MSO 4 FEBRUARY & MARCH 2026

FEBRUARY — MARCH 2026

ENCORE

Volume 44 No. 4

15 February 20 & 21 — Classics

Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty

23 February 27 – March 1 — Classics Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1

31 March 6 & 7 — Classics Hadelich & Brahms

41 March 20 & 21 — Classics

Bach’s St. Matthew Passion

5 Orchestra Roster

7 Music Director

8 Music Director Laureate

9 Principal Pops Conductor

10 Associate Conductor

11 Milwaukee Symphony Chorus

58 MSO Endowment

Musical Legacy Society

59 Annual Fund

61 Corporate & Foundation

62 Matching Gifts

Golden Note Partners

Marquee Circle

63 Tributes

66 MSO Board of Directors

67 MSO Administration

This program is produced and published by ENCORE PLAYBILLS. To advertise in any of the following programs:

• Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra

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• Milwaukee Ballet

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Broadway Series

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• First Stage

Please contact: Scott Howland at 414-469-7779 scott.encore@att.net

MILWAUKEE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

212 West Wisconsin Avenue Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53203 414-291-6010 | mso.org

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MILWAUKEE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, led by Music Director Ken-David Masur, is among the finest orchestras in the nation and the largest cultural institution in Wisconsin. Since its inception in 1959, the MSO has found innovative ways to give music a home in the region, develop music appreciation and talent among area youth, and raise the national reputation of Milwaukee.

The MSO’s full-time professional musicians perform over 135 classics, pops, family, education, and community concerts each season in venues throughout the state. A pioneer among American orchestras, the MSO has performed world and American premieres of works by John Adams, Roberto Sierra, Philip Glass, Geoffrey Gordon, Marc Neikrug, Camille Pépin, Matthias Pintscher, and Dobrinka Tabakova, as well as garnered national recognition as the first American orchestra to offer live recordings on iTunes.

In January of 2021, the MSO completed a years-long project to restore and renovate a former movie palace in the heart of downtown Milwaukee. The Bradley Symphony Center officially opened to audiences in October 2021. This project has sparked a renewal on West Wisconsin Avenue and continues to be a catalyst in the community.

The MSO’s standard of excellence extends beyond the concert hall and into the community, reaching more than 30,000 children and their families through its Arts in Community Education (ACE) program, Youth and Teen concerts, Family Series, and Meet the Music pre-concert talks. Celebrating its 36th year, the nationally recognized ACE program integrates arts education across all subjects and disciplines, providing opportunities for students when budget cuts may eliminate arts programming. The program provides lesson plans and supporting materials, classroom visits from MSO musician ensembles and artists from local organizations, and an MSO concert tailored to each grade level. The ACE program serves 5,500 students, teachers, and administrators in the Milwaukee area every year.

2025.26 SEASON

KEN-DAVID MASUR

Music Director

Polly and Bill Van Dyke Music Director Chair

EDO DE WAART

Music Director Laureate

BYRON STRIPLING

Principal Pops Conductor

Stein Family Foundation Principal Pops Conductor Chair

RYAN TANI

Associate Conductor

CHERYL FRAZES HILL

Chorus Director

Margaret Hawkins Chorus Director Chair

TIMOTHY J. BENSON

Assistant Chorus Director

FIRST VIOLINS

Jinwoo Lee, Concertmaster, Charles and Marie Caestecker Concertmaster Chair

Ilana Setapen, First Associate Concertmaster, Thora M. Vervoren

First Associate Concertmaster Chair

Jeanyi Kim, Associate Concertmaster

Alexander Ayers

Autumn Chodorowski

Yuka Kadota

Elliot Lee

Dylana Leung

Kyung Ah Oh

Lijia Phang

Vinícius Sant’Ana**

Yuanhui Fiona Zheng

SECOND VIOLINS

Jennifer Startt, Principal, Andrea and Woodrow Leung Principal Second Violin Chair

Ji-Yeon Lee, Assistant Principal (2nd chair)

Hyewon Kim, Acting Assistant Principal (3rd chair)

Heejeon Ahn

Lisa Johnson Fuller

Clay Hancock

Paul Hauer

Sheena Lan**

Janis Sakai**

Yiran Yao

VIOLAS

Victor de Almeida, Principal, Richard O. and Judith A. Wagner Family Principal Viola Chair

Samantha Rodriguez, Acting Assistant Principal (2nd chair), Friends of Janet F. Ruggeri Assistant Principal Viola Chair

Alejandro Duque, Acting Assistant Principal (3rd chair)

Elizabeth Breslin

Georgi Dimitrov

Nathan Hackett

Michael Lieberman**

Erin H. Pipal

CELLOS

Susan Babini, Principal, Dorothea C. Mayer Principal Cello Chair

Shinae Ra, Assistant Principal (2nd chair)

Scott Tisdel, Associate Principal Emeritus

Madeleine Kabat

Peter Szczepanek

Peter J. Thomas

Adrien Zitoun

BASSES

Principal, Donald B. Abert Principal Bass Chair

Andrew Raciti, Acting Principal

Nash Tomey, Acting Assistant Principal (2nd chair)

Brittany Conrad

Broner McCoy

Paris Myers

HARP

Julia Coronelli, Principal, Walter Schroeder Principal Harp Chair

FLUTES

Sonora Slocum, Principal, Margaret and Roy Butter Principal Flute Chair

Heather Zinninger, Assistant Principal

Jennifer Bouton Schaub

PICCOLO

Jennifer Bouton Schaub

OBOES

Katherine Young Steele, Principal, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra League Principal Oboe Chair

Kevin Pearl, Assistant Principal

Margaret Butler

ENGLISH HORN

Margaret Butler, Philip and Beatrice Blank English Horn Chair in memoriam to John Martin

CLARINETS

Todd Levy, Principal, Franklyn Esenberg Principal Clarinet Chair

Jay Shankar, Assistant Principal, Donald and Ruth P. Taylor Assistant Principal Clarinet Chair

Besnik Abrashi

E-FLAT CLARINET

Jay Shankar

BASS CLARINET

Besnik Abrashi

BASSOONS

Catherine Van Handel, Principal, Muriel C. and John D. Silbar Family Principal Bassoon Chair*

Rudi Heinrich, Acting Principal

Matthew Melillo

CONTRABASSOON

Matthew Melillo

HORNS

Matthew Annin, Principal, Krause Family Principal French Horn Chair

Krystof Pipal, Associate Principal

Dietrich Hemann, Andy Nunemaker French Horn Chair

Darcy Hamlin

Dawson Hartman

TRUMPETS

Matthew Ernst, Principal, Walter L. Robb Family Principal Trumpet Chair

David Cohen, Associate Principal, Martin J. Krebs Associate Principal Trumpet Chair

Tim McCarthy, Fred Fuller Trumpet Chair

TROMBONES

Megumi Kanda, Principal, Marjorie Tiefenthaler Principal Trombone Chair

Kirk Ferguson, Assistant Principal

BASS TROMBONE

John Thevenet, Richard M. Kimball Bass Trombone Chair

TUBA

Robyn Black, Principal, John and Judith Simonitsch Principal Tuba Chair

TIMPANI

Dean Borghesani, Principal

Chris Riggs, Assistant Principal

PERCUSSION

Robert Klieger, Principal Chris Riggs

PIANO

Melitta S. Pick Endowed Piano Chair

PERSONNEL

Antonio Padilla Denis, Director of Orchestra Personnel

Paris Myers, Assistant Manager of Orchestra Personnel

LIBRARIANS

Paul Beck, Principal Librarian, James E. Van Ess Principal Librarian Chair

Matthew Geise, Assistant Librarian & Media Archivist

PRODUCTION

Tristan Wallace, Production Manager/Live Audio

Lisa Sottile, Production Stage Manager

* Leave of absence during the 2025.26 season

** Acting member of the MSO for the 2025.26 season

KEN-DAVID MASUR, MUSIC DIRECTOR

Hailed as “fearless, bold, and a life-force” (San Diego UnionTribune) and “a brilliant and commanding conductor with unmistakable charisma” (Leipziger Volkszeitung), Ken-David Masur is celebrating his seventh season as music director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and principal conductor of the Chicago Symphony’s Civic Orchestra.

Masur’s tenure in Milwaukee has been notable for innovative thematic programming and bridge-building, including a festival celebrating the music of the 1930s, when the Bradley Symphony Center was built; the Water Festival, which highlighted local community partners whose work centers on water conservation and education; and a new city-wide Bach Festival, celebrating the abiding appeal of J.S. Bach’s music in an ever-changing world. He has also instituted a multi-season artist-in-residence program, and he has led highly acclaimed performances of major choral works, including a semi-staged production of Peer Gynt

In the 2025-26 season, Masur will lead celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus, featuring performances of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and Missa solemnis, as well as Bach’s St. Matthew Passion as part of the MSO’s third Bach Week. Ken-David Masur and the MSO will reunite with longtime collaborators such as Augustin Hadelich, Orion Weiss, Stewart Goodyear, Nancy Zhou, and Bill Barclay and Concert Theatre Works for a special project celebrating America’s 250th birthday with a program interweaving the music of Aaron Copland with the words of Mark Twain. In Chicago, Masur leads the Civic Orchestra, the premier training ensemble of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, in a wide range of programs, including its annual Bach Marathon.

Masur has conducted orchestras around the world, including Boston, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, l’Orchestre National de France, Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra, NFM Wrocław Philharmonic in Poland, and Tokyo’s Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra. He makes regular festival appearances at Ravinia, Tanglewood, the Hollywood Bowl, Verbier, the Pacific Music Festival, and the Oregon Bach Festival. Masur is passionate about contemporary music and has conducted and commissioned numerous new works from living composers, including Wynton Marsalis, Augusta Read Thomas, and Unsuk Chin, among others. He has recorded with the English Chamber Orchestra and the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra and received a Grammy Award nomination from the Latin Recording Academy for the album Salón Buenos Aires.

Masur and his wife, pianist Melinda Lee Masur, are founders and artistic directors of the Chelsea Music Festival, an annual summer festival in New York City with programs ranging from the Baroque and Classical to contemporary and jazz, placing a special emphasis on the intersection of the culinary and visual arts. The festival celebrated its 16th anniversary in 2025 and has been praised by The New York Times as a “gem of a series” and by Time Out New York as an “impressive addition to New York’s cultural ecosystem.”

Born and raised in Leipzig, Germany, Masur was trained at the Mendelssohn Academy in Leipzig, the Gewandhaus Children’s Choir, the Detmold Academy, and the “Hanns Eisler” Conservatory in Berlin. While an undergraduate at Columbia University in New York, Masur became the first music director of the Bach Society Orchestra and Chorus, with which he toured to Germany and recorded the music of J.S. Bach and his sons.

Music education and working with the next generation of young artists are of major importance to Masur. In addition to his work with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, he has conducted orchestras and led master classes at many international conservatories and festivals.

EDO DE WAART, MUSIC DIRECTOR LAUREATE

Throughout his long and illustrious career, renowned Dutch conductor Edo de Waart has held a multitude of posts with orchestras around the world, including music directorships with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, and Sydney Symphony Orchestra, as well as a chief conductorship with the De Nederlandse Opera and Santa Fe Opera.

Edo de Waart served as principal guest conductor of the San Diego Symphony, conductor laureate of both the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra and Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, and music director laureate of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.

As an opera conductor, de Waart has enjoyed success in a large and varied repertoire in many of the world’s greatest opera houses. He has conducted at Bayreuth, the Salzburg Festival, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Opéra Bastille, Santa Fe Opera, and the Metropolitan Opera. With the aim of bringing opera to broader audiences where concert halls prevent full staging, he has, as music director in Milwaukee, Antwerp, and Hong Kong, often conducted semi-staged and opera in concert performances.

A renowned orchestral trainer, he has been involved with projects working with talented young players at the Juilliard and Colburn schools and the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara.

Edo de Waart’s extensive catalogue encompasses releases for Philips, Virgin, EMI, Telarc, and RCA. Recent recordings include Henderickx’s Symphony No. 1 and oboe concerto, Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, and Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius, all with the Royal Flemish Philharmonic.

Beginning his career as an assistant conductor to Leonard Bernstein at the New York Philharmonic, de Waart then returned to Holland, where he was appointed assistant conductor to Bernard Haitink at the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.

Edo de Waart has received a number of awards for his musical achievements, including becoming a Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion and an Honorary Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia. He is also an Honorary Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.

BYRON STRIPLING, PRINCIPAL POPS CONDUCTOR

With a contagious smile and captivating charm, conductor, trumpet virtuoso, singer, and actor Byron Stripling ignites audiences across the globe. In 2024, Stripling was named Stein Family Foundation Principal Pops Conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. He also currently serves as principal pops conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and artistic director and conductor of the highly acclaimed Columbus Jazz Orchestra. Stripling’s baton has led countless orchestras throughout the United States and Canada, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood and the orchestras of San Diego, St. Louis, Virginia, Toronto, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Fort Worth, Rochester, Buffalo, Florida, Portland, and Sarasota, to name a few.

As a soloist with the Boston Pops, Stripling has performed frequently under the baton of Keith Lockhart, including as the featured soloist in the PBS television special Evening at Pops with conductors John Williams and Mr. Lockhart.

Since his Carnegie Hall debut with Skitch Henderson and the New York Pops, Stripling has become a pops orchestra favorite throughout the country, appearing as soloist with more than 100 orchestras. He has been a featured soloist at the Hollywood Bowl and performs at festivals around the world.

An accomplished actor and singer, Stripling was chosen, following a worldwide search, to star in the lead role of the Broadway-bound musical Satchmo. Many will remember his featured cameo performance in the television movie The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and his critically acclaimed virtuoso trumpet and riotous comedic performance in the 42nd Street production of From Second Avenue to Broadway.

Television viewers have enjoyed his work as a soloist on the worldwide telecast of the Grammy Awards. Millions have heard his trumpet and voice in television commercials, TV theme songs including 20/20 and CNN, and soundtracks of favorite movies. In addition to multiple recordings with his quintet and work with artists from Tony Bennett to Whitney Houston, his prolific recording career includes hundreds of albums with the greatest pop, Broadway, soul, and jazz artists of all time.

Stripling earned his stripes as lead trumpeter and soloist with the Count Basie Orchestra under the direction of Thad Jones and Frank Foster. He has also played and recorded extensively with the bands of Dizzy Gillespie, Woody Herman, Dave Brubeck, Lionel Hampton, Clark Terry, Louis Bellson, and Buck Clayton in addition to the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, and the GRP All-Star Big Band.

Stripling is devoted to giving back and supports several philanthropic organizations, including United Way and the Community Shelter Board. He also enjoys sharing the power of music through seminars and master classes at colleges, universities, conservatories, and high schools.

