Worlds Beyond
Sunday, November 16, 2025 at 4:00PM
First Congregational Church of Berkeley 2345 Channing Way, Berkeley, CA 94704Acclaimed conductor and Berkeley Symphony’s own Ming Luke conducts the 25/26 season’s third performance, Worlds Beyond. This program explores the artist’s voice at moments of transition and liminality. Alma Monarca, a new work from Juan Pablo Contreras co-commissioned by Berkeley Symphony, is inspired by Contreras’s memories of celebrating Día de los Muertos in his grandfather’s hometown of Pátzcuaro, Mexico. Next, soprano Laquita Mitchell leads audiences through Richard Strauss’s haunting Four Last Songs, written as the composer contemplated the end of his life. Missy Mazzoli’s Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) lifts the audience into the cosmos, inviting us to view our lives from a new perspective. We close with Dmitri Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony, a work that signifies the composer’s challenges navigating the political thresholds of his era.
Juan Pablo Contreras
Alma Monarca
Richard Strauss
Four Last Songs
Laquita Mitchell
Missy Mazzoli
Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres)
Dmitri Shostakovich
Symphony No. 9
About the Artists
Ming Luke
With the “energy, creativity and charisma not seen since Leonard Bernstein, " Ming Luke is a versatile conductor that has excited audiences around the world. Highlights include conducting the Bolshoi Orchestra in Moscow, performances of Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella at the Kennedy Center, his English debut at Sadler’s Wells with Birmingham Royal, conducting Dvorak’s Requiem in Dvorak Hall in Prague, various performances with the San Francisco Symphony, and over two hundred and fifty performances at the San Francisco War Memorial with San Francisco Ballet.
Laquita Mitchell
