EMILY RAY
Musical Director
Mission Chambers Orchestra, CA
Currently the Music Director and conductor of the Mission Chamber Orchestra in San Jose, Emily Ray's inspired performances are earning her a growing reputation throughout California as an extremely gifted and creative conductor. Her recent concerts have earned standing ovations and enthusiastic praise from musicians and critics alike.
Prior to her term in San Jose, Ms. Ray was the Music Director of the Nova Vista Symphony for several years. She also conducted the Lo Sospiro Ensemble while serving with the Hayward Area Symphony. A great advocate for new music, throughout her career she has promoted and premiered the works of many California composers, as well as those of composers living in other parts of the U.S., and in England.
Ms. Ray began her musical studies at the age of 7 when she began taking piano lessons and later studied the violin. Participating in numerous recitals and performing groups, she continued her study of music in college, receiving a Master of Arts degree from California State University at Hayward after graduating with highest honors from the University of California, Berkeley. She studied conducting with Michael Senturia and Denis deCoteau and made her conducting debut with the University Symphony in May 1975. Later she studied with Gunther Schuller at the Conductor Institute at Sandpoint.
In 1996 Ms. Ray formed the Mission Chamber Orchestra and has continuously served as Music Director and conductor. During the orchestra's second season, Ms. Ray and the orchestra recorded a compact disc, Dreams, which was broadcast by radio stations across the country. A second disc, Reflections on the Hudson, was recorded and released in 2000. It is a part of Arizona University Recordings' Contemporary Composers Series, as it contains the orchestral works of Palo Alto composer Nancy Bloomer Deussen.
In February, 2003, Ms. Ray and the Mission Chamber Orchestra premiered a cantata written by internationally recognized composer Craig Bohmler for San Jose, California. In addition to also conducting the Santa Clara University Orchestra, Ms. Ray is Artistic Director of the Santa Clara Valley Performing Arts Association. Recent guest conducting has included the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, Winchester Orchestra of San Jose and the California Orchestra Directors Association Honors String Orchestra.
REVIEWS
"Emily Ray ... a clear, precise beat. Rhythmic exactitude is her principal concern, and the musicians responded well in that department. The fast, complex openings of Beethoven's third and fourth movements [of his Seventh Symphony] came in well-executed attacks and were thrilling to hear."
"The succession of three fast movements [of Schumann's Overture, Scherzo, and Finale, Op. 52] fit nicely with the orchestra's rhythmic strength, though there were some well-turned slow passages, too. Most of all, the bold sound vividly conveyed the essence of Schumann, as the essence of Beethoven was conveyed in his turn."
-San Francisco Classical Voice, Apr. 30, 2011
"Of all the Sept. 11 observances at our churches in recent days, the most effective may have been the one Saturday night at Cathedral Basilica of St. Joseph in San Jose. The Mission Chamber orchestra and the San Jose Symphonic Choir presented a '9/11 Memorial Concert' that featured Mozart's Requiem.
Aside from the concert's solid demonstration of our depth of local talent by groups that sometimes fly under the radar, it was a vivid demonstration of insight by Emily Ray, the orchestra's unsung director.
The performances were polished...The execution by Ray's orchestra...was virtually faultless.
But Ray, above all, is to be congratulated for the vision that gave meaning to an event that could have been trite. Without losing sight of artistic success, she used a penchant for revision to challenge several assumptions about the tragedy's role in the last five years of our lives."
-San Jose Mercury News, September 2006
"For many years I've harbored a secret wish to be present at the introduction of a great musical work.
Peninsula composer Lee Actor has granted my wish with a first performance of his Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, introduced in concert by the Mission Chamber Orchestra this past weekend at Le Petit Trianon in San Jose.
It was a stunning success, one that brought to mind the great Sibelius violin concerto...I have no doubt. This is a major work deserving of national attention...
This is the first time I was able to review the 37-piece Mission Chamber orchestra, and now I realize I am the poorer for it. it is a little gem, with all the personnel of professional quality...But why should I be surprised when its founding conductor is the same Emily Ray who put the Nova Vista Symphony on the musical map on the Peninsula more than 10 years ago?"
-Inside Bay Area, April 2006
"Music happened May 9 at Foothill College's Smithwick Theater. The Nova Vista Symphony closed its 32nd performance season with a concert demonstrating many of the pleasures of hearing great music played with conviction...
Nova Vista gave [Bizet's] "Patrie" a strong, crisp presentation....Conductor Emily Ray brought forward the stirring, military and nationlistic quality without sacrificing awareness of the great cost of such actions and ideas. The music has more drama and variety than a simple anthem about a war....
Symphony no. 9 [of Franz Schubert] seemed to burst out of the orchestra and fill the theater. There is so much invention and energy that each of the four movements contain a whole world of musical expression."
-Los Altos Town Crier, May 1998
"Ray led the Nova Vista through a very expressive reading of the Mascagni [Ratcliff's Dream] from his opera 'Gugliemo Ratcliff'.
Ray and the Nova Vista should be commended for trying as difficult a piece as the Mahler symphony. [no. 1]. This gigantic work with its many musical ideas and moods, often contradictory in character, is a hard one to interpret as well as play. Ray certainly caught the various aspects of the music...
Ray showed a nice feeling for the gallows humor and the contrasts between the dark and light moods of the third movement and developed the various ideas logically and smoothly."
-Los Altos Town Crier, January 1990
"The Nova Vista Symphony launched its twenty-fourth season last evening before a smallish but appreciative audience. The very eclecticism of the programming made it an entertaining experience.
The orchestra has reached a new level in its music making, a condition directly attributable to Ray. From the opening Wagner to the Schumann's final chords, she left little doubt about the impact she has made on these musicians.
The truncated Introdution to 'Lohengrin's' third act was a stirring opener and was well performed. The brass especially played cohesively and with conviction. The winds and percussion also impressed, as did the cellos and violas."
-The Peninsula Times Tribune, November 1989
"...I had never heard the orchestra [Nova Vista Symphony] under its new conductor, Emily Ray.
Growth in the caliber of the orchestra was immediately noticeable.
Conductor Ray had the orchestra under good control and kept it and the soloist well attuned in tempos and dynamics."
-San Mateo Times, November 1986