MARCH — APRIL 2026
We believe retirement is the beginning of your next great adventure—no matter the season.
Wake up to the quiet beauty of freshly fallen snow and the peacefulness of the Kettle Moraine—right outside your door. Cedar Community offers lakefront charm, outdoor winter adventures, and vibrant community living designed for active adults who want more from retirement.
Volume 44 No. 5
15 March 25 — Special Yo-Yo Ma with Orchestra
20 March 27 – 29 — Pops Decades: Back to the 80s
25 April 10 & 11 — Classics Wincor Conducts Shostakovich No. 1
33 April 17 & 18 — Classics Schumann Romance
43 April 25 & 26 — Classics Fandango & Rapsodie
5 Orchestra Roster
7 Music Director
8 Music Director Laureate
9 Principal Pops Conductor
10 Associate Conductor
11 Milwaukee Symphony Chorus
58 MSO Endowment
Musical Legacy Society
59 Annual Fund
61 Corporate & Foundation
62 Matching Gifts Golden Note Partners
63 Marquee Circle 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
• First Stage
Please contact: Scott Howland at 414-469-7779 scott.encore@att.net
MILWAUKEE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA 212 West Wisconsin Avenue Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53203 414-291-6010 | mso.org
Connect with us! MSOrchestra
MilwSymphOrch
@MilwSymphOrch
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.
“Living at Saint John’s enables us to continue our passion for music which we love to share with our fellow SJOL Neighbors and Friends.”
– Tom & Cheri Briscoe R Residents since 2011
The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, led by Music Director Ken-David Masur, is among the finest orchestras in the nation and the largest cultural institution in Wisconsin. Since its inception in 1959, the MSO has found innovative ways to give music a home in the region, develop music appreciation and talent among area youth, and raise the national reputation of Milwaukee.
The MSO’s full-time professional musicians perform over 135 classics, pops, family, education, and community concerts each season in venues throughout the state. A pioneer among American orchestras, the MSO has performed world and American premieres of works by John Adams, Roberto Sierra, Philip Glass, Geoffrey Gordon, Marc Neikrug, Camille Pépin, Matthias Pintscher, and Dobrinka Tabakova, as well as garnered national recognition as the first American orchestra to offer live recordings on iTunes.
In January of 2021, the MSO completed a years-long project to restore and renovate a former movie palace in the heart of downtown Milwaukee. The Bradley Symphony Center officially opened to audiences in October 2021. This project has sparked a renewal on West Wisconsin Avenue and continues to be a catalyst in the community.
The MSO’s standard of excellence extends beyond the concert hall and into the community, reaching more than 30,000 children and their families through its Arts in Community Education (ACE) program, Youth and Teen concerts, Family Series, and Meet the Music pre-concert talks. Celebrating its 36th year, the nationally recognized ACE program integrates arts education across all subjects and disciplines, providing opportunities for students when budget cuts may eliminate arts programming. The program provides lesson plans and supporting materials, classroom visits from MSO musician ensembles and artists from local organizations, and an MSO concert tailored to each grade level. The ACE program serves 5,500 students, teachers, and administrators in the Milwaukee area every year.
KEN-DAVID MASUR
Music Director
Polly and Bill Van Dyke Music Director Chair
EDO DE WAART
Music Director Laureate
BYRON STRIPLING
Principal Pops Conductor
Stein Family Foundation Principal Pops Conductor Chair
RYAN TANI
Associate Conductor
CHERYL FRAZES HILL
Chorus Director
Margaret Hawkins Chorus Director Chair
TIMOTHY J. BENSON
Assistant Chorus Director
FIRST VIOLINS
Jinwoo Lee, Concertmaster, Charles and Marie Caestecker Concertmaster Chair
Ilana Setapen, First Associate Concertmaster, Thora M. Vervoren
First Associate Concertmaster Chair
Jeanyi Kim, Associate Concertmaster
Alexander Ayers
Autumn Chodorowski
Yuka Kadota
Elliot Lee
Dylana Leung
Kyung Ah Oh
Lijia Phang
Vinícius Sant’Ana**
Yuanhui Fiona Zheng
SECOND VIOLINS
Jennifer Startt, Principal, Andrea and Woodrow Leung Principal Second Violin Chair
Ji-Yeon Lee, Assistant Principal (2nd chair)
Hyewon Kim, Acting Assistant Principal (3rd chair)
Heejeon Ahn
Lisa Johnson Fuller
Clay Hancock
Paul Hauer
Sheena Lan**
Janis Sakai**
Yiran Yao
VIOLAS
Victor de Almeida, Principal, Richard O. and Judith A. Wagner Family Principal Viola Chair
Samantha Rodriguez, Acting Assistant Principal (2nd chair), Friends of Janet F. Ruggeri Assistant Principal Viola Chair
Alejandro Duque, Acting Assistant Principal (3rd chair)
Elizabeth Breslin
Georgi Dimitrov
Nathan Hackett
Michael Lieberman**
Erin H. Pipal
CELLOS
Susan Babini, Principal, Dorothea C. Mayer Principal Cello Chair
Shinae Ra, Assistant Principal (2nd chair)
Scott Tisdel, Associate Principal Emeritus
Madeleine Kabat
Peter Szczepanek
Peter J. Thomas
Adrien Zitoun
BASSES
Principal, Donald B. Abert Principal Bass Chair
Andrew Raciti, Acting Principal
Nash Tomey, Acting Assistant Principal (2nd chair)
Brittany Conrad
Broner McCoy
Paris Myers
HARP
Julia Coronelli, Principal, Walter Schroeder Principal Harp Chair
FLUTES
Sonora Slocum, Principal, Margaret and Roy Butter Principal Flute Chair
Heather Zinninger, Assistant Principal
Jennifer Bouton Schaub
PICCOLO
Jennifer Bouton Schaub
OBOES
Katherine Young Steele, Principal, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra League Principal Oboe Chair
Kevin Pearl, Assistant Principal
Margaret Butler
ENGLISH HORN
Margaret Butler, Philip and Beatrice Blank English Horn Chair in memoriam to John Martin
CLARINETS
Todd Levy, Principal, Franklyn Esenberg Principal Clarinet Chair
Jay Shankar, Assistant Principal, Donald and Ruth P. Taylor Assistant Principal Clarinet Chair
Besnik Abrashi
E-FLAT CLARINET
Jay Shankar
BASS CLARINET
Besnik Abrashi
BASSOONS
Catherine Van Handel, Principal, Muriel C. and John D. Silbar Family Principal Bassoon Chair*
Rudi Heinrich, Acting Principal
Matthew Melillo
CONTRABASSOON
Matthew Melillo
HORNS
Matthew Annin, Principal, Krause Family Principal French Horn Chair
Krystof Pipal, Associate Principal
Dietrich Hemann, Andy Nunemaker French Horn Chair
Darcy Hamlin
Dawson Hartman
TRUMPETS
Matthew Ernst, Principal, Walter L. Robb Family Principal Trumpet Chair
David Cohen, Associate Principal, Martin J. Krebs Associate Principal Trumpet Chair
Tim McCarthy, Fred Fuller Trumpet Chair
TROMBONES
Megumi Kanda, Principal, Marjorie Tiefenthaler Principal Trombone Chair
Kirk Ferguson, Assistant Principal
BASS TROMBONE
John Thevenet, Richard M. Kimball Bass Trombone Chair
TUBA
Robyn Black, Principal, John and Judith Simonitsch Principal Tuba Chair
TIMPANI
Dean Borghesani, Principal
Chris Riggs, Assistant Principal
PERCUSSION
Robert Klieger, Principal Chris Riggs
PIANO
Melitta S. Pick Endowed Piano Chair
PERSONNEL
Antonio Padilla Denis, Director of Orchestra Personnel
Paris Myers, Assistant Manager of Orchestra Personnel
LIBRARIANS
Paul Beck, Principal Librarian, James E. Van Ess Principal Librarian Chair
Matthew Geise, Assistant Librarian & Media Archivist
PRODUCTION
Tristan Wallace, Production Manager/Live Audio
Lisa Sottile, Production Stage Manager
* Leave of absence during the 2025.26 season
** Acting member of the MSO for the 2025.26 season
Hailed as “fearless, bold, and a life-force” (San Diego UnionTribune) and “a brilliant and commanding conductor with unmistakable charisma” (Leipziger Volkszeitung), Ken-David Masur is celebrating his seventh season as music director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and principal conductor of the Chicago Symphony’s Civic Orchestra.
Masur’s tenure in Milwaukee has been notable for innovative thematic programming and bridge-building, including a festival celebrating the music of the 1930s, when the Bradley Symphony Center was built; the Water Festival, which highlighted local community partners whose work centers on water conservation and education; and a new city-wide Bach Festival, celebrating the abiding appeal of J.S. Bach’s music in an ever-changing world. He has also instituted a multi-season artist-in-residence program, and he has led highly acclaimed performances of major choral works, including a semi-staged production of Peer Gynt
In the 2025-26 season, Masur leads celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus, featuring performances of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and Missa solemnis, as well as Bach’s St. Matthew Passion as part of the MSO’s third Bach Week. Ken-David Masur and the MSO reunite with longtime collaborators such as Augustin Hadelich, Orion Weiss, Stewart Goodyear, Nancy Zhou, and Bill Barclay and Concert Theatre Works for a special project celebrating America’s 250th birthday with a program interweaving the music of Aaron Copland with the words of Mark Twain. In Chicago, Masur leads the Civic Orchestra, the premier training ensemble of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, in a wide range of programs, including its annual Bach Marathon.
Masur has conducted orchestras around the world, including Boston, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, l’Orchestre National de France, Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra, NFM Wrocław Philharmonic in Poland, and Tokyo’s Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra. He makes regular festival appearances at Ravinia, Tanglewood, the Hollywood Bowl, Verbier, the Pacific Music Festival, and the Oregon Bach Festival. Masur is passionate about contemporary music and has conducted and commissioned numerous new works from living composers, including Wynton Marsalis, Augusta Read Thomas, and Unsuk Chin, among others. He has recorded with the English Chamber Orchestra and the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra and received a Grammy Award nomination from the Latin Recording Academy for the album Salón Buenos Aires.
Masur and his wife, pianist Melinda Lee Masur, are founders and artistic directors of the Chelsea Music Festival, an annual summer festival in New York City with programs ranging from the Baroque and Classical to contemporary and jazz, placing a special emphasis on the intersection of the culinary and visual arts. The festival celebrated its 16th anniversary in 2025 and has been praised by The New York Times as a “gem of a series” and by Time Out New York as an “impressive addition to New York’s cultural ecosystem.”
Born and raised in Leipzig, Germany, Masur was trained at the Mendelssohn Academy in Leipzig, the Gewandhaus Children’s Choir, the Detmold Academy, and the “Hanns Eisler” Conservatory in Berlin. While an undergraduate at Columbia University in New York, Masur became the first music director of the Bach Society Orchestra and Chorus, with which he toured to Germany and recorded the music of J.S. Bach and his sons.
Music education and working with the next generation of young artists are of major importance to Masur. In addition to his work with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, he has conducted orchestras and led master classes at many international conservatories and festivals.
Throughout his long and illustrious career, renowned Dutch conductor Edo de Waart has held a multitude of posts with orchestras around the world, including music directorships with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, and Sydney Symphony Orchestra, as well as a chief conductorship with the De Nederlandse Opera and Santa Fe Opera.
Edo de Waart served as principal guest conductor of the San Diego Symphony, conductor laureate of both the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra and Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, and music director laureate of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.
As an opera conductor, de Waart has enjoyed success in a large and varied repertoire in many of the world’s greatest opera houses. He has conducted at Bayreuth, the Salzburg Festival, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Opéra Bastille, Santa Fe Opera, and the Metropolitan Opera. With the aim of bringing opera to broader audiences where concert halls prevent full staging, he has, as music director in Milwaukee, Antwerp, and Hong Kong, often conducted semi-staged and opera in concert performances.
A renowned orchestral trainer, he has been involved with projects working with talented young players at the Juilliard and Colburn schools and the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara.
Edo de Waart’s extensive catalogue encompasses releases for Philips, Virgin, EMI, Telarc, and RCA. Recent recordings include Henderickx’s Symphony No. 1 and oboe concerto, Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, and Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius, all with the Royal Flemish Philharmonic.
Beginning his career as an assistant conductor to Leonard Bernstein at the New York Philharmonic, de Waart then returned to Holland, where he was appointed assistant conductor to Bernard Haitink at the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.
Edo de Waart has received a number of awards for his musical achievements, including becoming a Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion and an Honorary Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia. He is also an Honorary Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.
With a contagious smile and captivating charm, conductor, trumpet virtuoso, singer, and actor Byron Stripling ignites audiences across the globe. In 2024, Stripling was named Stein Family Foundation Principal Pops Conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. He also currently serves as principal pops conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and artistic director and conductor of the highly acclaimed Columbus Jazz Orchestra. Stripling’s baton has led countless orchestras throughout the United States and Canada, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood and the orchestras of San Diego, St. Louis, Virginia, Toronto, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Fort Worth, Rochester, Buffalo, Florida, Portland, and Sarasota, to name a few.
As a soloist with the Boston Pops, Stripling has performed frequently under the baton of Keith Lockhart, including as the featured soloist in the PBS television special Evening at Pops with conductors John Williams and Mr. Lockhart.
Since his Carnegie Hall debut with Skitch Henderson and the New York Pops, Stripling has become a pops orchestra favorite throughout the country, appearing as soloist with more than 100 orchestras. He has been a featured soloist at the Hollywood Bowl and performs at festivals around the world.
An accomplished actor and singer, Stripling was chosen, following a worldwide search, to star in the lead role of the Broadway-bound musical Satchmo. Many will remember his featured cameo performance in the television movie The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and his critically acclaimed virtuoso trumpet and riotous comedic performance in the 42nd Street production of From Second Avenue to Broadway.
Television viewers have enjoyed his work as a soloist on the worldwide telecast of the Grammy Awards. Millions have heard his trumpet and voice in television commercials, TV theme songs including 20/20 and CNN, and soundtracks of favorite movies. In addition to multiple recordings with his quintet and work with artists from Tony Bennett to Whitney Houston, his prolific recording career includes hundreds of albums with the greatest pop, Broadway, soul, and jazz artists of all time.
Stripling earned his stripes as lead trumpeter and soloist with the Count Basie Orchestra under the direction of Thad Jones and Frank Foster. He has also played and recorded extensively with the bands of Dizzy Gillespie, Woody Herman, Dave Brubeck, Lionel Hampton, Clark Terry, Louis Bellson, and Buck Clayton in addition to the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, and the GRP All-Star Big Band.
Stripling is devoted to giving back and supports several philanthropic organizations, including United Way and the Community Shelter Board. He also enjoys sharing the power of music through seminars and master classes at colleges, universities, conservatories, and high schools.
Stripling was educated at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and the Interlochen Arts Academy in Interlochen, Michigan. One of his greatest joys is to return periodically to Eastman and Interlochen as a special guest lecturer.
A resident of Ohio, Stripling lives in the country with his wife, Alexis, a former dancer, writer, and poet and their beautiful daughters.
