MSO 6. MAY - JUNE 2025

MAY — JUNE 2025

ENCORE

Volume 43 No. 6

14 May 23 - 25 — Pops Let’s Groove Tonight: Motown & The Philly Sound

19 May 30 & 31 — Classics Bernstein & Bartók

27 June 6 & 7 — Classics Masur Conducts Brahms

36 June 13 - 15 — Classics

Great Moments in Grand Opera

41 June 21 — Special Thorgy Thor & The Thorchestra

5 Orchestra Roster

7 Music Director

8 Music Director Laureate

9 Principal Pops Conductor

10 Assistant Conductor

11 Milwaukee Symphony Chorus

Congratulations to the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Retirees

46 Glenn Asch & Beth Giacobassi

48 Robert Levine & Mary Terranova

58 MSO Endowment/ Musical Legacy Society

59 Annual Fund

62 Gala Paddle Raisers/Gala Sponsors/ Corporate & Foundation

63 Matching Gifts/Golden Note Partners Marquee Circle

64 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

• Florentine Opera

• Milwaukee Ballet

• Marcus Performing Arts Center Broadway Series

• Skylight Music Theatre

• Milwaukee Repertory Theater

• Sharon Lynne Wilson Center

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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The MSO and the Bradley Symphony Center have partnered with KultureCity to improve our ability to assist and accommodate guests with sensory needs. For information on available resources, visit mso.org.

SUMMER MUSIC CAMPS

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 35th 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. This season, more than 5,900 students and 500 teachers and faculty are expected to participate in ACE both in person and in a virtual format.

2024.25 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

Assistant 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

Sheena Lan**

Elliot Lee**

Dylana Leung

Kyung Ah Oh

Lijia Phang

Yuanhui Fiona Zheng

SECOND VIOLINS

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

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

John Bian, Assistant Principal (3rd chair)*

Hyewon Kim, Acting Assistant Principal (3rd chair)

Glenn Asch

Lisa Johnson Fuller

Clay Hancock

Paul Hauer

Janis Sakai**

Mary Terranova

VIOLAS

Robert Levine, Principal, Richard O. and Judith A. Wagner Family Principal Viola Chair

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

Alejandro Duque, Acting Assistant Principal (3rd chair)

Elizabeth Breslin

Georgi Dimitrov

Nathan Hackett

Erin H. Pipal

CELLOS

Susan Babini, Principal, Dorothea C. Mayer 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 Bass Chair

Andrew Raciti, Acting Principal

Nash Tomey, Acting Assistant Principal (2nd chair)

Brittany Conrad

Omar Haffar**

Paris Myers

HARP

Julia Coronelli, Principal, Walter Schroeder Harp Chair

FLUTES

Sonora Slocum, Principal, Margaret and Roy Butter Flute Chair

Heather Zinninger, Assistant Principal

Jennifer Bouton Schaub

PICCOLO

Jennifer Bouton Schaub

OBOES

Katherine Young Steele, Principal, Milwaukee Symphony League 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 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 Bassoon Chair

Rudi Heinrich, Assistant Principal

Beth W. Giacobassi

CONTRABASSOON

Beth W. Giacobassi

HORNS

Matthew Annin, Principal, Krause Family French Horn Chair

Krystof Pipal, Associate Principal

Dietrich Hemann, Andy Nunemaker

French Horn Chair

Darcy Hamlin

Scott Sanders

TRUMPETS

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

Kirk Ferguson, Assistant Principal

BASS TROMBONE

John Thevenet, Richard M. Kimball Bass Trombone Chair

TUBA

Robyn Black, Principal, John and Judith Simonitsch 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, Hiring Coordinator

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 2024.25 Season

** Acting member of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra 2024.25 Season

KEN-DAVID MASUR, MUSIC DIRECTOR

Hailed as “fearless, bold, and a life-force” (San Diego Union-Tribune) and “a brilliant and commanding conductor with unmistakable charisma” (Leipziger Volkszeitung), Ken-David Masur is celebrating his sixth 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, 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 this season’s 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 artistic partnership program, and he has led highly acclaimed performances of major choral works, including a semistaged production of Peer Gynt. This season, which celebrates the eternal interplay between words and music, he continues an artistic partnership with bass-baritone Dashon Burton and conducts Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. In Chicago, Masur leads the Civic Orchestra, the premiere training orchestra of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, in a variety of programs, including an annual Bach Marathon.

In the summer of 2024, Masur made his debut at the Oregon Bach Festival and returned to the Tanglewood Festival, where he conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra, both in a John Williams film night and in a program honoring the BSO’s longtime music director Seiji Ozawa. This season also features return appearances with the Louisville Orchestra, the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, and the Omaha Symphony, and in September, Masur made his subscription debut with the New York Philharmonic. The following month, he made his subscription debut with the Chicago Symphony in a program featuring soloist Anne-Sophie Mutter.

Masur has conducted distinguished orchestras around the world, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, National, and San Francisco symphonies, l’Orchestre National de France, Minnesota Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic, Norway’s Kristiansand Symphony, and Tokyo’s Yomiuri Nippon Symphony. He has also made regular appearances at Ravinia, Tanglewood, the Hollywood Bowl, Grant Park, and international festivals, including Verbier. Previously, Masur was associate conductor of the Boston Symphony, principal guest conductor of the Munich Symphony, associate conductor of the San Diego Symphony, and resident conductor of the San Antonio Symphony.

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 the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts, New England Conservatory, Manhattan School of Music, Boston University, Boston Conservatory, Tokyo’s Bunka Kaikan Chamber Orchestra, the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, and The Juilliard School, where he led the Juilliard Orchestra last season.

Masur is passionate about contemporary music and has conducted and commissioned dozens of new works, many of which have premiered at the Chelsea Music Festival, an annual summer festival in New York City founded and directed by Masur and his wife, pianist Melinda Lee Masur. The festival, which celebrated its 15th anniversary in 2024, 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.”

Masur and his family are proud to call Milwaukee their home and enjoy exploring all the riches of the Third Coast.

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, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Antwerp Symphony, New Zealand Symphony, and Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and 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, 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. Stripling is also principal pops conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and he currently serves as 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 on 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, soloing with over 100 orchestras around the world. 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 soloist on the worldwide telecast of The Grammy Awards. Millions have heard his trumpet and voice on 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 the 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, ASSISTANT CONDUCTOR

Ryan Tani is in his second season as assistant conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. In 2021, he completed his two-year tenure as the Orchestral Conducting Fellow for the Yale Philharmonia under Music Director Peter Oundjian, where he was the recipient of the Dean’s Prize for artistic excellence in his graduating class. Committed to meaningful community music-making in the state of Montana, Tani has directed the Bozeman Chamber Orchestra, Bozeman Symphonic Choir, Second String Orchestra, and MSU Symphony Orchestras. He frequently serves as cover conductor for the St. Louis, Colorado, and Bozeman symphonies and recently served on the faculty at the Montana State University School of Music.

Tani recently concluded his tenure as music director of the Occasional Symphony in Baltimore. A fierce advocate of new music, Tani curated over 20 commissions from Baltimore-based composers during his fouryear directorship of OS. As resident conductor of the New Music New Haven series, he has collaborated, under the guidance of Aaron Jay Kernis, with Yale University composition students and faculty.

Tani is also a graduate of the Peabody Institute, where he studied conducting with Marin Alsop and Markand Thakar, and of the University of Southern California, where he studied voice with Gary Glaze. In 2015, he was declared the winner of the ACDA Undergraduate Student Conducting Competition at their national conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. In addition to his studies at Yale and Peabody, Tani has also studied conducting with Larry Rachleff, Donald Schleicher, Gerard Schwarz, Grant Cooper, and José-Luis Novo. Tani currently resides in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he can be found in the park with his dog, playing board games with friends and family, in the library with a good book, or in the practice room with his violin.

MILWAUKEE SYMPHONY CHORUS

The Milwaukee Symphony Chorus, founded in 1976, is known and respected as one of the finest choruses in the country. Under the direction of Dr. Cheryl Frazes Hill, the 2024-25 season with the MSO includes works by Poulenc, Brahms, Wagner, Verdi, and Mozart, as well as Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and the Hometown Holiday Pops performances.

The 150-member chorus has been praised by reviewers for “technical agility,” “remarkable ensemble cohesion,” and “tremendous clarity.” In addition to performances with the MSO, the chorus has appeared on public television and recorded performances for radio stations throughout the country. The chorus has performed a cappella concerts to sold-out audiences and has made guest appearances with other performing arts groups, including Present Music, Milwaukee Ballet, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The chorus has also made appearances at suburban Chicago’s famed Ravinia Festival.

The Margaret Hawkins Chorus Director Chair was funded by a chorus-led campaign during the ensemble’s 30th anniversary season in 2006, in honor of the founding chorus director, Margaret Hawkins.

Comprised of teachers, lawyers, students, doctors, musicians, homemakers, and more, each of its members brings not only musical quality, but a sheer love of music to their task. “We have the best seats in the house,” one member said, a sentiment echoed throughout the membership. Please visit mso.org/chorus for more information on becoming a part of the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus.

CHORUS MEMBERS & STAFF

Jahnavi Acharya

Anna Aiuppa

Mia Akers

Laura Albright-Wengler

Anthony Andronczyk

James Anello

u Thomas R. Bagwell

Evan Bagwell

Barbara Barth Czarkowski

Marshall Beckman

Emily Bergeron

JoAnn Berk

Edward Blumenthal

Jillian Boes

u Scott Bolens

Madison Bolt

Neil R. Brooks

Michelle Budny

Ellen N. Burmeister

Gabrielle Campbell

Elise Cismesia

Ian Clark

Sarah M. Cook

Amanda Coplan

Sarah Culhane

Phoebe Dawsey

Colin Destache

Rebeca Dishaw

Megan Kathleen Dixson

Rachel Dutler

James Edgar

Joe Ehlinger

Katelyn Farebrother

Michael Faust

Catherine Fettig

Marty Foral

Robert Friebus

u Karen Frink

Maria Fuller

STAFF

James T. Gallup

Jonathan Gaston-Falk

Willie 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

Amy Hudson

Matthew Hunt

Stan Husi

u Tina Itson

• Christine Jameson

Paula J. Jeske

John Jorgensen

Caitleen Kahn

• Heidi Kastern

Christin Kieckhafer

Robert Knier

Jill Kortebein

Kaleigh KozakLichtman

Kyle J. Kramer

u Joseph M. Krechel

Julia M. Kreitzer

Savannah Grace Kroeger

• Harry Krueger

Nathan Krueger

Benjamin Kuhlmann

Rick Landin

Alexandra Lerch-Gaggl

Cheryl Frazes Hill, chorus director

Timothy J. Benson, assistant director

Terree Shofner-Emrich, primary pianist

Melissa Cardamone, Jeong-In Kim, rehearsal pianists

Darwin J. Sanders, language/diction coach

Christina Williams, chorus manager

Nicholas Lin

Robert Lochhead

Kristine Lorbeske

Grace Majewski

Douglas R. Marx

Joy Mast

Justin J. Maurer

Betsy McCool

Hilary Merline

Kathleen O. Miller

Megan Miller

Bailey Moorhead

Jennifer Mueller

Lucia Muniagurria

Matthew Neu

Kristin Nikkel

Jason Niles

Alice Nuteson

Robert Paddock

Katherine Petersen

Elizabeth Phillips

R. Scott Pierce

u Jessica E. Pihart

Olivia Pogodzinski

Bianca Pratte

Kaitlin Quigley

Mary E. Rafel

Jason Reuschlein

Rehanna Rexroat

James Reynolds

Marc Charles Ricard

Amanda Robison

Veronica Samiec

u Bridget Sampson

James Sampson

Joshua S. Samson

Darwin J. Sanders

Alana Sawall

John T. Schilling

Sarah Schmeiser

Rand C. Schmidt

Randy Schmidt

u Allison Schnier

Andrew T. Schramm

Matthew Seider

Bennett Shebesta

u Hannah Sheppard

David Siegworth

Bruce Soto

u Joel P. Spiess

u Todd Stacey

u Donald E. Stettler

Scott Stieg

Donna Stresing

Laura Sufferling

Ashley Ellen Suresh

Joseph Thiel

Dean-Yar Tigrani

Clare Urbanski

Matthew Van Hecke

Tess Weinkauf

Emma Mingesz Weiss

Michael Werni

Erin Weyers

Charles T. White

Christina Williams

Emilie Williams

Sally Salkowski Witte

Kevin R. Woller

Rachel Yap

Jamie Mae Yu

Michele Zampino

Katarzyna Zawislak

Stephanie Zimmer

u Section Leader

• Librarian

DR. CHERYL FRAZES HILL, CHORUS DIRECTOR

Dr. Cheryl Frazes Hill is now in her eighth season as director of the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus. In addition to her role in Milwaukee, she is the associate conductor of the Chicago Symphony Chorus. 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. During the 2024-25 season, Frazes Hill will prepare the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus for classical performances of Poulenc’s Gloria, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, and Brahms’s German Requiem, concluding with Great Moments in Grand Opera.

