MSO Musicians Share Their Musical Highlights of the 2025.26 Season
David Lewellen
PUBLISHED
Tagged Under: 2025.26 Season, Bradley Symphony Center, Classics, MSO Musicians, Pops
The summer festivals are over, school has begun, and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra is ready to start its fifth full season at the Bradley Symphony Center.
The 2025-26 season holds many highlights, and musicians, like audience members, have a wide range of favorites. Half a dozen MSO members shared what concerts they are most excited to perform and what they would look forward to hearing if they were in the audience.
For cellist Peter Thomas, the first month of the season is a solid row of highlights. “The beginning of the season is jam-packed with just about everything you would want to hear from your hometown orchestra,” he said, starting with Richard Strauss’s epic tone poem Ein Heldenleben and continuing with Danny Elfman’s film score for Batman, and “hearing the amazing Shayna Steele sing her guts out for Disco Divas” on the first Pops concert of the season.
Principal trombone Megumi Kanda feels a special connection to the 1989 version of Batman. “I had a cassette tape of the soundtrack when I was a kid, and I listened to it all the time,” she said. “I think I can sing along on every single piece.” She also can’t wait to support her back-row colleague, principal tuba Robyn Black, for the Vaughan Williams tuba concerto in October. “She is such a superstar musician,” Kanda said, “and when was the last time a tuba concerto was played?”
Bassist Paris Myers also looks forward to performing Ein Heldenleben at the start of the season. “It’s such an incredible tone poem,” he said. “It is powerful, energetic, and full of sweeping colors and being inside the orchestra as it comes to life is thrilling.” For sitting in the audience, he mentioned the Mendelssohn violin concerto, performed by Augustin Hadelich, in March. “It’s an amazing piece, and to hear an artist of his caliber bring it to life will be truly incredible,” he said.
First violinist Alex Ayers also mentioned the excitement of hearing Hadelich perform. “He has to be considered one of the best violinists in the world,” he said. “It’s fun hearing Ken-David Masur and Augustin Hadelich talk in German during rehearsals! I’ll also enjoy playing Brahms’s Symphony No. 3 on the same program, my favorite of the four he wrote.”
For his highlight as a performer, Ayers chose Stravinsky’s The Firebird in May, with popular guest conductor Jader Bignamini. “I’ve really enjoyed every rehearsal and concert I’ve played with him,” he said. “We’ll also get to play the violin concerto by the always-innovating Wynton Marsalis with the prize-winning violinist Giuseppe Gibboni.”
Multiple musicians mentioned Ayers’s choices of The Firebird and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in October. “It’s such a masterpiece,” Kanda said. “It gives me the chills every time I hear it, no matter how many times I play.”
“There are a lot of pieces that I learned at formative times in my life, and artists that I’ve grown to admire deeply,” said assistant principal bassoon Rudi Heinrich, “so it’s hard to choose.” But he landed on the program of Ligeti, Mozart, and Kodály in January and February with guest pianist Stephen Hough.
And for sitting in the audience, he would choose any weekend with one of his colleagues as a soloist: Black on tuba, plus concertmaster Jinwoo Lee playing Saint-Saëns in May, and first associate concertmaster Ilana Setapan playing Marquez’s Fandango in April.
“My colleagues inspire me every day,” Heinrich said, “and I love it when they get a chance to step in front and shine as individuals and show Milwaukee what amazing talent we have in our orchestra.”