Stripling was educated at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and the Interlochen Arts Academy in Interlochen, Michigan. One of his greatest joys is to return periodically to Eastman and Interlochen as a special guest lecturer.

A resident of Ohio, Stripling lives in the country with his wife, Alexis, a former dancer, writer, and poet and their beautiful daughters.

RYAN TANI, ASSOCIATE CONDUCTOR

Now in his third season with the MSO and his first as its associate conductor, Ryan Tani has built a reputation for inventive programming, as well as an energetic connection with audiences in Milwaukee and beyond. At the MSO, he conducts a wide range of concerts — including education, family, pops, and classics — and has stepped in for Edo de Waart and led sold-out performances in his 2025 classics debut. He has served as cover conductor for the Minnesota Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Symphony, and Bozeman Symphony.

A committed advocate for new music, Tani was music director of Baltimore’s Occasional Symphony, commissioning over 20 works and supporting dozens of composers in just three years. At Yale, he served as conducting fellow of the Philharmonia and resident conductor of New Music New Haven, earning the Dean’s Prize for artistic excellence.

Tani’s community-focused work includes leading multiple ensembles across Montana, including the Bozeman, Missoula, Great Falls, and Montana State University symphonies. Committed to connecting with audiences off the podium, he also developed outreach programs, taught university courses, and fostered collaborations between artists and the public — efforts that continue to shape his approach today.

He holds degrees from Yale, the Peabody Institute, and the University of Southern California, and has studied with Marin Alsop, Peter Oundjian, Markand Thakar, Larry Rachleff, and Donald Schleicher. He lives in Milwaukee with his wife Bronte and his corgi Darby and enjoys cooking, reading, and playing violin.

MILWAUKEE SYMPHONY CHORUS

Established in 1976 as a joint effort between the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus has distinguished itself over the course of half a century as one of the preeminent choral ensembles in the United States. Celebrating their landmark 50th anniversary this season, the chorus will appear alongside the MSO in monumental masterworks by Bach, Beethoven, and Handel, as well as the MSO’s annual Holiday Pops concerts.

Founded by legendary choral pedagogue Margaret Hawkins, the chorus’s meteoric rise in stature during the late 1970s broadened the orchestra’s repertoire and set a new standard of excellence in Milwaukee’s musical landscape. Under Hawkins’s baton, the chorus produced its first commercial recordings and made multiple appearances at New York’s Carnegie Hall. Their voices were heard in the MSO’s first radio broadcasts, receiving airtime nationally and internationally.

The chorus has made numerous guest appearances at the Ravinia Festival through the years, beginning in 1984 and as recently as 2019, performing with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, singing Gustav Mahler’s “Symphony of a Thousand.” Other collaborations include appearances with local performing arts groups, including the Milwaukee Ballet, Milwaukee Musaik, and Present Music.

The Milwaukee Symphony Chorus’s wide range of ability has been a signature of the ensemble throughout their history. They have moved seamlessly from works by Bach and Brahms to Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky, sung during a live screening of the film. Semi-staged productions of Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman and Grieg’s Peer Gynt are featured alongside performances with contemporary artists, such as their recent appearance with the esteemed mandolinist Chris Thile. Their repertoire spans the centuries, regularly placing their enormous versatility on full display.

Made up of musicians from every walk of life, the 150 members of the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus devote countless volunteer hours every season to preparing and performing the great cornerstones of the symphonic literature with an unqualified love for their craft.

To learn more about becoming a member of the chorus, visit mso.org/chorus.

CHORUS MEMBERS & STAFF

Jahnavi Acharya

Anna Aiuppa

Mia Akers

Laura Albright-Wengler

Alexander Z. Alden

Anthony Andronczyk

James Anello

Evan Bagwell

u Thomas R. Bagwell

Scott Bass

Marshall Beckman

Emily Bergeron

JoAnn Berk

Edward Blumenthal

Alice Boesky

Jillian Boes

u Scott Bolens

Madison Bolt

Neil R. Brooks

Riley Brown

Michelle Budny

Ellen N. Burmeister

John Bushman

Gabrielle Campbell

Gerardo Carcar

Elise Cismesia

Sarah M. Cook

Amanda Coplan

Sarah Culhane

Barbara Czarkowski

Phoebe Dawsey

Colin Destache

Rebeca A. Dishaw

Megan Kathleen Dixson

Rachel Dutler

James Edgar

Joe Ehlinger

Jack W. Ellis

Kaleigh Ellis

John Erzberger

Katelyn Farebrother

STAFF

u

Michael Faust

Catherine Fettig

Marty Foral

Madison Francis

Karen Frink

Maria Fuller

Haley Gabriel

James T. Gallup

Jonah Gaster

Jonathan Gaston-Falk

William Gesch

Samantha Gibson

Jessica Golinski

Mark R. Hagner

Mary Hamlin

Beth Harenda

u Karen Heins

Mary Catherine Helgren

Kurt Hellermann

Melissa Kay Herbst

Nathan Hickox-Young

Eric Hickson

Michelle Hiebert

Laura Hochmuth

Mara Hoffman

Amy Hudson

Matthew Hunt

John Itson

u Tina Itson

Jane Jaikumar Knight

Christine Jameson

Paula J. Jeske

Robin Jette

John Jorgensen

Heidi L. Kastern

Summer Ketchell

Christin Kieckhafer

Katherine Kondratuk

Jill Kortebein

Kaleigh Kozak-Lichtman

Kyle J. Kramer

Cheryl Frazes Hill, chorus director

Timothy J. Benson, assistant director

Darwin J. Sanders , language and diction coach

Christina Williams, chorus manager

u Joseph M. Krechel

Julia M. Kreitzer

Harry Krueger

Benjamin Kuhlmann

Alexandra Lerch-Gaggl

Robert Lochhead

Grace Majewski

Rachel Maki

Ethan T. Masarik

Joy Mast

Justin J. Maurer

Betsy McCool

Hilary Merline

Kristine Mielcarek

Megan Miller

Bailey Moorhead

Jennifer Mueller

Matthew Neu

Kristin Nikkel

Jason Niles

Alice Nuteson

Robert Paddock

Daniel Edward Parks

Heather Pierce

R. Scott Pierce

u Jessica E. Pihart

Bianca Pratte

Abby Prom

Kaitlin Quigley

Mary Rafel

Jason Reuschlein

Rehanna Rexroat

James Reynolds

Marc Charles Ricard

Amanda Robison

Shawn W. Runningen

u Bridget Sampson

James Sampson

Joshua S. Samson

Darwin J. Sanders

Alana Sawall

REHEARSAL PIANISTS

Melissa Cardamone

Jeong-In Kim

Teree Shofner-Emrich

Sarah Schmeiser

Rand C. Schmidt

Randy Schmidt

u Allison Schnier

Andrew T. Schramm

Matthew Seider

Bennett Shebesta

u Hannah Sheppard

David Siegworth

Samuel Skogstad

Bruce Soto

u Joel P. Spiess

u Todd Stacey

u Donald E. Stettler

Scott Stieg

Donna Stresing

Sara Strommen

Shannon Sweeney

Joseph Thiel

Clare Urbanski

Bobbi Jo Vandal

Matthew Van Hecke

Maria Waldkirch

Maggie Walz

Stephanie Weeden

Tess Weinkauf

Amy Weyers

Erin Weyers

Christina Williams

Sally Witte

Kevin R. Woller

Rachel Yap

James Yarbrough

Ben Young

Jamie M. Yu

Katarzyna Zawislak

Stephanie Zimmer

DR. CHERYL FRAZES HILL, CHORUS DIRECTOR

Dr. Cheryl Frazes Hill is now in her ninth season as director of the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus. During their landmark 50th anniversary season, Frazes Hill will prepare the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus for classical performances that include Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, and Beethoven’s Missa solemnis.

Frazes Hill also serves as associate conductor of the Chicago Symphony Chorus. In that role, she has prepared the chorus for maestros Alsop, Boulez, Barenboim, Conlon, Levine, Mehta, Salonen, and Tilson Thomas, among many others. Recordings of Frazes Hill’s choral preparations on the Chicago Symphony Orchestra label include Beethoven, A Tribute to Daniel Barenboim, and Chicago Symphony Chorus: A 50th Anniversary Celebration

Frazes Hill is professor emerita at Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts, where she served for 20 years as director of choral activities and head of music education. Under her direction, the Roosevelt University choruses have been featured in prestigious and diverse events, including appearances at national and regional music conferences and performances with professional orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Sinfonietta, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and the Illinois Philharmonic. The Roosevelt Conservatory Chorus received enthusiastic reviews for their American premiere of Jacob ter Veldhuis’s Mountaintop. Other recent performances have included the internationally acclaimed production of Defiant Requiem and three appearances with The Rolling Stones during a recent United States concert tour.

Frazes Hill received her master’s and doctoral degrees in conducting from Northwestern University and her bachelor’s degrees in voice and music education from the University of Illinois. An accomplished vocalist, she is a featured soloist in the Grammy-nominated CBS Masterworks release Mozart: Music for Basset Horns. An award-winning conductor and educator, Frazes Hill recently received the ACDA Harold Decker Conducting Award, the Mary Hoffman Music Educators Award, and in past years, the Commendation of Excellence in Teaching from the Golden Apple Foundation, the Illinois Governor’s Award, Roosevelt University’s Presidential Award for Social Justice, the Northwestern University Alumni Merit Award, and the Outstanding Teaching Award from the University of Chicago.

Frazes Hill’s recently released book, Margaret Hillis: Unsung Pioneer, a biography of the famed female conductor, received a commendation from the 2023 Midwest Book Awards. Frazes Hill is nationally published on topics of her research in choral conducting and music education. A frequent guest conductor, clinician, and guest speaker, Frazes Hill regularly collaborates with maestro Marin Alsop at the Ravinia Festival’s ”Breaking Barriers” series, providing seminars for Taki Alsop female conducting fellows.

• Apollo Chorus of Chicago

• Appleton Boychoir

• Bob Bernhardt

• Michelle Cann

• Michelle DeYoung

• James Ehnes

• Stewart Goodyear

TCHAIKOVSKY’S SLEEPING BEAUTY

Friday, February 20, 2026 at 11:15 am

Saturday, February 21, 2026 at 7:30 pm

ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL

Alpesh Chauhan, conductor

Johannes Moser, cello

ANNA THORVALDSDOTTIR

Before we fall (Cello Concerto)

Johannes Moser, cello

INTERMISSION

PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY

Selections from The Sleeping Beauty, Opus 66

Prologue

No. 1 Introduction

No. 4 Finale

Act I

No. 5 Scène

No. 6 Valse

No. 8 Pas d’action

No. 9 Finale

Act II

No. 19 Entr’acte symphonique et scène

No. 20 Finale

Act III

No. 21 Marche

No. 23 Pas de quatre

No. 30 Finale et apothéose

The 2025.26 Classics Series is presented by the UNITED PERFORMING ARTS FUND and ROCKWELL AUTOMATION.

The length of this concert is approximately 2 hours.

The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra can be heard on the Naxos, Telarc, Koss Classics, ProArte, AVIE, and Vox/ Turnabout labels. MSO Classics recordings are available for digital streaming and download on Spotify, Apple Music, and more.

Guest Artist Biographies

ALPESH CHAUHAN

Equally praised for his “exceptional musical talent” (GBOPERA) and his “lithe, expressive and bold conducting style” (Seen and Heard International), Alpesh Chauhan has firmly established himself on the international stage. He works regularly with orchestras around the world, including The Hallé, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Philzuid, Belgian National Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain.

Chauhan regularly collaborates with soloists including Karen Cargill, Stephen Hough, Hilary Hahn, Johannes Moser, Pablo Ferrández, Benjamin Grosvenor, Pavel Kolesnikov, Simone Lamsma, and Simon Höfele.

Following his debut in 2015, Chauhan was appointed principal conductor of the Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini in Parma, where he led the complete symphonic cycles of Beethoven and Brahms. Chauhan has a longstanding relationship with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, formerly serving as their associate conductor and appearing alongside the orchestra at the BBC Proms in 2022. He continues to appear regularly as a guest conductor and is currently partnering with the orchestra on a cycle of Tchaikovsky’s works for Chandos Records.

As music director of the Birmingham Opera Company, Chauhan champions a unique approach to community engagement, bringing opera to the wider Birmingham community. Following his mentorship by the company’s founder, the late Graham Vick, their most recent production, made in collaboration with Keith Warner, of Michael Tippett’s New Year earned praise for its “exemplary music-making” (The Guardian).

Chauhan is widely renowned for his interpretations of late Romantic and 20th-century repertoire. Recent highlights include performances of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with both the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra alongside Karen Cargill and Simon O’Neill, as well as Bruckner’s late symphonies, coinciding with the composer’s anniversary year.

Guest Artist Biographies

JOHANNES MOSER

Hailed by Gramophone Magazine as “one of the finest among the astonishing gallery of young virtuoso cellists,” German-Canadian cellist Johannes Moser has performed with the world’s leading orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic at the Proms, London Symphony Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, NHK Symphony Orchestra, and the Philadelphia and Cleveland orchestras with conductors of the highest level, including Riccardo Muti, Lorin Maazel, Mariss Jansons, Valery Gergiev, Zubin Mehta, Vladimir Jurowski, Franz Welser-Möst, Christian Thielemann, Pierre Boulez, Paavo Jarvi, Semyon Bychkov, Yannick NézetSéguin, and Gustavo Dudamel.

His recordings include concerti by Dvořák, Lalo, Elgar, Lutosławski, Dutilleux, and Tchaikovsky, which have earned him the prestigious German Record Critics’ Award and the Diapason d’Or. Of his recordings of the Lutosławski and Dutilleux cello concerti, Gramophone Magazine commented “Anyone coming afresh to these masterly works…should now investigate this new release ahead of all others.”

A dedicated chamber musician, Moser has performed with Emanuel Ax, Joshua Bell, Jonathan Biss, James Ehnes, Vadim Gluzman, Leonidas Kavakos, Midori, Menahem Pressler, Andreï Korobeinikov, Gloria Campaner, and Yevgeny Sudbin. Moser is also a regular at music festivals around the world, including the Verbier Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Menuhin Festival Gstaad, Kissinger Sommer Festival, Mehta Chamber Music Festival, and the Colorado, Seattle, and Brevard music festivals.

Renowned for his efforts to expand the reach of the classical genre, as well as his passionate focus on new music, Moser has commissioned works by Julia Wolfe, Ellen Reid, Thomas Agerfeld Olesen, Johannes Kalitzke, Elena Firsova, and Andrew Norman. In 2011, he premiered Enrico Chapela’s Magnetar for electric cello with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel, returning in the following season to perform Michel van der Aa’s cello concerto Up-close. Throughout his career, Moser has been committed to reaching out to all audiences, from kindergarteners to college students and beyond, and he combines most of his concert engagements with master classes, school visits, and preconcert lectures. He holds a professorship at the prestigious Cologne University of Music and Dance.

