Welcome to another season of inspirational musical experiences! You are holding in your hands the brochure for what promises to be a season full of great repertoire, amazing soloists, and a new initiative—Inside the Music—which will incorporate brief videos highlighting a specific composer before select Masterworks programs.
I hope you will be excited to read about the richness and depth of the repertoire showcasing the best of orchestral music by well-established composers, such as Dvořák’s Pastoral Symphony No. 6, Schubert’s Symphony No. 4, and Mahler’s last finished Symphony No. 9, as well as some neglected works that we will be proud to bring for the first time on our stage, such as Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass, Bizet/Shchedrin Carmen Suite, and Brahms’ Clarinet Sonata in an orchestral arrangement by Luciano Berio.
We will continue our multi-season focus on performing music by under-represented composers from diverse backgrounds. Three AfricanAmerican women composers will be featured on our programs: the energetic Starburst by Jesse Montgomery, the lyrical Andante ma non troppo by Florence Price, and the jazzy Study for Orchestra by Julia Perry.
Speaking of jazz, we are excited to welcome Columbus’ own pianist Aaron Diehl in Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F. On the same program we will juxtapose two versions of The Nutcracker Suite the original by Tchaikovsky and the jazz inspired version by Duke Ellington.
On three of our programs, we will be graced by the presence of the Columbus Symphony Chorus as we celebrate the great and inspired tenure of their Chorus Director, Ronald Jenkins.
Cameron Carpenter will return to Columbus after his spectacular success during his last visit for our new Organ Festival that will feature the great organ in the Ohio Theatre: The Mighty Morton.
Many of our principal musicians will take the stage as soloists, displaying the depth and range of talent that we are so fortunate to have here in our community.
Please join us to experience the power of music together!
Yours in music,
Rossen Milanov Music Director
Photo:
Accompaniments
Throughout the season a variety of events accompany the Masterworks concerts.
Preludes
Select Masterworks performances will include a 30-minute, pre-concert discussion featuring Rossen, Christopher Purdy, and featured guests. Each Prelude takes place in the theatre beginning at 6:30pm.
Friday Coffee Dress (Friday Dress Rehearsals)
Select Masterworks programs in 2022-23 will offer $14 general admission tickets to Friday morning dress rehearsals. Observe a working rehearsal as the musicians and conductor put the finishing touches on the concert program to be performed that evening. Coffee and donuts are included in the ticket price!
Inside the Music
Select Masterworks programs will include a thought-provoking micro-documentary, providing accessibility and context to the historical and musical background of the featured repertoire and composers.
Mozart to Matisse
The Columbus Symphony and Columbus Museum of Art will collaborate in a series of afternoon lectures that pair chamber music performances by Symphony musicians with works from the CMA art collection. The presentation will explore the connections and aesthetic influences between music and visual art.
September 21, 2022 l Courtly Themes: Music and the Dresden Tapestries
January 11, 2023 l Classical Revival: 18th-Century German Art
April 5, 2023 l Visions of Spain: Goya and 19th-Century Spanish Art
May 10, 2023 l Song of the Lark and the Art of Jules Breton
Photo: Corinne Mares
Rossen Milanov at the pre-concert talks.
Carmina Burana
September 30 and October 1, 2022 | 7:30pm • Ohio Theatre
Rossen Milanov, conductor
Ashley Fabian, soprano
Arthur W. Marks, tenor
Ethan Vincent, baritone
Columbus Symphony Chorus
Ronald J. Jenkins, chorus director
Columbus Children's Choir
Jeanne Wohlgamuth, artistic director
Program
Orff: Carmina Burana
A tour de force opens the new season. Carl Orff’s iconic and scandalous Carmina Burana will come alive in full splendor and opulence with a grand orchestra and the angelic voices of the Columbus Symphony Chorus and the Columbus Children’s Choir.
Prelude: Join Christopher Purdy from WOSU Classical 101 for a pre-concert talk at 6:30pm.
NOT TO BE MISSED
It’s opening weekend!
The popular excerpt, “O Fortuna,” has been heard in movies including Excalibur (1981) and Cheaper by the Dozen (2003), as well as Super Bowl commercials and Ohio State football games.
Scan the QR Code to listen to an excerpt of this well-known piece!
Brahms & Dvořák
November 4–5, 2022 | 7:30pm • Ohio Theatre
Rossen Milanov, conductor
Shai Wosner, piano
Program
Montgomery: Starburst
Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2
Dvořák: Symphony No. 6
Starburst composer Jesse Montgomery draws inspiration from music that surrounded her while growing up in New York’s Lower East Side, including African American spirituals, civil rights anthems, improvisational styles, modern jazz, film scoring, and more.
