Music director Ken-David Masur leads the Milwaukee Symphony and Chorus in a grand season finale. Thrill to favorite selections by master composers including Wagner, Mozart, Verdi, and more.

Though the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant has been awarded to rising star musicians since 1976, its first solo percussionist was only recognized in 2022: marimba extraordinaire Ji Su Jung. Jung appears for the first time in Allen-Bradley Hall to perform a concerto by Kevin Puts, with an exuberant approach  hailed as “dazzling — filled … Continued

The MSO’s own principal cellist Susan Babini performs an unforgettable concerto by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis, whose expansive and haunting solo cello concerto Colored Field was inspired by a visit to a former WWII concentration camp. Later, Music Director Ken-David Masur conducts Brahms’ First Symphony, whose brilliance helped the composer step out of … Continued

Baroque violinist Rachell Ellen Wong, Grand Prize winner of the inaugural J.S. Bach Competition, returns to the MSO to lead one of the most iconic treasures in all of the Baroque repertoire: Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. Vivaldi provided vivid poems to accompany each of these seasonal concertos — in spring, “the goatherd sleeps next to … Continued

“Fate, that fatal force” is the driving theme of Tchaikovsky’s astounding Fourth Symphony, whose emotional finale builds from darkness to light. “If you cannot discover reasons for happiness in yourself,” the composer wrote, “look at others.” Yaniv Dinur, former resident conductor of the MSO, returns to lead this jubilant masterwork, alongside works by Barber and … Continued

Beethoven’s radiant reimagining of his Violin Concerto is seldom performed; for that reason, pianist Claire Huangci’s rendition is a rare treat. David Danzmayr – “extremely good, concise, clear, incisive and expressive” (The Herald) – returns to conduct this program, which concludes with Mendelssohn’s Third Symphony; just before beginning this stormy and songful symphony, Mendelssohn wrote a letter from Edinburgh claiming, “Everything around is broken and moldering, and the bright sky shines in. I believe I … Continued

Musical pictures abound in this imaginative program, led by Music Director Ken-David Masur, which begins with Rossini’s galloping William Tell overture and Richard Strauss’s tone poem delighting in the pranks of a jokester named Till Eulenspiegel. An ácana is a distinctive Cuban tree revered for its strength, which composer Tania León brings to life with … Continued

Now considered one of Bach’s most opulent musical achievements, his Christmas Oratorio went unheard for over a century after its first performances, until a resurgence of holiday celebrations brought it back into fashion. Each of its six cantatas was intended for a Christmas high feast day; Music Director Ken-David Masur and the MSO are joined … Continued