Now in his third season with the MSO and his first as its associate conductor, Ryan Tani has built a reputation for inventive programming, as well as an energetic connection with audiences in Milwaukee and beyond. At the MSO, he conducts a wide range of concerts — including education, family, pops, and classics — and has stepped in for Edo de Waart and led sold-out performances in his 2025 classics debut. He has served as cover conductor for the Minnesota Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Symphony, and Bozeman Symphony.
A committed advocate for new music, Tani was music director of Baltimore’s Occasional Symphony, commissioning over 20 works and supporting dozens of composers in just three years. At Yale, he served as conducting fellow of the Philharmonia and resident conductor of New Music New Haven, earning the Dean’s Prize for artistic excellence.
Tani’s community-focused work includes leading multiple ensembles across Montana, including the Bozeman, Missoula, Great Falls, and Montana State University symphonies. Committed to connecting with audiences off the podium, he also developed outreach programs, taught university courses, and fostered collaborations between artists and the public — efforts that continue to shape his approach today.
He holds degrees from Yale University, the Peabody Institute, and the University of Southern California, and has studied with Marin Alsop, Peter Oundjian, Markand Thakar, Larry Rachleff, and Donald Schleicher. He lives in Milwaukee with his wife Bronte and his corgi Darby and enjoys cooking, reading, and playing violin.
Established in 1976 as a joint effort between the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus has distinguished itself over the course of half a century as one of the preeminent choral ensembles in the United States. Celebrating their landmark 50th anniversary this season, the chorus appears alongside the MSO in monumental masterworks by Bach, Beethoven, and Handel, as well as the MSO’s annual Holiday Pops concerts.
Founded by legendary choral pedagogue Margaret Hawkins, the chorus’s meteoric rise in stature during the late 1970s broadened the orchestra’s repertoire and set a new standard of excellence in Milwaukee’s musical landscape. Under Hawkins’s baton, the chorus produced its first commercial recordings and made multiple appearances at New York’s Carnegie Hall. Their voices were heard in the MSO’s first radio broadcasts, receiving airtime nationally and internationally.
The chorus has made numerous guest appearances at the Ravinia Festival through the years, beginning in 1984 and as recently as 2019, performing with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, singing Gustav Mahler’s “Symphony of a Thousand.” Other collaborations include appearances with local performing arts groups, including the Milwaukee Ballet, Milwaukee Musaik, and Present Music.
The Milwaukee Symphony Chorus’s wide range of ability has been a signature of the ensemble throughout their history. They have moved seamlessly from works by Bach and Brahms to Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky, sung during a live screening of the film. Semi-staged productions of Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman and Grieg’s Peer Gynt are featured alongside performances with contemporary artists, such as their recent appearance with the esteemed mandolinist Chris Thile. Their repertoire spans the centuries, regularly placing their enormous versatility on full display.
Made up of musicians from every walk of life, the 150 members of the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus devote countless volunteer hours every season to preparing and performing the great cornerstones of the symphonic literature with an unqualified love for their craft.
To learn more about becoming a member of the chorus, visit mso.org/chorus.
Jahnavi Acharya
Anna Aiuppa
Mia Akers
Laura Albright-Wengler
Alexander Z. Alden
Anthony Andronczyk
James Anello
Evan Bagwell
u Thomas R. Bagwell
Scott Bass
Marshall Beckman
Emily Bergeron
JoAnn Berk
Edward Blumenthal
Alice Boesky
Jillian Boes
u Scott Bolens
Madison Bolt
Neil R. Brooks
Riley Brown
Michelle Budny
Ellen N. Burmeister
John Bushman
Gabrielle Campbell
Gerardo Carcar
Elise Cismesia
Sarah M. Cook
Amanda Coplan
Sarah Culhane
Barbara Czarkowski
Phoebe Dawsey
Colin Destache
Rebeca A. Dishaw
Megan Kathleen Dixson
Rachel Dutler
James Edgar
Joe Ehlinger
Kaleigh Ellis
John Erzberger
Katelyn Farebrother
Michael Faust
Catherine Fettig
Marty Foral
Madison Francis
u Karen Frink
Maria Fuller
Haley Gabriel
James T. Gallup
Jonah Gaster
Jonathan Gaston-Falk
William Gesch
Samantha Gibson
Jessica Golinski
Mark R. Hagner
Mary Hamlin
Beth Harenda
u Karen Heins
Mary Catherine Helgren
Kurt Hellermann
Melissa Kay Herbst
Nathan Hickox-Young
Eric Hickson
Michelle Hiebert
Laura Hochmuth
Mara Hoffman
Amy Hudson
Matthew Hunt
John Itson
u Tina Itson
Jane Jaikumar Knight
Christine Jameson
Paula J. Jeske
Robin Jette
John Jorgensen
Heidi L. Kastern
Summer Ketchell
Christin Kieckhafer
Katherine Kondratuk
Jill Kortebein
Kaleigh Kozak-Lichtman
Kyle J. Kramer
u Joseph M. Krechel
Cheryl Frazes Hill, chorus director
Timothy J. Benson, assistant director
Darwin J. Sanders , language and diction coach
Christina Williams, chorus manager
Julia M. Kreitzer
Harry Krueger
Benjamin Kuhlmann
Alexandra Lerch-Gaggl
Robert Lochhead
Grace Majewski
Rachel Maki
Ethan T. Masarik
Joy Mast
Justin J. Maurer
Betsy McCool
Hilary Merline
Kristine Mielcarek
Megan Miller
Bailey Moorhead
Jennifer Mueller
Matthew Neu
Kristin Nikkel
Jason Niles
Alice Nuteson
Robert Paddock
Daniel Edward Parks
Heather Pierce
R. Scott Pierce
u Jessica E. Pihart
Bianca Pratte
Abby Prom
Kaitlin Quigley
Mary Rafel
Jason Reuschlein
Rehanna Rexroat
James Reynolds
Marc Charles Ricard
Amanda Robison
Shawn W. Runningen
u Bridget Sampson
James Sampson
Joshua S. Samson
Darwin J. Sanders
Alana Sawall
Sarah Schmeiser
Melissa Cardamone
Jeong-In Kim
Teree Shofner-Emrich
Rand C. Schmidt
Randy Schmidt
u Allison Schnier
Andrew T. Schramm
Matthew Seider
Bennett Shebesta
u Hannah Sheppard
David Siegworth
Samuel Skogstad
Bruce Soto
u Joel P. Spiess
u Todd Stacey
u Donald E. Stettler
Scott Stieg
Donna Stresing
Sara Strommen
Shannon Sweeney
Joseph Thiel
Clare Urbanski
Bobbi Jo Vandal
Matthew Van Hecke
Maria Waldkirch
Maggie Walz
Stephanie Weeden
Tess Weinkauf
Amy Weyers
Erin Weyers
Christina Williams
Sally Witte
Kevin R. Woller
Rachel Yap
James Yarbrough
Ben Young
Jamie M. Yu
Katarzyna Zawislak
Stephanie Zimmer
Dr. Cheryl Frazes Hill is now in her ninth season as director of the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus. During their landmark 50th anniversary season, Frazes Hill prepares the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus for classical performances that include Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, and Beethoven’s Missa solemnis.
Frazes Hill also serves as associate conductor of the Chicago Symphony Chorus. In that role, she has prepared the chorus for maestros Alsop, Boulez, Barenboim, Conlon, Levine, Mehta, Salonen, and Tilson Thomas, among many others. Recordings of Frazes Hill’s choral preparations on the Chicago Symphony Orchestra label include Beethoven, A Tribute to Daniel Barenboim, and Chicago Symphony Chorus: A 50th Anniversary Celebration
Frazes Hill is professor emerita at Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts, where she served for 20 years as director of choral activities and head of music education. Under her direction, the Roosevelt University choruses have been featured in prestigious and diverse events, including appearances at national and regional music conferences and performances with professional orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Sinfonietta, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and the Illinois Philharmonic. The Roosevelt Conservatory Chorus received enthusiastic reviews for their American premiere of Jacob ter Veldhuis’s Mountaintop. Other recent performances have included the internationally acclaimed production of Defiant Requiem and three appearances with The Rolling Stones during a recent U.S. concert tour.
Frazes Hill received her master’s and doctoral degrees in conducting from Northwestern University and her bachelor’s degrees in voice and music education from the University of Illinois. An accomplished vocalist, she is a featured soloist in the Grammy-nominated CBS Masterworks release Mozart: Music for Basset Horns. An award-winning conductor and educator, Frazes Hill recently received the ACDA Harold Decker Conducting Award, the Mary Hoffman Music Educators Award, and in past years, the Commendation of Excellence in Teaching from the Golden Apple Foundation, the Illinois Governor’s Award, Roosevelt University’s Presidential Award for Social Justice, the Northwestern University Alumni Merit Award, and the Outstanding Teaching Award from the University of Chicago.
Frazes Hill’s recently released book, Margaret Hillis: Unsung Pioneer, a biography of the famed female conductor, received a commendation from the 2023 Midwest Book Awards. Frazes Hill is nationally published on topics of her research in choral conducting and music education. A frequent guest conductor, clinician, and guest speaker, Frazes Hill regularly collaborates with maestro Marin Alsop at the Ravinia Festival’s ”Breaking Barriers” series, providing seminars for Taki Alsop female conducting fellows.
Door County’s International, Philharmonic Orchestra
August 4 - American Masterworks
James Ehnes, violin
August 6 - String Serenades
James Ehnes, violin
August 8 - Scandinavian Sounds
August 11- Wizardry and Wonder: The Music of John Williams
Bob Bernhardt, guest conductor
August 13 - An Evening with Mozart Stewart Goodyear, piano
August 15 - La Dolce Vita
August 18 - Viennese Legacy
Michelle Cann, piano
August 20 - Revolution and Romance
August 22 - A World of Symphony
Michelle DeYoung, mezzo-soprano
Apollo Chorus of Chicago
Concerts held at 7:30pm
MAESTRO RUNE BERGMANN music director
Yo-Yo Ma’s appearance is made possible through a generous gift from SUSAN AND BRENT MARTIN.
Wednesday, March 25, 2026 at 8:00 pm
ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL
Ken-David Masur, conductor
Yo-Yo Ma, cello
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Symphony No. 8 in F major, Opus 93
I. Allegro vivace e con brio
II. Allegretto scherzando
III. Tempo di menuetto
IV. Allegro vivace
INTERMISSION
ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK
Cello Concerto in B minor, Opus 104, B. 191
I. Allegro
II. Adagio ma non troppo
III. Finale: Allegro moderato
Yo-Yo Ma, cello
The length of this concert is approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes.
The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra can be heard on the Naxos, Telarc, Koss Classics, ProArte, AVIE, and Vox/Turnabout labels. MSO Classics recordings are available for digital streaming and download on Spotify, Apple Music, and more.
Yo-Yo Ma’s multi-faceted career is a testament to his belief in culture’s power to generate trust and understanding. Whether performing new or familiar works for cello, bringing communities together to explore culture’s role in society, or engaging unexpected musical forms, Yo-Yo strives to foster connections that stimulate the imagination and reinforce our humanity.
Most recently, Yo-Yo began Our Common Nature, a cultural journey to celebrate the ways that nature can reunite us in pursuit of a shared future. Our Common Nature follows the “Bach Project,” a 36-community, six-continent tour of J. S. Bach’s cello suites paired with local cultural programming. Both endeavors reflect Yo-Yo’s lifelong commitment to stretching the boundaries of genre and tradition to understand how music helps us to imagine and build a stronger society.
Yo-Yo is an advocate for a future guided by humanity, trust, and understanding. Among his many roles, Yo-Yo is a United Nations Messenger of Peace, the first artist ever appointed to the World Economic Forum’s board of trustees, a member of the board of Nia Tero, the U.S.-based nonprofit working in solidarity with Indigenous peoples and movements worldwide, and the founder of the global music collective Silkroad.
His discography of more than 120 albums (including 20 Grammy Award winners) ranges from iconic renditions of the Western classical canon to recordings that defy categorization, such as Hush with Bobby McFerrin and the Goat Rodeo Sessions with Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, and Chris Thile. Yo-Yo’s recent releases include Six Evolutions, his third recording of Bach’s cello suites, and Beethoven for Three, the fourth in a series of Beethoven recordings with pianist Emanuel Ax and violinist Leonidas Kavakos.
Yo-Yo was born in 1955 to Chinese parents living in Paris. He began to study the cello with his father at age four and three years later moved with his family to New York City, where he continued his cello studies at The Juilliard School before pursuing a liberal arts education at Harvard. He has received numerous awards, including the Avery Fisher Prize (1978), the National Medal of the Arts (2001), the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2010), Kennedy Center Honors (2011), the Polar Music Prize (2012), and the Birgit Nilsson Prize (2022). He has performed for nine American presidents, most recently on the occasion of President Biden’s inauguration.
Yo-Yo and his wife have two children. He plays four cellos: two modern instruments made by Moes & Moes, a 1733 Montagnana from Venice, and the 1712 “Davidoff” Stradivarius.
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Born 17 December 1770; Bonn, Germany
Died 26 March 1827; Vienna, Austria
Symphony No. 8 in F major, Opus 93
Composed: April – October 1812
First performance: 27 February 1814; Ludwig van Beethoven, conductor; Redoutensäle, Hofburg Palace, Vienna
Last MSO performance: 11 March 2017; Karina Canellakis, conductor
Instrumentation: 2 flutes; 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 2 horns; 2 trumpets; timpani; strings
Approximate duration: 26 minutes
In the eight years that separated Beethoven’s landmark third symphony, the “Eroica,” from his eighth, the famously irascible and individualistic composer had cultivated a revolutionary “symphonic ideal” that rocked the foundations of the genre’s traditions. This singular musical vision tested the limits of orchestral writing in the extreme: increasingly preoccupied by his own psychological frame of mind, his forms assumed ever-broader dimensions, his harmonic language became increasingly radical, and his shocking contrasts in volume, texture, and emotional inflection reached ecstatic heights. This is precisely why the eighth has been met with ambivalence since its premiere. Unrestrained in its merriment and briefer than any of his sublime “middle period” symphonies, it seems to stand in opposition to everything he had been working toward, betraying nothing of the troubles that bedeviled him.
Closer in style to his 18th-century precursors, the apparent distance separating this buoyant, distinctly cheerful music from the painful emotional upheavals taking place in Beethoven’s personal life was captured by the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who crossed paths with the composer in the spa town of Teplice in the summer of 1812. He was hardly exaggerating when he described Beethoven’s condition in a letter to his friend, Carl Friedrich Zelter: “Altogether he is an utterly untamed personality, who is not altogether wrong in holding the world to be detestable, but surely does not make it any the more enjoyable either for himself or for others by his attitude.” Apart from the torment of his worsening deafness, it was at Teplice that Beethoven penned the unsent, notoriously inscrutable letter to his “immortal beloved.”
As a probing, deeply introspective testament to his innermost feelings for the unnamed object of his unrequited passion (almost certainly the Hungarian countess Josephine Brunsvik), the document has puzzled scholars since its discovery, though it makes one thing perfectly clear: he was wholly alone, without recourse, and his love would never find satisfaction. Beethoven did, however, make things harder for himself than necessary. That autumn, apparently motivated by righteous indignation and quite possibly envy, he travelled to Linz, where his brother Johann had unwisely taken on one of his renter’s unwed sisters as both housemaid and mistress. After petitioning both the church and the local authorities to intervene, Beethoven was successful in obtaining a police order to have her expelled from the city. Johann managed to put an end to things by simply marrying the girl, though he would eventually blame his brother for trapping him in an unhappy marriage.