Born into a musical family in 1979, Moser began studying the cello at the age of eight and became a student of David Geringas in 1997. He was the top prize winner at the 2002 International Tchaikovsky Competition, simultaneously winning the Special Prize for his interpretation of the composer’s Variations on a Rococo Theme. In 2014, he was awarded the prestigious Brahms Prize by the Brahms Society of Schleswig-Holstein.

Moser plays a cello built by Andrea Guarneri in 1694 on loan from a private collection.

Program notes by David Jensen

ANNA THORVALDSDOTTIR

Born 11 July 1977; Reykjavík, Iceland

Before we fall (Cello Concerto)

Composed: 2025

First performance: 15 May 2025; Dalia Stasevska, conductor; Johannes Moser, cello; San Francisco Symphony

Last MSO performance: MSO Premiere

Instrumentation: 2 flutes; alto flute; English horn; 2 clarinets; bass clarinet; 2 bassoons; contrabassoon; 4 horns; 2 trombones; tuba; percussion (2 thunder sheets, large tam-tams, 2 large bass drums); strings

Approximate duration: 26 minutes

The following essay was prepared by the composer and appears here with her permission.

The core inspiration behind the cello concerto Before we fall centers around the notion of teetering on the edge, of balancing on the verge of a multitude of opposites. The musical structure flows between lyricism and a sense of distorted energy — two main forces that stabilize this entropic pull. Driven by the strong sense of lyricism that permeates the piece, the work also orbits a forward-moving energy that connects and balances the opposites in different ways. The stable fundament — a grounding power of sustained harmonic presence — communicates with ethereal and distorted sounds, together providing the earth for the essence of the solo cello, the structure upon which it stands and within which it moves. The cello, both alone and deeply connected to the orchestral elements in its expression, generates the atmospheric progression of the world it inhabits, yet continuously on the verge of falling outside the reality it is building for itself.

As with my music generally, the inspiration is not something I am trying to describe through the music or what the music is “about,” as such. Inspiration is a way to intuitively tap into parts of the core energy, structure, atmosphere, and material of the music I am writing each time. It is a fuel for the musical ideas to come into existence, a tool to approach and work with the fundamental materials, the ideas and sensations, that provide and generate the initial spark to the music — the various sources of inspiration are ultimately effective because I perceive qualities in them that I find musically captivating. I do often spend quite a bit of time finding ways to articulate some of the important elements of the musical ideas or thoughts that play certain key roles in the origin of each piece, but the music itself does not emerge from a verbal place; it emerges as a stream of consciousness that flows, is felt, sensed, shaped, and then crafted. So inspiration is a part of the origin story of a piece, but in the end, the music stands on its own.

PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY

Born 7 May 1840; Votkinsk, Russia

Died 6 November 1893; Saint Petersburg, Russia

Selections from The Sleeping Beauty, Opus 66

Composed: October 1888 – August 1889

First performance: 15 January 1890; Riccardo Drigo, conductor; Mariinsky Theater, Moscow

Last MSO performance: 19 June 1992; Neal Gittleman, conductor

Instrumentation: piccolo; 2 flutes; 2 oboes; English horn; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 4 horns; 4 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; percussion (triangle); glockenspiel; piano; strings

Approximate duration: 1 hour and 5 minutes

We all know the story: somewhere in the depths of history, a king and queen who had longed for a child welcomed their first, a daughter, to the world with a christening ceremony. Half a dozen fairies showered the child with love, gifts of virtue, and good fortune before the wicked fairy Carabosse (whose invitation to the function, she notes quite pointedly, never arrived) spitefully blights the girl’s future with a curse: on her sixteenth birthday, Princess Aurora would cut her finger on a spindle and die. The great Lilac Fairy naturally interferes to the extent her magic allows her, diminishing the spell’s effects and instead dooming the princess to a century of slumber. As her destiny comes to pass, the entire kingdom joins her in sleep at the Lilac Fairy’s behest, and true love, in the form of a noble prince, saves Aurora with a kiss.

As with most of the fairy tales that have survived into modernity, the roots of the sleeping beauty myth reach backward through oceans of time. The story first appeared nearly seven centuries ago in the medieval epic Perceforest and was adapted across Europe for generations, perhaps most famously by Charles Perrault, that legendary French gatherer of folklore, in his somewhat conspicuously titled 1697 collection Stories or Tales from Past Times, with Morals, and the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, who wisely chose to excise some of the more questionable material found in earlier tellings when publishing their Children’s and Household Tales in 1812.

Raised in a trilingual household by a French-German mother, Russian father, and a French governess, Tchaikovsky was doubtlessly aware of the story and was understandably pleased to receive a letter in the spring of 1888 from Ivan Vsevolozhsky, director of Russia’s Imperial Theatres, in which he proposed to adapt Perrault’s La belle au bois dormant for the ballet. “I would like a mise en scène in the style of Louis XIV, which would be a musical fantasia written in the spirit of Lully, Bach, Rameau, etc.,” a historical setting clearly intended to glorify the monarchial rule that had shaped Europe’s sociopolitical life in ages past and one which the Romanov dynasty was then trying desperately to match. The inclusion of many of Perrault’s most beloved characters in the third act, including Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Tom Thumb, and the Puss in Boots likely stimulated Tchaikovsky’s imagination, who, after leafing through Vsevolozhsky’s script, was swift to inform him that he was “delighted and enchanted beyond all description. It suits me perfectly and I ask nothing more than to make the music for it.”

Not only did Tchaikovsky find the subject matter compelling enough to make another attempt at writing for the stage after the failure of his first balletic venture, Swan Lake, but his decision to accept the commission coincided with what has since been described as the “golden age” of Russian ballet. Tchaikovsky had the good fortune to collaborate with the head of the Imperial Ballet, Marius Petipa, in marrying the master’s famously detailed choreography to his enchanting incidental music, and the production enjoyed an especially extravagant budget provided by the treasury of the Tsar. He began to sketch out his thoughts in the autumn of 1888, finishing the first draft the following May and swiftly orchestrating the music with a great deal of enthusiasm. “It seems to me,” he wrote that summer, “that the music from this ballet will be among my best works.”

Continued on page 20

Continued from page 19

The score contains some of his most memorable and attractive music, as he himself noted in a letter to his patroness, Nadezhda von Meck, in August 1889: “I lavished particular care on its instrumentation and devised several completely new orchestral combinations, which I hope will be very beautiful and interesting.” And beautiful they are — in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, musicologist David Brown claimed the ballet as one of the composer’s crowning achievements: “The conjunction of characterful musical invention, structural fluency, and sure sense of atmosphere makes The Sleeping Beauty his most consistently successful theatre piece and one of the peaks of the ballet repertory.” Tsar Alexander III, in attendance at the premiere, simply called Tchaikovsky to his box in the theater to offer his own assessment: “Very nice.”

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TCHAIKOVSKY’S PIANO CONCERTO NO. 1

Friday, February 27, 2026 at 7:30 pm

Saturday, February 28, 2026 at 7:30 pm

Sunday, March 1, 2026 at 2:30 pm

ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL

Ryan Tani, conductor

Kate Liu, piano

ANNA CLYNE

Color Field

I. Yellow

II. Red

III. Orange

JEAN

SIBELIUS

Symphony No. 6 in D minor, Opus 104

I. Allegro molto moderato

II. Allegretto moderato

III. Poco vivace

IV. Allegro molto

INTERMISSION

PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY

Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Opus 23

I. Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso – Allegro con spirito

II. Andantino semplice – Prestissimo – Tempo I

III. Allegro con fuoco

Kate Liu, piano

The MSO Steinway was made possible through a generous gift from MICHAEL AND JEANNE SCHMITZ

The 2025.26 Classics Series is presented by the UNITED PERFORMING ARTS FUND and ROCKWELL AUTOMATION.

The length of this concert is approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes.

The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra can be heard on the Naxos, Telarc, Koss Classics, ProArte, AVIE, and Vox/ Turnabout labels. MSO Classics recordings are available for digital streaming and download on Spotify, Apple Music, and more.

Guest Artist Biographies

KATE LIU

Pianist Kate Liu has garnered international recognition, notably winning the Third Prize at the 17th International Fryderyk Chopin Competition in Warsaw, Poland. She also received the prize for Best Performance of Mazurka, as well as the Audience Favorite prize, awarded by the Polish public through Polish National Radio. Since then, she has toured internationally, performing at some of the world’s most renowned venues and collaborating with orchestras around the globe.

As a distinguished soloist, Liu has been presented in numerous prestigious halls, including Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Severance Hall in Cleveland, the Seoul Arts Center, Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre, National Philharmonic in Warsaw, Maison symphonique de Montréal, Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Shanghai Concert Hall, Osaka Symphony Hall, and the Phillips Collection. She has collaborated with a number of esteemed orchestras, including the Warsaw Philharmonic, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Daegu Symphony Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic, Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra, and The Cleveland Orchestra. Liu is a regular invitee to the Chopin and His Europe festival in Warsaw, and in 2024, she was the recipient of the Olivier Berggruen Prize as part of the Gstaad Menuhin Festival.

In 2025, she released her debut album, featuring sonatas by Beethoven and Brahms, with Orchid Classics.

Born in Singapore, Liu began her piano studies at the age of four and relocated to the U.S. at age eight. She studied at the Music Institute of Chicago under Emilio del Rosario, Micah Yui, and Alan Chow. Early in her career, she was awarded first prizes at the Third Asia-Pacific International Chopin Competition and the New York International Piano Competition. Kate holds a bachelor’s degree from the Curtis Institute of Music, as well as a master’s and Artist Diploma from The Juilliard School, where she studied with Robert McDonald and Yoheved Kaplinsky.

Program notes by David Jensen

ANNA CLYNE

Born 9 March 1980; London, England

Color Field

Composed: 2020

First performance: 23 October 2021; Marin Alsop, conductor; Baltimore Symphony Orchestra

Last MSO performance: MSO Premiere

Instrumentation: 2 flutes (2nd doubling on piccolo); 2 oboes (2nd doubling on English horn); 2 clarinets (2nd doubling on E-flat clarinet); 2 bassoons (2nd doubling on contrabassoon); 2 horns; 2 trumpets; percussion (large bass drum, 2 bowed crotales, high hat, snare drum, suspended cymbals, large suspended cymbal, large tam-tam, alto tambourine, tambourine, 2 middle tom-toms, 2 low tom-toms, 2 vibraphones); timpani; strings

Approximate duration: 15 minutes

The following essay was prepared by the composer and appears here with her permission.

Color Field was inspired by Mark Rothko’s Orange, Red, Yellow (1961) — a powerful example of the artist’s “color field” paintings, featuring red and yellow framing a massive swash of vibrant orange that seems to vibrate off the canvas.

Whilst creating music that evokes colors, I explored synesthesia — a perceptual phenomenon whereby a person can hear sound, pitch, or tonal centers and then correlate them to specific colors, and vice versa. In the case of the composer Alexander Scriabin, he associated specific pitches with specific colors, which I have adopted as tonal centers for the three movements of this piece: Yellow = D, Red = C, and Orange = G.

Yellow evokes a hazy warmth and introduces a melodic theme, first heard as a very slow bass line, and then revealed in the middle of the movement in the strings and winds. In Red, the fires blaze with bold percussive patterns and lilting lines. In Orange, the music becomes still and breathes, and then escalates once more, incorporating elements of Yellow and Red to create Orange.

JEAN SIBELIUS

Born 8 December 1865; Hämeenlinna, Finland

Died 20 September 1957; Järvenpää, Finland

Symphony No. 6 in D minor, Opus 104

Composed: Autumn 1914 – February 1923

First performance: 19 February 1923; Jean Sibelius, conductor; Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra

Last MSO performance: 12 October 1980; James Paul, conductor

Instrumentation: 2 flutes; 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; bass clarinet; 2 bassoons; 4 horns; 3 trumpets; 3 trombones; timpani; harp; strings

Approximate duration: 28 minutes

From his earliest symphonic endeavor, the mythologically proportioned Kullervo, Jean Sibelius enshrined himself in the Finnish consciousness as both a nationalistic composer of exceptionally skillful means and a strikingly imaginative master of orchestral writing. No other Finn has found such favor in the spheres of classical music, and his sensitivities to the natural world, his cultural heritage, and the timbral possibilities of the modern orchestra coalesced as music of the utmost originality. While his German contemporaries (namely Mahler, Bruckner, and Strauss) were in constant search of a greater intensity of sound by means of their ever-weightier formal schemes and imposing instrumental demands, Sibelius’s career was one of continual refinement and distillation — an expert craftsman’s quest for clarity of expression, thematic cohesion, and structural precision. As Sibelius put it, “Whereas most other modern composers are engaged in manufacturing cocktails of every hue and description, I offer the public cold spring water.”

By the time Sibelius began outlining the ideas for his last three symphonies in the late 1910s, he had rejected both the Romantic nationalism that had earned him his flourishing international reputation and the complex, aggressively expressionistic styles emerging in Europe on the heels of the Great War, favoring simpler instrumental combinations, naturalistic effects, and a certain liquidity of form. Of a more introverted and subdued character than his most popular symphonies, the sixth has largely been neglected in symphonic programming, with the English musicologist Gerald Abraham going so far as to describe it as the “Cinderella of the seven symphonies.” “If it lacks the heroic countenance of the fifth and the stern, epic majesty of the seventh,” wrote the music critic Robert Layton, “it possesses a purity of utterance and spirit that has few parallels in either Sibelius or the music of its time.”

At first blush, the sixth appears to be a product of Sibelius’s neoclassical tendencies: its instrumentation is conventional, as is its division into the four movements that had traditionally served as the genre’s architecture since the 18th century. But rather than restricting his thoughts to those established and relatively limiting designs, it is the individual themes themselves which determine their organic development (a feature shared by each of his last three symphonies), and there are no clearly defined correlations between the key signatures explored within each individual movement. In fact, Sibelius casts much of this music in the Dorian mode with D as its tonal center, a scale derived from medieval musical theory, exploring the vivid contrasts available in the key of C major, which shares each of the pitches in the Dorian scale. “Rage and passion,” Sibelius remarked to his student Simon Parment, “are utterly essential in it, but it is supported by undercurrents deep under the surface of the music.”