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

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 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 recording 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, among others.

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 workshops for Taki Alsop women conducting fellows. Upcoming appearances this season include a presentation at the American Choral Directors National Conference and a three-day residency at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music.

Friday, May 23, 2025 at 7:30 pm

Saturday, May 24, 2025 at 7:30 pm

Sunday, May 25, 2025 at 2:30 pm

ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL

Byron Stripling, conductor

Chester Gregory, vocals

Cherise Coaches, vocals

Brik.Liam, vocals

Tim Lappin, bass

Douglas Marriner, drums

a Schirmer Theatrical/Greenberg Artists co-production Arrangements by Jeff Tyzik

TSOP (THE SOUND OF PHILADELPHIA), by Kenneth Gamble and Leon A. Huff

As Recorded by MFSB

LET’S GROOVE, by Maurice White and Wayne Lee Vaughn

As Recorded by Earth, Wind & Fire

I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE, by Barret Strong and Norman Whitfield

As Recorded by Marvin Gaye

COULD IT BE I’M FALLING IN LOVE, by Melvin Steals and Mervin Steals

As Recorded by The Spinners

YOU’LL NEVER FIND ANOTHER LOVE LIKE MINE, by Kenneth Gamble and Leon A. Huff

As Recorded by Lou Rawls

HURT SO BAD, by Bobby Hart, Teddy Randazzo, and Robert Wilding

As Recorded by Little Anthony and The Imperials

MY GIRL, by Smokey Robinson and Ronald White

As Recorded by The Temptations

I’LL BE AROUND, by Thomas Randolph Bell and Phil Hurtt

As Recorded by The Spinners

BACK STABBERS, by Leon A. Huff, Gene McFadden, and John Cavadus Whitehead

As Recorded by The O’Jays

DON’T LEAVE ME THIS WAY, by Kenneth Gamble, Cary Gilbert, and Leon A. Huff

As Recorded by Thelma Houston

INTERMISSION

A FIFTH OF BEETHOVEN, by Ludwig van Beethoven and Walter Murphy

As Recorded by Walter Murphy and the Big Apple Band

BALL OF CONFUSION (THAT’S WHAT THE WORLD IS TODAY), by Barret Strong and Norman Whitfield

As Recorded by The Temptations

PEOPLE MAKE THE WORLD GO ROUND, by Thomas Randolph Bell and Linda Epstein

As Recorded by The Stylistics

ME AND MRS. JONES, by Kenneth Gamble, Cary Gilbert, and Leon A. Huff

As Recorded by Billy Paul

I’M COMING OUT, by Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers

As Recorded by Diana Ross

ROCK THE BOAT, by Waldo T. Holmes

As Recorded by The Hues Corporation

LOVE TRAIN, by Kenneth Gamble and Leon A. Huff

As Recorded by The O’Jays

AIN’T NO STOPPIN’ US NOW, by Jerry Cohen, Gene McFadden, and John Whitehead

As Recorded by McFadden & Whitehead

ALL ARRANGEMENTS LICENSED BY SCHIRMER THEATRICAL, LLC

Creative Team

Robert Thompson, Producer

Jeff Tyzik, Producer & Arranger

Jami Greenberg, Producer & Booking Agent

Betsey Perlmutter, Producer

Alex Kosick, Associate Producer

For more information on the music and artists featured in Let’s Groove Tonight, use the code below to access the Digital Concert Program.

This weekend’s media sponsor is WISCONSIN PUBLIC RADIO

The length of this concert is approximately 2 hours. All programs are subject to change.

Guest Artist Biographies

CHESTER GREGORY

Chester Gregory is an award-winning singer and actor. He was last seen starring in Motown: The Musical as the iconic Berry Gordy. Broadway credits include Motown: The Musical, Hairspray, Tarzan, Cry-Baby, and Sister Act. Other credits include August Wilson’s Fences and Two Trains Running. He has toured nationally with Dreamgirls and Sister Act, as well as his one-man show, The Eve of Jackie Wilson. Gregory has received many awards, including the Jeff Award and a NAACP Theatre Award, and has been presented with the key to the city of both his hometown of Gary, Indiana and East Chicago. He has also been chosen as an honorary state representative of Indiana and has received an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, Columbia College Chicago. He is currently producing several projects and recordings, and can be found online at @ChesterGregory and chestergregory.com.

CHERISE COACHES

Cherise Coaches is a hardworking recording artist, songwriter, vocal coach, producer, and actress from the south suburbs of Chicago. With music as a hereditary gift, her formal education has only added to her ability to succeed at anything she puts her mind to.

Coaches attended Columbia College Chicago and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in vocal performance. During her time there, she got to work with and share the stage with some amazing artists, such as Grammy Award-winner Paula Cole, Brian Culbertson, and Mike Stern. She has also gone on to work with artists such as Jeremih, Carl Thomas, Kenny Latimore, Glen Jones, and many more.

In the fall of 2012, Coaches finally released her first official single on iTunes, “The Juice,” written by her and producer Tony Treble. She went on to release her Christmas EP in December of that year, Snowfall, which is also the single from the EP. Following that was her single “Ride For Ya,” which was released on SoundCloud in June 2017. Her latest single, “Rewind,” released in September of 2018, and can be found on all online music store and streaming platforms. Coaches has made many waves in the acting world, as well. She made her co-star debut in season two of the Starz Network series The Chi. She also has many accomplishments in theater, featuring in shows like Men of Soul (Black Ensemble Theater), Dreamgirls (Porchlight Music Theater), HAIR, where she portrayed Dionne (Geva Theatre Center and Mercury Theater Chicago), the North American Tour of Disenchanted as The Princess Who Kissed The Frog, and her favorite to date, portraying the role of Young Patti LaBelle in A New Attitude: In Tribute to Patti Labelle. Her work in the theater has earned her two nominations from The Black Theater Alliance as most promising actress and best featured actress in a musical, as well as Jeff Award wins and nominations.

Guest Artist Biographies

JACOBY “BRIK.LIAM” WILLIAMS

Cultivated in diverse backgrounds and raised in the church with his mother as head of the choir, Jacoby “Brik.Liam” Williams was exposed to different genres of music that influenced his current sound. Williams was born in Petersburg, Virginia and reared in Germany and Houston, Texas. His frequent relocation is a result of his military family upbringing. His early introduction to music helped shape his outlook on music and creativity. Now as an artist, Williams is in a league of his own, fusing classic soul vibes like the sounds of Marvin Gaye with the urban contemporary music fans are accustomed to today.

The stage name Brik.Liam is a two-part compilation: “Brik,” a synonym for his favorite color, red, and “Liam,” an abbreviation of his last name. Williams also has a signature image of a floating red balloon that helps fans to identify his work in any setting. Williams’s perspective on artistry and his contribution to the music industry today can be described as poetic and unconventional, which adds to his unique appeal.

Williams’s career has evolved to greater success in recent years. He’s released albums, performed with some of the industry’s brightest talent, and has showcased his music across the globe. Williams has performed in places like London and the Republic of the Congo. Notably, Williams has toured the United States as an opening performer for Grammy Award-winning artist PJ Morton during the 2018 More Gumbo tour and the 2019 Paul tour. Since then, Williams has also completed a solo tour in Russia and released his EP What’s The Matter, Brik.

TIM LAPPIN

Tim Lappin has been touring the world playing with the likes of Chet Faker, John Splithoff, Adam Green, and many more over his career. His original indie rock project, Casual Male, just released their first full length record, Casual Male, now available everywhere.

Guest Artist Biographies Continued on page 18

Guest Artist Biographies

DOUGLAS MARRINER

Douglas Marriner is a third-generation musician and a jazz drummer, actor, composer, and educator born in London, currently based in New York City. Marriner regularly performs with many of America’s leading orchestras, including the Detroit, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Vancouver symphony orchestras. His recording of Derek Bermel’s Migrations Series with the Albany Symphony Orchestra, Juilliard Jazz Orchestra, and Ted Nash was nominated for a Grammy award in 2020.

In 2013, Marriner became the first British musician to be awarded a place in The Juilliard School’s prestigious jazz program on a scholarship. After completing his master’s degree, he was awarded the drum chair for the Artist Diploma Ensemble, where his sextet was coached by Wynton Marsalis and Kenny Barron, touring Europe, South America, and Japan. He has been fortunate enough to study with and be mentored by master musicians including Kenny Washington, Billy Hart, Nasheet Waits, Wynton Marsalis, and André Previn.

Marriner is a passionate educator and was director of The Juilliard School’s Music Advancement Program percussion ensemble, in addition to teaching percussion lessons, coaching their orchestral musicians, and mentoring their young educators. He has also taught for Jazz at Lincoln Center’s education programs and summer schools, Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect, the Jazz Arts Collective, and is on the teaching faculty at Fordham University, Bloomingdale School of Music, and the Louis Armstrong Foundation.

MAY 12, 1960 — On this day, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra League was founded by a group of passionate leaders whose dedication and volunteerism played a vital role in elevating our hometown orchestra to national renown. We gratefully acknowledge these visionaries for their decades of service.

Y Z Y Z

BERNSTEIN & BARTÓK

Friday, May 30, 2025 at 7:30 pm

Saturday, May 31, 2025 at 7:30 pm

ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL

Stefan Asbury, conductor

Tai Murray, violin

BEDŘICH SMETANA

Má vlast [My Fatherland], JB 1:112

I. Vyšehrad [The High Castle], T. 110

LEONARD BERNSTEIN

Serenade after Plato’s Symposium

I. Phaedrus – Pausanias: Lento – Allegro

II. Aristophanes: Allegretto

III. Eryximachus: Presto

IV. Agathon: Adagio

V. Socrates – Alcibiades: Molto tenuto – Allegro molto vivace

Tai Murray, violin

INTERMISSION

LEONARD BERNSTEIN

Symphonic Dances from West Side Story

I. Prologue

II. Somewhere

III. Scherzo

IV. Mambo

V. Cha-cha

VI. Meeting Scene

VII. Cool

VIII. Rumble

IX. Finale

BÉLA BARTÓK

Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin, Opus 19, Sz. 73, BB 82

I. Introduction

II. First Decoy Game

III. Second Decoy Game

IV. Third Decoy Game

V. The Girl Dances

VI. The Chase

The 2024.25 Classics Series is presented by the UNITED PERFORMING ARTS FUND and ROCKWELL AUTOMATION

The length of this concert is approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes.

Guest Artist Biographies

STEFAN ASBURY

Recent seasons have seen Stefan Asbury working with orchestras throughout the world, including the Milwaukee, Montreal, Seattle, and Vancouver symphony orchestras in North America. Internationally, he has led the Copenhagen Philharmonic, Pacific Philharmonia (Tokyo), Auckland Philharmonia, China National Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, and the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra. Asbury has also served as the chief conductor of the Noord Nederlands Orkest, chief guest conductor for the Tapiola Sinfonietta (Finland), and was the founder and music director of the Remix Ensemble (Portugal).

Asbury maintains close collaborations with many living composers, including Steve Reich, Unsuk Chin, and Mark-Anthony Turnage. He conducted the world and U.S. premieres of Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s piano concerto with Pierre-Laurent Aimard alongside the Sinfonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Following Birtwistle’s passing, Asbury led a memorial performance of Earth Dances with the HR Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra in January 2023. As a recording artist, his album featuring works by Jonathan Harvey with Ensemble intercontemporain received the Monde de la Musique CHOC award, and his complete cycle of Gérard Grisey’s Les Espaces acoustiques with WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln won the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik.

Opera and musical theater form an important part of his musical life, and he has traveled widely, with highlights including John Adams’s A Flowering Tree for the Perth International Arts Festival, a performance which won the “Best Symphony Orchestra Concert” Helpmann Award, Porgy and Bess at the Spoleto Festival USA, Britten’s Owen Wingrave with Tapiola Sinfonietta, and Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle in Poland. Asbury conducted a production of A Quiet Place as part of the centenary celebrations of Leonard Bernstein at Tanglewood. He has worked for many dance companies with performances at the Lincoln Center in New York, London’s Barbican, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, amongst other venues.

In December 2024, it was announced that Asbury would join the conducting faculty at the New England Conservatory. He previously served on the faculty of the Tanglewood Music Center for over 30 years. Additionally, he has led master classes at the Hochschule der Künste (Zürich), the Ensemble Modern International Academy, and the conservatories of Venice and Geneva.