Written in only a few months’ time, the eighth symphony exhibits a masterful economy of style, and the music, in the words of Michael Steinberg, “takes off like a house afire.” Like Franz Joseph Haydn’s famously comical musical experiments, much of it is permeated by a tongue-in-cheek
sense of humor. In place of his usual finely spun adagio in the second movement, for example, we enjoy a spritely allegretto whose insistent tickings in the woodwinds have been interpreted as a satire of the mechanical metronome, a device only recently perfected in Beethoven’s day by his friend Johann Nepomuk Maelzel. As an homage to his predecessors, the minuet-and-trio that follows is treated with typically Beethovenian flair: heavily accented sforzando punctuations exaggerate the main theme’s metric pulse, which surrounds the demure duet for clarinet and horn nestled in the heart of the movement.
The finale demonstrates Beethoven’s signature daring as the interjection of a low C♯, a harmonically distant “wrong” note in F major, sets the music roving, eventually arriving (after a few ingenious modulations through impossibly remote key areas) with no fewer than 53 measures of cadential figures to assure us that the music has, at last, reached its end. Despite its harmonic cunning and blitheness of spirit, the eighth only rarely appears in contemporary programming. When asked why his “little” symphony in F — so called to distinguish it from his sixth in the same key, the “Pastoral” — wasn’t as popular as his seventh, Beethoven retorted: “Because the eighth is so much better.”
Born 8 September 1841; Nelahozeves, Bohemia
Died 1 May 1904; Prague, Bohemia
Cello Concerto in B minor, Opus 104, B. 191
Composed: 8 November 1894 – 9 February 1895; revised May – 11 June 1895
First performance: 19 March 1896; Antonín Dvořák, conductor; Leo Stern, cello; Philharmonic Society of London
Last MSO performance: 18 November 2018; Jader Bignamini, conductor; Joshua Roman, cello
Instrumentation: 2 flutes (2nd doubling on piccolo); 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 3 horns; 2 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; percussion (triangle); strings
Approximate duration: 40 minutes
The cello is not an instrument that is characteristically well-suited to the concertante tradition. Its lush, resonant baritone register encounters great difficulty in cutting through the walls of sound produced by an orchestra, and Antonín Dvořák, having freelanced as a violist in his younger years, is known to have complained that the instrument “whinges up above and grumbles down below.” But few works of art command a greater presence or inspire such awe as his cello concerto: its lyrical and dramatic virtues have been universally hailed since its inception, earning a reputation as the triumph and final end of every serious cellist’s artistic endeavors.
Dvořák himself felt the inward impulse to compose the work to be inexplicable. He was never drawn to the genre (a piano concerto from nearly twenty years earlier failed to find a permanent place in the repertoire, though his violin concerto fared considerably better), but the spark of inspiration was apparently ignited by the premiere of Victor Herbert’s second cello concerto in the spring of 1894. Herbert, Dvořák’s colleague at the National Conservatory and principal cellist of the Philharmonic Society of New York, naturally appeared as soloist, and Dvořák was reportedly so taken by the skillful balancing of the instrument’s solo line against the accompanying symphonic forces that he eventually requested a copy of the score from Herbert for personal study.
The process of writing his own, however, coincided with a famously difficult chapter in the composer’s private life. As the lavish salary he had been promised as head of the National Conservatory evaporated in the economic chaos of the Panic of 1893, his longing to return to his native Bohemia, where his children had remained behind as he pursued his American dream,
became a source of intensely personal anguish. Letters from home only confirmed the worst: Josefina Kaunitzová, Dvořák’s first love and the sister of his wife, Anna, wrote to tell him that she was dying. Two months after completing the cello concerto, he finally returned to his homeland in April 1895, where Josefina succumbed to her illness only weeks later.
It had been some time since he was first approached by Hanuš Wihan, a friend from his teaching days at the Prague Conservatory, with a request for a cello concerto, but Dvořák at last had something to offer him. When the two met that September to play through the work together, Wihan suggested several revisions to the solo part, only some of which the composer found serviceable. Wihan requested that his own cadenza be inserted at the close of the third movement, but this was a crucial point from which Dvořák would not waver. Writing to his publisher, Fritz Simrock, about his “differences of opinion,” he was uncompromising: “I told Wihan straight away when he showed it to me that it was impossible to cobble the work together in this manner … The finale ends gradually in a diminuendo, like a sigh … That was my idea, and I cannot abandon it.”
This integrity of vision is an important point in the work’s conception — Dvořák had initially included a quotation from one of his art songs, “Kéž duch můj sám” (“Leave Me Alone”), a favorite of Josefina’s, in the stormy heart of the second movement. Devastated by her death, he had revised and expanded the coda of the finale that summer to include both another allusion to the song, in the form of a dulcet concertmaster solo, as well as recollections of the themes heard in the first two movements, infusing the closing measures of the concerto with a heart-wrenching sense of nostalgia. The inclusion of a virtuoso display at the work’s conclusion would not only compromise the emotional atmosphere of the music, but would, as a tribute to his lost love, miss the point entirely.
The orchestra, which plays a particularly prominent role throughout, provides a sumptuously nuanced tapestry of sound, while the cellist alternates between the most extreme expressions of furor, melancholy, blissful rapture, and tenderhearted affection. The two contrasting forces are interlaced with the utmost sensitivity to structural and acoustic balance, musical pacing, and dramatic timing, making for music of unqualified beauty and constant discovery. As evidenced by the intimate chamber music that emerges so readily from the symphonic texture, placing the soloist in loving conversation with individual members of the orchestra, the work is rightfully cherished as the “king” of the cello concerto.
A Schirmer Theatrical/Greenberg Artists Co-Production Arrangements by Jeff Tyzik
Friday, March 27, 2026 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, March 28, 2026 at 7:30 pm
Sunday, March 29, 2026 at 2:30 pm
ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL
Byron Stripling, conductor
Brie Cassil, vocalist
Paul Loren, vocalist
Colin Smith, vocalist
Oscar Rodriguez, guitar
Eric Metzgar, drums
JOHN COLLA, CHRIS HAYES, AND HUEY LEWIS
The Power of Love
JANNA ALLEN AND DARYL HALL
Kiss on My List
JACKIE DESHANNON AND DONNA WEISS
Bette Davis Eyes
MARTIN PAGE AND BERNIE TAUPIN
These Dreams
WILL JENNINGS, JACK NITZSCHE, AND BUFFY SAINTE-MARIE
Up Where We Belong
ANNIE LENNOX AND DAVID STEWART
Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)
BILLY JOEL
Tell Her About It
ROB HYMAN AND CYNDI LAUPER
Time After Time
ELTON JOHN AND BERNIE TAUPIN
I’m Still Standing
INTERMISSION
PHIL COLLINS AND HUGH PADGHAM
Sussudio
MICK HUCKNALL AND NEIL MOSS
Holding Back the Years
ROBERT PALMER
Addicted to Love
RICHARD MARX
Right Here Waiting
GEORGE MERRILL AND SHANNON RUBICAM
I Wanna Dance With Somebody
CHRIS HUGHES, IAN STANLEY, AND ROLAND ORZABAL
Everybody Wants to Rule the World
PETER BROWN AND ROBERT RANS
Material Girl
DEBBIE GIBSON (I Get) Lost in Your Eyes
JOHN DENICOLA, DONAL MARKOWITZ, AND FRANKE PREVITE
I’ve Had the Time of My Life
WILL JENNINGS AND STEVE WINWOOD
Higher Love
ALL ARRANGEMENTS LICENSED BY SCHIRMER THEATRICAL, LLC
Creative Team
Jeff Tyzik, Producer & Arranger
Jami Greenberg, Producer & Booking Agent
Alex Kosick, Producer
Robert Thompson, Producer
Betsey Perlmutter, Producer
Evie Miller, Assistant Producer
For more information on the music and artists featured in Decades: Back to the 80s, use the QR 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.
The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra can be heard on the Naxos, Telarc, Koss Classics, ProArte, AVIE, and Vox/Turnabout labels. MSO Classics recordings are available for digital streaming and download on Spotify, Apple Music, and more.
Brie Cassil is a versatile singer, actor, and composer who has captivated audiences worldwide with her remarkable talent. As a child in Missouri, she nurtured her passion for music by performing in school shows and with her high school orchestra. After graduating, she embarked on a bold journey to New York City, where she has graced the stages of numerous musical productions.
Cassil’s versatility is evident in her portrayal of iconic characters like Mimi in Rent, Little Sally in Urinetown, Belle in Beauty and the Beast, and Suzy in the off-Broadway cast of The Marvelous Wonderettes. Her remarkable ability to seamlessly transition between various musical styles, including rock, opera, pop, and musical theater, has allowed her to perform on some of the world’s most prestigious stages.
From leading musical workshops in Brazil to opening for renowned artists like Adler, Cassil’s international performances have taken her across the globe. She has had the privilege of performing on the grand stages of hundreds of theaters, including the iconic Nassau Coliseum and the legendary Carnegie Hall.
Driven by her deep gratitude for the opportunity to pursue her passion and share her voice with the world, Cassil continues to travel and perform, spreading joy and inspiration through her music.
At a young age, singer-songwriter Paul Loren fell in love with the classic sounds of New York oldies radio and the Great American Songbook. With his throwback voice, tailored sense of style, and twinkle-in-his-eye personality, Loren has since won over fans and devotees around the world.
Loren launched his solo career in early 2014 with a string of sold-out shows in New York City at the famed venue Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater, accompanied by his “One-Night-Only Band.” His first solo single, “All By Myself,” released in 2015, was supported by SiriusXM and terrestrial radio stations in markets such as Nashville, Seattle, Charleston, and Philadelphia.
During this time, Loren was personally selected by Jennifer Lopez to perform at her birthday gala in Las Vegas. He appeared on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon, partnered with the Ryan Seacrest Foundation, performed at the legendary STAX Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, and recorded in the world-renowned Sun Studio. Loren and his band have been permanent fixtures at storied venues such as the Rainbow Room, the Dinah Shore residence in Palm Springs, Cipriani, Hotel Chelsea in New York, the SLS Hotel in Las Vegas, and performance halls from Rio de Janeiro to Rome.
He has opened for and supported touring artists such as The Temptations, singer-songwriter Brendan James, American Idol winner Taylor Hicks, folk singer and guitarist David Bromberg, and British soul singer James Hunter, and has shared the stage with Paul Shaffer, Queen Latifah, Christie Brinkley, and culinary personality Giada De Laurentiis. Showcasing his unique style and sound, Loren has partnered with many legacy brands, including Cartier, Target, Squarespace, Campari, and Nordstrom.
Since 2018, Loren has performed with orchestras across the U.S. and Canada, leading pops shows with a diverse repertoire, including “Legends: The Paul Simon Songbook,” both The Beatles’ “Revolution” and “Twist & Shout,” and “Decades: Back to the 80s.”
Launching his own orchestral show, “Come Swing With Me!” in 2024, Loren brings his first love of Great American Songbook standards and mid-century big band music to the symphony stage, sharing timeless classics by Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin, and his own original music with audiences across the country.
Currently based in Nashville, Tennessee, Loren continues to write and record his own material in addition to producing music for other artists at his studio, Realtone Ranch. To date, his music has been streamed tens of millions of times, and his songs can be heard in major motion pictures, television shows, and ad campaigns.
Colin Smith is an Irish-born vocalist and guitarist whose dynamic career spans multiple decades and genres. Born in Dublin, he first gained recognition as the frontman of the alternative rock band MrNorth. Under RCA Records, the band toured extensively, sharing stages with renowned acts such as The Who, Van Halen, Sheryl Crow, and Journey, and performing at festivals like Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza.
As a solo artist, Smith has collaborated with industry luminaries such as Alicia Keys, Adele, and Christina Aguilera. He toured globally with Aguilera from 2014 to 2019, performing the Grammy Award-winning duet “Say Something” and providing background vocals. His versatile vocal talents were also showcased over three seasons on Saturday Night Live
Smith’s original compositions have been featured in major motion pictures and television series, including appearances on the soundtracks for The Lincoln Lawyer, the BBC’s Being Human, and Lucifer, as well as on the City of Lies soundtrack in collaboration with Joe Perry of Aerosmith.
In his solo endeavors, Smith released his debut album The Wilderness in 2009 and followed it with The Candles EP in 2023, reflecting his growth as a singer-songwriter. Singles like “Is It Ever Now” and “The Tree” have achieved international success, with the former reaching number one on the Irish Alternative iTunes chart and number eight overall in Ireland. He is currently writing and recording a new full-length project, slated for release in 2026.
Beyond his recording career, Smith co-founded the Sounds from the Cellar podcast alongside the Olive Tree Madmen. Recorded live at New York City’s Olive Tree Café, the podcast features candid conversations and performances with guest artists, offering listeners an intimate glimpse into the creative process, with past episodes including discussions with Lalah Hathaway and Peter Gunz.
Smith’s versatility also extends to symphonic and theatrical performances. As a Greenberg Artist, he has been a featured vocalist in productions such as “Revolution: The Music of The Beatles,” “Twist & Shout,” “Decades: Back to the 80s,” and “The New Wave,” collaborating with various symphonies throughout the U.S. Looking ahead, he is preparing to make his screen debut in both television and film, opening a new chapter in his career.
A producer, engineer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter, Oscar Rodriguez grew up in Rhode Island, graduated with a jazz guitar degree from New York University, and made Brooklyn his home base in 2000. Since then, he’s played every DIY venue and basement in North America with his punk and hardcore bands De La Hoya and Nakatomi Plaza, freelanced with innumerable New York City singer-songwriters and bands, performed in Broadway musicals (most notably Hedwig and The Angry Inch), and toured the world with the Grammy Award-winning duo A Great Big World.
Oscar started producing and engineering at Russell Street Recording in 2013 and soon after began collaborating with Zach Jones. Since then, the two have played in each other’s bands (Albis and Zach Jones & the Tricky Bits) and have co-produced records for artists such as Jenny Owen Youngs, Elizabeth Wyld, Hannah Winkler, Talay, Jesse Dylan & the Scaredy Cats, and A Great Big World. On his own, Oscar’s production credits include Jukebox the Ghost, Jon the Guilt, and Rikki Will. He’s also written and produced hundreds of songs for the YouTube audio library, the Facebook sound collection, Marmoset Music, and Premium Beat and is a co-founder of the music and media collective Track Tribe. oscaralbisrodriguez.com
Eric Metzgar is an in-demand drummer and versatile collaborator who offers his musicianship to various jazz and pop artists and symphony orchestras worldwide. He has had the opportunity to play with numerous first-rate performers, including Jeff Tyzik, Sutton Foster, Joe Locke, Jimmy Greene, Shayna Steele, Byron Stripling, and Delfeayo Marsalis.
Metzgar is a passionate educator deeply invested in music teaching and learning. Each summer, he teaches at the Cape Ann Jazz Workshop under the direction of saxophonist Alexa Tarantino. He maintains a private studio and serves as a clinician at grade schools and universities.