The music’s nuanced shadings, given a particularly mysterious inflection by the ambiguity of its harmonies, along with its glowing sonorities, flowing lyricism, and translucent orchestration make for an especially poignant portrait of a man looking back on his life. The finely sculpted polyphonic writing, stepwise melodic motion, and modal harmonies that pervade the sixth have invited comparisons to the music of the Renaissance composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, whose lucid contrapuntal style Sibelius had studied as a student, but perhaps its loveliest interpretation comes from the composer himself, writing twenty years after its premiere: “The sixth symphony always reminds me of the scent of the first snow.”

PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY

Born 7 May 1840; Votkinsk, Russia

Died 6 November 1893; Saint Petersburg, Russia

Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Opus 66

Composed: November 1874 – 21 February 1875; revised 1879 and 1889

First performance: 25 October 1875; Benjamin Johnson Lang, conductor; Hans von Bülow; piano; Boston Music Hall

Last MSO performance: 26 January 2020; Stefan Asbury, conductor; Joyce Yang, piano

Instrumentation: 2 flutes; 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 4 horns; 2 trumpets; 3 trombones; timpani; strings

Approximate duration: 32 minutes

“I wanted to start a piano concerto — but for some reason it didn’t work out.” As far as ill portents go, one could hardly do worse: this is the very first notice from Tchaikovsky, in a letter to his brother Modest written in the autumn of 1874, that he was engrossed in the writing of his first concerto. After years of feeling torn between the Western modes of expression that had provided him with harmonic direction and structural clarity, the influence of that heavily nationalistic Saint Petersburg cohort of composers, The Mighty Five, and his own fiercely emotional tendencies, he was finally arriving at a highly personal style defined by its passionate excesses, widely diversified melodic sensibility, and crisply defined colors.

But having yet to find consistent success as a composer, none of the technical proficiency or musical intellect he had developed leading up to that point would prepare him for the impending disaster of his piano concerto. “I am completely bogged down in the composition,” he wrote to Modest, only weeks later: “it’s coming along — but very poorly.” Tchaikovsky labored over the score, “routinely having to be strict with myself and to compel piano passages to come into my head,” and lacking any natural talent at the keyboard himself, he felt obligated to seek advice from the pianist Nikolai Rubinstein, who had hired him to teach at his newly established Moscow Conservatory in 1865. What followed was one of the most sensational confrontations in all of music history.

Only a few days after finishing the first draft, Tchaikovsky played for both Rubinstein and his friend, Nikolai Hubert. Recounting the incident to his patroness, Nadezhda von Meck, in a letter some years later, Tchaikovsky described Rubinstein’s frigid silence and Hubert’s obvious discomfort: “Not a single word, not a single remark! If you knew how stupid and intolerable is the situation of a man who cooks and sets before a friend a meal, which he proceeds to eat in silence!” Rubinstein, finally, could not restrain himself, and was (at least according to Tchaikovsky’s recollection) unrelenting: “It turned out that my concerto was worthless and unplayable; passages were so fragmented, so clumsy, so badly written that they were beyond rescue; the work itself was bad, vulgar … if within a limited time I reworked the concerto according to his demands, then he would do me the honor of playing it … ‘I shall not alter a single note,’ I answered. ‘I shall publish the work exactly as it is!’”

Disturbed by the whole ordeal, Tchaikovsky completed the orchestration without revising any aspect of the score before turning to the German pianist Hans von Bülow, who agreed to perform the concerto as part of his tour of the United States the following autumn. This probably appealed to Tchaikovsky, who would have likely withered had he been anywhere near the premiere had it gone poorly, which, to some extent, it did: the composer George Whitefield Chadwick, who attended the performance, later wrote that the orchestra “had not rehearsed much, and the trombones got in wrong in the ‘tutti’ in the middle of the first movement, whereupon Bülow sang out in a perfectly audible voice, ‘The brass may go to hell.’”

To Tchaikovsky’s bewilderment, the performance was nonetheless so successful that the audience demanded Bülow repeat the final movement, and the piece has remained one of Tchaikovsky’s most popular compositions since. Even Rubinstein himself eventually changed his tune, playing it and advocating for it throughout his career; thankfully, none of his sweeping criticisms made their way into Tchaikovsky’s subsequent revisions. The very points Rubinstein had taken to task — the glorious entrance of the orchestra in the “wrong” key of D-flat major with a theme that never returns, the structural irregularities, and the virtuoso impossibilities that strike fear into the hearts of pianists everywhere — have never failed to excite wonder among listeners, making for some of the most gripping and utterly compelling music in the repertoire.

Cantus

Exceptional chamber music performances in Milwaukee since 1963!

1946-2026

FINE ARTS QUARTET

May 17 · 19 · 21 · 26 · 28 · 31 | returning July 12

Renowned violinists, Ralph Evans and Efim Boico, have performed with the Quartet for over 40 years. Joined in 2018 by two eminent musicians, violist Gil Sharon (founder of the Amati Ensemble) and cellist Niklas Schmidt (co-founder of Trio Fontenay), they will perform an ambitious program in May of twelve masterworks revealing the Fine Arts Quartet’s classical music legacy.

the newly released 80 th anniversary virtual album20 years of Naxos CDs

HADELICH & BRAHMS

Friday, March 6, 2026 at 11:15 am

Saturday, March 7, 2026 at 7:30 pm

ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL

Ken-David Masur, conductor

Augustin Hadelich, violin

JOHANNES BRAHMS

Symphony No. 3 in F major, Opus 90

I. Allegro con brio

II. Andante

III. Poco allegretto

IV. Allegro – Un poco sostenuto

INTERMISSION

DETLEV GLANERT

Vexierbild. Kontrafaktur mit Brahms

[“Hidden Image: Contrafactum with Brahms”]

FELIX MENDELSSOHN

Violin Concerto in E minor, Opus 64

I. Allegro molto appassionato

II. Andante

III. Allegretto non troppo – Allegro molto vivace

Augustin Hadelich, violin

The 2025.26 Classics Series is presented by the UNITED PERFORMING ARTS FUND and ROCKWELL AUTOMATION. Additional support for Hadelich & Brahms provided by the SCHOENLEBER FOUNDATION.

The length of this concert is approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes.

The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra can be heard on the Naxos, Telarc, Koss Classics, ProArte, AVIE, and Vox/ Turnabout labels. MSO Classics recordings are available for digital streaming and download on Spotify, Apple Music, and more.

Guest Artist Biographies

AUGUSTIN HADELICH

Augustin Hadelich is one of the great violinists of our time. Known for his phenomenal technique, insightful and persuasive interpretations, and ravishing tone, he appears extensively on the world’s foremost concert stages. Hadelich has performed with all of the major American orchestras, as well as the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, and many other eminent ensembles.

In the 2025-26 season, Hadelich will be the artist in residence with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, where he will be featured in concerto, chamber music, and solo violin recital appearances. He will also appear with The Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, New World Symphony, and the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa. In April 2026, he will be in residence at the Tongyeong International Music Festival in South Korea. Recitals take him to New York, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, Warsaw, Copenhagen, Graz, Heidelberg, Cremona, and Taipei.

Hadelich’s discography reflects his stylistic versatility and encompasses much of the violin repertoire. In 2016, he received a Grammy Award for his recording of Dutilleux’s violin concerto L’arbre des songes with the Seattle Symphony and Ludovic Morlot. A Warner Classics artist, his most recent album, American Road Trip, a journey through the landscape of American music with pianist Orion Weiss, was released in August 2024 and was awarded an Opus Klassik in 2025 for Chamber Music Recording of the Year. Other albums for Warner Classics include Paganini’s 24 caprices (2018), the Brahms and Ligeti violin concerti (2019), the Grammy-nominated Bohemian Tales, which includes the Dvořák violin concerto with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Jakub Hrůša (2020), the Grammy-nominated recording of Bach’s complete sonatas and partitas (2021), and Recuerdos, a Spain-themed album featuring works by Sarasate, Tarrega, Prokofiev, and Britten (2022).

Hadelich, a dual American-German citizen born in Italy to German parents, rose to fame when he won the Gold Medal at the 2006 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. Further distinctions followed, including an Avery Fisher Career Grant (2009), the U.K.’s Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship (2011), and an honorary doctorate from the University of Exeter in the U.K. (2017). In 2018, he was named “Instrumentalist of the Year” by Musical America. Hadelich holds an artist diploma from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Joel Smirnoff, and in 2021, he was appointed to the violin faculty at the Yale School of Music. He plays the “Leduc, ex-Szeryng” violin built by Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù in 1744 on loan from the Tarisio Trust.

More information on Augustin Hadelich can be found at augustinhadelich.com.

Management for Augustin Hadelich: KD SCHMID, New York, NY | kdschmid.com

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Program notes by David Jensen

JOHANNES BRAHMS

Born 7 May 1833; Hamburg, Germany

Died 3 April 1897; Vienna, Austria

Symphony No. 3 in F major, Opus 90

Composed: Summer 1883

First performance: 2 December 1883; Han Richter, conductor; Vienna Philharmonic

Last MSO performance: 27 September 2016; Yaniv Dinur, conductor

Instrumentation: 2 flutes; 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; contrabassoon; 4 horns; 2 trumpets; 3 trombones; timpani; strings

Approximate duration: 33 minutes

After agonizing over his first symphony for decades — how was any German to carry on with the tradition in Beethoven’s wake, after all? — Johannes Brahms’s second, third, and fourth flowed from his pen with a swiftness and self-assurance previously unknown to the composer. Throughout the 1870s, he had been hailed as the scion of serious music in the West, amassing honorary degrees, accolades, and critical admiration and simultaneously derided as an antediluvian conservative by the famously intractable Richard Wagner, with whom he would suffer an especially disagreeable and complicated relationship. What is undeniable, regardless of one’s philosophical or aesthetic leanings, is that the large-scale compositions Brahms authored at the peak of his career constitute some of the most sumptuous and rigorously crafted masterworks in the canon.

As the story goes, the third symphony came to Brahms in a flash. It was during a trip to the Rhine in 1883 that the various ideas which he had been working out internally rushed to the surface of his mind: he rented an apartment near the spa town of Wiesbaden, where the entirety of it emerged in one uninterrupted blaze of inspiration over the course of that summer, which puts into perspective the extent of Brahms’s intellectual gifts. By October, Brahms had returned to Vienna, where he played the first and final movements for his friend, the Czech composer Antonín Dvořák, who was effusive in his praise when writing to their publisher, Fritz Simrock: “I say without exaggerating that this work surpasses his first two symphonies; if not, perhaps, in grandeur and powerful conception, then certainly in beauty.”

It is an opinion which has been echoed by virtually everyone since. The German composer Heinz Becker described Brahms, who was inclined to operate within the fixed patterns perfected by his predecessors, “more as a renovator of tradition than as a reactionary symphonist,” emphasizing his stylistic conservatism and formal stringency, but the third’s electrifying rhythmic flexibility and metric sophistication, coupled with its alluring thematic material, renders its majesty immediately apparent. Rejecting the exotic instrumental effects that had begun to permeate the orchestral writing of his peers, he found new means of eliciting specific colors from the orchestra while favoring the inner voices of his harmonies. In each of his first three symphonies, two colossal outer movements surround two shorter, understated sections in the center — here, for example, a darkly hued waltz takes the place of the typical third-movement scherzo.

While other historians have identified musical allusions to the “Siren’s chorus” from Wagner’s Tannhäuser and Robert Schumann’s “Rhenish” symphony (both of which were almost certainly at the fore of Brahms’s imagination, given his proximity to the river during its creation), it is the inclusion of a particular three-note motto which imbues the third with much of its distinct

character. The sequence F-A♭-F heard in the introductory brass fanfare, with its flattened third scale degree, allows the music to move fluently between F major and minor, but on the level of autobiography, the acronym represents Brahms’s personal creed as a lifelong bachelor in pursuit of artistic excellence, frei aber froh: “free but happy.”

Han Richter, who conducted the premiere, hailed it as Brahms’s own “Eroica,” while the Austrian music critic Eduard Hanslick, who had made his career waxing poetic about the musical developments taking place across Europe in that wonderfully melodramatic age, chose the third as his favorite of Brahms’s four: “Many music lovers will prefer the titanic force of the first symphony; others, the untroubled charm of the second, but the third strikes me as being artistically the most nearly perfect.”

DETLEV GLANERT

Born 6 September 1960; Hamburg, Germany

Vexierbild. Kontrafaktur mit Brahms

[“Hidden Image: Contrafactum with Brahms”]

Composed: 2023

First performance: 28 June 2024; Donald Runnicles, conductor; Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra

Last MSO performance: MSO Premiere

Instrumentation: 2 flutes; 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; contrabassoon; 4 horns; 2 trumpets; 2 trombones; bass trombone; timpani; strings

Approximate duration: 12 minutes

Reprinted by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes.

The work is a companion piece to Brahms’s Symphony No. 3. Brahms has long been a major source of inspiration for Glanert. Vexierbild is the latest in a series of companion pieces to Brahms’s four symphonies, following the Brahms-Fantasie (2011-12), Weites Land [“Open Land”] (2013), and Idyllium (2018-19), which were written as companion pieces to the first, fourth, and second symphonies respectively. Vexierbild, or “Hidden Image,” depicts the mystery surrounding Brahms’s Symphony No. 3. Glanert states, “It came out of nowhere; nobody has any information about when he started it or was even thinking about it.” The subtitle “Contrafactum with Brahms” references the creation of new music from old. While heavily influenced by Brahms, Glanert avoids direct quotations in his work, instead focusing on Brahmsian gestures, figures, motifs, and structural qualities. Glanert’s inspiration is drawn from Brahms’s “ideas and his inner material, but it’s my own Brahms,” he states.

FELIX MENDELSSOHN

Born 3 February 1809; Hamburg, Germany

Died 4 November 1847; Leipzig, Germany

Violin Concerto in E minor, Opus 64

Composed: Summer 1838 – 16 September 1844

First performance: 13 March 1845; Niels Gade, conductor; Ferdinand David, violin; Gewandhaus Orchestra

Last MSO performance: 25 February 2024; Christian Reif, conductor; Randall Goosby, violin

Instrumentation: 2 flutes; 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 2 horns; 2 trumpets; timpani; strings

Approximate duration: 26 minutes

“The Germans have four violin concertos,” remarked the violin virtuoso Joseph Joachim, who had participated in practically every important musical event of the 19th century, at his 75th birthday party. “The greatest, most uncompromising is Beethoven’s. The one by Brahms vies with it in seriousness. The richest, the most seductive, was written by Max Bruch. But the most inward, the heart’s jewel, is Mendelssohn’s.”

