California Symphony opens its 40th season with 'American Connections' concert featuring Jennifer Higdon's Cello Concerto at Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek.

The California Symphony opens its 40th season this weekend with "American Connections," a program built around the Northern California premiere of Jennifer Higdon's Cello Concerto, as reported by Piedmont Exedra.

Cellist Julian Schwarz, for whom the Grammy Award-winning Higdon composed the work, will perform the concerto. Schwarz premiered the piece with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in April.

The program also includes Jean Sibelius' "The Oceanides," which premiered in the United States in 1914, and Béla Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra, which premiered in the U.S. in 1943 — tying the concert to the nation's 250th anniversary.

The symphony also announced Paul Novak, 28, as its new composer-in-residence. Novak, a Reno native and co-artistic director and flutist with the Chicago-based ensemble Mycelium New Music, begins a three-year term in which he will compose a new orchestral work each season and participate in workshops with the orchestra.

If you go: Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 26 and 4 p.m. Sept. 27 in the Hofmann Theatre, Lesher Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek. Tickets are $50–$110.