. Follow both his earthbound and aerial exploits via Instagram at www.instagram.com/aaronjdiehl.