Metzgar holds a Bacher of Music degree in Drum Set Performance and a Master of Music degree in Music Teaching and Learning from the Eastman School of Music. He lives in New York City and tours frequently around the world.
Friday, April 10, 2026 at 11:15 am
Saturday, April 11, 2026 at 7:30 pm
ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL
Katharina Wincor, conductor
Polina Osetinskaya, piano
ANTON WEBERN
Passacaglia, Opus 1
ROBERT SCHUMANN
Piano Concerto in A minor, Opus 54
I. Allegro affettuoso
II. Intermezzo
III. Allegro vivace
Polina Osetinskaya, piano
INTERMISSION
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH
Symphony No. 1 in F minor, Opus 10
I. Allegretto – Allegro non troppo
II. Allegro
III. Lento
IV. Allegro molto
The MSO Steinway was made possible through a generous gift from MICHAEL AND JEANNE SCHMITZ. The 2025.26 Classics Series is presented by the UNITED PERFORMING ARTS FUND and ROCKWELL AUTOMATION
The length of this concert is approximately 1 hour and 35 minutes.
The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra can be heard on the Naxos, Telarc, Koss Classics, ProArte, AVIE, and Vox/Turnabout labels. MSO Classics recordings are available for digital streaming and download on Spotify, Apple Music, and more.
Austrian conductor Katharina Wincor is a force on the podium and has quickly established an international reputation.
In the 2025-26 season, she debuts with The Hallé, the hr-Sinfonieorchester, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Bremer Philharmoniker, Jenaer Philharmonie, Biel Solothurn Symphony Orchestra, and Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, and returns to collaborate with the Sarasota Orchestra, North Carolina Symphony, Altomonte Orchester St. Florian, and the Upper Austrian Youth Orchestra. Wincor also makes her debut with the Bavarian State Opera in Munich with a new production of Hans Werner Henze’s Die englische Katze to mark the 100th anniversary of the composer’s birth.
Highlights include guest conducting engagements with the SWR Symphonieorchester, WDR Sinfonieorchester, Bamberger Symphoniker, Wiener Symphoniker, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Tucson Symphony Orchestra, Utah Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, Orquesta Sinfónica RTVE, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, and Queensland Symphony Orchestra. She returns to work with the Frankfurter Opernund Museumsorchester, Bruckner Orchester Linz, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Romanian Radio National Orchestra, Ensemble Reflektor, Klangforum Wien, and the Orquesta Filarmónica de la UNAM. Recent and upcoming collaborations with soloists include James Ehnes, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Daniel Müller-Schott, Julian Steckel, Alexander Malofeev, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Rafał Blechacz, Lucas and Arthur Jussen, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, David Fray, and Anna Lapwood.
Wincor first gained international attention as assistant conductor of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra under music director Fabio Luisi. In 2020, she was a prize-winner at the Mahler Competition in Bamberg and was invited to the Ammodo Conducting Masterclass with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Iván Fischer, who subsequently engaged her as an assistant for several projects with the Budapest Festival Orchestra. Her early experience with the Arnold Schoenberg Choir in Vienna shaped her natural approach to working with singers. After conducting Bernstein’s Candide at the 2022 May Festival with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, she also led a production at the Salzburg State Theatre and a children’s opera at the Salzburg Festival.
Born and raised in Upper Austria, Wincor studied conducting at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna and the Zurich University of the Arts. She has participated in master classes with Riccardo Muti, Jaap van Zweden, Robert Spano, and David Zinman.
Admired for “depth, polish, flair … and an inquisitive musical mind” (Sun Sentinel), pianist Polina Osetinskaya’s “elegant and nuanced” (Boston Musical Intelligencer) performances have endeared her to audiences around the globe.
A rare musician who made the leap from child prodigy to celebrated soloist, Osetinskaya has performed at Vienna’s Musikverein and Konzerthaus, London’s Barbican Centre, Carnegie Hall, the Sydney Opera House, Salzburg Festival, and Berliner Philharmonie, and has appeared with musicAeterna, the Mariinsky Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Brno Philharmonic, and Slovak Philharmonic. She has performed with conductors Teodor Currentzis, Dennis Russell Davies, Laurent Petitgirard, Vladimir Spivakov, Andrey Boreyko, and Yan Pascal Tortelier, and enjoys an ongoing chamber music collaboration with Maxim Vengerov.
Osetinskaya released her newest album of the music of Giya Kancheli, Valentin Silvestrov, and Arvo Pärt in November 2024 with the French label Evidence and has also recorded on the Quartz, Naxos, Sony Music, Bel Air, and Melodiya labels. She is the author of the bestselling autobiography Farewell, Sadness.
Born in Moscow, Osetinskaya made her orchestral debut at eight years old playing Bach’s D minor concerto with the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra and Saulius Sondeckis and became a nationally celebrated phenomenon at the age of eleven when she played Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 at the legendary Moscow Conservatory.
Proud supporter of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra
ANTON WEBERN
Born 3 December 1883; Vienna, Austria-Hungary
Died 15 September 1945; Mittersill, Austria
Passacaglia, Opus 1
Composed: 1908
First performance: 4 November 1908; Anton Webern, conductor; Tonkünstler Orchestra
Last MSO performance: 18 March 2001; Andreas Delfs, conductor
Instrumentation: piccolo; 2 flutes; 2 oboes; English horn; 2 clarinets; bass clarinet; 2 bassoons; contrabassoon; 4 horns; 3 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; percussion (bass drum, cymbals, tam-tam, triangle); harp; strings
Approximate duration: 11 minutes
In the autumn of 1908, a young cellist, singer, and historian took to the stage of Vienna’s Musikverein to present the fruit of his creative labors. Anton Webern had been taking composition lessons with Arnold Schoenberg for four years, and his premiere as a composer marked the beginning of his professional life. Having been raised in a musical household on the chamber music of the “First Viennese School” (that revered triumvirate of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven), Webern, along with his fellow classmate Alban Berg and Schoenberg himself, would retroactively be identified as the “Second.” Between the three of them, they would radically alter perceptions of how music was to advance into the future.
Webern had entered the University of Vienna six years earlier, studying art history and philosophy while immersing himself in his musical pursuits, analyzing the works of the old masters and engaging with the revolutionary new music of Strauss, Mahler, and Wagner during his frequent visits to the concert hall. It was there that he first encountered Schoenberg’s Pelleas und Melisande and Verklärte Nacht, instilling a fascination for the iconoclast’s highly dissonant, expressionistic, post-Romantic style. By 1907, after three years of study under Schoenberg, he had produced his first orchestral essay, Im Sommerwind, been awarded a doctoral degree for his musicological research, and prepared three sketches for what he viewed as his first substantial symphonic work.
The passacaglia itself can be traced back to Spanish and Italian music of the 17th century. Eventually transmitted to France and Germany, the masters of the Baroque era expounded upon its style and, as the century progressed, codified its form as a set of variations which unfolded over a repeating bass line. Like all “early” music, it never fell entirely out of fashion, the most recent and well-respected example in Webern’s lifetime being the colossal passacaglia that makes up the finale of Johannes Brahms’s fourth symphony. Two distinct strains of influence are immediately evident in Webern’s: the highly gestural writing of the late Romantics and the chromatically inflected aesthetics of his teacher.
Webern’s passacaglia is most clearly indebted to Schoenberg’s technique of “developing variation,” in which the fragmentation, rhythmic manipulation, or transposition of an idea provides the basis for its transformations. Though the score calls for expansive performing forces, Webern’s careful application of individual colors elicits ghostly, transparent textures from the orchestra. The principal subject that underpins the music and from which Webern derives his 23 variations is first introduced in the strings, then contrasted with a countermelody in the first variation for flute and trumpet. These two ideas are metamorphosed through a series of varied instrumental
combinations, during which only flashes of blissful optimism shine through, before reaching the fever pitch of the final coda and dissolving into a bleak silence.
Unfortunately for the young visionary, the piece was almost unilaterally panned. One reviewer railed against Webern’s “confusion, cacophony at any price, dissonance not for the sake of necessity, but for amusement” and “respect for form without content.” Only Elsa Bienenfeld, writing in the Neues Wiener Journal days later, praised “the peculiar melodic inventiveness, the free harmonic treatment, and the manifold interlacings of counterpoint. The composition, surprising in its curiosities of tonal combinations and their progressions, nevertheless convinces through the depth of the moods evoked.”
Born 8 June 1810; Zwickau, Saxony
Died 29 July 1856; Endenich, Prussia
Composed: May 1841 – 31 July 1845
First performance: 4 December 1845; Ferdinand Hiller, conductor; Clara Schumann, piano; Hôtel de Saxe, Dresden
Last MSO performance: 15 September 2019; Ken-David Masur, conductor; Nicolas Namoradze, piano
Instrumentation: 2 flutes; 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 2 horns; 2 trumpets; timpani; strings
Approximate duration: 31 minutes
Few artists led more difficult inner lives than Robert Schumann. His family of origin was plagued by mental illness: committed to an asylum for her depressive tendencies, his sister Emilie flung herself from a window, a traumatic death followed almost immediately by his father’s, himself afflicted by a “nervous disorder” since Robert’s birth. Resisting the legal education imposed by his widowed mother, Christiane, he eventually persuaded her to allow him to pursue his literary and musical ambitions. At 18, he was accepted by Friedrich Wieck, one of Leipzig’s preeminent piano teachers, who assured Christiane that Robert could be molded into a virtuoso within a few years. Already haunted by presentiments of his own insanity, Robert’s dreams were shattered in as much time by an injury that left his hands partially paralyzed.
The saving grace of Schumann’s trials was Wieck’s daughter, Clara. A miraculously gifted pianist and composer with an inimitable musical mind, her genius inspired Schumann for the remainder of his brief creative life. Her domineering father, however, was categorically opposed to her marrying a man he considered a degenerate, third-rate composer, leading to a bitterly protracted and complicated courtship. After years of seemingly interminable legal proceedings and emotional turmoil, their marriage in the spring of 1840 afforded Schumann the psychological foundation that became instrumental in furthering his career and inaugurated years of inspired creativity. For her part, Clara gave up her life as an internationally acclaimed virtuoso, bearing eight children by Robert in a little more than a dozen years.
As early as 1839, Clara had confided in her diary that Robert’s “imagination cannot find sufficient scope on the piano … My highest wish is that he should compose for orchestra — that is his field! May I succeed in bringing him to it.” It was her insistence, and the shining example of her talent, that induced him to reach beyond the character pieces and art songs that had hitherto occupied his attention. After no less than four abandoned attempts, he produced a single-movement fantasy for piano and orchestra in 1841. It was only after four more years of teetering on a razor’s edge between manic prolificacy and total mental collapse that he revised the work and appended the final two movements to produce his only concerto for the instrument. Continued on page 30
Schumann described his conception of the genre as “something between symphony, concerto, and grand sonata,” a point of view underscored by his concerto’s intrepid pianism, handsomely devised accompaniment, and wildly mercurial character. Following a thundering string of chords from the piano, the oboe introduces a musical cryptogram, a favorite device of Schumann’s. The motif C-B-A-A (B♮ rendered as an “H” in German) is shorthand for “Chiara,” an Italianate spelling of Clara’s name which recurs in varied guises throughout the freely structured movement. The fleeting intermezzo contains some of Schumann’s most sensitive writing: a simple, refined melody encloses the lyrical theme intoned by the orchestra at its center as the pianist recedes quietly into the background. We spring directly into the high-flying glory of the finale, whose spirited acrobatics make for the “big bravura piece” Clara eagerly described in her diary — and one she had the pleasure of playing at its premiere.
Born 25 September 1906; Saint Petersburg, Russia Died 9 August 1975; Moscow, Soviet Union
Composed: 1924 – 1925
First performance: 12 May 1926; Nicolai Malko, conductor; Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra
Last MSO performance: 23 April 2016; Francesco Lecce-Chong, conductor
Instrumentation: 3 flutes (2nd and 3rd doubling on piccolo); 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 4 horns; 2 trumpets; alto trumpet; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; percussion (bass drum, cymbals, glockenspiel, snare drum, tam-tam, triangle); piano; strings Approximate duration: 33 minutes
Perhaps the most revolutionary symphonist of the 20th century, Dmitri Shostakovich became the musical darling of his homeland before his teenage years were behind him. Only four years after his first obligatory piano lessons with his mother, he was admitted to the Petrograd Conservatory at the tender age of 13, where his astonishing aptitude for composition and his effortless keyboard technique earned him the affection and material support of the composer Alexander Glazunov, then director of the institution. Anxious and withdrawn by disposition and physically fragile, he played the piano in movie houses to make ends meet for his family during the years of privation that followed the Russian revolution. His flair at the keyboard even earned him an “honorable mention” at Warsaw’s inaugural Chopin competition in 1927.
Even as a child, the music he was writing was unmistakably his own: clever, sardonic, patterned after classical models, and distinctly modern. Written as a graduation exercise under the auspices of his composition teacher Maximilian Steinberg when he was only 18, Shostakovich’s first symphony betrays a respect for both the Russian Romantics that preceded his generation and the avant-garde tendencies epitomized by the music of Sergei Prokofiev and Igor Stravinsky. Striking in its intellectual and emotional depth while foreshadowing a compulsion toward the grotesque that would tinge his mature works, its premiere in the spring of 1926 immediately launched young Dmitri to international stardom.
While the formal plan of the music is fairly conventional, hardly anything about the music itself is. A sizzling trumpet solo, soon accompanied by bassoon, sets the opening allegretto in motion, immediately undermining any sense of expectation on the part of the listener. The movement is built around the two principal subjects central to the standard sonata form: the first appears as the sarcastic clarinet solo heard in the martial allegro, while the second emerges as foreboding,
tonally unsteady waltz. Inverting the traditional order of the inner two movements, the devilishly playful scherzo places Shostakovich’s acerbic pianism in the spotlight, culminating in a brash outburst from the instrument in its final measures.
If the first half of the symphony was a light-hearted parody of the composer’s stringent, oldfashioned conservatory training, the second is anything but. The plangent strains of the slow movement most clearly presage the dissonant, dolorous expressions that became hallmarks of Shostakovich’s late style, a melody from the oboe soaring over the tenebrous harmonies sounded by the strings before drifting to a solitary cello. Tchaikovskian in scope and style, the orchestra develops these ideas to their fervent resolution, a single shimmering chord offering relief from the oppressive atmosphere — until the roll of the snare drum hurls the orchestra into the finale. The gloom and melancholy that prevailed tighten their grip as the music, by turns operatic and vehement, finds expression in a string of solos for clarinet, concertmaster, timpani, and cello. At long last, smoldering brass fanfares clatter and clang in a fury of sound, bringing the first of Shostakovich’s 15 symphonies to its ferocious end.
4 MONDAY
MAY
SEASON
7:00 pm
Schwan Concert Hall
Wisconsin Lutheran College
Frank Almond, violin
Charlene Kluegel, violin
Toby Appel, viola
Alexander Hersh, cello
Adam Nieman, piano Program and artists subject to change
Friday, April 17, 2026 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, April 18, 2026 at 7:30 pm
ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL
Ken-David Masur, conductor
Nancy Zhou, violin
GABRIELA ORTIZ
Clara
CLARA SCHUMANN/orch. William C. White
Three Romances, Opus 22
I. Andante molto
II. Allegretto: Mit zartem Vortrage
III. Leidenschaftlich schnell
Nancy Zhou, violin
JOSEPH JOACHIM
Variations for Violin and Orchestra in E Minor
Nancy Zhou, violin
INTERMISSION
ROBERT SCHUMANN
Symphony No. 2 in C major, Opus 61
I. Sostenuto assai – Allegro, ma non troppo
II. Scherzo: Allegro vivace
III. Adagio espressivo
IV. Allegro molto vivace
The 2025.26 Classics Series is presented by the UNITED PERFORMING ARTS FUND and ROCKWELL AUTOMATION.