Guest Artist Biographies

TAI MURRAY

Described as “superb” by The New York Times, violinist Tai Murray has established herself as a musical voice of a generation. “Technically flawless ... vivacious and scintillating ... It is without doubt that Murray’s style of playing is more mature than that of many seasoned players ... ” (Muso Magazine)

Appreciated for her elegance and effortless ability, Murray creates a special bond with listeners through her personal phrasing and subtle sweetness. Her programming reveals musical intelligence. Her sound, sophisticated bowing, and choice of vibrato remind us of her musical background and influences, principally Yuval Yaron (a student of Josef Gingold and Jascha Heifetz) and Franco Gulli. Winner of an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2004, Murray was named a BBC New Generation Artist (2008-2010). As a chamber musician, she was a member of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Society II (2004-2006).

She has performed as guest soloist on the main stages worldwide, performing with leading ensembles such as the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Symphony Orchestra, and all of the BBC Symphony Orchestras. She is also a dedicated advocate of contemporary works written for the violin. Among others, she performed the world premiere of Malcolm Hayes’s violin concerto at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall.

As a recitalist, Murray has visited many of the world’s great cities, having appeared in Berlin, Chicago, Hamburg, London, Madrid, New York’s Carnegie Hall, Paris, and Washington, D.C., among many others.

Murray’s critically acclaimed debut recording for Harmonia Mundi of Ysaÿe’s six sonatas for solo violin was released in February 2012. Her second recording with works by American composers of the 20th century was released by the Berlin-based label eaSonus, and her third disc with the Bernstein serenade was recorded on the French label Mirare.

Murray plays a violin built by Tomaso Balestrieri in Mantua circa 1765 on generous loan from a private collection.

Murray is an associate professor of violin at the Yale School of Music, where she teaches applied violin and coaches chamber music. She earned artist diplomas from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music and The Juilliard School.

Program notes by David Jensen

BEDŘICH SMETANA

Born 2 March 1824; Litomyšl, Austria-Hungary (now the Czech Republic)

Died 12 May 1884; Prague, Austria-Hungary (now the Czech Republic)

Vyšehrad [The High Castle], T. 110 from Má vlast [My Fatherland], JB 1:112

Composed: September – 18 November 1874

First performance: 14 March 1875; Ludvík Slánský, conductor; Prague Philharmonic

Last MSO performance: 9 November 1991; Zdeněk Mácal, conductor

Instrumentation: piccolo; 2 flutes; 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 4 horns; 2 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; percussion (cymbals, triangle); harp; strings

Approximate duration: 15 minutes

In the summer of 1874, Smetana reported a series of ill portents: he complained of an ulcer, throat trouble, headaches, and even a rash; most alarmingly, a blockage in his ears, followed by a succession of strange noises, prevented him from composing. By August, the local press announced that he was suffering from a “nervous strain,” but within weeks, the writing was on the wall. He had contracted syphilis, which resulted in his total deafness by October. He was forced to resign his directorship of the Provisional Theatre in Prague, a post he had held since 1866 and the high point of a lifelong ambition that had enabled him to stage three of his operas. Unable to work, Smetana’s mental state deteriorated, noting in his journal the following January that “If my disease is incurable, then I should prefer to be liberated from this life.” After ten years of slow decline, he was admitted to an asylum in Prague, where he spent his last days in the throes of insanity.

But the moment of crisis ignited in Smetana a late flowering of artistic ingenuity, and his final decade gave rise to some of his finest and most compelling music, including his two string quartets, three more operas, and the cycle of symphonic poems Má vlast (“My Fatherland”). A blending of Lisztian musical ideals and the burgeoning sense of nationalism pervading concert music in the late 19th century, each movement invokes a particular facet of Bohemia’s cultural identity, whether by means of folklore, scenery, or history. The opening movement, Vyšehrad, refers to both the rock precipice and ancient fortress built upon it, constructed in the 10th century, located in Prague on the on the east bank of the river Vltava (itself the subject of the second poem in the set, “The Moldau”).

Smetana provided a concise synopsis of the music’s programmatic content in a letter to Czech publisher Frantisek Urbánek in May 1879: “The harps of the bards begin; a bard sings of the events that have taken place on Vyšehrad, of the glory, splendor, tournaments and battles, and finally its downfall and ruin. The composition ends on an elegiac note.” Divided into three episodes, the poem begins with an allusion to the mythic bard Lumír, who, after refusing to sing for the victors of the Maidens’ War (the story illustrated in third movement, Šárka), instead sang an ode of praise to the castle before smashing his harp. The main theme, a beautifully harmonized four-note motif representing the castle, is thus introduced by the harp, conferring a sense of the ennobled Bohemian spirit. A battle ensues — a march-like central section harkens back to the majesty and triumph of antiquity before descending whole tone scales interrupt the otherwise martial climax, signaling the collapse of the castle. The opening motto returns, now transformed by the preceding events, as a subdued, nostalgic reflection on the long line of the region’s rich heritage.

LEONARD BERNSTEIN

Born 25 August 1918; Lawrence, Massachusetts

Died 14 October 1990; New York City, New York

Serenade after Plato’s Symposium

Composed: Late 1953 – 7 August 1954

First performance: 12 September 1954; Leonard Bernstein, conductor; Isaac Stern, violin; Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice

Last MSO performance: 13 January 2018; Edo de Waart, conductor; Philippe Quint, violin

Instrumentation: timpani; percussion (bass drum, chimes, Chinese blocks, glockenspiel, snare drum, suspended cymbals, tambourine, tenor drum, triangle, xylophone); harp; strings

Approximate duration: 31 minutes

Beloved as one of the most dynamic and original voices of his generation, the contributions Leonard Bernstein made to American classical music during the span of his half-century-long career are without equal. Born to a well-to-do pair of Jewish immigrant parents, he received his earliest musical training after his aunt Clara transferred her upright piano to his parents’ house, prompting him to request his first lessons. He spent summers at his family’s vacation home mounting stage productions with the neighborhood children, attending his first symphonic performance — the Boston Pops Orchestra led by Arthur Fiedler — in May 1932: “To me, in those days, the Pops was heaven itself ... I thought ... it was the supreme achievement of the human race.”

He received an undergraduate degree from Harvard in 1939, where he studied composition with Walter Piston and met the conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos, who made such an impression on the young Bernstein that he was persuaded to pursue a career in conducting. Graduate studies at the Curtis Institute of Music brought him to the inaugural festival at Tanglewood (then known as the Berkshire Music Center), where he served as assistant to and studied with Serge Koussevitzky, the music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. On 14 November 1943, he made history by replacing an ailing Bruno Walter on the podium at the last minute, leading the New York Philharmonic in a program of works by Schumann, Strauss, and Wagner, launching himself into international stardom.

The serenade came to Bernstein in the middle of a particularly active decade. Having just written his first opera, Trouble in Tahiti, in 1951 and completed the score for the musical Wonderful Town in 1953 (with West Side Story only a few years away), Bernstein was occupied in the summer of 1954 with fulfilling an overdue commission for the Koussevitzky Foundation while honoring a commitment to compose a concertante work for the Ukrainian-American violinist Isaac Stern. Dedicated to “the beloved memory of Serge and Natalie Koussevitzky,” the serenade was inspired by his re-reading of Plato’s Symposium while on vacation to Cuernavaca in 1951, which doubled as a convenient structural framework for Stern’s request. That the work signifies a midcentury revival of interest in the classical world owes an obvious debt to Igor Stravinsky, whose neoclassical scores had been incorporating archetypes and motifs from ancient Greek literature.

Plato’s Symposium presents a series of dialectical arguments — presented as a succession of speeches at a banquet — on the nature of love by seven narrators, who grow increasingly inebriated as the party wears on: Phaedrus (an Athenian aristocrat), Pausanias (a legal scholar), Eryximachus (a physician), Aristophanes (the playwright), Agathon (the tragic poet and host of the banquet), Socrates (Plato’s teacher), and Alcibiades (an Athenian general). Bernstein consciously responded to the thematic substance of the text by including quotations from his own Five Anniversaries, a collection of intimate character pieces for the piano dedicated to his closest friends. Humphrey Burton, Bernstein’s biographer, remarked that the music “can also be

perceived as a portrait of Bernstein himself: grand and noble in the first movement, childlike in the second, boisterous and playful in the third, serenely calm and tender in the fourth, a doomladen prophet and then a jazzy iconoclast in the finale.”

Symphonic Dances from West Side Story

Composed: Autumn 1955 – Summer 1957; suite compiled in 1960

First performance: 13 February 1961; Lukas Foss, conductor; New York Philharmonic Last MSO performance: 19 June 2016; Jeffrey Kahane, conductor

Instrumentation: 3 flutes (3rd doubling on piccolo); 2 oboes; English horn; 2 clarinets; E-flat clarinet; bass clarinet; alto saxophone; 2 bassoons; contrabassoon; 4 horns; 3 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; percussion (bongos, congas, cymbals, finger cymbals, maracas, police whistle, tambourine, triangle, vibraphone, xylophone); harp; piano (doubling on celesta); strings

Approximate duration: 22 minutes

At the very top of the first page of his copy of Romeo and Juliet, Leonard Bernstein recapitulated one of the most enduring parables of human bigotry in a pithy eight words: “An out and out plea for racial tolerance.” And this is the crux of what remains his most popular, engaging, and vital work: when it premiered on Broadway in September 1957, West Side Story presented the American public with a remarkable melding of two traditions — the historical sophistication of opera and the fluid dynamism of contemporary musical theater — in its portrayal of the doomed romance of two lovers whose fates intersect across ethnic lines. Combined with Jerome Robbins’s electrifying choreography and Stephen Sondheim’s scathing, clear-eyed lyrical commentary on American race relations, the show enshrined Bernstein in the pantheon of American musical celebrity.

The production was hampered by artistic differences, a lack of interest from producers, and logistical obstacles: author Arthur Laurents had invented entirely new slang for the production to avoid any of the language outdating itself by opening night, while Bernstein was under constant pressure to excise portions of his score owing to its perceived difficulties. “And then we had the really tough problem of casting it,” Bernstein recalled, “because the characters had to be able not only to sing but dance and act and be taken for teenagers. ... Some were wonderful singers but couldn’t dance very well, or vice versa ... and if they could do both, they couldn’t act.”

The score brilliantly synthesized elements of Latin, jazz, and Western symphonic music, with John Chapman noting in the New York Daily News the day after the musical’s premiere that “there is the drive, the bounce, the restlessness and the sweetness of our town. It takes up the American musical idiom where it was left when George Gershwin died.” Bernstein arranged the “Symphonic Dances” in 1960 as a display of the most arresting musical moments of the entire production, deftly interwoven such that the momentum from one point in the action dissolves seamlessly into the next. Lukas Foss, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s third music director and Bernstein’s lifelong friend, conducted the suite’s premiere at the “Valentine for Leonard Bernstein” gala held by the New York Philharmonic in February 1961.

The Prologue, with its finger-snaps and syncopated bass lines, thrusts us into the heart of New York City as tensions simmer between the white American Jets and the Puerto Rican Sharks before fading into the opening bars of Somewhere, a tender intermezzo marked by sweeping string sections. A brief, effervescent Scherzo breaks into the Mambo, excerpted from the sensationally kinetic dance sequences staged as the rival gangs face off at the gymnasium, before the Cha-cha and Meeting Scene liquidate motifs from “Maria,” sketching a musical impression of the lovers’ first contact. Cool sees Riff leading the Jets in preparation for battle by threading together melodic fragments into a jazzy, restless fugue, which is interrupted by the Rumble that leaves both Riff and Bernardo dead in the street. The Finale returns to the haunting strains of Somewhere as Maria mourns the needless death of her lover, Tony.

BÉLA BARTÓK

Born 25 March 1881; Nagyszentmiklós, Austria-Hungary (now Sânnicolau Mare, Romania)

Died 26 September 1945; New York City, New York

Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin, Opus 19, Sz. 73, BB 82

Composed: October 1918 – May 1919; revised April – November 1924 and 1926 – 1931; suite compiled in February 1927

First performance: 27 November 1926 (ballet); Eugen Szenkár, conductor; Cologne Opera; 15 October 1928 (suite); Ernst von Dohnányi, conductor; Budapest Philharmonic Society

Last MSO performance: 8 May 2004; Gregory Vajda, conductor

Instrumentation: 3 flutes (2nd doubling on 2nd piccolo, 3rd doubling on 1st piccolo); 3 oboes (3rd doubling on English horn); 3 clarinets (2nd doubling on E-flat clarinet, 3rd doubling on bass clarinet); 3 bassoons (3rd doubling on contrabassoon); 4 horns; 3 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; percussion (bass drum, cymbals, snare drum, soprano snare drum, suspended cymbals, tam tam, triangle, xylophone); harp; celesta; piano; organ; strings

Approximate duration: 20 minutes

In the very first years of the 20th century, a young Béla Bartók was busy sowing the seeds of a budding intellectual pursuit. Along with Zoltán Kodály, whom he had befriended during his student years at the Royal Academy of Music in Budapest, he had begun roaming the countryside and transcribing peasant songs in 1904. He had just completed his formal studies — it was presumed he would find a career as a pianist and compose only secondarily — but within a few years, the two were using an Edison phonograph and gathering data using analytic parameters developed expressly for their undertaking; within 15, Bartók had collected thousands of examples of folk music from Hungarian, Romanian, and Slovak sources, furnishing him with the materials necessary to establish himself as a leading figure in the newly-defined discipline of ethnomusicology.

