The Diablo Symphony opens its 2024–2025 season on Sunday, October 20, at 2:00 p.m. at Walnut Creek’s Lesher Center for the Arts, with its traditional family concert, this year featuring four composers who explore the colors of the orchestra and use them to paint pictures and tell stories. Different instruments turn into animals and characters in Sergei Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf”; an ogre and rescued princesses are conjured up in Igor Stravinsky’s “Lullaby” and “Finale” from The Firebird; and spaces of beauty, tranquility, and energy are painted in Richard Strauss’s “Sunrise” from Also Sprach Zarathustra and Astor Piazzolla’s flowing tango “Oblivion” (arranged by the DSO’s own Dean Boysen). And winners of the DSO’s Yen Liang Young Artist Competition will perform concerti on their respective instruments, the oboe and the marimba! Cayden Bloomer will perform Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Concerto for Oboe and Strings, sharing the stage with Justin Griffin, who will perform Sergei Golovko’s Concerto for Marimba.

Sergei Prokofiev – Peter and the Wolf, with narrator Cindy Silva Astor Piazzolla (arr. Dean Boysen) – Oblivion
Richard Strauss – “Sunrise” from Also Sprach Zarathustra Ralph Vaughn Williams – Concerto for Oboe and Strings, with Cayden Bloomer
Sergei Golovko – Concerto for Marimba, with Justin Griffin

Season and individual tickets are available at the Lesher Center for the Arts box office (925-943-7469; 1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek) or online through the DSO’s website at www.diablosymphony.org. The 2024–2025 season, “Music in Motion,” features an exciting range of classical favorites and works by composers who deserve more of our collective attention—be sure to visit the website for details about the concerts, composers, and guest artists. Discounts for youth and groups of 10+ seniors are available, and children 12 and under are admitted free of charge to all concerts, although they each need a ticket to have a seat. Ticket prices include all processing fees. Tickets are also available at the door.