The length of this concert is approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes.
The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra can be heard on the Naxos, Telarc, Koss Classics, ProArte, AVIE, and Vox/Turnabout labels. MSO Classics recordings are available for digital streaming and download on Spotify, Apple Music, and more.
It’s important to choose a physician who will listen closely to your needs and respond genuinely to your concerns. Fortunately for you and your family, our physicians have been providing exceptional care in Milwaukee and Ozaukee for over 120 years.
Known for her probing musical voice and searing virtuosity, Nancy Zhou seeks to invigorate appreciation for the art and science of the violin. Her thoughtful musicianship and robust online presence resonate with a global audience in such a way that brings her onstage with leading orchestras around the world.
More than 20 years since her orchestral debut, Zhou has collaborated with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Munich Symphony Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Hangzhou Philharmonic Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, Naples Philharmonic Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, and Kansas City Symphony, among others. A passionate soloist who cherishes chamber music collaborations and commits to the responsibility of education, Zhou has performed at festivals including the Verbier Festival, Tongyeong International Music Festival, and Marvão International Music Festival. She is a regular guest educator at various international summer festivals, holding not only master classes, but also workshops on fundamental training and wellbeing for musicians.
Over the years, Zhou’s interest in cultural heritage and the humanities manifested in a string of notable collaborations across the U.S. and in China. In collaboration with the New Jersey Symphony and Xian Zhang, she presented Zhao Jiping’s first violin concerto at Alice Tully Hall, gave the U.S. premieres of Unsuk Chin’s Gran Cadenza for two solo violins with Anne-Sophie Mutter, performed Chen Qigang’s La joie de la souffrance with the Rogue Valley Symphony, and, in partnership with the La Jolla Symphony, gave the West Coast premiere of Vivian Fung’s first violin concerto. On the other side of the globe, the past season saw Zhou bringing three cornerstone concerti to China in a five-city tour; her collaborative partners included the Shanghai and Guangzhou symphony orchestras and the China and Hohhot philharmonic orchestras.
In the summer of 2025, Zhou embarked on a research trip with Canadian-born Chinese composer Vivian Fung to Zhexiang, China — the hometown village of Zhou’s mother, a former professional folk dancer. The project culminated in a work for violin and electronics that explores the intersection of music as a cultural force and folk minority culture. In October 2024, Zhou recorded her debut album, STORIES (re)TRACED, in response to these questions. The critically acclaimed album features four seminal and inextricably connected works for solo violin, including Béla Bartók’s sonata, and was released in June 2025 on Orchid Classics.
The 2025-26 season brings forth collaborations with the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Austin Symphony Orchestra, Jakarta Simfonia Orchestra, Orquestra Vigo 430, and San Antonio Philharmonic, among others, as well as recital appearances in Europe and China.
Born in Texas to Chinese immigrant parents, Zhou began playing violin under the guidance of her father, who hails from a family of traditional musicians. She went on to study with Miriam Fried at the New England Conservatory while pursuing her interest in literature at Harvard University. Since 2019, she has been an associated artist of the Queen Elisabeth Chapel.
Born 20 December 1964; Mexico City, Mexico
Clara
Composed: 2021
First performance: 9 March 2022; Gustavo Dudamel, conductor; New York Philharmonic
Last MSO performance: MSO Premiere
Instrumentation: 2 flutes (2nd doubling on piccolo and alto flute); 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 4 horns; 3 trumpets; 2 trombones; bass trombone; timpani (doubling on gong); percussion (bass drum, cabasa, claves, crash cymbal, crotales, glockenspiel, gong, guiro, snare drum, suspended cymbals, large suspended cymbals, tom-toms in 3 pitches, triangle, vibraphone, whip, wood block, xylophone); strings
Approximate duration: 18 minutes
The following essay was prepared by the composer. Reprinted by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes.
I cannot begin to discuss Clara without first thanking Gustavo Dudamel for his generosity in having invited me to compose a work based on the relationship between two great artists: Clara Wieck Schumann and Robert Schumann. Thanks to him, I was able to delve into the broad legacy of both more deftly; especially that of Clara who, in addition to being a splendid composer and one of the most important pianists of the 19th century, was the editor of her husband’s complete works, as well as a teacher, mother, and wife.
Clara is divided into five parts that are played without interruption: Clara — Robert — My response — Robert’s subconscious — Always Clara. Except for “My response,” all of these sections are comprised of intimate sketches or imaginary outlines of the relationship between Clara and Robert. My original idea was to transfer onto an ephemeral canvas the internal sounds of each one without attempting to illustrate or interpret, but simply voice and create, through my ear, the expressiveness and unique strength of their complex, but also fascinating personalities.
Clara parts from the idea that music will grant us access to a non-linear conception of time that is more circular, where the past (them) and the present (me) can meet, converse, and get to know one another. During these imaginary dialogues of a poetic and musical nature, an intimate diary began to grow in me filled with nuances, confessions, and internal contradictions that find in music their own reference, significance, and internal coherence, expressing all that which cannot be read or explained, but rather must be heard. I like to think that through Clara, Clara Wieck Schumann is here, in this concert hall with us. In order to clearly identify these sections, I have employed two fundamental musical tools: a brief rhythmic sequence that appears constantly as a leitmotif or idée fixe, acting as a thread to guide me between the sections that correspond to Robert or Clara, and a melodic theme represented by the oboe that, in a more personal way, represents the latter’s private world. At the end of the piece, this leitmotif can be heard as breathing, leaving implicit the permanence and legacy of both figures.
In the central part of the work, “My response,” I seek two objectives: first, to bring Clara and Robert into my own world, one of a rhythmic strength and color characteristic of my language, of the unique vitality born out of the entrails of the land I come from; and second, to explore a quote considered to be very controversial, in which Clara wrote: “I once believed that I possessed creative talent, but I have given up this idea; a woman must not desire to compose — there has never yet been one able to do it. Should I expect to be the one?”
Throughout history, women have had to overcome major obstacles marked by gender differences. We have gradually unfolded within the musical arts with great difficulty. However, as is well known, there are many of us who have rebelled against these evident forms of injustice and struggled to gain recognition and a place in society. This piece represents an acknowledgement of Clara, a tribute to her, and my definitive, resounding response to her question. It also signals my gratitude to all the women who, in their time, challenged the society they were raised in by manifesting their artistic oeuvre.
Born 13 September 1819; Leipzig, Saxony
Died 20 May 1896; Frankfurt, German Empire
Composed: Summer 1853
First performance: Unknown
Last MSO performance: MSO Premiere
Instrumentation: 2 flutes; 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 2 horns; strings
Approximate duration: 10 minutes
One can only guess at what Clara Schumann might have accomplished as a composer had she been unencumbered by the expectations of the men in her life. Her father, Friedrich Wieck, educated her in an uncompromising musical and domestic environment; at his insistence, she came to be recognized as one of the finest pianists of her day, composing and premiering her own piano concerto as a teenager. Renowned for her impeccable technique, discerning interpretations, and superb tone, she earned the admiration of Chopin, Paganini, Mendelssohn, and the whole of Europe, touring through its artistic centers while only a child. In 1838, she was appointed “Royal and Imperial Chamber Virtuoso” by the Austrian court and elected to the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, one of Vienna’s most prestigious institutions — distinctions which were then practically unheard of for a young woman.
For all of the honors bestowed upon the wundermädchen, her talents as a composer were never entirely legitimized. Her marriage to Robert Schumann, and the attendant responsibilities of raising their children and managing their household affairs, left those ambitions unrealized, though she remained an active performer for the rest of her life. In a century that was pointedly hostile toward women and their artistic ideals, her own prospects remained painfully limited. Robert himself acknowledged that “to have children, and a husband who is always living in the realm of imagination, does not go together with composing. She cannot work at it regularly, and I am often disturbed to think how many profound ideas are lost…”
Relocation to a new home in Düsseldorf in 1853, where Robert had been serving as the city’s music director, at last enabled Clara to work without disturbing him, allowing for a final flowering of her creative energies. The three romances for violin and piano that Clara authored that summer were the last work of chamber music she composed. Robert’s nervous breakdown,
suicide attempt, and consequent confinement to an asylum the following February seems to have extinguished the flame of her creativity. Over the course of the two years in which he was detained there, slipping further into madness, she was not permitted to see him until his final days, at which point he was unable to speak coherently.
Dedicated to the violinist Joseph Joachim, a friend and colleague of the Schumanns, Clara and Joachim are known to have played the romances for King George V of Hanover, Joachim’s patron, who described them as a “marvelous, heavenly pleasure.” This is music of a supremely personal and private character, as implied by the genre of the romance, and each selection is representative of her generation’s emphasis on melodic intrigue and potent harmonic language. The first, with its curling melodic line and richly shaded accompaniment, contains a quotation from Robert’s first violin sonata, while the second’s elegiac quality is realized in its syncopated rhythms, melodic leaps, and silken ornamentation. The longest of the collection, the third returns to the affectionate, untroubled atmosphere of the first, its sentimental melody weaving its way to the suite’s charming conclusion.
Born 28 June 1831; Köpcsény, Hungary
Died 15 August 1907; Berlin, German Empire
First performance: 28 February 1880; August Manns, conductor; Joseph Joachim, violin; Crystal Palace, London
Last MSO performance: MSO Premiere
Instrumentation: piccolo; 2 flutes; 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 2 horns; 2 trumpets; timpani; strings
Approximate duration: 13 minutes
The musical treasures that line the way of Joseph Joachim’s path through life are the stuff of legend. One of the most famous child prodigies of his generation, his natural affinity for the violin earned him a place at the Leipzig Conservatory at just 11 years old. Finding himself surrounded by such luminaries as Robert Schumann, whom Mendelssohn had hired to teach composition, and sharing the stage with Schumann’s wife, Clara, undoubtedly provided the boy with a wealth of inspiration. But it was Mendelssohn’s mentorship that served as the vital force in Joachim’s musical development: then at the height of his powers as a composer, music director of the Gewandhaus Orchestra, and head of the conservatory, Mendelssohn provided the child with the education and practical experience necessary to reach his fullest artistic potential.
Under Mendelssohn’s direction, Joachim’s childhood debut with the Philharmonic Society of London in 1844 famously restored the public perception of Beethoven’s violin concerto (for which he had even composed his own cadenzas) and enthroned the 12-year-old virtuoso as a shining star in the firmament of his generation. He would go on to enjoy a wealth of opportunities: first as a faculty member at the Leipzig Conservatory, then as Franz Liszt’s concertmaster in Weimar, and even as violinist in the court of King George V in Hanover. The most illustrious and welldocumented chapter of his life was written during his time spent in the company of Robert, Clara, and Johannes Brahms — such was his notoriety as the leading violinist of his day that Schumann, Brahms, Max Bruch, and Antonín Dvořák each eagerly consulted him for advice in writing for the instrument.
Like most gifted performers of his time, he dabbled in composition throughout his life. Written at the peak of his career and dedicated to the celebrated Spanish violinist Pablo de Sarasate, the variations in E minor balance Joachim’s technical mastery against the verdant lyricism that
prevailed in his musical milieu. The soloist’s opening gesture, a melismatic flourish reminiscent of Romani fiddle-playing, is the clearest allusion to Joachim’s Hungarian roots. A lone flute presents the main theme, which the soloist immediately takes up and begins to embellish. Expressed as increasingly minute note values, a written-out accelerando leads into a brilliant solo display before transitioning to E major, ushering in a florid elaboration of new musical material. The program annotations for the premiere at London’s Crystal Palace note that the finale, wreathed with its ornamentation, ricochet bowing, double-stops, harmonics, and blistering runs, is “bristling with the most tremendous difficulties, which, however, it is necessary to say, are no difficulties in the hands of its author.”
Born 8 June 1810; Zwickau, Saxony
Died 29 July 1856; Endenich, Prussia
Composed: 12 December 1845 – 19 October 1846
First performance: 5 November 1846; Felix Mendelssohn, conductor; Gewandhaus Orchestra
Last MSO performance: 22 November 2014; Asher Fisch, conductor
Instrumentation: 2 flutes; 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 2 horns; 2 trumpets; 3 trombones; timpani; strings
Approximate duration: 38 minutes
Robert Schumann spent the first five months of 1844 touring Russia with his wife, Clara, in the hopes that his music might find a wider audience. The effort came to nothing, and painfully aware that Clara’s talents as a pianist were the focal point of their appearances there, he was doubly burdened by the knowledge that he had written nothing of substance since the previous summer. Tormented by “fits of melancholy,” Schumann threw himself into his work upon returning to Leipzig. Dithering over his plans to write an opera, he sold his interest in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, the publication he had founded a decade earlier, to better devote himself to composition. That Niels Gade, rather than Schumann, was awarded a position with the Gewandhaus Orchestra around this time likely exacerbated his already imperiled state of mind.
By August, he was entirely diminished. Even listening to music, in his words, “cut into my nerves as if with knives.” In a career already inextricably interconnected with nervous instability, it marked one of his most debilitating breakdowns to date. Striking out in search of better employment — he was by then absorbed with the notion of composing and conducting opera — and a more peaceable environment, he relocated to Dresden that December, where insomnia, mental terrors, and auditory hallucinations gradually gave way to rehabilitation. He began working through Luigi Cherubini’s treatise on counterpoint with Clara, producing a handful of fugues in the process, completed his only piano concerto, and began to turn his mind toward his next symphony.
The past twelve months had marked a turning point in Schumann’s compositional technique: he was now able to develop his musical ideas in his mind rather than working them out at the piano, pointing to the newly cultivated polyphonic style heard in the clearly defined textures and interdependent melodic lines that make up his second symphony. After a year spent convalescing, Schumann produced its first draft over the course of about two weeks in December 1845, but suffering the ebbs and flows of his fragile psychological state, it took him another ten months to finalize the details of its orchestration. He produced almost nothing else in the whole of 1846.
As if alluding to the contrapuntal music of the past, a stately chorale tune in the brass and strings provides the material Schumann spins out across the angular rhythmic profile of the allegro. The scherzo — an unstable, lightning-fast revel that plays with the diminished seventh chord — contains not one, but two contrasting trios, the latter quoting the “Bach” motif (B♭-A-C-B♮) that
had been a subject of his fugal studies. Only the funereal adagio gives us any indication that the symphony, which he described as “a work so stamped with melancholy,” is autobiographical in nature; Schumann recounted the “peculiar pleasure” he took in writing out the part for its “mournful bassoon.” “…I sometimes fear my semi-invalid state can be divined from the music.