Joachim had every reason to think highly of Mendelssohn. The Hungarian fiddler had done a great deal to establish the concerto’s popularity, having played it some 200 times in his long career, including his first performance of the work as a child prodigy under Mendelssohn’s own baton. In the spring of 1843, at just 11 years old, Joachim had relocated to Leipzig to attend the composer’s newly founded conservatory, and it was Mendelssohn who took the boy on as his protégé and helped to launch him to international stardom by recommending him to his concertpromoting contacts in London. The careful cultivation of Joachim’s gifts was entrusted to the violinist Ferdinand David, one of Mendelssohn’s closest childhood friends and the central figure of the concerto’s genesis.

It was in the summer of 1838, only three years after assuming his position at the head of Leipzig’s Gewandhaus Orchestra (where he had promptly appointed David concertmaster) that Mendelssohn wrote to him with a business proposition: “I should also like to write a violin concerto for you next winter. One in E minor runs in my head, the beginning of which gives me no peace.” The two had played chamber music together as teenagers and were even born in the same house a year apart, and while it took Mendelssohn another six years to complete the score, it was his ongoing correspondence with David, often regarding the slightest details of the music’s realization, which marked the beginning of a tradition that saw composers collaborating with their soloists to a degree previously unknown.

The word “exquisite” appears frequently in descriptions of Mendelssohn’s music, and nowhere in his literature is this aspect of his genius more evident. As an artist, his principal preoccupation — and the problem to which he so brilliantly provided his own distinct solution — was how to adapt the musical ideals of restraint, symmetry, and simplicity his generation had inherited to the richly constructed, fantastically emotive inclinations of his own Romantic age. His ability to flawlessly articulate his ideas by meticulously shaping their melodic contours, infusing them with rhythmic vitality, and framing them against luxuriously contrapuntal harmonizations set him apart from his contemporaries as one of the true masters of the musical arts.

Several features distinguish the concerto as both the pinnacle of Mendelssohn’s stylistic development and an especially innovative example of the concertante tradition: unlike the Mozartian model that had dominated the genre for decades, which required an extensive orchestral exposition, the soloist enters at the very outset with an impassioned immediacy, introducing the fervent first theme and launching into a rapid-fire series of triplets, arpeggios, and

octaves. The drama gives way to a hushed, delicately fashioned second theme, which becomes intertwined with the first as the music develops. Rather than allowing his violinist to improvise at the very end of the movement, as was the custom of his day, Mendelssohn inserted his own written-out cadenza in the center, subverting his audience’s expectations without disturbing the music’s natural flow.

As extraordinary for its time is the unbroken transition into the lyrical heart of the concerto by means of a pedal point in the bassoon, its sustained B♮ serving as a leading tone which resolves upward into a tranquil wash of sound. A turbulent episode, during which the soloist provides their own accompaniment on one string while playing the melody on another, provides contrast in the middle, and without pause, Mendelssohn launches into the finale with connective material that recalls the opening of the concerto. He wastes no time in putting his fiddler to task, and as the music whirls and sparkles with every manner of firework and fanfare, one thinks at last of Mendelssohn’s own offhanded reflection in that first letter to David: “I feel that in every fresh piece I succeed better in learning to write exactly what is in my heart, and after all, that is the only right rule I know.”

“Living at Saint John’s enables us to continue our passion for music which we love to share with our fellow SJOL Neighbors and Friends.”

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BACH’S ST. MATTHEW PASSION

Friday, March 20, 2026 at 7:30pm

Saturday, March 21, 2026 at 7:30pm

ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL

Ken-David Masur, conductor

Patrick Grahl, Evangelist, tenor

Tobias Berndt, Jesus, bass

Celena Shafer, soprano

Clara Osowski, mezzo-soprano

Sidney Outlaw, Pilatus, bass-baritone

Matthew Hunt, Petrus, bass

Matthew Seider, Judas, bass

Darwin J. Sanders, Pontifex I, bass

Joseph Thiel, Pontifex II, bass

Emily Bergeron, Testis I, alto

Madison Bolt, Testis II, tenor

Hannah Sheppard, Ancilla I, soprano

Kaleigh Kozak-Lichtman, Ancilla II, alto

Bridget Sampson, Uxor Pilati, soprano

Milwaukee Symphony Chorus

Cheryl Frazes Hill, director

Milwaukee Children’s Choir

John Bragle, director

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

Matthäuspassion [“St. Matthew Passion”], BWV 244 PART I

The 2025.26 Classics Series is presented by the UNITED PERFORMING ARTS FUND and ROCKWELL AUTOMATION. Additional support for Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and Bach Week provided by the WE ENERGIES FOUNDATION.

The length of this concert is approximately 3 hours and 10 minutes.

The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra can be heard on the Naxos, Telarc, Koss Classics, ProArte, AVIE, and Vox/ Turnabout labels. MSO Classics recordings are available for digital streaming and download on Spotify, Apple Music, and more.

Guest Artist Biographies

PATRICK GRAHL

Patrick Grahl began his musical career as a member of Leipzig’s Thomanerchor under Georg Christoph Biller. He studied at the University of Music and Theater “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy” in Leipzig with Berthold Schmid, graduating with distinction, and furthered his studies in master classes with Peter Schreier, Gotthold Schwarz, Gerd Türk, Ileana Cotrubas, and Karl-Peter Kammerlander. On the opera stage, he has appeared as Don Ottavio in Mozart’s Don Giovanni at Teatro La Fenice in Venice, as Jaquino in Beethoven’s Fidelio with the Insula Orchestra under Laurence Equilbey, and in productions in Lyon, Helsinki, Budapest, and at the Marvão Festival.

Since winning first prize at the 2016 International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition, he has become a sought-after soloist, performing with leading ensembles such as the Gewandhaus Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Dresden, NDR Radiophilharmonie, Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, RAI National Symphony Orchestra, and the London Symphony Orchestra. Highlights of Grahl’s 2025-26 season include major works by Bach, Haydn’s The Seasons, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Mozart’s Requiem, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri, and performances at the Vienna Konzerthaus and Elbphilharmonie.

SIDNEY OUTLAW

Baritone Sidney Outlaw has been described by The Washington Post as a “generous and expressive singer,” The New York Times as a “terrific singer” with a “deep, rich timbre,” and an internationally acclaimed vocalist for his “weighty and forthright” singing (San Francisco Chronicle). Since winning the Concurso International de Canto Montserrat Caballé in 2010, he has performed widely in the U.S. and abroad.

In the 2024-25 season, Outlaw performed recitals with pianist Warren Jones at the Brooklyn Art Song Society and The Manhattan School of Music. He debuted with the California Symphony, singing Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, and with the Bozeman Symphony, singing Mozart’s Requiem. He also returned to the Jacksonville Symphony for Handel’s Messiah. On the operatic stage, he reprised his roles as Figaro in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni with Pensacola Opera and Opera Philadelphia.

This year, Outlaw released his album, Black Pierrot, featuring music by William Grant Still and the world premiere of Dr. B.E. Boykin’s 26 Ways of Looking at a Black Man, commissioned by the Merola Opera Program, which set text by poet Raymond Patterson and was recently nominated for a Grammy Award. His 2022 debut album, Lament, and 2024 EP of Brahms’s Zwei Gesänge were also released by Lexicon Classics. Outlaw’s recent highlights include performances with Boston Baroque, the Chattanooga Symphony, Toledo Opera, and National Symphony Orchestra, as well as appearances at Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall. Outlaw currently holds faculty positions at the Manhattan School of Music, Columbia University’s Teachers College, and the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College.

Guest Artist Biographies

CELENA SHAFER

Since her breakthrough debut, Celena Shafer has garnered acclaim for her silvery voice, fearlessly committed acting, and phenomenal technique. She spends much of her time on the concert stage working with the leading conductors and orchestras of our time. Since first appearing with the Utah Symphony and Utah Opera as a high school student, Shafer has performed several operatic roles there, including Constanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail and Gilda in Rigoletto. Recently, she has sung Beethoven’s ninth symphony, Mahler’s second, fourth, and eighth symphonies, and a “Mighty Five” tour through Utah’s state parks, all led by music director Thierry Fischer.

Shafer’s operatic highlights have included appearances as Johanna in Sweeney Todd for the Lyric Opera of Chicago and Nanetta in Falstaff with the Los Angeles Opera, both with Bryn Terfel, Aithra in Die ägyptische Helena with the American Symphony Orchestra, recorded for Telarc, Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos at the Concertgebouw, and Gilda in Rigoletto with the Welsh National Opera. She has returned to the Santa Fe Opera for productions of Mozart’s Lucio Silla, Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict, and Britten’s Albert Herring. Shafer completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Utah and received a master’s degree from the University of MissouriKansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance.

CLARA OSOWSKI

In the 2025-26 season, mezzo-soprano Clara Osowski appears with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra under Ken-David Masur in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and with the Delaware Symphony Orchestra for “Holidays at the Hotel.” She joins the Bach Society of Minnesota for Vivaldi’s cantatas and arias, the Bach Society of Saint Louis for Mozart’s Requiem, and returns to the Schubert Club for both a “Courtroom Concert” and a U.K. recital tour. Additional engagements include Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the Seattle Bach Festival and songs by Lili Boulanger with the University of Washington Orchestra.

Recent highlights include collaborations with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra for songs by Charles Ives and Handel’s Messiah, the Rochester Philharmonic for Mozart’s Requiem, the South Dakota Symphony for Mozart’s Mass in C minor and Requiem, as well as Arvo Pärt’s Stabat Mater, the Kansas City Symphony for Handel’s Messiah, and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra for Mozart’s Requiem and Mendelssohn’s Elijah. She made her London debut at Wigmore Hall, appeared with Chicago’s Music of the Baroque in Handel’s Jephtha (also released on recording) and Bach’s St. John Passion, and performed Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Delaware Symphony Orchestra. A frequent collaborator with the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Osowski has sung Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 and Dominick Argento’s Casa Guidi and A Few Words About Chekhov

Guest Artist Biographies

TOBIAS BERNDT

Tobias Berndt began his musical training with the Dresden Choir of the Church of the Holy Cross. He studied with Hermann Christian Polster at the University of Music and Theater “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy” in Leipzig and continued his training with Rudolf Piernay at the Mannheim University of Music and Performing Arts, as well as participating in master classes with Theo Adam, Wolfram Rieger, Norman Shetler, Irwin Gage, Axel Bauni, Julia Varady, and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.

Berndt was a prizewinner at the National Song Contest in Berlin, the International Art Song Competition at the Hugo Wolf Academy in Stuttgart, the International Summer Academy of the Mozarteum in Salzburg, and the Franz Schubert and Modern Music Competition in Graz. His most recent accolades include a first prize at the International Johannes Brahms Competition in Pörtschach and at the Cantilena Song Competition in Bayreuth, as well as winning the “Das Lied” International Song Competition established by Thomas Quasthoff in Berlin. Career highlights have included concerts with L’arpe festante, The English Concert, the Gewandhaus Orchestra, Thomanerchor, Saxony Vocal Ensemble, and MDR Radio Choir. He has sung under renowned conductors such as Peter Schreier, Helmuth Rilling, Howard Arman, Ludwig Güttler, Gewandhaus organist Michael Schönheit, and Andreas Spering.

MILWAUKEE CHILDREN’S CHOIR

The Milwaukee Children’s Choir is Southeastern Wisconsin’s premier youth choir. The MCC provides young singers an opportunity to learn, grow, and perform with peers from around the greater Milwaukee area. With a focus on performance of a wide breadth of repertoire and led by an outstanding team of music educators, MCC members gain experience and skills in a supportive yet rigorous environment. Recently, they have collaborated with some of Milwaukee’s most notable arts organizations, including the Florentine Opera and Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.

The Milwaukee Children’s Choir was founded in 1994 by Emily Crocker and became a program of the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music in 2024 to ensure its financial stability and legacy of programmatic excellence. The conservatory’s mission is to make exceptional music education accessible to all, and it is proud to have supported growth in enrollment, expanded the number and locations of MCC rehearsal sites, and increased the amount of opportunities for financial aid. To learn more or support this mission, visit wcmusic.org.

Program notes by David Jensen

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

Born 31 March 1685; Eisenach, Germany

Died 28 July 1750; Leipzig, Germany

Matthäuspassion [“St. Matthew Passion”], BWV 244

Composed: 1727; revised 1736, 1742, and 1743 – 1746

First performance: Uncertain; possibly 11 April 1727; St. Thomas Church, Leipzig

Last MSO performance: 27 April 2002; Andreas Delfs, conductor; Virginia Boyer, alto; Christine Brandes, soprano; Paul Busselberg, bass-baritone; Rick Kieffer, bass; Wendelin Lockett, soprano; Stuart Mitchell, tenor; Gigi Mitchell-Velasco, mezzo-soprano; Steve Murphy, bass; Kurt Ollmann, baritone; Stanford Olsen, tenor; Jan Opalach, bass-baritone; Kathleen Sonnentag, alto; Paul Speiser, bass-baritone; James Taylor, tenor; Thomas Weis, baritone; Milwaukee Symphony Chorus (Lee Erickson, director); Milwaukee Children’s Chorus (Emily Holt Crocker, director)

Instrumentation: 4 flutes; 4 oboes (1st and 2nd doubling on oboe d’amore and oboe da caccia, 3rd and 4th doubling on oboe d’amore); 2 bassoons; harpsichord; 2 organs; viola da gamba; strings Approximate duration: 2 hours and 50 minutes

To love something is to suffer, for all things are transient. This inescapable fact of our mortal condition is borne out by the etymological roots of the word passion — in its earliest appearance in Middle English in the 12th century, derived from its Latinate ancestors, the word meant “to suffer” or “to endure.” Put another way, it indicated an experience one was meant to undergo, a turning point on the spiritual path, regardless of one’s personal desires. For centuries, it referred specifically to Christ’s suffering on the cross at the hands of his Roman captors, and by the late Baroque period, musico-dramatic settings of the Biblical account of his crucifixion had become one of the most sophisticated and nuanced vehicles for recounting the last days of his life.

Perhaps no one was more intimately acquainted with the reality of our earthly limitations than Johann Sebastian Bach, a deeply pious man who had lost four of his children in infancy by the time he undertook what would eventually become his lengthiest and most revered masterpiece. Much of the origins of the St. Matthew Passion are shrouded in mystery — Bach left no catalog of his works or their performances, though the modern scholarly consensus is that it was likely premiered at the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, where Bach served as Thomaskantor (or director of music, one of the most distinguished positions in the city’s cultural circles), on Good Friday in 1727 as the high point of its Holy Week services. Records indicate that Bach produced at least five different adaptations of the passion in his career, though only his interpretations of the gospel according to Matthew and John have survived.