The Miraculous Mandarin, Bartók’s third and final work for the stage, blends this traditional vernacular with his own distinctly expressionist musical language, taking its scenario from Hungarian author Melchior Lengyel’s short story of the same name, which was first published in the literary magazine Nyugat (“West”) in 1916. A particularly gruesome plot involving deception, theft, violence, and murder prevented the production from being staged until 1926, and after only a single performance, the work was forcibly withdrawn and banned by German authorities. Eugen Szenkár, having conducted the premiere, recalled that the performance concluded with “a concert of whistling and catcalls! ... The uproar was so deafening and lengthy that the fire curtain had to be brought down.”

A whirlwind of scales in the strings and punctuations from the brass introduce the pantomime’s seedy urban setting. Three degenerates, desperate for money, force a young girl to stand by the window of a brothel and dance for passersby in hopes of ensnaring and robbing them. She dances a Lockspiel (a “decoy” or “seduction game”) as an attractive melody unwinds in the clarinet, first catching the attention of an old man, caricatured by glissandi in the trombone, then a young man, played by the oboe. Neither have any money, and the delinquents throw them both out. But the third time’s the charm: as the tune in the clarinet grows increasingly elaborate, a mysterious “mandarin” (or imperial bureaucrat) appears, heralded by trombones, cymbals, and bass drum, his gaze fixed on the young girl. Terrified, the three tramps force her to dance, and as the mandarin’s excitement mounts, he chases her as the music erupts in a thrillingly rhythmic fugue.

The suite, which contains only about two-thirds of the one-act ballet’s music, concludes here — probably to avoid the sexual violence presented in the story’s denouement. The three men accost the wealthy foreigner, strip him of his riches, and attempt to suffocate him to no avail. Still staring at the girl, they stab him repeatedly with a rusty sword, but he staggers toward her. They finally hang him from a lamp, but even this proves fruitless: as his body collapses to the ground, it begins to glow with an otherworldly light. As the thugs begin to panic, the girl realizes what must be done. She orders the release of the mandarin, who throws himself at her, and as she accepts his embrace, his wounds begin bleeding as he finally dies.

MASUR CONDUCTS BRAHMS

Friday, June 6, 2025 at 11:15 am

Saturday, June 7, 2025 at 7:30 pm

ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL

Ken-David Masur, conductor

Susan Babini, cello

AARON JAY KERNIS

Colored Field (Concerto for Cello and Orchestra)

I. Colored Field

II. Pandora Dance

III. Hymns and Tablets

Susan Babini, cello

INTERMISSION

JOHANNES BRAHMS

Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Opus 68

I. Un poco sostenuto – Allegro

II. Andante sostenuto

III. Un poco allegretto e grazioso

IV. Adagio – Più andante – Allegro non troppo, ma con brio

The 2024.25 Classics Series is presented by the UNITED PERFORMING ARTS FUND and ROCKWELL AUTOMATION

The length of this concert is approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes.

Guest Artist Biographies

SUSAN BABINI

Susan Babini was appointed principal cello of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra by Edo de Waart. She has been recognized for her “gorgeous sound and liquid sense of phrasing” (Philadelphia Inquirer), “achingly beautiful” Chopin sonata encore with Emanuel Ax (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) and “gorgeous, dark sound” (Milwaukee Shepherd Express).

Babini was formerly principal cellist with the New Century Chamber Orchestra and has performed as guest principal cello with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.

In addition to her orchestral duties, Babini regularly performs as a soloist with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. She has also performed as soloist with New Century Chamber Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, and Symphony in C, where she gave the East Coast premiere of Aaron Jay Kernis’s Colored Field for cello and orchestra. She is also featured on Mr. Kernis’s album On Distant Shores. In addition, as an Astral Artist, she has been presented in solo recital by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society.

A passionate chamber musician, she has participated in both the Tanglewood and Yellow Barn music festivals, as well as four seasons at the Marlboro Music Festival, where she performed multiple national tours on the Musicians from Marlboro series. In Milwaukee, she has performed with Frankly Music, Milwaukee Musaik, and with the Philomusica String Quartet. She has also performed as guest cellist with the Cavani String Quartet on the Detroit Chamber Music Society series and at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Most recently, Babini has appeared multiple times on the Winterlude series at the Villa Terrace.

Babini enjoys teaching talented young students and has taught orchestral cello repertoire for the National Youth Orchestra and at Northwestern University. She has also spent summers teaching at the Brevard Music Festival, and has served as a guest artist at the Interlochen Center for the Arts, leading their cello intensive week in 2024. She has also taught master classes in chamber music at the Cleveland Institute of Music and chamber music performance at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. She frequently leads master classes at home and abroad.

The daughter of two cellists, Babini began her musical studies at the tender age of three. Babini holds a graduate diploma from The Juilliard School, and Bachelor and Master of Chamber Music degrees from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Bonnie Hampton.

When she’s not playing the cello, Babini can be found either cultivating her garden or working in her kitchen trying to master the art of sourdough bread. She’s getting there.

Program notes by David Jensen

AARON JAY KERNIS

Born 15 January 1960; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Colored Field (Concerto for Cello and Orchestra)

Composed: Spring 1993 – 6 March 1994

First performance: 21 April 1994 (version for English horn); Alasdair Neale, conductor; Julie Ann Giacobassi, English horn; San Francisco Symphony; 17 April 2000 (version for cello); Eiji Oue, conductor; Truls Mørk, cello; Minnesota Orchestra

Last MSO performance: MSO Premiere

Instrumentation: 3 flutes (2nd and 3rd doubling on piccolo); 2 oboes; 3 clarinets (2nd doubling on bass clarinet, 3rd doubling on E-flat clarinet); 2 bassoons (2nd doubling on contrabassoon); 4 horns; 3 trumpets in C (2nd and 3rd doubling on trumpet in D); 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; percussion (4 almglocken, 2 bass drums, 5 bell plates, 4 brake drums, castanets, chimes, 4 cowbells, crash cymbal, crotales, glockenspiel, guiro, marimba, 4 nipple gongs, ratchet, rute, sandpaper blocks, slapstick, snare drum, 4 steel pipes, 3 suspended cymbals, 4 tam tams, tambourine, tenor drum, 2 timbales, 2 bongos, 3 triangles, vibraphone, wood blocks, wooden rattle, xylophone); harp; piano (doubling on celesta); strings (divided into 2 string orchestras)

Approximate duration: 41 minutes

Aaron Jay Kernis is one of few American composers whose accessible, superbly crafted music clearly articulates his emotionally intuitive style. His scholarly pursuits took him across the country, training with John Adams at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Charles Wuorinen at the Manhattan School of Music, and Jacob Druckman, Bernard Rands, and Morton Subotnick at the Yale School of Music. He has served as workshop director of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra’s composer lab and as new music advisor, co-founder, and director of the Minnesota Orchestra’s Composer Institute, taught composition at Yale, and received both the Pulitzer Prize and a Grammy Award. It’s little wonder, then, that his mature voice would be consistently described as “eclectic,” integrating everything from midcentury minimalism to the neo-Romantic.

Colored Field, originally the product of a commission from the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra on behalf of Hugh and Eugénie Taylor, was tailored to the playing of Julie Ann Giacobassi, the orchestra’s English hornist for a quarter of a century. Her recording on the Argo Records label with Alasdair Neale, who conducted the work’s premiere, and the San Francisco Symphony was awarded the prestigious Diapason d’Or shortly after its release. A few years later, Kernis, who had “originally conceived it vocally,” reworked the piece into a cello concerto, winning the Grawemeyer Award in Music Composition from the University of Louisville in the process.

The concerto was one of several works defined by their pointed political narratives which occupied Kernis in the 1990s. His second symphony was a direct response to the Gulf War; Still Movement with Hymn a reaction to the Bosnian genocide; the Lament and Prayer for violin and orchestra commemorated the 50th anniversary of the end of the Holocaust. Colored Field, for its part, was directly inspired by his visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in 1989: while observing a child sitting on the ground and chewing on a blade of grass, he was overwhelmed by the recognition that the leaf had grown in a field soaked in innocent blood.

The first movement, which bears the same name as the concerto itself, is made up of lengthy, probing melodies, incorporating the rhapsodic elements of the Jewish cantorial tradition and giving the impression of a sinister, almost oppressive lullaby. An unremittingly aggressive battery of musical ideas dominates in the central scherzo, “Pandora Dance,” which takes the image of “little black things slithering out of a box” as its point of departure. The final movement returns to the heartsick solemnity of the first: the “tablets” to which its title refers are both those that mark our graves and the laws that Moses bore during his descent from Sinai, commentary on the futility of legal means (themselves a constructed thing) to protect the innocent.

JOHANNES BRAHMS

Born 7 May 1833; Hamburg, Germany

Died 3 April 1897; Vienna, Austria

Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Opus 68

Composed: 1855 – September 1876

First performance: 4 November 1876; Felix Otto Dessoff, conductor; Großherzogliches Hoftheater Orchestra, Karlsruhe

Last MSO performance: 18 November 2017; Michael Francis, conductor

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

Approximate duration: 45 minutes

As the second half of the 19th century unfolded, Johannes Brahms found himself at the heart of one of music history’s greatest divides. Concert music in Western Europe had come to a crossroads: on the one hand, Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner were testing the limits of instrumental color, tonal harmony, and the clearly-defined formal structures they’d inherited, articulating extramusical narratives in their so-called “programmatic” music, while on the other, conservative artists like Clara and Robert Schumann and Brahms himself continued to model their works upon the previous century’s principles of restraint, balance, and otherwise conventional harmonic principles as exemplified by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, composing “absolute” music which referred to nothing outside of its own contents.

Brahms not only revered Beethoven, but was acutely self-conscious of having inherited his mantle. He was already being compared to the late master by his early twenties, and the self-imposed pressure of elaborating upon the German symphonic tradition in the wake of Beethoven’s ninth effectively paralyzed him. He had already begun to test his mettle with a draft of a symphony in D minor as early as 1854, but uncertain of its worthiness, its contents were eventually recycled into his first piano concerto. The following year saw drafts of a first movement, which would be laid aside until 1862 as Brahms refined his sense of orchestration while composing his two serenades in the late 1850s. By the time Brahms completed his first symphony, more than 20 years had passed between its earliest incarnation and its premiere.

Brahms’s first symphony is the product of a composer simultaneously looking to the past for inspiration and, on the level of posterity, toward the future. The choice of C minor as the primary key center, working its way toward the parallel major by the fourth movement, clearly alludes to the tonal scheme of Beethoven’s landmark fifth. Unlike Hector Berlioz or Wagner, whose music was continually advancing the orchestra’s timbral possibilities, his instrumentation, too, is essentially Beethovenian, consisting of doubled woodwinds, brass, timpani, and strings — a limited palette better suited to his polyphonic approach, which alternately emphasized both the outer and inner voices of the music. But formally, he left his fingerprint on the symphonic structure: the greatest weight is given to the outer movements, marked by their intensity of expression, the slow second movement remains an essentially Classical feature, and the third

deviates from the typical scherzo completely, substituted by a uniquely Brahmsian allegretto. The comparisons to Beethoven by the musical public were, of course, immediate. The influential — and notoriously conservative — Austrian music critic Eduard Hanslick, for whom music was idealized by the Classical paradigm of symmetry, pattern, and internal thematic unity, gave a highly favorable review, declaring it “one of the most individual and magnificent works of the symphonic literature.” Hans von Bülow, a former pupil of Liszt, referred to it as “Beethoven’s Tenth.” Despite his conscious effort to pay musical homage, the repeated associations annoyed Brahms, eventually prompting him to respond to the observation that the main theme from his finale bore a resemblance to Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” with the terse assertion that “Any dunce could see that.”