Saturday, April 25, 2026 at 7:30 pm
Sunday, April 26, 2026 at 2:30 pm
ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL
Asher Fisch, conductor
Ilana Setapen, violin
MAURICE RAVEL
Alborada del gracioso [“The Jester's Aubade”], M. 43c
ARTURO MÁRQUEZ
Fandango
INTERMISSION
MAURICE RAVEL
I. Folia Tropical
II. Plegaria (Chaconne)
III. Fandanguito
Ilana Setapen, violin
Rapsodie espagnole, M. 54
I. Prélude à la nuit
II. Malagueña
III. Habanera
IV. Feria
JOAQUÍN TURINA
Danzas fantásticas, Opus 22
I. Exaltación
II. Ensueño
III. Orgía
The 2025.26 Classics Series is presented by the UNITED PERFORMING ARTS FUND and ROCKWELL AUTOMATION
The length of this concert is approximately 1 hour and 35 minutes.
The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra can be heard on the Naxos, Telarc, Koss Classics, ProArte, AVIE, and Vox/Turnabout labels. MSO Classics recordings are available for digital streaming and download on Spotify, Apple Music, and more.
Making music with equal ease and command in the operatic and symphonic worlds, Asher Fisch conducts a broad repertoire from Gluck to 21st-century premieres, with a special command and following for German Romantic and post-Romantic repertoire. Fisch has served as the principal conductor and artistic advisor of the West Australian Symphony Orchestra since 2014, and from the 2024-25 season has been the music director of the Tyrolean Festival Erl in Austria. He was previously music director of the New Israeli Opera (1998 – 2008) and Wiener Volksoper (1995 – 2005) and was principal guest conductor of the Seattle Opera (2007 – 2013).
In addition to performances with the WASO, including the world premiere of Paul Stanhope’s choral-orchestral cycle Mahāsāgar this season, Fisch guest conducts the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra in concert and returns to the Royal Danish Opera to lead Barrie Kosky’s production of Dialogues des Carmélites, as well as to the Vienna State Opera for Carmen. Other opera productions include Lucia di Lammermoor, Parsifal, and Der fliegende Holländer in Erl.
Born in Israel, Fisch began his conducting career as Daniel Barenboim’s assistant and kappellmeister at the Berlin State Opera. He has built his versatile repertoire at the major opera houses such as the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, Bavarian State Opera, and Semperoper in Dresden. Fisch has conducted leading American symphony orchestras, including those of Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, New York, and Philadelphia. In Europe, he has appeared with the Berlin Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and the Orchestre National de France, among others.
Fisch’s recent engagements included Ariadne auf Naxos with the Israeli Opera, La bohème, Parsifal, and the “Verdi trilogy” of Rigoletto, Il trovatore, and La traviata in Erl, the Spanish premiere of Aribert Reimann’s Lear at Teatro Real de Madrid, Carmen with the Vienna State Opera, Lohengrin and La forza del destino at Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci at the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre, and Tannhäuser with Opera Australia, as well as orchestral performances with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Sydney, Queensland, and New Zealand symphony orchestras in the Oceania region, and the Indianapolis, Kansas City, Oregon, and Seattle symphony orchestras in North America.
Fisch’s award-winning discography includes Bruckner’s Symphony No. 8, Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, tenor Stuart Skelton’s first solo album, recorded with the WASO, and a recording of Ravel’s L’heure espagnole with the Munich Radio Orchestra. In 2016, he recorded all four of Brahms’s symphonies with the WASO, released on ABC Classics to great acclaim. His recording of Wagner’s Ring cycle with the Seattle Opera was released in 2014. His first Ring cycle recording, with the State Opera of South Australia, won ten Helpmann Awards, including Best Opera and Best Music Direction. Fisch is also an accomplished pianist and has recorded a solo disc of Liszt’s transcriptions of Wagner’s music for the Melba label.
Since her solo orchestral debut at age 15, Ilana Setapen has been flourishing as a violinist with a powerful and original voice. She is hailed by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel as a violinist with “a sparkling sound” and “the kind of control that puts an audience completely at ease.” She is currently the first associate concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.
Setapen has had recent solo performances with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Great Falls Symphony, and Amarillo Symphony, among others. She also held the assistant concertmaster position of the Grant Park Music Festival Orchestra in Chicago for six years and is a favorite guest concertmaster with the Chicago Philharmonic. She has served as guest concertmaster with the Kansas City Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, and Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra. She has performed at the Olympic Music Festival on Bainbridge Island and the Lakes Area Music Festival in Brainerd, Minnesota. She is currently on the violin faculty at Chicago Summer Opera and at the University of Michigan’s Center Stage Strings.
As a committed chamber musician, Setapen is in demand as a collaborator throughout the Midwest. She performs frequently with Present Music and Milwaukee favorite Yaniv Dinur. Her talent has led her to collaborations with such distinguished artists as Ron Leonard, Lynn Harrell, Toby Appel, Cynthia Phelps, Joseph Kalichstein, Robert DeMaine, Paul Coletti, the Fine Arts Quartet, David Geber, Joan Tower, and Chris Thile. Solo and chamber music performances have brought her abroad to China, France, Brazil, Holland, England, Monaco, and Italy.
Setapen grew up in Amarillo, Texas. Her father is a conductor, and her first violin teacher was her mother. She was a student of Robert Lipsett both at the University of Southern California and at the Colburn Conservatory. She received her Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School as a student of Donald Weilerstein and Ronald Copes. She is also a dedicated educator and has a thriving private studio. In her spare time, Setapen enjoys spending time with her husband and their two sons and swing dancing.
Born 7 March 1875; Ciboure, France
Died 28 December 1937; Paris, France
Alborada del gracioso [“The Jester’s Aubade”], M. 43c
Composed: 1904 – 1905; orchestrated 1918
First performance: 17 May 1919; René-Emmanuel Baton, conductor; Orchestre des Concerts Pasdeloup
Last MSO performance: 4 February 2006; Andreas Delfs, conductor
Instrumentation: 3 flutes (3rd doubling on piccolo); 2 oboes; English horn; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; contrabassoon; 4 horns; 2 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; percussion (bass drum, castanets, crotales, cymbals, military drum, tambourine, triangle, xylophone); 2 harps; strings
Approximate duration: 9 minutes
Beloved for his sensuous orchestral effects and immaculate craftsmanship, Maurice Ravel has belonged to a class of his own since emerging as one of the foremost composers of fin de siècle Paris. After years spent resisting the conservative pedagogical methods of the Paris Conservatoire, he found his home in the composition class of Gabriel Fauré, whose insistence that his students cultivate their own distinct voice allowed his talents to blossom, as well as comradery in that band of fellow artistic outcasts affectionately nicknamed “Les Apaches” (or “The Hooligans”). His unrivaled portraits of exotic landscapes, the world of antiquity, and the mythological have exerted an enormous influence over the development of concert music and captivated audiences for more than a century.
Like Franz Liszt, Ravel was a gifted pianist whose visionary writing broke new ground, expounding upon the instrument’s virtuoso potential. By the 1910s, Ravel had settled into the habit of crafting spectacularly refined miniatures for the piano, almost always with evocative titles implying alluring extramusical subjects, before reworking them as vibrant symphonic tableaus. Such was the case with his Miroirs (translated literally as “Mirrors”), a suite of five movements for solo piano, each inspired by a particular image and dedicated to a different member of Les Apaches. The fourth, the Alborada del gracioso, paid tribute to the musicologist Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi, who had provided French translations of Greek texts for several of Ravel’s chansons
Its reimaging was set in motion by Sergei Diaghilev — the larger-than-life impresario whose long association with the Ballets Russes produced some of the most memorable works of the 20th century — whose journey to Spain in 1916 resulted in a string of Spanish-inflected commissions for his troupe. Born in the town of Ciboure on the French-Spanish border and raised by a mother of Basque heritage, Ravel was naturally inclined toward the sounds of the Iberian Peninsula. Following the publication of Miroirs in 1906, several of his most substantial works were tinted with a distinctly Spanish flavor, including the Rapsodie espagnole and the one-act opera L’heure espagnole.
In translation, the title is rich in programmatic meaning. “Alborada” is typically taken as a reference to the aubade, a genre dating back to the medieval troubadours and associated with lovers parting at dawn, while “gracioso” means something like “buffoon” or “jester” — and so the juxtaposition of the two gives us the satirical image of a clownish figure announcing the arrival of a new day. This is the fertile soil from which Ravel’s kaleidoscopic creation springs forth: highly rhythmic pizzicati in the strings imitate the Spanish guitar, while shifting metric impulses infuse
the music with a marvelous rhythmic vitality. The sharp contrasts in volume, rapidly repeated notes, and glissandi, flavored by castanets, tambourine, and harp, embody a raucous Spanish dance. The aubade in question appears as a doleful melody in the bassoon, supported by a shimmering corps of strings, before the music returns to the dance, terminating in an intoxicating whirlwind of sound.
Born 20 December 1950; Álamos, Mexico
Composed: 2018 – 2021
First performance: 24 August 2021; Gustavo Dudamel, conductor; Anne Akiko Meyers, violin; Los Angeles Philharmonic
Last MSO performance: MSO Premiere
Instrumentation: piccolo; 2 flutes; 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 4 horns; 2 trombones; bass trombone; tuba; timpani; percussion (bass drum, cajon, claves, cymbals, guiro, snare drum, suspended cymbals); harp; strings
Approximate duration: 32 minutes
Little known outside of his own country until the 1990s, Arturo Márquez has risen in prominence over the course of the last three decades to become one of the most successful composers of his native Mexico. Born in the city of Álamos in the northwestern corner of the country, his earliest musical education came from his father, a mariachi violinist, and his grandfather, a guitarist and folk musician. As part of a mariachi quartet, they introduced him to the traditional styles and forms of his homeland — especially its “salon” music — that would become the raw materials from which he would eventually forge his identity as a composer.
Relocating to Los Angeles at 14, Márquez began playing violin, trombone, and tuba before returning to Mexico to study piano and music theory at the National Conservatory of Music and the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature. He spent the latter half of the 1970s in composition workshops before winning a scholarship to study with Jacques Castéréde at the Paris Conservatory. As his work began to incorporate elements of jazz, Latin, and contemporary music, he completed his formal education as a Fulbright Scholar at the California Institute of the Arts. The overwhelming popularity of his Danzón No. 2, published in 1994, catapulted him to international fame, and he has since been decorated with numerous awards, residencies, and festivals devoted to his music, making him one of the most celebrated Latin American composers of our time.
In 2018, Márquez received a commission from the violinist Anne Akiko Meyers, who proposed a concerto infused with the Mexican musical aesthetic. He was immediately taken with the idea, as he had “already tried, unsuccessfully, to compose a violin concerto some 20 years earlier with ideas that were based on the Mexican fandango.” Composing the work over the course of the pandemic, which he described as an “intense and highly emotional” experience, the concerto was premiered by Meyers, Gustavo Dudamel, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl — just a few dozen miles from La Puente, where Marquez first picked up his violin as a teenager. “Beautiful coincidence,” he added, “as I have no doubt that fandango was danced in California in the 18th and 19th centuries.”
Writing about the concerto ahead of its debut, Márquez identified his “seven capital principles: tonality, modality, melody, rhythm, imaginary folk tradition, harmony, and orchestral color,” and each of these aspects operate within the music with breathtaking originality. The opening movement is inspired by the folia, a dance that first appeared in Renaissance Portugal and Spain, and assimilates the clave rhythms of Caribbean music. Márquez described his sultry chaconne
(another dance of Spanish origin) as the “fruit of an imaginary marriage” between huapango, a type of folk music accompanied by dancers stamping on a wooden platform, and Pablo de Sarasate, Manuel de Falla, and Isaac Albéniz, “three of my beloved and admired Spanish composers.” The finale begins with a flashy cadenza for the violinist, whose technical acrobatics throughout the movement are inspired by the masterful fiddle-playing heard in Mexico’s Huasteca region. “It demands a great virtuosity from the soloist,” Márquez remarked, “and it is the music that I have kept in my heart for decades.”
Born 7 March 1875; Ciboure, France
Died 28 December 1937; Paris, France
Composed: Summer 1907 – February 1908
First performance: 15 March 1908; Édouard Colonne, conductor; Orchestre des Concerts Colonne
Last MSO performance: 23 October 2021; Ken-David Masur, conductor
Instrumentation: 2 piccolos; 2 flutes; 2 oboes; English horn; 2 clarinets; bass clarinet; 3 bassoons; contrabassoon; 4 horns; 3 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; percussion (bass drum, castanets, cymbals, snare drum, tambourine, tam-tam, triangle, xylophone); 2 harps; celesta; strings
Approximate duration: 15 minutes
Maurice Ravel was something of an “odd man out” among his peers at the Conservatoire de Paris. After winning the top prize at the school’s piano competition in 1891, he did little to distinguish himself as a student. Unlike his friend and schoolmate, the skilled Spanish pianist Ricardo Viñes, Ravel was disinclined to live his life as a performer, and his idiosyncratic approach to composition was undoubtedly a contributing factor in his expulsion only four years later. Determined to become a composer, he was readmitted in 1897, now studying under Gabriel Fauré, who rightly identified and nurtured his pupil’s “engaging wealth of imagination.” As though congenitally indisposed to formal education, he was expelled again in 1900.
In the intervening years, however, Ravel’s maturation as a composer compelled even his detractors to concede that what he was doing was unprecedented. His fifth failed attempt to secure the Prix de Rome in 1905, then the most prestigious and sought-after award for rising French composers, became something of a cause célèbre among the thinkers and critics who had long since recognized Ravel’s supremacy as an utterly original artist. Ravel, famously unperturbed by the scandal that resulted from his elimination (and the ensuing shake-up of the school’s faculty that installed Fauré as its director), simply left Paris, enjoyed a vacation in Holland, and proceeded to craft an extraordinary series of orchestral masterworks that would define his career.
Though Ravel’s “Spanish rhapsody” was among his first full-scale symphonic compositions, the suite displays a prodigious mastery of orchestration and tonal color. Its genesis dates from 1895, when Ravel had been busying himself with programmatic pieces for piano and vocal chansons. It was during that year that he produced a habanera for two pianos, which would first be published as part of his Sites auriculaires with a delightfully pictorial description at the top of the page: “In that fragrant land caressed by the sun…” The music would eventually be reworked into the third movement of the rhapsody some 12 years later, which Ravel lovingly dedicated “à mon cher maître,” Charles-Wilfrid de Bériot, his piano teacher at the conservatory.
The opening prelude paints a nocturnal image of that “perfumed” country. This is indeed music of the night, its mystifying wash of sound only occasionally punctuated by glistening splashes of color. A hypnotic four-note motif, descending from F to C♯, sets the muted scene and reappears throughout the remaining movements. The capricious malagueña serves as a sort of scherzo — here the rhythmic line is taut, accentuated by voluntaries in the trumpet and rattling castanets, before the music suddenly vanishes into thin air — while the newly renovated habanera emerges as a languid, unhurried homage to the Cuban dance. As if tipping his hand, the concluding “feria” portrays all the excitement and atmosphere of a Spanish fair. The orchestra bursts forth with the “free use of the rhythms, modal melodies, and ornaments” that Manuel de Falla described with delight after hearing the work, erupting in an unrestrained, hurly-burly celebration of the carnival spirit.