With his “... keen musical mind and deep musical soul,” (NPR’s
All Things Considered), Israeli-born pianist Shai Wosner takes on Brahms’ monumental Second Piano Concerto, a work which took perfectionist Johannes Brahms three years to write and was an immediate success at its premiere in 1881.
Dvořák’s Symphony No. 6 was inspired by Czech folk music and first premiered with the Czech Philharmonic in 1881. Written in just seven weeks, Symphony No. 6 earned Antonín Dvořák international recognition as one of the leading composers of the day.
Prelude: Join Christopher Purdy from WOSU Classical 101 for a pre-concert talk at 6:30pm.
NOT TO BE MISSED
Internationally acclaimed and highly sought-after artist, Shai Wosner who studied under the tutelage of legendary pianist Emanuel Ax, returns to perform with the Columbus Symphony! Scan the QR Code to read more about Shai Wosner’s exceptional artistry, musical integrity, and creative insight.
Photo: Marco Borggreve
Mighty Morton Organ Festival with Cameron Carpenter
November 18–19, 2022 | 7:30pm • Ohio Theatre
Rossen Milanov, conductor
Cameron Carpenter, organ
Abigail Rethwisch, soprano
Mariana Karpatova, mezzo-soprano
Jonathan Burton, tenor
Adam Cioffari, bass
Columbus Symphony Chorus
Ronald J. Jenkins, chorus director
Program
Nielsen: Masquerade Overture
Poulenc: Concerto for Organ, Strings and Timpani
Janáček: Glagolitic Mass
“Extravagantly talented… the audience’s response was raucous… everything he touches turns fantastical and memorable.” (The New York Times) Iconic organ soloist Cameron Carpenter will star in Francis Poulenc’s Concerto for Organ, showcasing the powerful ‘Mighty Morton’ organ in the Ohio Theater, one of the best instruments of its kind in the country.
Prelude: Join Christopher Purdy from WOSU Classical 101 for a pre-concert talk at 6:30pm.
NOT TO BE MISSED
Rarely performed
Glagolitic Mass was composed by Janáček who believed his life’s work would be incomplete without an artistic expression of his relationship to God. The Mass which Janáček considered largely patriotic, features an extended fiery organ solo, which will be played by Cameron Carpenter. Scan the QR Code to get to know Cameron Carpenter.
Photo: Dovile Sermokas
Winter Festival
January 6–7, 2023 | 7:30pm • Ohio Theatre
Rossen Milanov, conductor
Bella Hristova, violin Program
Rimsky-Korsakov: Suite from The Snow Maiden
Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 1
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 6
Bulgarian violinist Bella Hristova returns to the Columbus Symphony to perform Prokofiev’s first violin concerto. Violinist
Joseph Szigeti, an early champion of the work, raved about the work with “its mixture of fairy-tale naivete and daring savagery in a lay-out texture.”
Written in 1939, Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 6 left his listeners shocked and expecting something else in the premiere. The mysterious and abstract work rebelled against his previous fifth symphony, which was lauded by the Soviet government, and stood in defiance of critics tying the composer to a nationalistic cause.
Prelude: Join Music Director Rossen Milanov for a pre-concert talk starting at 6:30pm.
Inside the Music: This program begins with a brief video about the history of Shostakovich’s music written under the oppressive Stalin regime.
Friday Coffee Dress: January 6, 2023 | 10am
Bella Hristova performs on a 1655 rare violin made by the great instrument craftsman Nicolò Amati, the only violin maker to survive the famine and plague of Cremona, Italy in 1630. Amati violins are seldom played and are kept in museum or private collections. Scan the QR Code to learn more about the famous luthiers (maker of stringed instruments) of the sixteenth century.
NOT TO BE MISSED
Photo: Lisa Marie Mazzucco
Beethoven, Mozart, & Haydn
January 20–21, 2023 ǀ 7:30pm January 22, 2023 | 2pm • Ohio Theatre
This delightful concert will showcase three composers from the classical period who changed music forever. Leonore 3 Overture is the third of four overtures Beethoven wrote for his only opera, Fidelio. Mozart's ‘Linz’ Symphony, written in Vienna at the height of his career, is light and joyous. And Haydn’s ‘Military’ Symphony features a rarity in music from the classical period – percussion, which, combined the trumpets, create the fanfare, drama, and excitement of military bands.
Prelude: Join Christopher Purdy from WOSU Classical 101 for a pre-concert talk at 6:30pm.
NOT TO BE MISSED
This concert shows off the talented musicians of the Columbus Symphony in the intimate and expressive music of the Classical period. From this period, the poster boys of classical music emerged—Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Franz Joseph Haydn. Scan the QR code to access Classic fm’s guide to Classical era music.
