Both the Hammond B-3 organ, beloved by jazz and blues musicians everywhere, and the Paramount Theatre’s vintage 1931 “Mighty Wurlitzer,” designed to replicate the thunderous sounds of a full orchestra, will be rolled out for the Oakland Symphony’s penultimate season concert at 8 p.m. Friday in the theater on Broadway.
Brian Raphael Nabors’ Hammond Concerto, which Oakland Symphony conductor Kedrick Armstrong, himself a B-3 musician, sought out specifically for this concert, will be performed by the composer. It’s a three-movement piece which begins with “Rhapsody, ” which Nabors describes as a history of the many forms of American music; then moves on to “Threnody,” which mourns the senseless violence and racial hatred that has afflicted our country; and concludes with “Finale,” which he calls “one large gospel break between the organ and the orchestra.”
Also, Jeremy Lenk, music director and organist at the Mission Dolores Basilica in San Francisco, steps up to the Wurlitzer to perform Camille Saint-Saens’ 1886 Symphony No. 3, “Organ.”
The concert opens with Clarice Assad’s “Baio N’ Blues” from 2023. Find tickets, $25-$92, at oaklandsymphony.org.
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