The core of the dramatic narrative is derived from chapters 26 and 27 of the Gospel of Matthew, which recounts Christ’s anointment by Mary of Bethany, the last supper, Judas Iscariot’s betrayal, the agony in the garden, and Christ’s trials, crucifixion, and burial. In addition to the language of the Gospel itself, Bach employed the civil servant and poet Christian Friedrich Henrici, who wrote under the nom de plume of “Picander” and had furnished Bach with texts for a variety of cantatas and oratorios since at least 1725, to provide additional commentary and develop the text into a full-scale libretto. Picander provided the language for the arias and recitatives interspersed throughout, as well as the weightier choral movements bookending the whole.

Continued on page 46

Continued from page 45

As for the music itself, Bach’s “great passion” is without question one of his most magnificent accomplishments. Though likely staged by only a handful of instrumentalists and singers in his own day, the performing forces are divided into two choruses and two chamber orchestras, and individual roles representing Jesus, Judas, Peter, Pontius Pilate, and other incidental characters are assigned to soloists whose harrowing reflections on Christ’s persecution drive the music to its tragic conclusion. Considered little more than a standard element of the liturgical proceedings in Bach’s day, the music (and Bach himself) could well have fallen into obscurity had it not been for an ambitious 20-year-old named Felix Mendelssohn, whose staging of the St. Matthew Passion at the Berlin Singakademie in the spring of 1829 inaugurated a revival of interest in the composer’s music which has never waned since.

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WE ARE PROUD TO SUPPORT THE

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Our efforts come in a variety of forms, from financial investments that support economic growth to traditional philanthropy and volunteer hours contributed by our team members. We strive to provide community banking as it should be.

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Simply scan the QR code, give us a call, or mail your gift to secure a future of world-class orchestral experiences for hundreds of thousands of people annually — including 30,000 students and educators — in the city we proudly call home.

Loyal and generous supporters who choose to honor the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra through bequests and planned giving become members of our distinguished Musical Legacy Society.

MLS members not only enjoy the satisfaction of knowing their gift will support the MSO for generations to come, but also receive special insider benefits, including lifetime access to the Wintrust Donor Lounge and invitations to exclusive behindthe-scenes experiences. To learn more about leaving your legacy with the MSO, scan the QR code or

contact our Planned Giving Manager, Julie Jahn, at 414-226-7896 or jahnj@mso.org.

Contact the MSO Advancement Department by phone at 414-226-7833 or by mail

VISIONARIES

Commitments of $1,000,000 and above

Two Anonymous Donors

Jane Bradley Pettit Foundation

Richard Bradley

Charles and Marie Caestecker

Concertmaster Chair

Ellen and Joe Checota

The Cudahy Foundation

Franklyn Esenberg

Herzfeld Foundation

Krause Family Principal Horn Chair

Dr. Keith Austin Larson

Principal Organ Chair

Laskin Family Foundation

Dr. Brent and Susan Martin

Andy Nunemaker French Horn Chair

Phyllis and Harleth Pubanz

Gertrude M. Puelicher Education Fund

Michael and Jeanne Schmitz President and Executive Director Chair

John and Judith Simonitsch Tuba Chair

Stein Family Foundation

Principal Pops Conductor Chair

John Stewig

Polly and Bill Van Dyke

Music Director Chair

James E. Van Ess

Principal Librarian Chair

Thora M. Vervoren

First Associate Concertmaster Chair

The Family of Evonne Winston and Paul Nausieda

PHILANTHROPISTS

Commitments of $500,000 and above

One Anonymous Donor

Donald B. Abert Principal Bass Chair

Mr. Richard Blomquist

Patrice L. (Patti) Bringe

Margaret and Roy Butter

Principal Flute Chair

Bobbi and Jim Caraway

Donald and Judy Christl

Fred Fuller Trumpet Chair

Sandra and William Haack

Douglas M. Hagerman

Mrs. Alyce Coyne Katayma

Andrea and Woodrow Leung Principal Second Violin Chair and Fred Fuller

Dorothea C. Mayer Principal Cello Chair

Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra League Principal Oboe Chair

Northwestern Mutual Foundation

Melitta S. Pick Endowed Piano Chair

Dr. Carol Pohl

Walter L. Robb Family

Principal Trumpet Chair

Robert T. Rolfs Foundation

Gertrude Elser and John Edward Schroeder Guest Artist Fund

Walter Schroeder Foundation

Principal Harp Chair

Muriel C. and John D. Silbar Family

Principal Bassoon Chair

Allison M. & Dale R. Smith

Percussion Fund

Marjorie Tiefenthaler

Principal Trombone Chair

Richard O. and Judith A. Wagner Family

Principal Viola Chair

BENEFACTORS

Commitments of $100,000 and above

Four Anonymous Donors

Patty and Jay Baker Fund for Guest Artists

Mr. and Mrs. Frederick J.O. Blachly

Philip Blank English Horn Chair in memoriam to John Martin and his favorite cousin, Beatrice Blank

Judith and Stanton Bluestone

Estate of Lloyd Broehm

Louise Cattoi, in memory of David and Angela Cattoi

Lynn Chappy Salon Series

Terry J. Dorr

Elizabeth Elser Doolittle Charitable Trusts

Franklyn Esenberg

Principal Clarinet Chair

David L. Harrison Endowment for Music Education

Estate of Sally Hennen

Karen Hung and Robert Coletti

Richard M. Kimball

Bass Trombone Chair

William Randolph Hearst Foundation

Judy and Gary Jorgensen

Judith A. Keyes MSOL Docent Fund

Charles A. Krause

Donald and JoAnne Krause Music

Education Endowment Fund

Martin J. Krebs

Co-Principal Trumpet Chair

Charles and Barbara Lund

Mr. Peter L. Mahler

Marcus Corporation Foundation Guest Artist Fund

Annette Marra

Susan and Brent Martin

Christian and Kate Mitchell

William and Marian Nasgovitz

Estate of Jessica Nienas

John and Elizabeth Ogden

Lois and Richard Pauls

Gordana and Milan Racic

The Erika Richman MSO-MYSO

Reading Workshop Fund

Pat and Allen Rieselbach

Friends of Janet F. Ruggeri

Assistant Principal Viola Chair

Sara and Jay Schwister

Nancy and Greg Smith

Estate of Walter S. Smolenski, Jr.

Bert L. & Patricia S. Steigleder

Charitable Trust

Donald B. and Ruth P. Taylor

Assistant Principal Clarinet Chair

Gile & Linda Tojek

Haruki Toyama

Mrs. William D. Vogel

Barbara and Ted Wiley

Jack Winter Guest Artist Fund

Fern L. Young Endowment Fund for Guest Artists

MUSICAL LEGACY SOCIETY

The Musical Legacy Society recognizes and appreciates the individuals who have made a planned gift to the MSO. The MSO invites you to join these generous donors who have remembered the orchestra in their estate plans.

Nine Anonymous Donors

George R. Affeldt

Dana and Gail Atkins

Robert Balderson

Bruce and Margaret Barr

Adam Bauman

Priscilla and Anthony Beadell

Mr. F. L. Bidinger

Dr. Philip and Beatrice Blank

Mr. Richard Blomquist

Judith and Stanton Bluestone

Patrice L. (Patti) Bringe

Jean S. Britt

Laurette Broehm

Neil Brooks

Anthony and Vicki Cecalupo

Lynn Chappy

Ellen and Joe Checota

Donald and Judy Christl

Mary E. and James M. Connelly

Jo Ann Corrao

Lois Ellen Debbink

Mary Ann Delzer

Robert C. and Lois K. Dittus

Julie Doneis

Terry J. Dorr

Donn Dresselhuys

Beth and Ted Durant

Rosemarie Eierman

Franklyn Esenberg

JoAnn Falletta

Donald L. Feinsilver, M.D.

Susie and Robert Fono

Ruth and John Fredericks

Brett Goodman

Roberta Gordon

Marta P. and Doyne M. Haas

Douglas M. Hagerman

Ms. Jean I. Hamann

Ms. Sybille Hamilton

Kristin A. Hansen

David L. Harrison

Judy Harrison

Cheryl H. and Roy L. Hauswirth

Cliff Heise

Sidney and Suzanne Herszenson

Dr. and Mrs. Samuel Hoke

Glenda Holm

Jean and Charles Holmburg

Karen Hung and Robert Coletti

Myra Huth

William and Janet Isbister

Lee and Barbara Jacobi

Musical Legacy Society/Annual Fund

Leon and Betsy Janssen

Marilyn W. John

Faith L. Johnson

Jayne J. Jordan

Judy and Gary Jorgensen

Debra Jupka

James A. and Robin S. Kasch

Howard Kaspin

James H. Keyes

Judith A. Keyes

Richard and Sarah Kimball

Mary Krall

JoAnne and Donald Krause

Martin J. and Alice Krebs

Ronald and Vicki Krizek

Cynthia Krueger-Prost

Alice Kuramoto

Steven E. Landfried

Mr. Bruce R. Laning

Victor Larson

Tom and Lise Lawson

Andrea and Woodrow Leung

Mr. Robert D. Lidicker

Mr. and Mrs. John B. Liebenstein

Drs. John and Theresa Liu

Mr. Peter L. Mahler

Dr. John and Kristie Malone

Steven and Mary Rose Marinkovich

Ms. Kathleen Marquardt

Susan and Brent Martin

JoAnne Matchette

Rita T. and James C. McDonald

Patricia and James McGavock

Nancy McGiveran

Mark and Donna Metzendorf

Mrs. Christel U. Mildenberg

Dr. Mary Ellen Mitchanis

Christian and Kate Mitchell

Joan Moeller

Ms. Melodi Muehlbauer

Robert Mulcahy

Kathleen M. Murphy

William and Marian Nasgovitz

Andy Nunemaker

Diana and Gerald Ogren

Lynn and Lawrence Olsen

Mr. and Mrs. Philip W. Orth

Lygere Panagopoulos

Deborah Patel

Gerald T. and Carol K. Petersen

Mr. and Mrs. Ronald R. Poe

Dr. Carol Pohl

Julie Quinlan Brame and Jason Brame

Ms. Harvian Raasch-Hooten

Christine Radiske and Herbert Quigley

Steve and Susan Ragatz

Catherine A. Regner

Stephen and Frances Richman

Pat and David Rierson

Pat and Allen Rieselbach

Roger B. Ruggeri and Andrea K. Wagoner

Nina Sarenac

Mary B. Schley in recognition of David L. Schley

Michael J. and Jeanne E. Schmitz

James and Kathleen Scholler

Charitable Fund

James Schultz and Donna Menzer

Mason Sherwood and Mark Franke

John and Judith Simonitsch

Margles Singleton

Lois Bernard and William Small

Dale and Allison Smith

John Stewig and Richard Bradley

Dr. Robert A. and Kathleen Sullo

Terry Burko and David Taggart

Lois Tetzlaff

Gile and Linda Tojek

E. Charlotte Theis

James E. Van Ess

Thora Vervoren

Dr. Richard O. and Judith A. Wagner

Veronica Wallace-Kraemer

Michael Walton

Brian A. Warnecke

Earl Wasserman

Alice Weiss

Carol and James Wiensch

Janet Wilgus

Rolland and Sharon Wilson

Floyd Woldt

Sandra and Ross Workman

For more information on becoming a member of the Musical Legacy Society, please contact the Advancement Office at 414-226-7896.

ANNUAL FUND

The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra truly values the music lovers in the concert hall, and we thank our contributors to the Annual Fund for investing their time and support in this treasure. We gratefully acknowledge their contributions to the Annual Fund as of January 19, 2025.

CONDUCTOR CIRCLE

$100,000 and above

Ellen and Joe Checota

Mrs. George C. Kaiser

Donald and JoAnne Krause

Marty Krebs

Sheldon and Marianne Lubar Charitable Fund of the Lubar Family Foundation

Dr. Brent and Susan Martin

Michael Schmitz

Julia and David Uihlein

$50,000 and above

One Anonymous Donor

Laura and Mike Arnow

Anthony and Vicki Cecalupo

$25,000 and above

Bobbi and Jim Caraway

Mr. Franklyn Esenberg

Doug Hagerman

Mrs. Alyce Coyne Katayama

Judith A. Keyes

Robert and Gail Korb

Maureen McCabe

Dr. Carol Pohl

Nancy and Greg Smith

Drs. George and Christine Sosnovsky

Charitable Trust

Drs. Robert Taylor and Janice

McFarland Taylor

Thora Vervoren

$15,000 and above

Two Anonymous Donors

Richard Bradley

Marilyn and John Breidster

Elaine Burke

Mary and James Connelly

Dr. Deborah and Jeff Costakos

Mary Lou M. Findley

The Paul & Connie Flagg Family

Charitable Fund

George E. Forish, Jr.

Kim and Nancy Graff

Drs. Carla and Robert Hay

Jewish Community Foundation

Eileen and Howard Dubner Donor Advised Fund

Christine Krueger

Charles and Barbara Lund

Dr. Ann H. and Mr. Michael J. McDonald

Brian and Lesli McLinden

Teresa and Mike Mogensen

Lois and Richard Pauls

Pat Rieselbach

Sara and Jay Schwister

John and Judith Simonitsch

Allison M. and Dale R. Smith

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas R. Tiffany

Haruki Toyama

Mark Van Hecke

Alice Weiss

Herbert Zien and Elizabeth Levins

$10,000 and above

Four Anonymous Donors

Dr. Rita Bakalars

Robert Balderson

Joanne Doehler

Jack Douthitt and Michelle Zimmer

Bruce T. Faure M.D.