Born 9 December 1882; Seville, Spain
Died 14 January 1949; Madrid, Spain
Composed: 11 – 29 August 1919; orchestrated 15 September – 30 December 1919
First performance: 13 February 1920; Bartolomé Pérez Casas, conductor; Orquesta Filarmónica de Madrid
Last MSO performance: MSO Premiere
Instrumentation: 3 flutes (3rd doubling on piccolo); 2 oboes; English horn; 2 clarinets; bass clarinet; 2 bassoons; contrabassoon; 4 horns; 3 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; percussion (bass drum, chimes, cymbals, suspended cymbals, drum, glockenspiel, triangle); harp; strings
Approximate duration: 16 minutes
Alongside Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados, and Manuel de Falla, Joaquín Turina was one of the most prominent and influential Spanish composers of the early 20th century. Born in Seville, he was raised in an artistic environment by his Italian father, a professional painter. His first instrument as a child was, of all things, the accordion, and he soon abandoned the medical career his family had planned for him to pursue his musical inclinations. After finding success as a pianist and composer in his teenage years, Turina eventually relocated to Paris, where he took piano lessons with the Polish virtuoso Moritz Moszkowski and studied composition with Vincent d’Indy at the Schola Cantorum.
It was in France that Turina was exposed to the works of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, whose vivid soundscapes left an indelible impression on the young composer. Another important influence came from Albéniz, who, after hearing a performance of Turina’s piano quartet in 1907, encouraged him to seek out Spanish folk music for inspiration. Drafted in 1919 after he had returned to Spain, Turina’s “fantastic dances” were originally conceived as a collection of character pieces for solo piano, though they were first premiered in the orchestral setting he prepared that winter. He dedicated the suite to his wife, Obdulia Garzón, with a simple note at the top of his score: A mi mujer (“To my woman”).
As if taking us on a musical tour of the Spanish countryside, each of the movements is modeled upon dances native to particular regions, and each includes a poetic preface from the novel La orgía by José Más, the literary inspiration behind the suite:
Continued on page 50
It seemed as though the figures in that incomparable painting were moving inside the calyx of a flower. “Exaltation” is stylized as an Aragonese jota, a lively dance in 6/8 time. Following a slow introduction, the English horn and oboe introduce a sanguine melody, which blossoms across the highly rhythmic backdrop of the orchestra. The mysterious introductory material eventually returns, newly entwined with the main theme.
The strings of the guitar, as they sounded, were like laments of a soul that could no longer bear the weight of bitterness. “Ensueño,” or “Daydream,” takes shape as the zortziko, a dance in the irregular meter of 5/8 from the Basque region straddling France and Spain, in which the winds present a gently swaying melody. Shadowy contrasting material culminates in a heroic brass fanfare, which leads into the light, airy reprise of the opening tune.
The perfume of the flowers mingled with the scent of manzanilla, and from the bottom of the narrow glasses, filled with the incomparable wine, joy rose like incense. The closing “Bacchanalia” opens with a thunderous stroke of the timpani, heralding the flavorful music of the Andalusian farruca, a flamenco dance traditionally performed by men. Teeming with bold, dramatic musical ideas, the solitary cello heard in the last measures is swept away in the energetic tumult of one last rousing gesture. Continued from page 49
Make your funeral or cremation plans in advance at our family owned historic building.
Personalized care, community roots, and compassionate guidance over corporate volume.
Serving all denominations in Shorewood and Milwaukee for over 100 years.
Jody Michael Armata, Resident Owner 3601 North Oakland Avenue • Milwaukee • 414-961-1812 NorthshoreFuneral.com
Every dollar of your tax-deductible donation is an investment in the music you love and the vital programming that enriches the fabric of Milwaukee’s artistic community.
Simply scan the QR code, give us a call, or mail your gift to secure a future of world-class orchestral experiences for hundreds of thousands of people annually — including 30,000 students and educators — in the city we proudly call home.
Loyal and generous supporters who choose to honor the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra through bequests and planned giving become members of our distinguished Musical Legacy Society.
MLS members not only enjoy the satisfaction of knowing their gift will support the MSO for generations to come, but also receive special insider benefits, including lifetime access to the Wintrust Donor Lounge and invitations to exclusive behindthe-scenes experiences. To learn more about leaving your legacy with the MSO, scan the QR code or
contact our Planned Giving Manager, Julie Jahn, at 414-226-7896 or jahnj@mso.org.
Contact the MSO Advancement Department by phone at 414-226-7833 or by mail
Visionaries
Commitments of $1,000,000 and above
Two Anonymous Donors
Jane Bradley Pettit Foundation
Richard Bradley
Charles and Marie Caestecker
Concertmaster Chair
Ellen and Joe Checota
The Cudahy Foundation
Franklyn Esenberg
Herzfeld Foundation
Krause Family Principal Horn Chair
Dr. Keith Austin Larson
Principal Organ Chair
Laskin Family Foundation
Dr. Brent and Susan Martin
Andy Nunemaker French Horn Chair
Phyllis and Harleth Pubanz
Gertrude M. Puelicher Education Fund
Michael and Jeanne Schmitz President and Executive Director Chair
John and Judith Simonitsch Tuba Chair
Stein Family Foundation
Principal Pops Conductor Chair
John Stewig
Polly and Bill Van Dyke
Music Director Chair
James E. Van Ess
Principal Librarian Chair
Thora M. Vervoren
First Associate Concertmaster Chair
The Family of Evonne Winston and Paul Nausieda
Philanthropists
Commitments of $500,000 and above
One Anonymous Donor
Donald B. Abert Principal Bass Chair
Mr. Richard Blomquist
Patrice L. (Patti) Bringe
Margaret and Roy Butter
Principal Flute Chair
Bobbi and Jim Caraway
Donald and Judy Christl
Fred Fuller Trumpet Chair
Sandra and William Haack
Douglas M. Hagerman
Mrs. Alyce Coyne Katayma
Andrea and Woodrow Leung
Principal Second Violin Chair and Fred Fuller
Dorothea C. Mayer Principal Cello Chair
Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra League Principal Oboe Chair
Northwestern Mutual Foundation
Melitta S. Pick Endowed Piano Chair
Dr. Carol Pohl
Walter L. Robb
Family Principal Trumpet Chair
Robert T. Rolfs Foundation
Gertrude Elser and John Edward Schroeder Guest Artist Fund
Walter Schroeder Foundation
Principal Harp Chair
Muriel C. and John D. Silbar Family
Principal Bassoon Chair
Allison M. & Dale R. Smith
Percussion Fund
Marjorie Tiefenthaler
Principal Trombone Chair
Richard O. and Judith A. Wagner Family
Principal Viola Chair
Benefactors
Commitments of $100,000 and above
Four Anonymous Donors
Patty and Jay Baker Fund for Guest Artists
Mr. and Mrs. Frederick J.O. Blachly
Philip Blank English Horn Chair in memoriam to John Martin and his favorite cousin, Beatrice Blank
Judith and Stanton Bluestone
Estate of Lloyd Broehm
Louise Cattoi, in memory of David and Angela Cattoi
Lynn Chappy Salon Series
Terry J. Dorr
Elizabeth Elser Doolittle Charitable Trusts
Franklyn Esenberg
Principal Clarinet Chair
David L. Harrison Endowment for Music Education
Estate of Sally Hennen
Karen Hung and Robert Coletti
Richard M. Kimball
Bass Trombone Chair
William Randolph Hearst Foundation
Judy and Gary Jorgensen
Judith A. Keyes MSOL Docent Fund
Charles A. Krause
Donald and JoAnne Krause Music
Education Endowment Fund
Martin J. Krebs
Co-Principal Trumpet Chair
Charles and Barbara Lund
Mr. Peter L. Mahler
Marcus Corporation Foundation Guest Artist Fund
Annette Marra
Susan and Brent Martin
Christian and Kate Mitchell
William and Marian Nasgovitz
Estate of Jessica Nienas
John and Elizabeth Ogden
Lois and Richard Pauls
Gordana and Milan Racic
The Erika Richman MSO-MYSO
Reading Workshop Fund
Pat and Allen Rieselbach
Friends of Janet F. Ruggeri Assistant Principal Viola Chair
Sara and Jay Schwister
Nancy and Greg Smith
Estate of Walter S. Smolenski, Jr.
Bert L. & Patricia S. Steigleder Charitable Trust
Donald B. and Ruth P. Taylor
Assistant Principal Clarinet Chair
Gile & Linda Tojek
Haruki Toyama
Mrs. William D. Vogel
Barbara and Ted Wiley
Jack Winter Guest Artist Fund
Fern L. Young Endowment Fund for Guest Artists
MUSICAL LEGACY SOCIETY
The Musical Legacy Society recognizes and appreciates the individuals who have made a planned gift to the MSO. The MSO invites you to join these generous donors who have remembered the orchestra in their estate plans.
Nine Anonymous Donors
George R. Affeldt
Dana and Gail Atkins
Robert Balderson
Bruce and Margaret Barr
Adam Bauman
Priscilla and Anthony Beadell
Mr. F. L. Bidinger
Dr. Philip and Beatrice Blank
Mr. Richard Blomquist
Judith and Stanton Bluestone
Patrice L. (Patti) Bringe
Jean S. Britt
Laurette Broehm
Neil Brooks
Anthony and Vicki Cecalupo
Lynn Chappy
Ellen and Joe Checota
Donald and Judy Christl
Mary E. and James M. Connelly
Jo Ann Corrao
Lois Ellen Debbink
Mary Ann Delzer
Robert C. and Lois K. Dittus
Julie Doneis
Terry J. Dorr
Donn Dresselhuys
Beth and Ted Durant
Rosemarie Eierman
Franklyn Esenberg
JoAnn Falletta
Donald L. Feinsilver, M.D.
Susie and Robert Fono
Ruth and John Fredericks
Brett Goodman
Roberta Gordon
Marta P. and Doyne M. Haas
Douglas M. Hagerman
Ms. Jean I. Hamann
Ms. Sybille Hamilton
Kristin A. Hansen
David L. Harrison
Judy Harrison
Cheryl H. and Roy L. Hauswirth
Cliff Heise
Sidney and Suzanne Herszenson
Dr. and Mrs. Samuel Hoke
Glenda Holm
Jean and Charles Holmburg
Karen Hung and Robert Coletti
Myra Huth
William and Janet Isbister
Lee and Barbara Jacobi
Leon and Betsy Janssen
Marilyn W. John
Faith L. Johnson
Jayne J. Jordan
Judy and Gary Jorgensen
Debra Jupka
James A. and Robin S. Kasch
Howard Kaspin
James H. Keyes
Judith A. Keyes
Richard and Sarah Kimball
Mary Krall
JoAnne and Donald Krause
Martin J. and Alice Krebs
Ronald and Vicki Krizek
Cynthia Krueger-Prost
Alice Kuramoto
Steven E. Landfried
Mr. Bruce R. Laning
Victor Larson
Tom and Lise Lawson
Andrea and Woodrow Leung
Mr. Robert D. Lidicker
Mr. and Mrs. John B. Liebenstein
Drs. John and Theresa Liu
Mr. Peter L. Mahler
Dr. John and Kristie Malone
Steven and Mary Rose Marinkovich
Ms. Kathleen Marquardt
Susan and Brent Martin
JoAnne Matchette
Rita T. and James C. McDonald
Patricia and James McGavock
Nancy McGiveran
Mark and Donna Metzendorf
Mrs. Christel U. Mildenberg
Dr. Mary Ellen Mitchanis
Christian and Kate Mitchell
Joan Moeller
Ms. Melodi Muehlbauer
Robert Mulcahy
Kathleen M. Murphy
William and Marian Nasgovitz
Andy Nunemaker
Diana and Gerald Ogren
Lynn and Lawrence Olsen
Mr. and Mrs. Philip W. Orth
Lygere Panagopoulos
Deborah Patel
Gerald T. and Carol K. Petersen
Mr. and Mrs. Ronald R. Poe
Dr. Carol Pohl
Julie Quinlan Brame and Jason Brame
Ms. Harvian Raasch-Hooten
Christine Radiske and Herbert Quigley
Steve and Susan Ragatz
Catherine A. Regner
Stephen and Frances Richman
Pat and David Rierson
Pat and Allen Rieselbach
Roger B. Ruggeri and Andrea K. Wagoner
Nina Sarenac
Mary B. Schley in recognition of David L. Schley
Michael J. and Jeanne E. Schmitz
James and Kathleen Scholler
Charitable Fund
James Schultz and Donna Menzer
Mason Sherwood and Mark Franke
John and Judith Simonitsch
Margles Singleton
Lois Bernard and William Small
Dale and Allison Smith
John Stewig and Richard Bradley
Dr. Robert A. and Kathleen Sullo
Terry Burko and David Taggart
Lois Tetzlaff
Gile and Linda Tojek
E. Charlotte Theis
James E. Van Ess
Thora Vervoren
Dr. Richard O. and Judith A. Wagner
Veronica Wallace-Kraemer
Michael Walton
Brian A. Warnecke
Earl Wasserman
Alice Weiss
Carol and James Wiensch
Janet Wilgus
Rolland and Sharon Wilson
Floyd Woldt
Sandra and Ross Workman
For more information on becoming a member of the Musical Legacy Society, please contact the Advancement Office at 414-226-7891.
The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra truly values the music lovers in the concert hall, and we thank our contributors to the Annual Fund for investing their time and support in this treasure. We gratefully acknowledge their contributions to the Annual Fund as of February 20, 2026.
$100,000 and above
Ellen and Joe Checota
Mrs. George C. Kaiser
Donald and JoAnne Krause
Marty Krebs
Sheldon and Marianne Lubar
Charitable Fund of the Lubar Family Foundation
Dr. Brent and Susan Martin
Michael Schmitz
Julia and David Uihlein
$50,000 and above
One Anonymous Donor
Laura and Mike Arnow
Anthony and Vicki Cecalupo
$25,000 and above
Bobbi and Jim Caraway
Mr. Franklyn Esenberg
Doug Hagerman
Mrs. Alyce Coyne Katayama
Judith A. Keyes
Robert and Gail Korb
Maureen McCabe
Dr. Carol Pohl
Nancy and Greg Smith
Drs. George and Christine Sosnovsky
Charitable Trust
Drs. Robert Taylor and Janice McFarland Taylor
Thora Vervoren
$15,000 and above
Two Anonymous Donors
Richard Bradley
Marilyn and John Breidster
Elaine Burke
Ms. Trish Calvy
Mary and James Connelly
Dr. Deborah and Jeff Costakos
Mary Lou M. Findley
The Paul & Connie Flagg Family Charitable Fund
George E. Forish, Jr.
Kim and Nancy Graff
Drs. Carla and Robert Hay
Jewish Community Foundation
Eileen and Howard Dubner Donor Advised Fund
Christine Krueger
Charles and Barbara Lund
Dr. Ann H. and Mr. Michael J. McDonald
Brian and Lesli McLinden
Teresa and Mike Mogensen
Lois and Richard Pauls
Pat Rieselbach
Sara and Jay Schwister
John and Judith Simonitsch
Allison M. and Dale R. Smith
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas R. Tiffany
Haruki Toyama
Mark Van Hecke
Alice Weiss
Herbert Zien and Elizabeth Levins
$10,000 and above
Four Anonymous Donors
Dr. Rita Bakalars
Robert Balderson
Dr. and Mrs. James D. Buck
Joanne Doehler
Jack Douthitt and Michelle Zimmer
Bruce T. Faure M.D.
