The University Orchestra, directed by Kimo Furumoto, is dedicated to the training of outstanding instrumentalists in the performance of a wide range of styles in the orchestral repertoire. In addition to the regular concert series, the orchestra has collaborated in performances with university choruses, opera theatre, CSUF faculty-artists and internationally renowned guest artists. The students regularly participate in orchestral master classes with members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Pacific Symphony Orchestra as well as internationally acclaimed performers and teachers including Yo-Yo Ma, Fredell Lack, the Turtle Island String Quartet and others.

Music director and conductor Kimo Furumoto, is in his third year leading this growing student ensemble. In addition to his collegiate duties he is music director and conductor of the Huntington Symphony Orchestra and has guest conducted with orchestras both in the United States and Europe and worked with musical greats including Leonard Bernstein and Robert Shaw. Formerly music director with the Concert Orchestra at the University of Cincinnati, College Conservatory of Music, he has also held the position of conducting assistant with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and assistant conductor of the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra. Furumoto holds degrees in conducting from Chapman University and the University of Cincinnati, College Conservatory of Music where he was associate conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra.

Faculty composer Ken Walicki was a Fulbright Scholar in Germany where he studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen and Helmut Lachenmann. Since receiving his Ph.D. From Michigan State University where he studied with Jere Hutcheson, he has worked with diverse artists such as Lydia Lunch, Dora Ohrenstein, the Doug Elkins Dance Company, producer/director Mark Obenhaus, Bermuda Triangle, the Soldier String Quartet and ETHEL. The Kronos Quartet has given frequent performances of his commissioned string quartet “nada Brahma.” He has received grants and commissions from groups including the American Composers Forum, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Jerome Foundation, the Mary Flagler Cary Trust and Meet the Composer and others.

On this California premiere of “Serendipity” the composer writes of his work, “Horace Walpole coined the word Serendipity in 1754. He invented it in reference to the title of an old Persian fairy story The Three Princes of Serendip, whose heroes regularly discovered pleasant things that they weren’t searching for. If you read the story you will find that the princes were actually well educated and intelligent men. Their good fortune was based on careful deduction, not chance. Music, which can seem to be the most serendipitous art, is actually grounded on great discipline and knowledge. What can seem to be the most spontaneous, improvised moment is based on years of study and practice.”