Photo: Corinne Mares
Dvořák's New World
February 3–4, 2023 ǀ 7:30pm • Ohio Theatre
David Allen Miller, conductor
Aubree Oliverson, violin Program
Simon: This Land Barber: Violin Concerto Dvořák: Symphony No. 9, ‘From the New World’
Praised for her evocative lyricism and joyful, genuine approach, guest violinist Aubree Oliverson masterfully performs Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto.
There are few pieces in the repertoire that have inspired audiences like Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9. Deeply rooted in American folk traditions, Dvořák composed the grand work while living in New York, taking inspiration from the sights and sounds of "The New World."
Prelude: Join Christopher Purdy from WOSU Classical 101 for a pre-concert talk at 6:30pm.
Friday Coffee Dress: February 3, 2023 ǀ 10am
NOT TO BE MISSED
At just 24 years of age, Aubree Oliverson is a rising star in the violin world, having won the 2016 U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts, the highest honor the U.S. government can bestow on a high school student. Aubree has traveled to over 100 schools across the Western U.S., motivating and inspiring thousands of children to participate in music.
Scan the QR Code for more information on this young superstar!
Photo: Jeff Fasano
Schubert Symphony No. 4, ‘Tragic’
February 17–18, 2023 ǀ 7:30pm • Ohio Theatre
Rossen Milanov, conductor
David Thomas, clarinet Program
Price: Andante ma non troppo from Symphony No. 3
Brahms: Clarinet Sonata (arr. Berio)
Schubert: Symphony No. 4 in C minor, ‘Tragic’
Composed in 1938 and premiered in 1940, Florence Price’s Symphony No. 3 was commissioned by the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Music Project during the height of the Great Depression.
Johannes Brahms’ Clarinet Sonata contains many dramatic and sublime themes, with each movement contrasting sharply from the others and performed by our own extraordinary Principal Clarinetist, David Thomas. This arrangement by Luciano Berio stays true to Brahms’s orchestral style.
Completed by 19-year-old Franz Schubert in 1816 and premiered in 1849, his Symphony No. 4, like most of his works, was never published nor publicly performed until after his death at age 31.
Prelude: Join Music Director Rossen Milanov for a pre-concert talk starting at 6:30pm.
Inside the Music: This program will include a brief video about Florence Price – a trailblazing African American female composer from the early 20th century.
NOT TO BE MISSED
Price was the first African American female composer to have a symphonic work performed by a major national symphony orchestra. Despite its successful premiere, the work was not heard again in Price’s lifetime and remained unperformed until 2001 and unpublished until 2008.
Scan the QR Code to listen to Andante ma non troppo from Symphony No. 3.
Photo: Corinne
Mahler Symphony No. 9
March 3–4, 2023 ǀ 7:30pm • Ohio Theatre
Rossen Milanov, conductor
Program
Mahler: Symphony No. 9
Gustav Mahler’s epic Symphony No. 9 is essential listening in the Classical repertoire. One of his last compositions, the work was born out of a sense of finality as he had recently been diagnosed with a terminal heart condition.
A deeply personal composition, the symphony displays all that Mahler did best, from emotional melodies to lush harmonies to large-scale structures, and despite the large orchestration, the work moves seamlessly between intimate sensuality and grand majesty.
Prelude: Join Music Director Rossen Milanov for a pre-concert talk starting at 6:30pm.
Inside the Music: This program will include a brief video about Mahler’s life and grandiose symphonic style.
NOT TO BE MISSED
A survey of conductors voted Mahler's Symphony No. 9 the fourth greatest symphony of all time in a ballot conducted by BBC Music Magazine in 2016. This will be a must-hear performance with an orchestra of epic proportions! Scan the QR code and learn more from the Mahler Foundation's listening guide.
Photo: Stephen Pariser
Variations on Nutcracker Suite
March 17–18, 2023 ǀ 7:30pm March 19, 2023 | 2pm • Ohio Theatre
Rossen Milanov, conductor
Aaron Diehl, piano Program
Perry: Study for Orchestra
Gershwin: Piano Concerto in F
Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker Suite
Ellington: The Nutcracker Suite
A protégé of Nadia Boulanger and two-time Guggenheim Fellow winner, Julia Perry was an important voice in mid-twentieth century American music combining neo-classicism with African American culture in her art.
Gershwin described the first movement of his Piano Concerto as “representing the young enthusiastic spirit of American life” and the second movement as “a poetic, nocturnal atmosphere, which has come to be referred to as the American blues…”
The iconic Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky has thrilled audiences for generations with some of the most recognizable and charming melodies in music history. In this performance, Tchaikovsky’s Suite is brilliantly blended with jazz arrangements of the same tunes by the legendary American jazz composer Duke Ellington. Hear these magnificent works side-by-side!
Prelude: Join Music Director Rossen Milanov and Aaron Diehl for a pre-concert talk starting at 6:30pm.
