Musicians Create Your Own Season: John Thevenet
David Lewellen
PUBLISHED
Tagged Under: 2021.22 Season, MSO Musicians
As the Milwaukee Symphony gets ready for its new season beginning in October, there is still plenty of time to subscribe, including a Create Your Own series of five or more concerts. Recently, we asked several MSO musicians: If you were creating your own subscription, what five concerts this season would you be most excited to attend? That’s different from musicians’ usual consideration of what they will be excited to perform. But if they were in the audience, they would want to hear …
John Thevenet, bass trombone
Andreas Delfs Returns, Nov. 5-7. I love “Siegfried’s Rhine Journey.” I grew up listening to that. And I enjoy Hansel and Gretel. We’ve done that three or four times with Andreas, on Pops and Classics. Something in the Dark is a piece I don’t know anything about. In that case, the first thing I usually do is find out if I play on it, and if I do, I’d definitely listen to it before the first rehearsal. If I don’t play on it, I’m always interested to hear when the orchestra performs it. I’d be in the green room listening through the monitor for my own education.
Fountains of Rome, Nov. 12-13. Fountains of Rome. I mean, come on. That’s one of my favorites to play and to listen to. It’s almost like movie music, it’s so pictorial.
Bolcom Violin Concerto, Nov. 19-20 Haydn is my favorite composer. There’s something about his music, ever since I was in college, that really speaks to me. And I also really like the Prokofiev Classical Symphony.
Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Nov. 26-28. I’m very excited to see and play that. I’ll never forget seeing it in the theater when I was 11. I love the scene when Luke walks out on the plank to be thrown into the Sarlacc pit, and the music begins with low brass chords.
30s Festival: Stage to Screen, Jan. 21-22. Korngold’s Captain Blood – I love movie music. And Mathis der Maler is my favorite Hindemith piece. It has great trombone parts.
Bonus selections: Ode to Joy: Beethoven’s Ninth, June 17-19, or Beethoven & Bruckner, Mar. 4-5, Beethoven 9 or Bruckner 7. I’d probably prefer to play the Bruckner, but I’d rather listen to the Beethoven. That’s going to be high on the list for a lot of people.