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GREAT MOMENTS IN GRAND OPERA

SEASON FINALE

Friday, June 13, 2025 at 7:30 pm

Saturday, June 14, 2025 at 7:30 pm

Sunday, June 15, 2025 at 2:30 pm

ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL

Ken-David Masur, conductor

Milwaukee Symphony Chorus

Cheryl Frazes Hill, director

RICHARD WAGNER

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, WWV 96

Prelude

Act I, Scene I: “Da zu dir der Heiland kam” [When the Savior came to thee]

Act II, Scene I: “Johannistag! Johannistag!” [St. John’s Day]

Act III, Scene V: “Wach’ auf! es nahet gen den Tag” [Wake up, the dawn approaches]

Milwaukee Symphony Chorus

Parsifal, WWV 111

Act I, Scene I: Verwandlungsmusik [Transformation Music]

Lohengrin, WWV 75

Prelude to Act III

Act III, Scene I: “Treulich geführt” [“Bridal Chorus”]

Milwaukee Symphony Chorus

Tannhäuser, WWV 70

Act III, Scene I: “Beglückt darf nun dich, o Heimat, ich schauen” [Joyfully I may now look on thee, O my homeland]

Milwaukee Symphony Chorus

INTERMISSION

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

Die Zauberflöte, K. 620

Overture

Act I, Scene III: “Zum Ziele führt dich diese Bahn” [This path leads you to your goal]

Milwaukee Symphony Chorus

La forza del destino Overture

Nabucco

Act III, Scene II: “Va, pensiero, sull’ali dorate” [Go, thought, on wings of gold] Milwaukee Symphony Chorus

La traviata Prelude

Act I: “Libiamo ne’ lieti calici” [Let’s drink from the joyful chalices] Milwaukee Symphony Chorus

Aida

Act II, Scene II: “Gloria all’Egitto, ad Iside” [“Triumphal March”] Milwaukee Symphony Chorus

Il trovatore

Act II, Scene I: “Vedi! le fosche notturne” [“Anvil Chorus”] Milwaukee Symphony Chorus

The 2024.25 Classics Series is presented by the UNITED PERFORMING ARTS FUND and ROCKWELL AUTOMATION

The length of this concert is approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes.

Program notes by David Jensen

Marked by grandeur, prestige, drama, and debate, perhaps no other creative pursuit in the West is as fraught with difficulty — or, for that matter, as capable of pointing toward the sublime — as that of opera. Emerging from the theatrical, aristocratic diversions of the Italianate courts at the beginning of the 17th century, the discipline has blossomed over the course of four centuries to embrace a rich tapestry of language, music, choreography, and aesthetics, as is so often explicated by Wagner’s description of the form as the Gesamtkunstwerk (or “total work of art”). Our final performances of the 2024-25 season bring together some of the most inventive choral capstones of the repertoire by three of its most revolutionary exponents.

RICHARD WAGNER

Born 22 May 1813; Leipzig, Germany Died 13 February 1883; Venice, Italy

Equally at home as polemicist, conductor, dramatist, librettist, and composer, Richard Wagner stood at the fore of one of the most crucial turning points in the history of classical music. An artist with a singular drive to transform the conventions of stagecraft, his lavish orchestration, extended chromatic harmonies, highly developed integration of leitmotifs (musical fragments alluding to specific characters, settings, or concepts), and determination to synthesize the poetic, musical, and dramatic facets of the theater in service of his narratives expanded the expressive powers of the orchestra and thrust classical music into a daring new epoch.

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1868) is an exception to Wagner’s typically weighty operatic fare: it is one of his only comedic endeavors, and the action is grounded in the realism of Renaissance Nuremberg, using the practices of the master singer guilds as a frame for the allegory of musical tradition in conflict with artistic innovation. The prelude immediately suggests a renewal of the common-practice tonality of the early 18th century and moves directly into the opening scene as a church service concludes with a magnificent rendition of the Lutheran chorale tradition (“Da zu dir der Heiland kam”). Act II opens with a radiantly orchestrated depiction of Midsummer Day (“Johannistag! Johannistag!”) as the apprentices gather in celebration before singing the praises of Hans Sachs (“Wach’ auf! es nahet gen den Tag”), the historical master singer who oversees the singing competition at the heart of the opera’s final act.

Wagner more frequently looked to German or Norse mythology for subject matter that suited his lofty artistic aims. The Verwandlungsmusik (“transformation music”) from Act I of Parsifal (1882), Wagner’s retelling of the eponymous medieval knight who seeks the Holy Grail, was originally written to account for a set change between scenes and, with its dramatic brass fanfares and chiming bells, foreshadows the entry into the Hall of the Grail and quotes the socalled “communion” leitmotif introduced in the opera’s prelude. Lohengrin (1850), premiered more than 30 years earlier, weaves together the story of the knight sent to protect Elsa, the duchess of Brabant, with elements of Greek tragedy: the famed “Bridal Chorus” which follows their wedding precedes a wretched separation precipitated by human frailty. Similarly, Tannhäuser (1845) drew upon two primary sources: the legend of the Sängerkrieg (“minstrel contest”) at the Wartburg castle and that of Tannhäuser, the traveling poet. The “Pilgrims’ Chorus” (“Beglückt darf nun dich, o Heimat”) of the final act is heard as Elisabeth, the princess awaiting his return from a redemptory sojourn, watches a crowd of pilgrims celebrating their absolution by the pope — a luxury Tannhäuser would ultimately be denied.

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

Born 27 January 1756; Salzburg, Holy Roman Empire

Died 5 December 1791; Vienna, Austria

Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte premiered in 1791, just two months before the composer’s death, and has remained one of his most brilliantly rendered and endlessly popular scores ever since. Conceived as a singspiel (“sing-play”), then a popular Germanic musico-dramatic form, Mozart entwined exquisite ensemble numbers, solo arias, and spoken word in an opulent account of Prince Tamino’s noble efforts to rescue the fair Pamina from the the high priest Sarastro at the behest of the Queen of the Night. By the tale’s conclusion, however, it becomes quite clear that the devious Queen’s actions were motivated only by personal gain: as she and her underlings are banished to eternal night in the final scene, Sarastro joins Tamino and Pamina in marriage as the victors celebrate the triumph of good over evil. The German libretto, contributed by Emanuel Schikaneder, the impresario and dramatist responsible for the construction of the Theater an der Wien, is drawn from August Jacob Liebeskind’s fairytale Lulu oder die Zauberflöte, and makes wonderful use of its fantastical features, rife as the opera is with monsters, trickery, magic, and trials of the spirit.

Perhaps no aspect of the opera has been written about at greater length than its obvious allusions to the Freemasons, of which both Mozart and Schikaneder were members. The number three, which carries symbolic significance in the masonic tradition (most notably in the divisions of life into past, present, and future; the virtues of brotherly love, relief, and truth; and the holy trinity) is repeatedly emphasized: the cast includes three ladies, three spirits, and three priests, and the overture itself begins with three distinct chords. More broadly, the scenario can be interpreted against the backdrop of Enlightenment ethics — namely the pursuit of intellectual and spiritual self-actualization. Nowhere is this more evident than in the finale of Act I (“Zum Ziele führt dich diese Bahn”) as the three spirits, leading Prince Tamino to the temples of Reason, Nature, and Wisdom, underscore the value of remaining “steadfast, patient, and wise.”

GIUSEPPE VERDI

Born 9 or 10 October 1813; Le Roncole, Italy

Died 27 January 1901; Milan, Italy

Born the same year as Richard Wagner, Giuseppe Verdi developed an approach to the theater that was diametrically opposed to the immense, harmonically radical productions of his German contemporary. Inheriting the Italianate bel canto style that had dominated opera in the first decades of the 19th century, he gradually transformed the customs of his time to elevate the role of the orchestra without compromising the emotive authority of the human voice, sculpting some of the most strikingly memorable melodies in the operatic canon. The manuscripts that remain to us from the creative peak of his mature period reveal a careful working out of material, first as piano reductions with vocal lines sketched above, which were then gradually shaped over the course of rehearsals to develop orchestration — implying that Verdi’s concern, from the beginning, was the primacy of the vocal line and the long dramatic arch of his work.

Verdi’s penchant for working with text that inspired him (almost always featuring people enmeshed in disastrous circumstances) resulted in an enormous variety of character studies. La forza del destino (1862) was, to use Verdi’s words, an opera “made with ideas” — in its examination of love, free will, and violence, he painted extraordinary portraits of the starcrossed Leonora and Don Alvaro. The overture, which begins with a three-note motive on a unison E in the brass, embodies the force of “fate,” suggesting the clear influence of Bellini, Donizetti, and Rossini in its elegant major-key episodes, eventually modulating to E major as the curtain rises. Nabucco (1842), the first of Verdi’s works to establish him as an international authority, chronicles the troubles of the Jewish people as they’re cast from their homeland by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar (“Va, pensiero, sull’ali dorate”).

The prelude to La traviata (1853), with its delicate string writing, intimates a very different aspect of Verdi’s voice, its softer, subtler quality presaging the tragedy that meets the Parisian courtesan Violetta and her lover, the young bourgeois Alfredo. The brindisi, or drinking song, that follows (“Libiamo ne’ lieti calici”), with its charming musings on the ephemeral nature of love and pleasure, is a perennial favorite of singers and audiences alike and remains one of Verdi’s best-known melodies. In his sprawling, fanciful Aida (1871), Verdi imagines the Old Kingdom of Egypt alive with the human foibles of forbidden love and the thirst for imperial power: the glorious “Triumphal March” (“Gloria all’Egitto, ad Iside”) sings the praises of Egypt, its king, and its gods as Radamès, captain of the king’s guard, returns victorious from war. Our program concludes with the rousing “Anvil Chorus” from Il trovatore (1853), sung by the Spanish Romani laborers striking their anvils as the sun rises, extolling the merits of women, wine, and work.

THORGY THOR & THE THORCHESTRA

Saturday, June 21, 2025 at 7:30 pm

ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL

Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser, conductor

Thorgy Thor, violin

Jinwoo Lee, violin

Hannah Esch, soprano

CINDY LAUPER/arr. Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL

Arrival of the Queen of Sheba from Solomon, HWV 67

Thorgy Thor, violin

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

Concerto in D minor for Two Violins and String Orchestra, BWV 1043 I. Vivace

Thorgy Thor, violin

Jinwoo Lee, violin

JEAN-PHILIPPE RAMEAU

Orage from Platée, RCT 53

HENRY PURCELL

When I am Laid in Earth (“Dido’s Lament”) from Dido and Aeneas, Z. 626

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Opus 67 I. Allegro con brio

FLORENCE PRICE

Adoration for Violin and String Orchestra

Thorgy Thor, violin

SAMUEL COLERIDGE-TAYLOR

Suite from Hiawatha, Opus 82a V. Reunion

Continued on page 42

THORGY THOR & THE THORCHESTRA

Continued from page 41

PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY

Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Opus 36 III. Scherzo: Pizzicato ostinato – Allegro

IGOR STRAVINSKY

Suite from The Firebird (1919) V. Finale

INTERMISSION

KYLE GORDON

Golden Age Overture

KYLE GORDON

L is for Love (Underscore)

EDITH PIAF/arr. Kyle Gordon

Thorgy Thor, violin

Non, je ne regrette Rien / La Vie en rose

Hannah Esch, vocalist

VARIOUS

LADY GAGA

Love Is All You Need (A Tribute to the Beatles)

Fashion

Hannah Esch, vocalist

BEYONCÉ/arr. Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser Crazy in Love

MADONNA/arr. Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser Vogue

Thorgy Thor, violin TBD, vocalist

Presented in partnership with Edessa School of Fashion. The length of this concert is approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes. All programs are subject to change.

Guest Artist Biographies

THORGY THOR

Thorgy Thor is a New York City-based drag performance artist, entertainer, musician, and event host. Since appearing on season eight of RuPaul’s Drag Race and season three of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars, Thorgy has been traveling the world, bringing audiences her trademark wit, sense of humor, and musical charm.

In 2018, the show “Thorgy and the Thorchestra” was created in collaboration with Canadian conductor Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser, making its debut with Symphony Nova Scotia in Halifax in conjunction with Halifax Pride, with two nights of sold-out performances to rave reviews. The show blends orchestral performances of traditional and modern classical repertoire and contemporary pop songs. The creation and debut of Thorgy and the Thorchestra was featured as part of Disruptor Conductor, Sharon Lewis’s 2019 documentary film about conductor Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser, which highlighted his creative collaboration with Thorgy.

Since then, Thorgy has taken the Thorchestra program to audiences around the globe. She has performed in the U.S. with the Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Charlotte, and Seattle symphonies, and in Canada with the Vancouver, Edmonton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Saskatoon, and Regina symphonies and the Calgary Philharmonic. Additionally, she has had the pleasure of playing violin with many recording artists, including New York legend Joey Arias, as well as having appeared in performance at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and Le Poisson Rouge.

Thorgy studied music at the University of Hartford’s Hartt School of Music in Connecticut before graduating from the State University of New York at Purchase with a Bachelor of Music degree in both viola and violin performance in 2006. While undertaking studies at the Hart School and Purchase Conservatory, Thorgy also earned an honorary degree in Drag Ridiculousness, performing her original works of art entitled Maitri and Pocket to Pocket. Thorgy also starred in theatrical productions such as Bad Splices and Psycho Beach Party.