NOT TO BE MISSED
Columbus native and Juilliard graduate Aaron Diehl makes his Columbus Symphony debut putting his complex and layered sense of artistry on full display with the orchestra. Also on the program is Duke Ellington’s interpretation of The Nutcracker Suite. Scan the QR Code to hear Duke Ellington talk about his version included in this exciting program.
Photo: Maria Jarzyna
Carmen Suite
April 14–15, 2023 7:30pm • Ohio Theatre
Rossen Milanov, conductor
Karl Pedersen, viola Program
Fernandez: America (A homage to Bernstein)
Bizet/Shchedrin: Carmen Suite
Berlioz: Harold in Italy
Commissioned to be performed during the centenary celebrations of Leonard Bernstein in 2018, America (A homage to Bernstein) incorporates jazz, Latin, pop, flamenco, and contemporary music. The energetic and playful score was written to encourage the listener to want to dance!
Bizet’s Carmen has become one of the most recognizable operas in the repertoire, with famous tunes such as "Habanera," "Les Toréadors,"and "Séguedille." This virtuosic arrangement by Rodion Shchedrin features strings and a menagerie of percussion instruments.
In his Columbus Symphony solo debut, Principal Viola Karl Pedersen
performs Hector Berlioz’s Harold in Italy, an impressionistic story of a journey in the Italian mountains.
Prelude: Join Christopher Purdy from WOSU Classical 101 for a pre-concert talk at 6:30pm.
Inside the Music: This program will include a brief video about the history of the Carmen Suite.
Friday Coffee Dress: April 14, 2023 10am
NOT TO BE MISSED
Berlioz composed Harold in Italy for Niccolò Paganini after he purchased a Stradivarius viola and wanted to show off his instrument. The viola solo performed by the Columbus Symphony’s very own Karl Pedersen, represents the voice of title character Harold, the melancholy and self-absorbed wanderer witnessing the outdoor scenes of Italian life.
Scan the QR Code to learn more about Hector Berlioz and his unique place in musical history.
Photo: Pavana Stetzik
Rachmaninoff & Tchaikovsky
May 5–6, 2023 ǀ 7:30pm
May 7, 2023 | 2pm • Ohio Theatre
Rossen Milanov, conductor Zhu Wang, piano Program
Mussorgsky: Sunrise on Moscow River
Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5
Praised by The New York Times as “a superb pianist, a thoughtful, sensitive performer,” Zhu Wang plays perhaps the most-famous work in the piano concerto repertoire, Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2.
Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony has become one of the most famous works of the symphonic genre. The piece draws parallels to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony with a ‘Fate Theme’ thread throughout, and a general sense of movement from dark to light.
Prelude: Join Music Director Rossen Milanov for a pre-concert talk at 6:30pm.
NOT TO BE MISSED
Sunrise on Moscow River is the opening of Mussorgsky’s opera Khovanshchina, which was never completed following his death from alcohol poisoning in 1811. The mix of orchestral colors suggests a sunrise over glistening waters, a sharp contrast to the vicious political strife in Russia.
Scan the QR Code to listen to the gentle nuances of the Prelude to Act I.
Photo: Jiyang Chen
Welcome to Spring
May 19–20, 2023 7:30pm • Ohio Theatre
Ronald J. Jenkins, conductor
Gwendolyn Coleman, soprano
Simon Barrad, baritone
Joanna Frankel, violin
Columbus Symphony Chorus Program
Handel: Coronation Anthem No. 1
Elgar: "Nimrod"
Vaughan Williams: Dona Nobis Pacem
Britten: The Building of the House
Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending
Paulus: Of Songs and Singing Birdsong
If Music Be the Food of Love
Celebrate the end of an era as Ronald Jenkins takes the podium for his last concert as Chorus Director of the Columbus Symphony Chorus. For 40 years, Mr. Jenkins built the all-volunteer chorus to become a mainstay of Columbus Symphony programming. The closing concert of the Masterworks season will feature music from Great Britain, with favorites such as "Nimrod" from Elgar’s Enigma
Variations. The program will also honor Memorial Day with Vaughan Williams’ powerful cantata, Dona Nobis Pacem.
Prelude: Join Christopher Purdy from WOSU Classical 101 for a pre-concert talk at 6:30pm.
NOT TO BE MISSED
Grammy award winner
Stephen Paulus was a prolific American classical composer. His body of work inlcudes over 600 pieces. Of Songs and Singing premiered in 2013 with the Columbus Symphony’s Orchestra and all-volunteer Chorus. It was dedicated to Ronald J. Jenkins on the occasion of his 30th anniversary as conductor of the Columbus Symphony Chorus.
Scan the QR code to listen to Of Songs and Singing.
Photo: Stephen Pariser
Photo: Stephen Pariser
Again this year—Children 6–16 receive free tickets when accompanied by an adult to all Masterworks programs.
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