Mrs. Susan G. Gebhardt

Elizabeth and William Genne

Judith J. Goetz

Stephanie and Steve Hancock

Katherine Hauser

Mr. and Mrs. Eric E. Hobbs

Dr. and Mrs. Samuel Hoke

Judy and Gary Jorgensen

Dr. Joseph E. and Jane C. Kerschner

Geraldine Lash

Mr. Peter L. Mahler

Mark and Donna Metzendorf

Dr. Mary Ellen Mitchanis

Patrick and Mary Murphy

Elaine Harmand Pagedas

Julie Peay

Leslie and Aaron Plamann

Lynn and Craig Schmutzer

Tracy S. Wang, MD

Evonne Winston

Diana J. Wood

PRINCIPAL CIRCLE

$5,000 and above

Six Anonymous Donors

Fred and Kay Austermann

Thomas Bagwell and Michelle Hiebert

Natalie Beckwith

Lois Bernard

Richard and Kay Bibler

Dr. Sherry H. Blumberg

William and Barbara Boles

Marcia P. Brooks and Edward J. Hammond

Roger Byhardt

Ms. Trish Calvy

Ara and Valerie Cherchian

Donald and Judy Christl

Sandra and Russell Dagon

Paul Dekker

Mrs. William T. Dicus

Karen Dobbs and Chris DeNardis

Jacquelyn and Dalibor Drummer

Beth and Ted Durant

Dr. Eric Durant and Scott Swickard

Dr. and Mrs. Harry A. Easom

Elizabeth and Herodotos Ellinas

Dr. Donald Feinsilver and JoAnn Corrao

Stan and Janet Fox

Alison Graf and Richard Schreiner

James and Crystal Hegge

Ms. Mary E. Henke

Mark and Judy Hibbard

Peg and Mark Humphrey

James and Karen Hyde

Lee and Barbara Jacobi

Jayne J. Jordan

Lynn and Tom Kassouf

Kathryn Koenen Potos

Benedict and Lee Kordus

Charmaine and James LaBelle

Mary E. Lacy

Drs. Kaye and Prakash Laud

Dr. Joseph and Amy Leung

Peter and Kathleen Lillegren

Gerald and Elaine Mainman

Sara and Nathan Manning

John and Linda Mellowes

Judith Fitzgerald Miller

Barbara and Layton Olsen

Brian and Maura Packham

Ellen Rohwer Pappas and Timothy Pappas

Sharon L. Petrie

Dr. and Mrs. Richard A. Pierce-Ruhland

Jim and Fran Proulx

Christine Radiske and Herbert Quigley

Jerome Randall and Mary Hauser

Dr. Donna Recht and Dr. Robert Newby

Steve and Fran Richman

Roger Ritzow

Mary Roberts

Gayle G. Rosemann and Paul E. McElwee

Patricia and Ronald Santilli

Mr. Daniel J. Schicker

Carlton Stansbury

Richard and Linda Stevens

Jim Strey

Kathleen Thometz

Janet Wilgus

Jessica R. Wirth

$3,500 and above

One Anonymous Donor

Jacqlynn Behnke

Marlene and Bert Bilsky

David and Diane Buck

Daniel and Allison Byrne

Chris and Katie Callen

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas F. Christie

Mr. and Mrs. A. William Finke

Barbara Gill

Kurt and Rosemary Glaisner

Margarete and David Harvey

Barbara Hunt

David and Mel Johnson

Olof Jonsdottir and Thorsteinn Skulason

Megumi Kanda Hemann and Dietrich Hemann

Stanley Kritzik

Norm and Judy Lasca

Micaela Levine and Thomas St. John

Tom Lindow

Lynn Marzinski

Ann Rosenthal and Benson Massey

Dr. and Mrs. Debesh Mazumdar

Donald Petersen and Corinthia Van Orsdol

Mrs. David Y. Rosenzweig

Dottie Rotter

Judy and Tom Schmid

James Schultz and Donna Menzer

Joan and Kevin Schultz

Vickie Shufton

Sue and Boo Smith

Pamela and John Stampen

James and Catherine Startt

Jim Ward

Mr. and Mrs. Donald S. Wilson

Jim and Sandy Wrangell

Carol and Richard Wythes

Marshall Zarem

Sandra Zingler

Leo Zoeller

ORCHESTRA CIRCLE

$2,000 and above

Two Anonymous Donors

Drs. Helmut and Sandra Ammon

Richard and Sara Aster

Mr. Jack Beatty

Elliot and Karen Berman

Karen and Geoffrey Bilda

Cheri and Tom Briscoe

Mike and Ericka Burzynski

Edith Christian

Lynda and Tom Curl

Larry and Eileen Dean

Ms. Nancy A. Desjardins

Art and Rhonda Downey

Steven and Buffy Duback

Signe and Gerald Emmerich, Jr.

Ms. Shirley Erwin

Kristin Fewel

Pearl Mary Goetsch

Ginny Hall

Robert S. Jakubiak

Leon Janssen

Ms. Lynda Johnson

Maja Jurisic and Don Fraker

Dr. Bruce and Anna Kaufman

Dr. Jack and Myrna Kaufman

Mr. Rick Kirby

Julilly Kohler

Maritza and Mario Laguna

Mr. and Mrs. Mark Levy

Bruce Loder

Kathleen Lovelace

Guy and Mary Jo McDonald

Mrs. Debra L. Metz

George and Salie Meyer

Steve and Ellie Miller

Gregory and Susan Milleville

Mark and Carol Mitchell

Christine Mortensen

Ms. Mary Ann Mueller

Laurie Ocepek

Susan M. Otto

Dr. and Mrs. James T. Paloucek

Anthony Perella

Raymond and Janice Perry

Gerald T. and Carol K. Petersen

David J. Petersen

Donald A. Pollack and Adrienne Pollack-Sender Family

Charitable Trust

Katie Quirk

Susan A. Riedel

Mr. Thomas Schneider

Elaine and Martin Schreiber

Mr. and Mrs. Mark W. Schwallie

Paul Seifert

Mrs. George R. Slater

Dr. and Mrs. Squat-Botley

Loretto and Dick Steinmetz

Jeff and Jody Steren

Terry Burko and David Taggart

Joan Thompson

Mr. Stephen Thompson

Gile and Linda Tojek

Joan and David Totten

Mike Uihlein

Mr. and Mrs. Lynn F. Unkefer

James Van Ess

Robert and Lana Wiese

Lee and Carol Wolcott

Mr. Wilfred Wollner

$1,000 and above

Four Anonymous Donors

Ruth Agrusa

Sue and Louie Andrew

Mr. and Mrs. James B. Anello

Betty Arndt

Dr. and Mrs. Robert Ashmore

Danielle Baerwald

Paul E. Barkhaus, MD

Steve and Mary Barney

James and Nora Barry

Paul and Paula Bartel

Rodney C. Bartlow and Judith K. Stephenson

Annual Fund/Corporate & Foundation

Mr. James M. Baumgartner

Ms. Christine Beck

Ron and Mary Beckman

David A. Benner and Dianne Benjamin Benner

Richard Bergman

Ken and Kristine Best

Mr. Lawrence Bialcik

Jeff and Elizabeth Billings

Marjorie Bjornstad

Greg Black

Mr. Brian P. Blake

Robert Borch and Linda Wickstrom

Mr. and Mrs. Darold Borree

Art and Jacinda Bouton

James L Brown and Ann Brophy

Michael and Marianna Bruch

Karen and Harry Carlson

Ms. Carol A. Carpenter

Mr. John Chain

Margaret Crosby

Marilou and Bryan Davido

Garrett and Anne de Vroome Kamerling

Gerald and Ellen DeMers

Ms. Kristine L. Demski

Mary Paula Dix

Donald, Kathleen, and Amy Domagalski

Peter Drenzek

Dr. and Mrs. Peter Drescher

Tom Durkin and Joan Robotham

Lori Erickson and John Bell

Mrs. Suzy B. Ettinger

Jill and George Fahr

Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Freitag

Allan and Mary Ellen Froehlich

Drs. Mark and Virginia Gennis

Gerald R. Gensch and Ellen Conley

Jane K. Gertler

Ralph and Cherie Gorenstein

Sarah Gramentine

Mr. and Mrs. James Grigg

Mr. and Mrs. Douglas W. Haag

Ms. Caroline Ham

Lawrence and Tsui-Ching Hammond

Leila and Joe Hanson

Greater Milwaukee Foundation

Dresselhuys Family Fund

Leesley B. and Joan J. Hardy

Jay Kay Foundation Fund

Jean and John Henderson

Dr. Sidney and Suzanne Herszenson

Renee Herzing

Ms. Judy Hessel

Dr. Peter Hinow and Dr. Yuqiang Wei

Mr. Bernard C. Hlavac

Jeanne and Conrad Holling

Richard and Jeanne Hryniewicki

Barbara Hunteman

Suzanne and Michael Hupy

Jerome and Alice Jacobson

Amy Jensen

Faith L. Johnson

Ms. Karen Johnson

Mr. William Johnstone

Stephen Jones

Mr. Stephen Kaniewski

Rose and Dale Kaser

Allan Kasprzak and Trudi Schmitt

Patrick and Jane Keily

Brian and Mary Lou Kennedy

Sarajane and Robert Kennedy

Robert and Dorothy King

Thomas Kelly

Joseph W. Kmoch

Dr. and Mrs. Anthony Krausen

Dr. and Mrs. John Krezoski

Mr. Eric Krismer

Ian and Katherine Lambert

Mr. and Mrs. David Leevan

John and Janice Liebenstein

Matt and Patty Linn

Xia Liu

Neill and Fran Luebke

Ms. Joan Maas

Ann MacIver

Stephen and Judy Maersch

Dr. John and Kristie Malone

Mr. Peter Mamerow

Jeanne and David Mantsch

Mr. Jonathan March

Steven and Mary Rose Marinkovich

Dr. and Mrs. Francisco Martinez

Dr. Daniel and Constance McCarty

Diane Griewank McGinn and Thomas McGinn

Mr. and Mrs. John S. McGregor

Robert E. Meldman and Lila F. Silverberg

Ray and Elaine Meyer

Dr. David Miyama

Rusti and Steve Moffic

Richard and Isabel Muirhead

David and Gail Nelson

Ms. Doris Nice

David Olson and Claire Fritsche

Gladys Omahen

Judith Ormond

Joseph Pabst and John Schellinger

Douglas E. Peterson

Eugene Pocernich

William Prost and Cynthia Krueger-Prost

John and Susan Pustejovsky

Mr. Ed Puzia

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Quadracci

Dr. Francis J. Randall

Myron Re

Drake Reinick

Lysbeth and James Reiskytl

Robin Gerson and Tim Riley

Dan and Anna Robbins

Emily and Mike Robertson

Roger B. Ruggeri and Andrea K. Wagoner

Michael and Mary Ryan

Allen & Millie Salomon

Ms. LindaGale Sampson

Keri Sarajian, Rick Stratton & Family

Dr. Mary Lynn Schneider and Paul Thielhelm

Lawrence and Katherine Schnuck

Mark and Marlene Schrager

Phil Schumacher and Pauline Beck

Bob and Sally Schwarz

Mr. Thomas P. Schweda

Fred and Ruth Schwertfeger

Ronald and Judith Shapiro

Margles Singleton

Reeves Smith

Mr. James Stanke

Ken and Dee Stein

Ms. Bonnie Steindorf

Ann Stevens

Mr. Andrew Stillman

Mr. and Mrs. Roland E. Strampe

Sally Swetnam

Mr. and Mrs. Robert E. Tenges

Tim and Bonnie Tesch

Kent and Marna Tess-Mattner

Winifred Thrall

Mr. and Mrs. James S. Tidey

Katherine Troy

Roy and Sandra Uelner

John Viste and Elaine Strite

Atty. Greg E. Vollan

We Energies Foundation

Ms. Beth L. Weckmueller

Henry Wellner and James Cook

Mr. and Mrs. Jerome T. Welz

Bill and Gwen Werner

Barbara Wesener

David Wesley

Lynn and Richard Wesolek

Bob and Barbara Whealon

A. James White

Linda and Dan Wilhelms

Terry and Carol Wilkins

Rolland and Sharon Wilson

Ron and Alice Winkler

Mrs. Melinda D. Wolf

Mr. Daryl and Mrs. Bonnie Wunrow

Mrs. Sharon S. Ziegler

CORPORATE & FOUNDATION

The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra truly values the generosity of musicloving patrons in the concert hall and throughout the community. We especially thank our Corporate and Foundation contributors for investing their time and support in this treasure. We gratefully acknowledge contributions from:

$1,000,000 and above

United Performing Arts Fund

$250,000 and above

Argosy Foundation

The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation

Laskin Family Foundation

$100,000 and above

Greater Milwaukee Foundation

Dr. John H. and Sara Sue Esser Fund

Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Fund

Herzfeld Foundation

Rockwell Automation

We Energies Foundation

Corporate & Foundation/Matching Gifts/Golden Note Partners/Marquee Circle

$50,000 and above

One Anonymous Donor

Bader Philanthropies, Inc.

Chase Family Foundation

Greater Milwaukee Foundation

Norman and Lucy Cohn Family Fund

Helen and Jeanette Oberndorfer Fund

Melitta S. and Joan M. Pick Charitable Trust

National Endowment for the Arts

$25,000 and above

One Anonymous Donor

Greater Milwaukee Foundation

Gertrude Elser and John Edward Schroeder Fund

JayKay Foundation

Johnson Controls, Inc.

R.D. and Linda Peters Foundation

Schoenleber Foundation, Inc.

Wintrust Financial Corporation

Wisconsin Arts Board

$15,000 and above

A.O. Smith Foundation, Inc.

ATC

Bert L. & Patricia S. Steigleder Charitable Trust

Greater Milwaukee Foundation

David C. Scott Foundation

Krause Family Foundation

U.S. Bank

$10,000 and above

Brico Fund

Ellsworth Corporation

General Mills Foundation

Gladys E. Gores Charitable Foundation

Greater Milwaukee Foundation

David and Marion Meissner Fund

Margaret E. Sheehan Memorial Fund

William A. and Mary M. Bonfield, Jr. Fund

Jane Bradley Pettit Foundation

Komatsu Mining Corp Foundation

Northwestern Mutual

Ralph Evinrude Foundation, Inc.

William and Janice Godfrey

Family Foundation

Wispact Foundation

$5,000 and above

Charles D. Ortgiesen Foundation

Frieda and William Hunt Memorial

Gene and Ruth Posner Foundation, Inc.

Hamparian Family Foundation

Harbeck Family Foundation

Herb Kohl Philanthropies

Joyce Foundation

Julian Family Foundation

Milwaukee Arts Board

Milwaukee County Arts Fund (CAMPAC)

Richard G. Jacobus Family Foundation

Stackner Family Foundation, Inc.

Versiti Blood Research Center

$2,500 and above

Camille A. Lonstorf Trust

Dean Family Foundation

Enterprise Holdings

Gardner Foundation

Greater Milwaukee Foundation

Del Chambers Fund

ELM II Fund

Henry C., Eva M., Robert H. and Jack J. Gillo Charitable Fund

Margaret Heminway Wells Fund

Mildred L. Roehr & Herbert W. Roehr Fund

Pieper Electric, Inc./Ideal Mechanical

PKSD Law

Theodore W. Batterman Family Foundation

Walker Forge, Inc.

$1,000 and above

Albert J. & Flora H. Ellinger Foundation

Anthony Petullo Foundation, Inc.

Barney Family Foundation

Clare M. Peters Charitable Trust

Curt and Sue Culver Family Foundation

Delta Dental of Wisconsin

DeWitt Law Firm

Educators Credit Union

Greater Milwaukee Foundation

Bechthold Family Fund

Carrie Taylor & Nettie Taylor

Robinson Memorial Fund

Cottrell Balding Fund

Eleanor N. Wilson Fund

George and Christine Sosnovsky Fund

George and Joan Hoehn Family Fund

Irene Edelstein Memorial Fund

Gruber Law Offices LLC

Hupy and Abraham, S.C.