Thorgy has appeared on Amazon’s Mozart in the Jungle, where she showcased her violin skills in drag. Thorgy has also been a repeat guest on Bravo’s Watch What Happens: Live, appearing alongside Goldie Hawn, Amy Schumer, Lily Tomlin, and Jane Fonda. She was also a special guest performer as part of Eliot Glazer’s Haunting Renditions in 2017. Further television credits include Dragnificent! on TLC and Hulu.

After moving to Brooklyn in 2006, Thorgy featured in nightclubs, theater projects, street performances, and photo series throughout Brooklyn and New York City. She has since been nominated for numerous awards, including the Glam Awards, Get Out Awards, Odyssey Magazine Awards, and the Brooklyn Nightlife Awards, winning the Legend award and taking home Best Group Show of the Year.

Thorgy Thor is exclusively represented by Dispeker Artists. www.dispeker.com

Guest Artist Biographies

DANIEL BARTHOLEMEW-POYSER

Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser is a passionate communicator who brings clarity and meaning to the concert hall, fostering deep connections between audiences and performers. He is concurrently principal youth conductor and creative partner of the National Arts Centre Orchestra, principal education conductor and community ambassador of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, artist in residence and community ambassador of Symphony Nova Scotia, and resident conductor of engagement and education of the San Francisco Symphony.

Bartholomew-Poyser hosts the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) nationally broadcast weekly radio show Centre Stage. He was also the subject of an award-winning, full-length CBC documentary, Disruptor Conductor, focusing on his concerts for neurodiverse, prison, African diaspora, and LGBTQ2S+ populations.

Bartholomew-Poyser earned his bachelor’s degree in music performance and education from the University of Calgary and his Master of Philosophy in performance from the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England.

Congratulations to the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Retirees

Glenn Asch | Second Violin

Joined the MSO in 1980

Glenn performs in a variety of performance styles, including bluegrass, Celtic, Texas swing, be-bop, fusion, Hindustani (East Indian), and African (Senegalese). In addition to the MSO, he is also a member of the Jason Seed Stringtet and the Chris Hanson Band, which performs swing music. While attending Kewaskum High School, Glenn studied violin at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. He then went on to receive his bachelor’s degree from UW-Madison and a master’s with Ralph Evans from UW-Milwaukee. He is also a skilled composer and arranger.

Beth Giacobassi | Bassoon & Contrabassoon Joined the MSO in 1982

Besides her 43 years with the MSO, Beth was the bassoon professor at UW-Milwaukee from 20002020. Prior to this she taught at UW-Parkside and Alverno. She kept an active teaching studio, was principal bassoon of the Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra, and produced two DVDs Bassoon Fundamentals and Bassoon Reed Making, which sold nationwide. She has performed in several summer festivals, including 28 years with the Washington Island Music Festival. She performed for kindergartners in the MSO ACE Low Instrument Trio for 25 years and is a composer/arranger for the MSO Lullaby Project.

OF

SINGLE TICKETS

JUNE 10!

The Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts is thrilled to unveil its dynamic 2025/2026 performing arts season, featuring a robust schedule of 25 performances showcasing world-class talent, local partnerships, and bold new voices in music and performance! Scan QR code for details and tickets!

Congratulations to the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Retirees

Robert Levine | Viola, Principal, Richard O. and Judith A. Wagner Family Principal Viola Chair

Joined the MSO in 1987

In addition to the MSO, Robert has been a member of the Orford Quartet in residence at the University of Toronto, and principal violist of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, as well as guest principal with the Hong Kong Philharmonic and the New Zealand Symphony. He is an active chamber musician, having performed with artists such as Pinchas Zukerman, Yo-Yo Ma, Michael Tilson Thomas, Schlomo Mintz, and Jean-Pierre Rampal. He is president of AFM Local 8, the union that represents the musicians of the MSO, and has written extensively about issues concerning orchestra musicians for numerous industry publications as well as for his own blogs.

Mary Terranova | Second Violin

Joined the MSO in 1990

Prior to joining the MSO, Mary was a private violin instructor and freelance artist in the Los Angeles area, frequently performing at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the California Institute of the Arts. She was also a member of the Grant Park Symphony in Chicago. She has participated in the Holland Music Festival and the Colorado Music Festival in Boulder, Colorado. Mary was a performer in the ACE program for 23 years.

NORTHSHORE FUNERAL SERVICES

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The Argosy Foundation has generously extended their support for the Just Duet Matching Challenge for the 15th year in a row. From now until August 31, every new or increased donation will be matched dollar for dollar up to $300,000!

Whether you already sustain our artistic mission through your kind and critical support or have been waiting for the right moment to make a donation, now is the perfect time to double your impact on the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s legacy as a cultural treasure in our hometown.

We hope you’ll take advantage of this limited-time opportunity to champion the live orchestral music you love. Thank you for joining the Just Duet Matching Challenge with a gift to the MSO today!

Please scan this code or visit mso.org/donate to learn more.

Mail: Send a check by mail to: Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Advancement Department 212 W Wisconsin Ave Milwaukee, WI 53203 Help us raise $300,000 by August 31! '

Other Ways to Give

Phone: 414 -226 -7833

VISIONARIES

Commitments of $1,000,000 and above

Two Anonymous Donors

Jane Bradley Pettit

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

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

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

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

Laskin Family Foundation

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

Andy Nunemaker French Horn Chair

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

Allison M. & Dale R. Smith

Percussion Fund

Estate of Walter S. Smolenski, Jr.

Bert L. & Patricia S. Steigleder

Charitable Trust

Donald B. and Ruth P. Taylor

Assistant Principal Clarinet Chair

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.

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

John and Sue Esser

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

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

Musical Legacy Society/Annual Fund

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

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

Nancy McKinley-Ehlinger

Mark and Donna Metzendorf

Mrs. Christel U. Mildenberg

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

Jamshed and 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

Pat and David Rierson

Pat and Allen Rieselbach

Dr. Thomas and Mary Roberts

Roger B. Ruggeri and Andrea K. Wagoner

Nina Sarenac

Mary B. Schley in recognition of David L. Schley

Dr. Robert and Patty Schmidt

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

Susan G. Stein

John Stewig and Richard Bradley

Dr. Robert A. and Kathleen Sullo

Terry Burko and David Taggart

Lois Tetzlaff

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

Rolland and Sharon Wilson

Floyd Woldt

Sandra and Ross Workman

ANNUAL FUND

We gratefully acknowledge the contributions to the Annual Fund as of April 15, 2025

CONDUCTOR CIRCLE

$100,000 and above

Mary Baum

Ellen and Joe Checota

David Herro and Jay Franke

Mr. and Mrs. George C. Kaiser

Donald and JoAnne Krause

Marty Krebs

Sheldon and Marianne Lubar

Charitable Fund of the Lubar Family Foundation

Drs. Alan and Carol Pohl

Michael Schmitz

Julia and David Uihlein

$50,000 and above

Laura and Mike Arnow

Anthony and Vicki Cecalupo

Mr. and Mrs. Donald S. Wilson

$25,000 and above

One Anonymous Donor

Bobbi and Jim Caraway

Mr. and Mrs. Franklyn Esenberg

Mrs. Susan G. Gebhardt

Doug Hagerman

Judith A. Keyes

Robert and Gail Korb

Dr. Brent and Susan Martin

Thomas Sherman

Drs. George and Christine Sosnovsky

Charitable Trust

Drs. Robert Taylor and Janice McFarland Taylor

Thora Vervoren

James and Sue Wiechmann

$15,000 and above

One Anonymous Donor

Marilyn and John Breidster

Elaine Burke

Mary and James Connelly

Dr. Deborah and Jeff Costakos

Mrs. Alyce Coyne Katayama

George E. Forish, Jr.

Roberta Gordon and Allen Young

Kim and Nancy Graff

Drs. Carla and Robert Hay

Jewish Community Foundation

Eileen and Howard Dubner

Donor Advised Fund

Judy and Gary Jorgensen

Charles and Barbara Lund

Maureen McCabe

Christian and Kate Mitchell

Lois and Richard Pauls

Pat Rieselbach

Brian M. Schwellinger

Sara and Jay Schwister

Allison M. and Dale R. Smith

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas R. Tiffany

Haruki Toyama

Alice Weiss

$10,000 and above

Three Anonymous Donors

Dr. Rita Bakalars

Richard and JoAnn Beightol

Ara and Valerie Cherchian

Jennifer Dirks

Jack Douthitt and Michelle Zimmer

Bruce T. Faure M.D.

Mary Lou M. Findley

The Paul & Connie Flagg Family Charitable Fund

Elizabeth and William Genne

Judith J. Goetz

Stephanie and Steve Hancock

Katherine Hauser

Mr. and Mrs. Eric E. Hobbs

Dr. and Mrs. Samuel Hoke

Barbara Karol

Christine Krueger

Geraldine Lash

Mr. Peter L. Mahler

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

Mark and Donna Metzendorf

Dr. Mary Ellen Mitchanis

Bob and Barbara Monnat

Patrick and Mary Murphy

Andy Nunemaker

Brian and Maura Packham

Julie Peay

Ellen Rohwer Pappas and Timothy Pappas

Leslie and Aaron Plamann

Richard V. Poirier

Christine Radiske and Herbert Quigley

Lynn and Craig Schmutzer

Nancy and Greg Smith

Pamela Stampen

Mrs. George Walcott

Tracy S. Wang, MD

Evonne Winston

Diana J. Wood

Herbert Zien and Elizabeth Levins

PRINCIPAL CIRCLE

$5,000 and above

Five Anonymous Donors

Anthony and Kathie Asmuth

Fred and Kay Austermann

Thomas Bagwell and Michelle Hiebert

Robert Balderson

Natalie Beckwith

Lois Bernard

Richard and Kay Bibler

Dr. Sherry H. Blumberg

Nancy Vrabec and Alastair Boake

William and Barbara Boles

Suzy and John Brennan

Mary and Terry Briscoe

Roger Byhardt

Chris and Katie Callen

Ms. Trish Calvy

Donald and Judy Christl

Sandra and Russell Dagon

Karen Dobbs and Chris DeNardis

Mrs. William T. Dicus

Joanne Doehler

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

Beth and Jim Fritz

Alison Graf and Richard Schreiner

Jean and Thomas Harbeck

Family Foundation

James and Crystal Hegge

Ms. Mary E. Henke

Mark and Judy Hibbard

Peg and Mark Humphrey

James and Karen Hyde

Lee and Barbara Jacobi

Leon Janssen

Jayne J. Jordan

Lynn and Tom Kassouf

Benedict and Lee Kordus

Mary E. Lacy

Alysandra and Dave Lal

Charmaine and James LaBelle

Peter and Kathleen Lillegren

Gerald and Elaine Mainman

John and Linda Mellowes

Judith Fitzgerald Miller

Rusti and Steve Moffic

William J. Murgas

Mark Niehaus

Barbara and Layton Olsen

Elaine Pagedas

Sharon L. Petrie

Dr. and Mrs. Richard A. Pierce-Ruhland

Jim and Fran Proulx

Jerome Randall and Mary Hauser

Dr. Donna Recht and Dr. Robert Newby

Steve and Fran Richman

Pat and David Rierson

Roger Ritzow

Mary Roberts

Gayle G. Rosemann and Paul E. McElwee

Patricia and Ronald Santilli

Mr. Thomas P. Schweda

Lynne Shaner

Joan Spector

Carlton Stansbury

Mr. and Mrs. Roland E. Strampe

Bob and Betty Streng

Jim Strey

Mrs. James Urdan

Mr. and Mrs. Francis Wasielewski

Nora and Jude Werra

Janet Wilgus

Jessica R. Wirth

Mr. Wilfred Wollner

$3,500 and above

One Anonymous Donor

Dr. Philip and the spirit of Beatrice Blank

David and Diane Buck

Daniel and Allison Byrne

Mr. David E. Cadle

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas F. Christie

Steven and Buffy Duback

Stan and Janet Fox

Debby Ganaway

Kurt and Rosemary Glaisner

Ginny Hall

Margarete and David Harvey

Drs. Margie Boyles and Stephen Hinkle

Barbara Hunt

David and Mel Johnson

Olof Jonsdottir and Thorsteinn Skulason

Megumi Kanda Hemann and Dietrich Hemann

Stanley Kritzik

Norm and Judy Lasca

Dr. Joseph and Amy Leung

Tom Lindow

Ann Rosenthal and Benson Massey

Judy and Tom Schmid

James Schultz and Donna Menzer

Greg and Marybeth Shuppe

Richard and Sheryl Smith

Roger and Judy Smith

Sue and Boo Smith

James and Catherine Startt

Mark Valkenburgh

Corinthia Van Orsdol and Donald Petersen

Jim Ward

Larry and Adrienne Waters

Carol and Richard Wythes

Sandra Zingler

Leo Zoeller

ORCHESTRA CIRCLE

$2,000 and above

Seven Anonymous Donors

Donald and Jantina Adriano

Drs. Helmut and Sandra Ammon

Dr. Joan Arvedson

Richard and Sara Aster

Mark and Laura Barnard

Bruce and Maggie Barr

Priscilla and Anthony Beadell

Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Beckman

Jacqlynn Behnke

Elliot and Karen Berman

Roger J. Bialcik

Marlene and Bert Bilsky

Scott Bolens and Elizabeth Forman

Virginia Bolger

Dr. and Mrs. Squat Botley

Walter and Virginia Boyer

Cheri and Tom Briscoe

Marcia P. Brooks and Edward J. Hammond

Teri Carpenter

Leigh Barker-Cheesebro

Mr. and Mrs. Stephen L. Chernof

Lynda and Tom Curl

Larry and Eileen Dean

Paul Dekker

Ms. Nancy A. Desjardins

Chris Dillie

Art and Rhonda Downey

Barbara and Harry L. Drake

Sigrid Dynek and Barry Axelrood

Donald Elliott

Signe and Gerald Emmerich, Jr.

