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

Gemma New, “one of the brightest rising stars in the conducting firmament” (St. Louis Post Dispatch), returns to guide the MSO through the adventure of Sibelius’s Second Symphony. Though Sibelius denied any political story behind the Second’s music, patriotic hearts have adopted it anyway — the symphony’s heroic feelings of hope and triumph are impossible … Continued

Music Director Ken-David Masur conducts a powerful program highlighting three generations of American composers. In Aaron Copland’s stirring musical portrait of Abraham Lincoln, the composer begins by suggesting “the mysterious sense of fatality that surrounds Lincoln’s personality” and ends by attempting “to draw a simple but impressive frame about the words of Lincoln himself.” MSO … Continued

When Music Director Ken-David Masur tapped Concertmaster Jinwoo Lee after a four-year search, he praised Lee’s energy, musical curiosity, and “great artistic spontaneity.” Those qualities also describe this kaleidoscopic program, which finds Lee performing Sibelius’s dreamy Violin Concerto following Nielsen’s symphonic poem about the lusty god Pan’s pursuit of a water nymph. Anna Clyne’s deeply-felt … 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

“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