Conductor Ruth Reinhardt makes her MSO debut on this program, which includes Dvořák’s pastoral Fifth Symphony — listen for hunting horns, folk dances, and a storm rumbling through its climactic finale. These concerts begin with Lotta Wennäkoski’s “Flounce” — a pulsing work characterized by, in the composer’s words, both “brisk gestures” and “passages of lace-like … Continued

Tōru Takemitsu’s all-string Requiem, dedicated to the memory of a fellow composer, was the music that first established the Japanese composer in the western world in the 1950s. Contrast the Requiem with the contemporary voice of another Japanese composer, Misato Mochizuki, and with the French music that influenced Takemitsu — Grammy Award®-winning vocalists Kelly O’Connor … Continued

“[Beethoven’s themes] appear and disappear, they get stretched, I turn them upside down, I pile one on top of another on top of another and create a very dynamic dialogue,” says composer John Adams of his Absolute Jest. In this Jest, which features New York City’s dazzling Aizuri String Quartet, Adams warps fragments of the … Continued

Conductor Laureate Andreas Delfs returns to conduct a program of great adventure, beginning with one chapter of Wagner’s epic Götterdämmerung and ending with Humperdinck’s take on the beloved fairytale of a witch and a gingerbread house. Grieg’s exceptional piano concerto adds a touch of Norwegian folk to the program, and in Something for the Dark, … Continued

This heavily German program brings together Schumann’s restless and innovative Fourth Symphony; Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen, a deeply personal work of inner transformation; and an orchestral arrangement of Mendelssohn’s tale of mistaken identity. Distinguished pianist Awadagin Pratt is the first to perform a new piano concerto by rising star composer Jessie Montgomery; this premiere music has … Continued

Violinist Chee-Yun’s flawless technique, dazzling tone, and compelling artistry have enraptured audiences on five continents. Now, she performs Édouard Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole, anchoring a program of dance and delight which includes flavors of Spain in Ravel’s Rapsodie espagnole and Falla’s Three-Cornered Hat Suite. Composer Gabriela Lena Frank brings Latin American rhythms to the stage in … Continued

Violinist Karen Gomyo, “…a first-rate artist of real musical command, vitality, brilliance and intensity” (Chicago Tribune), joins the MSO to perform Shostakovich’s expressive — at times nearly demonic — First Violin Concerto. Conductor William Eddins leads this vivid program, which balances Shostakovich’s fire with a picturesque stroll through Respighi’s Rome.   Gathering Together Safely: MSO … Continued