Shirley Erwin

Joseph and Joan Fall

Kristin Fewel

Mr. and Mrs. A. William Finke

Anne and Dean Fitzgerald

Jo Ann and Dale Frederickson

Allan and Mary Ellen Froehlich

Timothy Gerend

Barbara Gill

Pearl Mary Goetsch

Karleen Haberichter

Dale and Sara Harmelink

Millicent Hawley

Judith and David Hecker

Robert Hey

Charles and Jean Holmburg

Howard and Susan Hopwood

Robert S. Jakubiak

Pauline and Thomas Jeffers

Marilyn W. John

Ms. Lynda Johnson

Candice and David Johnstone

Maja Jurisic and Don Fraker

Matthew and Kathryn Kamm

Dr. Bruce and Anna Kaufman

Dr. Jack and Myrna Kaufman

Dr. and Mrs. Kim

Mr. Rick Kirby

Mr. and Mrs. F. Michael Kluiber

Julilly W. Kohler

Maritza and Mario Laguna

Mr. and Mrs. Ian Lambert

Drs. Kaye and Prakash Laud

Micaela Levine and Thomas St. John

Mr. and Mrs. Mark Levy

Frank Loo and Sally Long

Kathleen Lovelace

Sara and Nathan Manning

Dr. and Mrs. Debesh Mazumdar

Guy and Mary Jo McDonald

Mr. and Mrs. Dean Mehlberg

Genie and David Meissner

Mrs. Debra L. Metz

Mr. and Mrs. George Meyer

Gregory and Susan Milleville

Mark and Carol Mitchell

Annual Fund

Melodi Muehlbauer

Richard and Isabel Muirhead

Ms. Mary Ann Mueller

Laurie Ocepek

Raymond and Janice Perry

Gerald T. and Carol K. Petersen

David J. Peterson

Kathryn Koenen Potos

John and Susan Pustejovsky

Philip Reifenberg

Drs. Walter and Lisa Rich

Dr. Marcia J.S. Richards

Susan Riedel

Mrs. David Y. Rosenzweig

Dottie Rotter

Mr. Thomas Schneider

Ralph and Cheryl Schregardus

Rev. Doug and Marilyn Schoen

Mr. and Mrs. Mark W. Schwallie

Dr. and Mrs. Kevin R. Siebenlist

Paul and Frances Seifert

Margles Singleton

Mrs. George R. Slater

Dr. and Mrs. C. John Snyder

Leonard Sobczak

Loretto and Dick Steinmetz

Jeff and Jody Steren

Richard and Linda Stevens

Ian and Ellen Szczygielski

David Taggart and Terry Burko

John and Anne Thomas

Joan Thompson

Mr. Stephen Thompson

Mr. Ed Tonn

Joy Towell

Mike and Peg Uihlein

Linda and Lynn Unkefer

James Van Ess

Mark Van Hecke

Ann and Joseph Wenzler

Prati and Norm Wojtal

Lee and Carol Wolcott

Mr. Kevin R. Woller

Jim and Sandy Wrangell

Marshall Zarem

William and Denise Zeidler

$1,000 and above

Five Anonymous Donors

Mr. and Mrs. James B. Anello

Ruth Agrusa

Sue and Louie Andrew

Betty Arndt

Mr. Paul A. Baerwald

Paul E. Barkhaus, MD

Steve and Mary Barney

James and Nora Barry

Paul and Paula Bartel

Rodney C. Bartlow

and Judith K. Stephenson

Mr. James M. Baumgartner

Jack Beatty

Christine Beck

Dianne and David Benner

Richard Bergman

Mrs. Kristine Best

Mr. Lawrence Bialcik

Karen and Geoffrey Bilda

Ms. Elizabeth Billings

Marjorie Bjornstad

Greg Black

Robert Borch and Linda Wickstrom

Art and Jacinda Bouton

Lois and Robert Brazner

Dan and Peg Bresnahan

James Brown and Ann Brophy

Michael and Marianna Bruch

Dr. and Mrs. James D. Buck

Mike and Ericka Burzynski

Karen and Harry Carlson

Ms. Carol A. Carpenter

Mr. and Mrs. Richard J. Cecil

John Chain

B. Lauren and Margaret Charous

Edith Christian

Margaret Cieslak-Etlicher

Margaret Crosby

Garrett and

Anne de Vroome Kamerling

Mrs. Linda DeBruin

Ms. Kristine Demski

Drs. Mark and Virginia Dennis

Mary Paula Dix

Thomas C. Dill

Donald, Kathleen, and Amy Domagalski

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Dougherty

Gloria and Peter Drenzek

Mary Ann Dude

Thomas Durkin and Joan Robotham

Jill and George Fahr

Helen Forster

Jane K. Gertler

Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Freitag

Martha Giacobassi

Matelan and Carole Glaske

Ralph and Cherie Gorenstein

Stephen and Bernadine Graff

Mr. and Mrs. James Gramentine

Greater Milwaukee Foundation

Dresselhuys Family Fund

Leesley B. and Joan J. Hardy

Jay Kay Foundation Fund

Mr. and Mrs. James Grigg

Sharon and Michael Grinker

Douglas and Margaret Ann Haag

Lawrence and Tsui-Ching Hammond

Leila and Joe Hanson

Jacqueline Heling

Jean and John Henderson

Dr. Sidney and Suzanna Herszenson

Ms. Judy Hessel

Jenny and Bob Hillis

Mr. and Mrs. Bernard C. Hlavac

Jeanne and Conrad Holling

Richard and Jeanne Hryniewicki

Terry Huebner

Barbara Hunteman

Mr. and Mrs. James Hunter III

Suzanne and Michael Hupy

Deane and Vicky Jaeger

Kathryn and Alan Janicek

Amy S. Jensen

Faith L. Johnson

Karen and Dean Johnson

Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kahn

Mr. Stephen Kaniewski

Rose and Dale Kaser

Patrick and Jane Keily

Thomas Kelly

Brian and Mary Lou Kennedy

Ms. Carole Kincaid

Robert and Dorothy King

Joseph W. Kmoch

Jonathan and Willette Knopp

Michael Koss/Koss Foundation

Milton and Carol Kuyers

Larry and Mary LeBlanc

Mr. and Mrs. David Leevan

John and Janice Liebenstein

Mr. and Mrs. David Lindberg

Matt and Patty Linn

Ann Loder

Bruce and Elizabeth Loder

Richard and Roberta London

Neill and Fran Luebke

Wayne and Kristine Lueders

Stephen and Jane Lukowicz

Ms. Joan Maas

Ann MacIver

Stephen and Judy Maersch

Dr. John and Kristie Malone

Mr. Peter Mamerow

Jeanne and David Mantsch

Steven and Mary Rose Marinkovich

Dr. and Mrs. Francisco Martinez

Dr. Daniel and Constance McCarty

Mr. Brian and Lesli McLinden

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas L. McLinn

Drs. Daryl Melzer and Rita Hanson

Ray and Elaine Meyer

Ms. Jean L. Mileham

Steven Miller

Dr. David Miyama

Christine Mortensen

William and Laverne Mueller

David and Gail Nelson

Jean A. Novy

Joseph Pabst and John Schellinger

Dr. and Mrs. James T. Paloucek

Douglas E. Peterson

William and Cynthia Prost

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Quadracci

Catherine Quirk

Dr. Francis J. Randall

Dr. Ken C. Redlin

Lysbeth and James Reiskytl

Karen and Paul Rice

Dan and Anna Robbins

Mrs. David Y. Rosenzweig

Roger Ruggeri and Andrea Wagoner

Drs. Larry and Polly Ryan

Keri Sarajian and Rick Stratton

Wilbert and Genevieve Schauer

Foundation

Lawrence and Katherine Schnuck

Elaine and Martin Schreiber

Stephen and Lois Schreiter

Phil Schumacher and Pauline Beck

Annual Fund/Gala Paddle Raisers/Gala Sponsors/Corporate & Foundation

Bob and Sally Schwarz

Donald A. Pollack and Adrienne Pollack-Sender

Family Charitable Trust

Ronald and Judith Shapiro

Scott Silet and Kate Lewis

John and Judith Simonitsch

Mr. Reeves E. Smith

Ken and Dee Stein

Bonnie L. Steindorf

Sally Swetnam

Ms. Lola Tegeder

Rebecca and Robert Tenges

Tim and Bonnie Tesch

Kent and Marna Tess-Mattner

Dean and Katherine Thome

Mr. and Mrs. James S. Tidey

Drs. Steven and Denise Trinkl

Katherine Troy

Constance U’Ren

Gary and Cynthia Vasques

Michael Walton

Ruth A. Way

Ms. Beth L. Weckmueller

Henry J. Wellner and James Cook

Mr. and Mrs. Jerome T. Welz

Ann and Joe Wenzler

Barbara Wesener

David Wesley

Lynn and Richard Wesolek

Ms. Stephanie Wesselowski

Robert and Barbara Whealon

A. James White

Robert and Lana Wiese

Linda and Dan Wilhelms

Terry and Carol Wilkins

Jay and Madonna Williams

Rolland and Sharon Wilson

Ron and Alice Winkler

Daryl and Bonnie Wunrow

Joan and Robert Ziegler

Mrs. Sharon S. Ziegler

Marilyn and Doug Zwissler

GALA PADDLE RAISERS

André Allaire

Mary Allmon and Michael Allen

Alice Ambrowiak

Laura and Mike Arnow

Alexander Ayers

Tom and Susan Beranek

Erica and Eric Berg

John and Caroline Bolger

Virginia Bolger

Meg Boyd

Bob Bronzo

Randy Bryant and Cecelia Gore

Norman Buebendorf

Robert Burris and Marlene King

Daniel and Allison Byrne

Derrick Callister

Steven and Gillian Chamberlin

Joseph Checota

and Ellen McNamara Checota

Amy and Frederick Croen

Lafayette Crump

Jillian Culver

Michael Cyrus

Benjamin Dern

George and Sandra Dionisopoulos

Jennifer Dirks

Matt Domski

Elizabeth and Robert Draper

Martha and Aaron Ebent

Linda Edelstein

Marquita Edwards

Joshua Erickson

Danielle Finn

Thayer Fisher

Moira Fitzgerald and Peter Kammer

Michael and Pamela Glorioso

Daniel and Samantha Grambow

John and Peggy Griffith

Gruber Law Offices LLC

Laura Gutierrez

Calvin Harris

Zoë Hastert

Paul Hauer

Kathryn Hausman and Matthew Millson

Barrie and Rob Henken

Renee Herzing

Karen Hung and Robert Coletti

Rachel Idso

Joan Johnson

Candice Johnstone

Judy and Gary Jorgensen

Alyce Katayama

Pat and Christine Keyes

Matt Kiefer

Marilyn King

Vivian King

Michael Krco

Konrad Kuchenbach

Tom Lindow

Xia Liu

Christopher and Krista Ludwig

Peter Mahler

Melissa and Dylan Mann

Susan and Brent Martin

Christian and Kate Mitchell

Teresa Mogensen

Theodore and Kelsey Molinari

Robert and Barbara Monnat

Bruce and Joyce Myers

Mitchell Nelles and Ellie Gettinger

Brian and Maura Packham

Nicholas and Alison Pardi

Richard and Lois Pauls

Tai and Andrew Pauls

Irina Petrakova Otto

Michael and Jayne Pink

Leslie and Aaron Plamann

Kathryn Podmokly

Deanna Singh and Justin Ponder

Anne and Thomas Reed

Kathryn Reinardy

Patricia Rieselbach

Michael Rossetto

Niko Ruud

Jakob Schjoerring-Thyssen

Michael Schmitz

Evamarie Schoenborn

Richard Schreiner and Alison Graf

Margot Schwartz

Gretchen Seamons

SixSibs Capital

Dale and Allison Smith

Pamela Stampen

Eric Stolzmann

Beth Straka

Bruce Tilley

Linda and Gile Tojek

Haruki Toyama and Brenda Bulinski

Susan Varela

Sarah Wagner

Marie Weiss

Michael and Cathy White

Jeff Yabuki and Gail Groenwoldt Yabuki

Andy Zilinskas

GALA SPONSORS

Laura and Mike Arnow

ATC

Baird Funds

BMO Bank

Brewers Community Foundation, Inc.