Mars Family Foundation

Michael Koss/Koss Foundation

Loyal D. Grinker

SixSibs Foundation

Summit Credit Union

Townsend Foundation

Usinger Foundation

$500 and above

Barney Family Foundation

Greater Milwaukee Foundation

de Hartog Family Fund

Robert C. Archer Designated Fund

Roxy and Bud Heyse Fund/Journal Fund

Wealthspire Advisors

Wisconsin Women’s Health Foundation

MATCHING GIFTS

The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra gratefully acknowledges the following corporations and foundations who match their employees’ contributions to the Annual Fund.

Abbvie

ATC

Aurora Health Care

Benevity Community Impact Fund

BMO Harris Bank

Caterpillar Foundation

CyberGrants, LLC

Dominion Foundation

Eaton Corporation

GE Foundation

Google Inc.

Johnson Controls Foundation

Kohl’s Corp.

Microsoft Corp.

National Philanthropic Trust

Northwestern Mutual

Paypal Giving Fund

Renaissance Charitable Foundation

Rockwell Automation

SherwinWilliams

Stifel

Sun Life

Thrivent Financial

U.S. Charitable Gift Trust

United Way of Greater Milwaukee and Waukesha County

Wintrust Financial Corporation

Wisconsin Energy Corporation

GOLDEN NOTE PARTNERS

The MSO gratefully acknowledges the following organizations and individuals for their gifts of product or services:

Belle Fiori – Official Event Florist of the MSO

Beth and Michael Giacobassi

The Capital Grille

Central Standard Craft Distillery

Coffman Creative Events

Downer Avenue Wine & Spirits

Drury Hotels

Encore Playbills

Foley & Lardner LLP

GO Riteway Transportation Group

Hilton Milwaukee

Kohler Co.

Residence Inn – Marriott Milwaukee

Sojourner Family Peace Center

Steinway Piano Gallery of Milwaukee

Studio Gear – Official Event Partner of the MSO

Wisconsin Public Radio

MARQUEE CIRCLE

The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra proudly partners with the following members of the 2025.26 Marquee Circle.

We thank these generous partners of our annual corporate subscription program for their charitable contributions and for connecting their corporate communities with the MSO.

DeWitt Law Firm

Ellsworth Corporation

Hupy and Abraham, S.C.

Walker Forge, Inc.

Tributes

TRIBUTES

In memory of Patricia Anders

Kay and Douglas Simpkin

In memory of John “Steve” Anderson

Mr. and Mrs. Anthony W. Asmuth, III

Sara and Dick Aster

Warren, Cathy, Olin & Everett Banholzer

Priscilla and Anthony Beadell

Sandy and Jean Custer

Kurt and Rosemary Glaisner

James and Gisela Kuist

Serigraph Incorporated

Sharon, Sophia, and Sarkis at Kirkland

In memory of Louie Andrew

Michael Schmitz

In honor of Glenn Asch and his many years performing with the MSO

Stephen and Jerilyn Smith

In memory of Italo Babini

Terry Burko and David Taggart

In honor of Robyn Black, Principal Tuba

Dennis and Patricia DuBoux

In honor of Andrew Banach

James Banach

In memory of Clair Baum

Julie and Gary Anderson

Sara and Dick Aster

Barbara and Philip Bail, Jr.

Stacy Wilson-Baum

Richard Bergman

Richard and Kay Bibler

Jane Lee and William Buege

Barbara and Allen Cairns

Joan Callan

Sinikka and Gilbert Church

Joyce Cupertino

Ryan Daniel

Barbara Dobbs

Marcia Dollerschell

Carol Dolphin

Patricia and Daniel Fetterley

Louise and David Gartzke

Judith Goetz

Alison Graf and Richard Schreiner

Tonya Hennen

Joseph and Louise Hoffman

Jayne J. Jordan

Alice Kuramoto

Gerald and Joan Luettgen

Harold and Goldie Markey

Patricia Morrison

Roxy Mortvedt and Charles Lewis

J.C. Oehlschlager

Richard and Suzanne Pieper

Frederick and Patricia Rudie

Carol Ryan

Richard Schmidt

Mary Ann Schwartz

Dr. and Mrs. C. John Snyder

Judith Tarabek

Dean and Katherine Thome

Jack Warden

Kathleen and Thomas Wilson

In memory of Virginia Beatty

Jack Beatty

In memory of Margaret and Roy

Butter

Anne Butter and Jeffrey Frey

Dr. John and Rev. Dr. Sarah Butter

In honor of Carol Cobus

Mary Jo Wolf

In honor of Beth and Mike

Giacobassi

Cindy and Tim Friedmann

In memory of Dr. Jon Gudeman

Howard and Eileen Dubner

In memory of Carmen Haberman

Terry Burko and David Taggart

In honor of Darcy Hamlin

Mimi Lewellen

In honor of Rudi Heinrich

David Blend

In honor of the helpful MSO Box

Office Staff

Fred Keller

In honor of Celia and Stanley

Holland

Mark Holland

In memory of Dolores Johnson

Lynda Johnson

In memory of Roman Kontorovsky

Mr. and Mrs. Michael Hauer

In honor of Stephanie Kruse

Richard Kruse

In memory of Elaine Mainman

Ann and Mark Johnson

In honor of Susan Martin

Caroline Ham

In memory of Dr. A. Stratton

McAllister

Dr. Caryl McAllister

In memory of Sally Prodoehl

Mr. and Mrs. J.T. Christofferson

Barbara and Daniel Dedrick

Janet Friestad

Diane Lane

Dr. William and Susan LeFeber

Nancy R. Little

Michele Masters

Robin B. Petzold and Allan E. Erickson

Tracie Zoll

In memory of Dr. Thomas Roberts

Mary Roberts

In memory of Carl Romer

Beulah Romer Erickson

In memory of Leonhard Rose — 1960s Trombone

Barbara and Paul Ahlf

Ann and Richard Cotter

Mary S. Gerbig and William C. Houlihan

Laura Ruiz

In honor of Hilde Strigenz

Maria Pretzl

In honor of Dr. Robert Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor

In honor of Julia Uihlein

Dr. Joseph E. and Jane C. Kerschner

In memory of Judith Margaret Wagner

Steven A. and Lisa L. Wagner

S O U N D B I T E S

YOUR PRE-CONCERT DINING IN THE BRADLEY SYMPHONY CENTER

Enhance your pre-concert dining with Indulge Catering Company — A Bianchini Experience at the Bradley Symphony Center. Begin your evening with an elevated meal in the Ellen & Joe Checota Atrium and delight in a delicious selection of appetizers, salad, entrées, sides, and desserts. Located steps away from your evening’s MSO performance, this curated dining option allows for a seamless experience. Sound Bites meals are offered beginning at 6:00 pm before all Friday and Saturday night concerts.

MSO Board of Directors

OFFICERS

Gregory Smith, Chair

Susan Martin, Immediate Past Chair

David Uihlein, Honorary Co-Chair

Julia Uihlein, Honorary Co-Chair

Jennifer Dirks, Secretary; Chair, Governance Committee

Patrick Murphy, Treasurer; Chair, Finance Committee

Mark Niehaus, President & Executive Director, Michael and Jeanne Schmitz Chair

EX OFFICIO DIRECTORS

Douglas M. Hagerman, Chair, Chair’s Council

Ken-David Masur, Music Director, Polly and Bill Van Dyke Music Director Chair

Mark Niehaus, President & Executive Director, Michael and Jeanne Schmitz Chair

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Gregory Smith, Chair

Susan Martin, Immediate Past Chair

Dan Byrne, UPAF Liaison

Jennifer Dirks, Secretary; Chair, Governance Committee

Douglas M. Hagerman, Chair, Chair’s Council

Renee Herzing, Chair, Audience Development Task Force

Robert Klieger, Chair, Players’ Council

Mark A. Metzendorf, Chair, Advancement Committee

Patrick Murphy, Treasurer; Chair, Finance Committee

Mark Niehaus, President & Executive Director, Michael and Jeanne Schmitz Chair

Michael J. Schmitz

Pam Stampen, Chair, Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion (EDI) Task Force

Haruki Toyama, Chair, Music Director Search Committee

ELECTED DIRECTORS

Steve Hancock, Chair, Education Committee

Alyce Coyne Katayama

Peter Mahler, Chair, Endowment Committee

Teresa Mogensen

Robert B. Monnat

Leslie Plamann, Chair, Audit Committee

Jay E. Schwister, Chair, Retirement Plan Committee

Laurie Simpson

Dale R. Smith

Tracy Tavolier

Tom Zale

Herb Zien, Chair, Facilities Management Committee

DESIGNATED DIRECTORS

City

Sachin Chheda

Theodore Perlick Molinari

Pegge Sytkowski

County

Rene Izquierdo

Niko Ruud

PLAYER DIRECTORS

Robert Klieger, Chair, Players’ Council

Ilana Setapen, Player-at-Large

CHAIR’S COUNCIL

Douglas M. Hagerman, Chair

Chris Abele

Laura J. Arnow

Richard S. Bibler

Charles Boyle

Roberta Caraway

Judy Christl

Mary E. Connelly

Donn R. Dresselhuys*

Eileen Dubner

Franklyn Esenberg

Marta P. Haas

Jean Holmburg

Barbara Hunt

Leon Janssen

Judy Jorgensen

James A. Kasch

Lee Walther Kordus

Michael J. Koss

JoAnne Krause

Martin J. Krebs

Keith Mardak

Susan Martin

Andy Nunemaker

James G. Rasche

Stephen E. Richman

Michael J. Schmitz, Immediate Past Chair

Joan Steele Stein

Linda Tojek

Joan R. Urdan

Larry Waters

Kathleen A. Wilson

MSO ENDOWMENT & FOUNDATION TRUSTEES

Bruce Laning, Trustee Chair

Amy Croen

Steven Etzel

Douglas M. Hagerman

Bartholomew Reuter

David Uihlein

PAST CHAIRS

Susan Martin (2020-2025)

Andy Nunemaker (2014-2020)

Douglas M. Hagerman (2011-2014)

Chris Abele (2004-2011)

Judy Jorgensen (2002-2004)

Stephen E. Richman (2000-2002)

Stanton J. Bluestone* (1998-2000)

Allen N. Rieselbach* (1995-1998)

Edwin P. Wiley* (1993-1995)

Michael J. Schmitz (1990-1993)

Orren J. Bradley* (1988-1990)

Russell W. Britt* (1986-1988)

James H. Keyes (1984-1986)

Richard S. Bibler (1982-1984)

John K. MacIver* (1980-1982)

Donn R. Dresselhuys* (1978-1980)

Harrold J. McComas* (1976-1978)

Laflin C. Jones* (1974-1976)

Robert S. Zigman* (1972-1974)

Charles A. Krause* (1970-1972)

Donald B. Abert* (1968-1970)

Erhard H. Buettner* (1966-1968)

Clifford Randall* (1964-1966)

John Ogden* (1962-1964)

Stanley Williams* (1959-1962)

* Deceased

MSO 2025.26 Administration

EXECUTIVE

Mark Niehaus, President & Executive Director, Michael and Jeanne Schmitz Chair

Bret Dorhout, Vice President of Artistic Planning

Tom Lindow, Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Kelley McCaskill, Vice President of Advancement

Terrell Pierce, Vice President of Orchestra Operations

Kathryn Reinardy, Vice President of Marketing & Communications

Rick Snow, Vice President of Facilities & Building Operations

Marquita Edwards, Director of Community Engagement

Sean McNally, Executive Assistant & Board Liaison

ADVANCEMENT

Colleen Bruce, Director of Major Gifts

Leah Peavler, Director of Institutional Advancement

William Loder, Gift Officer

Julie Jahn, Campaign & Planned Giving Manager

Megan Martin, Donor Stewardship Manager

Tracy Migon, Development Systems Manager

Andrea Moreno-Islas, Advancement Manager

Abby Vakulskas, Giving Manager, Advancement Communications

EDUCATION & COMMUNITY

ENGAGEMENT

Rebecca Whitney, Director of Education

Courtney Buvid, ACE & Education Manager

Nathan Hickox-Young, Concerts for Schools & Education Manager

FINANCE

Nicole Magolan, Controller

Jenny Beier, Senior Accountant

lyana Dixon, Accounting Coordinator

Crystal Reed-Hardy, Human Resources Manager

MARKETING

Lizzy Cichowski, Director of Marketing

Erin Kogler, Director of Communications

Adam Cohen, Patron Systems Manager

Katelyn Farebrother, Marketing Coordinator

David Jensen, Publications Manager

Josh Marino, Content and Communications Manager

Zachary-John Reinardy, Lead Designer

BOX OFFICE

Luther Gray, Director of Ticket Operations & Group Sales

Al Bartosik, Box Office Manager

Marie Holtyn, Box Office Supervisor

Adam Klarner, Patron Services Coordinator

OPERATIONS

Sean Goldman, Director of Operations

Antonio Padilla Denis, Director of Orchestra Personnel

Paul Beck, Principal Librarian, James E. Van Ess Principal Librarian Chair

Sofia Castanho-Bollinger, Artistic Coordinator

Maiken Demet, Assistant to the Music Director

Matthew Geise, Assistant Librarian & Media Archivist

Miles McConnell, Artistic Operations Assistant

Paris Meyers, Assistant Manager of Orchestra Personnel

Emily Wacker Schultz, Artistic Associate

Lisa Sottile, Production Stage Manager

Tristan Wallace, Production Manager/Live Audio, MSO | Technical Director, BSC

Christina Williams, Chorus Manager

FACILITIES & EVENT SERVICES

Sam Hushek, Director of Events

Anthony Andronczyk, House Manager

Donovan Burton, Facilities Manager - 2nd Shift

Travis Byrd, Facilities Manager

Lisa Klimczak, House Manager

David Kotlewski, House Manager

Steve Pfisterer, House Manager

Jenn Sorvick, Event Operations Coordinator

Zed Waeltz, Event Services Manager

INDULGE CATERING CO.

Marta Bianchini, Chief Executive Officer

Marc Bianchini, Executive Chef

Cristina Bianchini, Director of Marketing and Event Coordinator

Valentina Bianchini, Director of Operations and Event Coordinator

ONE GIFT. REGIONAL IMPACT.

UPAF is the best way to make the biggest impact on the performing arts in Southeastern Wisconsin. With one gift, you directly support 14 Member Groups and numerous A liates bringing the magic of music, dance and theater to life. PLAY YOUR PART AND DONATE TODAY

imagination + technology = possibility

Together, we are expanding human possibility in our communities –helping nurture the next generation of builders, makers and innovators.