This fall, New Century Chamber Orchestra kicks off its 2025-26 season with a program that pairs two treasures of the repertoire—Antonín Dvořák’s Serenade for Strings in E Major and Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons—with a luminous 2007 work by Bulgarian-British composer Dobrinka Tabakova entitled Dawn.
“It’s the examination of music through the ages that inspires New Century to give some of its best performances,” says Daniel Hope, Music Director and Concertmaster, New Century. “From the most famous works of the repertoire like The Four Seasons to this fresh, adventurous, contemporary work by the phenomenal Dobrinka Tabakova, this program will really highlight the remarkable energy and dynamic music making of the orchestra.”
Part of a triptych that conjures the passage of a day, Dawn, for solo violin and cello with string orchestra, evokes daybreak from darkness to light through gradations in the strings, with low, rich chords in the orchestra that ascend throughout as the soloists lead the progress. Tabakova’s “riveting, piercingly beautiful and frequently radiant” music (Huffpost Arts & Culture) has been featured in films (Jean-Luc Godard’s Adieu au langage), dance (including for San Francisco Ballet), and has been commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society, BBC Radio 3, and the European Broadcasting Union.
Dvořák’s Serenade for Strings in E Major is one of the composer’s most popular and frequently performed orchestral works. Composed within a fortnight in 1875, the piece is full of Bohemian lyricism and heartfelt warmth and weaves a lush, passionate tapestry of sound. “Serenade is pure magic,” says Hope. “Nobody expresses melody quite like Dvořák. Like the sun coming out.”
The program culminates with a timeless classic—Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons—where the vibrant forces of nature are unleashed with dazzling virtuosity. Composed around 1718-1720, the four violin concerti representing the seasons were a revolution in musical conception in the way Vivaldi so vividly evoked natural sounds, from flowing creeks to buzzing flies.
“It’s still as fresh as the day it was written,” says Hope. “He was one of the most modern and courageous composers of all time, and there’s nothing to beat it. I’m so happy to be doing it for the first time with New Century. It changes every time you play it and that has so much to do with your musical partners.”