Ernst & Young, LLP

Godfrey & Kahn, S.C.

Interstate Parking

Johnson Controls, Inc.

Johnson Financial Group

Marietta Investment Partners

Susan and Brent Martin

Bob and Barb Monnat

Northern Trust

Northwestern Mutual

Old National Bank

PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP

Quarles & Brady, LLC

Rockwell Automation

SixSibs Capital

Dale and Allison Smith

We Energies Foundation

Westbury Bank

Herb Zien and Liz Levins

CORPORATE & FOUNDATION

We thank our Corporate and Foundation contributors for investing their time and support in the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.

$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

Herzfeld Foundation

Rockwell Automation

We Energies Foundation

$50,000 and above

Bader Philanthropies, Inc.

Chase Family Foundation

Matching Gifts/Golden Note Partners/Marquee Circle/Tributes

Greater Milwaukee Foundation

Norman and Lucy Cohn Family Fund

Helen and Jeanette Oberndorfer Fund

Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Fund

Melitta S. and Joan M. Pick

Charitable Trust

$25,000 and above

Anonymous

Greater Milwaukee Foundation

Gertrude Elser and John Edward Schroeder Fund

Johnson Controls

Milwaukee County Arts Fund (CAMPAC)

National Endowment for the Arts

R.D. and Linda Peters Foundation

Schoenleber Foundation, Inc.

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

Wisconsin Department of Tourism

$10,000 and above

Ayco Charitable Foundation

Brico Fund

Ellsworth Corporation

General Mills Foundation

Gladys E. Gores Charitable Foundation

Greater Milwaukee Foundation

Donald and Barbara Abert 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.

Greater Milwaukee Foundation

Margaret E. Sheehan Memorial Fund

Hamparian Family Foundation

Herb Kohl Philanthropies

Julian Family Foundation

Koeppen-Gerlach Foundation, Inc.

Milwaukee Arts Board

Richard G. Jacobus Family Foundation

Stackner Family Foundation, Inc.

$2,500 and above

Camille A. Lonstorf Trust

Dean Family Foundation

Dorothy Inbusch Foundation, Inc.

Enterprise Holdings

Greater Milwaukee Foundation

Del Chambers Fund

Eleanor N. Wilson 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

Theodore W. Batterman Family Foundation

Westbury Bank

$1,000 and above

Albert J. & Flora H. Ellinger Foundation

Anthony Petullo Foundation, Inc.

Clare M. Peters Charitable Trust

Curt and Sue Culver Family Foundation

Delta Dental of Wisconsin

Educators Credit Union

Gardner Foundation

Greater Milwaukee Foundation

Bechthold Family Fund

Carrie Taylor & Nettie Taylor

Robinson Memorial Fund

Cottrell Balding Fund

George and Christine Sosnovsky Fund

George and Joan Hoehn Family Fund

Irene Edelstein Memorial Fund

Gruber Law Offices LLC

Japan Foundation

Loyal D. Grinker

Steinway Piano Gallery of Milwaukee

Townsend Foundation

Usinger Foundation

$500 and above

Barney Family Foundation

Greater Milwaukee Foundation

Robert C. Archer Designated Fund

Roxy and Bud Heyse Fund/Journal Fund

MLG Capital

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

Eaton Corporation

GE Foundation

Google Inc.

Johnson Controls Foundation

Kohl’s Corp.

Microsoft Corp.

National Philanthropic Trust

Rockwell Automation

SherwinWilliams

Stifel

Thrivent Financial

United Way of Greater Milwaukee and Waukesha County

Wisconsin Energy Corporation

GOLDEN NOTE PARTNERS

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

Becker Design

Belle Fiori – Official Event Florist of the MSO

Beth and Michael Giacobassi

Brian and Maura Packham

The Capital Grille

Central Standard Craft Distillery

Coffman Creative Events

Downer Avenue Wine & Spirits

Drury Hotels

Encore Playbills

Eric and Brenda Hobbs

GO Riteway Transportation Group

Hilton Milwaukee

Kohler Co.

Peter Mahler

Marcus Hotels & Resorts

Marcus Corporation

Susan and Brent Martin

Ogletree Deakins

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 2024.25 Marquee Circle.

DeWitt Law Firm

Ellsworth Corporation

Hupy and Abraham, S.C.

Walker Forge, Inc.

TRIBUTES

In honor of Jacob and Shayna Bilsky

Adam Bilsky

In honor of Barry Blackwell, M.D.’s 90th Birthday

Elliot and Eva Lipchik

In memory of Dr. Henry Burko

Burko Memorial Fund

In memory of Clair Baum

Julie and Gary Anderson

Richard and Sara Aster

Barbara and Philip Bail, Jr.

Richard Bergman

Tributes

Richard and Kay Bibler

Jane Lee and William Buege

Terry Burko and David Taggart

Barbara and Allen Cairns

Joan Callan

Joyce Cupertino

Ryan Daniel

Barbara Dobbs

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

Roxy Mortvedt and Charles Lewis

J.C. Oehlschlager

Richard and Suzanne Pieper

Carol Ryan

Mary Ann Schwartz

Dr. and Mrs. C. John Snyder

Judith and P. Tarabek

Dean and Katherine Thome

Jack Warden

Kathleen and Thomas Wilson

Stacy Wilson-Baum

In memory of Sally and Joe Ceretto

James Jensen

In memory of Thallis Hoyt Drake

Charles Q. Sullivan

In honor of Marquita Edwards

Kathryn Wurzer

In memory of Alan I. Ettinger

Ms. Suzy B. Ettinger

Frank Loo and Sally Long

Eugene Guszkowski

In memory of Robert Fewel

Janet Bollow

Dale and Darlene Kirchner

Ann Terwilliger

In memory of Bob Fono

Terry Burko and David Taggart

Fred and Kay Austermann

Christel Mildenberg

Mary and James Connelly

In honor of Beth and Mike Giacobassi

Cindy Friedmann

In memory of Carmen Haberman

Terry Burko and David Taggart

In memory of Michael Patrick Hauer

Marlene Cook

Linda Cutler

Gertrude Czajkowski

Jean Czajkowski

Jim and Nancy Czajkowski

Paul and Naomi Dang

Sandra Degeorge

Mary Duffy

Joan Hauer

Don and Debbie Hecker

Greg and Dawn Hecker

Yuqiu Jiang

Julianne John

Patricia Krajnak

Debby Lazich

Christel Mildenberg

JoAnna Poehlmann

Jane and Jim Schneider

In memory of Christine Hausladen

Alex Kaker

Cheryl Limmex

Laurie Reid

Carol Walsh

In memory of Joseph J. Jochman

Carolyn Jochman

In memory of Dolores Johnson

Lynda Johnson

In honor of Tim Klabunde’s long career with the MSO and retirement

Dr. and Mrs. David Daniels

In memory of Roman Kontorovsky

Mr. and Mrs. Michael Hauer

In memory of Dr. Michael J. Kuhn

Joan Callan

Margaret Christman

Laura and Eric Koepp

Kathleen Thometz

W. Gregory and Carla Von Roenn

In honor of Jennifer & Dion Lewis

Jennifer and Dion Lewis

In memory of Ann Loder

Caitlin, Trey, and Charlie Bagwell

The James Hennes Family

Shirley Haugen

Tim Hennes

Lauri Romine

Kari and Keith Seelig

Bruce and Lizz Loder

Will Loder

Monica Meyer

Barb Osborn and Family

Lynda Read

Howard and Judy Tolkan

Karin Wentz and Mark Otness

Thomas Wentz

In memory of Jean Mano

Eileen Kehoe and Bud Reinhold

In honor of the 70th Wedding

Anniversary of Wayne and Marguerite Lueptow

John and Linda Zimmermann

In honor of Susan Martin’s service on the board of the MSO

Caroline Ham

In honor of Susan and Brent Martin

Sarah Nordstrom

In memory of Dr. A. Stratton

McAllister

Dr. Caryl McAllister

In memory of Ken McHugh

Mr. and Mrs. Michael Hauer

In honor of our wonderful, joy-giving, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra

Judith Gregor

In honor of the MSO’s Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion Work

Tina Itson

In memory of Dr. Alan Pohl

Robert and Nan Ciralsky

Kathleen Eilers and Barry Blackwell

Linda Frank

Alan and Iris Goldberg

Anne Hazelwood

Dr. and Mrs. Gordon E. Lang

Ari Osur

Dr. Carol Pohl

Vera Ries

Donald A. Pollack and Adrienne Pollack-Sender Family Charitable Trust

In memory of Sally Jo Prodoehl

Janet Friestad

In memory of Dave Rierson

Jack and Donna Hill

Judy and Gary Jorgensen

Patricia Rieselbach

Jim and Sandy Wrangell

In memory of Dr. Thomas Roberts

Mary Roberts

In memory of I. Carl Romer

Beulah Romer Erickson

In honor of Patrick Schley

Imogene Schley

In honor of Kara and Brian Sichi

Kara Krueger Sichi

In memory of Jane Tisdel

Dr. Paul Loewenstein and Jody

Kaufman Loewenstein

In honor of Dean and Kathy Thome

Gregory and Leslie O’Connell

In memory of Frank Thometz

Mr. and Mrs. Anthony W. Asmuth, III

Charles Brennan and Beth Stohr

Mary and James Connelly

JoAnn Corrao

Gregory Custer

Nancy Einhorn

Dr. Bob Henschel

Judy and Gary Jorgensen

Edmund Jung

Spencer Marquart

Dan and Susan Minahan

Christine Rahardt

Dr. and Mrs. Neville Sender

Michael and Cathy White

In honor of Alice Valkenburgh

The Valkenburgh Family

In memory of Judith Margaret

Wagner

Steven A. and Lisa L. Wagner

In memory of Dan Wendt

Patricia Wendt

MSO Board of Directors

OFFICERS

Susan Martin, Chair

David Uihlein, Honorary Co-Chair

Julia Uihlein, Honorary Co-Chair

Gregory Smith, Secretary; Chair, Governance Committee

Patrick Murphy, Treasurer; Chair, Finance Committee

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

Susan Martin, Chair

Jennifer Dirks

Douglas M. Hagerman Chair, Chair’s Council

Eric E. Hobbs

Robert Klieger, Chair, Players’ Council

Mark A. Metzendorf, Chair, Advancement Committee

Christian Mitchell

Patrick Murphy, Treasurer; Chair, Finance Committee

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

Michael J. Schmitz

Gregory Smith, Secretary; Chair, Governance Committee

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

Haruki Toyama, Chair, Music Director Search Committee

ELECTED DIRECTORS

Daniel Byrne

Jeff Costakos

Steve Hancock, Chair, Education Committee

Renee Herzing

Alyce Coyne Katayama

Peter Mahler, Chair, Grand Future Committee

Teresa Mogensen

Robert B. Monnat

Leslie Plamann, Chair, Audit Committee

Craig A. Schmutzer

Jay E. Schwister, Chair, Retirement Plan Committee

Dale R. Smith

Herb Zien, Chair, Facilities Management Committee

DESIGNATED DIRECTORS

City

Sachin Chheda

Theodore Perlick Molinari

Pegge Sytkowski, Chair, Marketing & Advocacy Committee

County

Fiesha Lynn Bell

Rene Izquierdo

Garren Randolph

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 Reute

David Uihlein

PAST CHAIRS

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 2024.25 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

Michael Rossetto, Senior Director of Advancement & Major Gifts

William Loder, Gift Officer

Kathryn Hausman, Individual Giving Manager, Research & Discovery

Julie Jahn, Campaign Manager

Tracy Migon, Development Systems Manager

Andrea Moreno-Islas, Advancement Manager

Leah Peavler, Institutional Giving 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

Arianis Hernandez, Accounting Coordinator

Cynthia Moore, Human Resources, Diversity & Inclusion 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

Maiken Demet, Assistant to the Music Director

Albrecht Gaub, Artistic Coordinator

Matthew Geise, Assistant Librarian & Media Archivist

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

Zed Waeltz, Event Services Manager

RESONANCE FOOD CO.

Josh Langenohl, General Manager of Premium

Ben Bartlett, Executive Sous Chef

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