Mrs. Susan G. Gebhardt
Elizabeth and William Genne
Judith J. Goetz
Stephanie and Steve Hancock
Katherine Hauser
Mr. and Mrs. Eric E. Hobbs
Dr. and Mrs. Samuel Hoke
Judy and Gary Jorgensen
Dr. Joseph E. and Jane C. Kerschner
Geraldine Lash
Mr. Peter L. Mahler
Mark and Donna Metzendorf
Dr. Mary Ellen Mitchanis
Patrick and Mary Murphy
Elaine Harmand Pagedas
Julie Peay
Leslie and Aaron Plamann
Lynn and Craig Schmutzer
Tracy S. Wang, MD
Evonne Winston
Diana J. Wood
$5,000 and above
Six Anonymous Donors
Fred and Kay Austermann
Thomas Bagwell and Michelle Hiebert
Natalie Beckwith
Lois Bernard
Richard and Kay Bibler
Dr. Sherry H. Blumberg
William and Barbara Boles
Suzy and John Brennan
Marcia P. Brooks and Edward J. Hammond
Roger Byhardt
Ms. Trish Calvy
Ara and Valerie Cherchian
Donald and Judy Christl
Sandra and Russell Dagon
Paul Dekker
Mrs. William T. Dicus
Karen Dobbs and Chris DeNardis
Jacquelyn and Dalibor Drummer
Beth and Ted Durant
Dr. Eric Durant and Scott Swickard
Dr. and Mrs. Harry A. Easom
Elizabeth and Herodotos Ellinas
Dr. Donald Feinsilver and JoAnn Corrao
Stan and Janet Fox
Alison Graf and Richard Schreiner
James and Crystal Hegge
Ms. Mary E. Henke
Mark and Judy Hibbard
Peg and Mark Humphrey
James and Karen Hyde
Lee and Barbara Jacobi
Jayne J. Jordan
Lynn and Tom Kassouf
Kathryn Koenen Potos
Benedict and Lee Kordus
Charmaine and James LaBelle
Mary E. Lacy
Drs. Kaye and Prakash Laud
Dr. Joseph and Amy Leung
Peter and Kathleen Lillegren
Gerald and Elaine Mainman
Sara and Nathan Manning
John and Linda Mellowes
Judith Fitzgerald Miller
Barbara and Layton Olsen
Brian and Maura Packham
Ellen Rohwer Pappas and Timothy Pappas
Sharon L. Petrie
Dr. and Mrs. Richard A. Pierce-Ruhland
Jim and Fran Proulx
Christine Radiske and Herbert Quigley
Jerome Randall and Mary Hauser
Dr. Donna Recht and Dr. Robert Newby
Steve and Fran Richman
Roger Ritzow
Mary Roberts
Gayle G. Rosemann and Paul E. McElwee
Mr. Daniel J. Schicker
Carlton Stansbury
Richard and Linda Stevens
Jim Strey
Kathleen Thometz
Gile and Linda Tojek
Janet Wilgus
Jessica R. Wirth
$3,500 and above
One Anonymous Donor
Jacqlynn Behnke
Marlene and Bert Bilsky
David and Diane Buck
Daniel and Allison Byrne
Chris and Katie Callen
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas F. Christie
Mr. and Mrs. A. William Finke
Barbara Gill
Kurt and Rosemary Glaisner
Margarete and David Harvey
Barbara Hunt
David and Mel Johnson
Olof Jonsdottir and Thorsteinn Skulason
Megumi Kanda Hemann and Dietrich Hemann
Stanley Kritzik
Norm and Judy Lasca
Micaela Levine and Thomas St. John
Tom Lindow
Lynn Marzinski
Ann Rosenthal and Benson Massey
Dr. and Mrs. Debesh Mazumdar
Donald Petersen and Corinthia Van Orsdol
Mrs. David Y. Rosenzweig
Dottie Rotter
Judy and Tom Schmid
James Schultz and Donna Menzer
Joan and Kevin Schultz
Vickie Shufton
Sue and Boo Smith
Pamela and John Stampen
James and Catherine Startt
Jim Ward
Mr. and Mrs. Donald S. Wilson
Jim and Sandy Wrangell
Carol and Richard Wythes
Marshall Zarem
Sandra Zingler
Leo Zoeller
$2,000 and above
Two Anonymous Donors
Drs. Helmut and Sandra Ammon
Richard and Sara Aster
Bruce and Maggie Barr
Mr. Jack Beatty
Elliot and Karen Berman
Karen and Geoffrey Bilda
Cheri and Tom Briscoe
Mike and Ericka Burzynski
Edith Christian
Lynda and Tom Curl
Larry and Eileen Dean
Ms. Nancy A. Desjardins
Art and Rhonda Downey
Steven and Buffy Duback
Signe and Gerald Emmerich, Jr.
Ms. Shirley Erwin
Kristin Fewel
Pearl Mary Goetsch
Ginny Hall
Robert S. Jakubiak
Leon Janssen
Maja Jurisic and Don Fraker
Dr. Bruce and Anna Kaufman
Dr. Jack and Myrna Kaufman
Mr. Rick Kirby
Julilly Kohler
Maritza and Mario Laguna
Mr. and Mrs. Mark Levy
Bruce Loder
Kathleen Lovelace
Guy and Mary Jo McDonald
Mrs. Debra L. Metz
George and Salie Meyer
Steve and Ellie Miller
Gregory and Susan Milleville
Mark and Carol Mitchell
Christine Mortensen
Ms. Mary Ann Mueller
Laurie Ocepek
Susan M. Otto
Dr. and Mrs. James T. Paloucek
Anthony Perella
Raymond and Janice Perry
Gerald T. and Carol K. Petersen
David J. Petersen
Donald A. Pollack and Adrienne Pollack-Sender Family Charitable Trust
Katie Quirk
Susan A. Riedel
Mr. Thomas Schneider
Elaine and Martin Schreiber
Mr. and Mrs. Mark W. Schwallie
Paul Seifert
Mrs. George R. Slater
Dr. and Mrs. Squat-Botley
Loretto and Dick Steinmetz
Jeff and Jody Steren
Terry Burko and David Taggart
Joan Thompson
Mr. Stephen Thompson
Joan and David Totten
Mike Uihlein
Mr. and Mrs. Lynn F. Unkefer
James Van Ess
Robert and Lana Wiese
Lee and Carol Wolcott
Mr. Wilfred Wollner
William and Denise Zeidler
$1,000 and above
Four Anonymous Donors
Ruth Agrusa
Sue and Louie Andrew
Mr. and Mrs. James B. Anello
Betty Arndt
Dr. and Mrs. Robert Ashmore
Danielle Baerwald
Paul E. Barkhaus, MD
Steve and Mary Barney
James and Nora Barry
Paul and Paula Bartel
Rodney C. Bartlow and Judith K. Stephenson
Mr. James M. Baumgartner
Ms. Christine Beck
Ron and Mary Beckman
David A. Benner and Dianne Benjamin Benner
Richard Bergman
Ken and Kristine Best
Mr. Lawrence Bialcik
Jeff and Elizabeth Billings
Marjorie Bjornstad
Greg Black
Mr. Brian P. Blake
Robert Borch and Linda Wickstrom
Mr. and Mrs. Darold Borree
Art and Jacinda Bouton
James L Brown and Ann Brophy
Michael and Marianna Bruch
Karen and Harry Carlson
Ms. Carol A. Carpenter
Mr. John Chain
Margaret Cieslak-Etlicher and David Etlicher
Margaret Crosby
Marilou and Bryan Davido
Garrett and Anne de Vroome Kamerling
Gerald and Ellen DeMers
Ms. Kristine L. Demski
Mary Paula Dix
Amy Domagalski
Peter Drenzek
Dr. and Mrs. Peter Drescher
Tom Durkin and Joan Robotham
Margaret Eigsti
Lori Erickson and John Bell
Mrs. Suzy B. Ettinger
Jill and George Fahr
Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Freitag
Allan and Mary Ellen Froehlich
Drs. Mark and Virginia Gennis
Gerald R. Gensch and Ellen Conley
Jane K. Gertler
Ralph and Cherie Gorenstein
Sarah Gramentine
Greater Milwaukee Foundation
Dresselhuys Family Fund
Leesley B. and Joan J. Hardy
Jay Kay Foundation Fund
Mr. and Mrs. James Grigg
Mr. and Mrs. Douglas W. Haag
Karleen Haberichter
Ms. Caroline Ham
Lawrence and Tsui-Ching Hammond
Leila and Joe Hanson
Jean and John Henderson
Dr. Sidney and Suzanne Herszenson
Renee Herzing
Ms. Judy Hessel
Jenny and Bob Hillis
Dr. Peter Hinow and Dr. Yuqiang Wei
Mr. Bernard C. Hlavac
Jeanne and Conrad Holling
Richard and Jeanne Hryniewicki
Barbara Hunteman
Suzanne and Michael Hupy
Jerome and Alice Jacobson
Amy Jensen
Faith L. Johnson
Ms. Karen Johnson
Mr. William Johnstone
Stephen Jones
Mr. Stephen Kaniewski
Rose and Dale Kaser
Allan Kasprzak and Trudi Schmitt
Patrick and Jane Keily
Brian and Mary Lou Kennedy
Sarajane and Robert Kennedy
Robert and Dorothy King
Thomas Kelly
Joseph W. Kmoch
Dr. and Mrs. Anthony Krausen
Dr. and Mrs. John Krezoski
Mr. Eric Krismer
Ian and Katherine Lambert
Mr. and Mrs. David Leevan
John and Janice Liebenstein
Matt and Patty Linn
Xia Liu
Neill and Fran Luebke
Ms. Joan Maas
Ann MacIver
Stephen and Judy Maersch
Dr. John and Kristie Malone
Mr. Peter Mamerow
Jeanne and David Mantsch
Mr. Jonathan March
Steven and Mary Rose Marinkovich
Dr. and Mrs. Francisco Martinez
Dr. Daniel and Constance McCarty
Diane Griewank McGinn and Thomas McGinn
Mr. and Mrs. John S. McGregor
Robert E. Meldman and Lila F. Silverberg
Ray and Elaine Meyer
Dr. David Miyama
Rusti and Steve Moffic
Richard and Isabel Muirhead
David and Gail Nelson
Ms. Doris Nice
David Olson and Claire Fritsche
Gladys Omahen
Judith Ormond
Joseph Pabst and John Schellinger
Douglas E. Peterson
Eugene Pocernich
William Prost and Cynthia Krueger-Prost
John and Susan Pustejovsky
Mr. Ed Puzia
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Quadracci
Dr. Francis J. Randall
Myron Re
Drake Reinick
Lysbeth and James Reiskytl
Robin Gerson and Tim Riley
Dan and Anna Robbins
Emily and Mike Robertson
Roger B. Ruggeri and Andrea K. Wagoner
Michael and Mary Ryan
Allen & Millie Salomon
Ms. LindaGale Sampson
Keri Sarajian, Rick Stratton & Family
Keri Sarajian
Dr. Mary Lynn Schneider and Paul Thielhelm
Lawrence and Katherine Schnuck
Mark and Marlene Schrager
Phil Schumacher and Pauline Beck
Bob and Sally Schwarz
Mr. Thomas P. Schweda
Fred and Ruth Schwertfeger
Ronald and Judith Shapiro
Margles Singleton
Reeves Smith
Mr. James Stanke
Ken and Dee Stein
Ms. Bonnie Steindorf
Ann Stevens
Mr. Andrew Stillman
Mr. and Mrs. Roland E. Strampe
Sally Swetnam
Mr. and Mrs. Robert E. Tenges
Tim and Bonnie Tesch
Kent and Marna Tess-Mattner
Winifred Thrall
Mr. and Mrs. James S. Tidey
Katherine Troy
Roy and Sandra Uelner
John Viste and Elaine Strite
Atty. Greg E. Vollan
We Energies Foundation
Ms. Beth L. Weckmueller
Henry Wellner and James Cook
Mr. and Mrs. Jerome T. Welz
Bill and Gwen Werner
Barbara Wesener
David Wesley
Lynn and Richard Wesolek
Bob and Barbara Whealon
A. James White
Linda and Dan Wilhelms
Terry and Carol Wilkins
Rolland and Sharon Wilson
Ron and Alice Winkler
Mrs. Melinda D. Wolf
Mr. Daryl and Mrs. Bonnie Wunrow
Mrs. Sharon S. Ziegler
The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra truly values the generosity of musicloving patrons in the concert hall and throughout the community. We especially thank our Corporate and Foundation contributors for investing their time and support in this treasure. We gratefully acknowledge contributions from:
$1,000,000 and above
United Performing Arts Fund
$250,000 and above
Argosy Foundation
The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
$100,000 and above
Greater Milwaukee Foundation
Dr. John H. and Sara Sue Esser Fund Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Fund
Herzfeld Foundation
Laskin Family Foundation
Rockwell Automation
We Energies Foundation
$50,000 and above
Anonymous
Bader Philanthropies, Inc.
Chase Family Foundation
Greater Milwaukee Foundation
Norman and Lucy Cohn Family Fund
Helen and Jeanette Oberndorfer Fund
Melitta S. and Joan M. Pick Charitable Trust
National Endowment for the Arts
$25,000 and above
Anonymous
Greater Milwaukee Foundation
Gertrude Elser and John Edward Schroeder Fund
JayKay Foundation
Johnson Controls, Inc.
R.D. and Linda Peters Foundation
Schoenleber Foundation, Inc.
Wintrust Financial Corporation
Wisconsin Arts Board
$15,000 and above
A.O. Smith Foundation, Inc.
ATC
Bert L. & Patricia S. Steigleder
Charitable Trust
Greater Milwaukee Foundation
David C. Scott Foundation
Krause Family Foundation
U.S. Bank
$10,000 and above
Brico Fund
Ellsworth Corporation
Gladys E. Gores Charitable Foundation
Greater Milwaukee Foundation
William A. and Mary M. Bonfield, Jr. Fund
Margaret E. Sheehan Memorial Fund
Jane Bradley Pettit Foundation
Komatsu Mining Corp Foundation
Northwestern Mutual
Ralph Evinrude Foundation, Inc.
William and Janice Godfrey
Family Foundation
Wispact Foundation
$5,000 and above
Charles D. Ortgiesen Foundation
Frieda and William Hunt Memorial
Gene and Ruth Posner Foundation, Inc.
Hamparian Family Foundation
Harbeck Family Foundation
Herb Kohl Philanthropies
Joyce Foundation
Julian Family Foundation
Milwaukee Arts Board
Milwaukee County Arts Fund (CAMPAC)
Richard G. Jacobus Family Foundation
Stackner Family Foundation, Inc.
Versiti Blood Research Center
$2,500 and above
Camille A. Lonstorf Trust
Dean Family Foundation
Enterprise Holdings
Gardner Foundation
Greater Milwaukee Foundation
Del Chambers Fund
ELM II Fund
Henry C., Eva M., Robert H. and Jack J. Gillo Charitable Fund
Margaret Heminway Wells Fund
Mildred L. Roehr & Herbert W. Roehr Fund
Pieper Electric, Inc./Ideal Mechanical
PKSD Law
Theodore W. Batterman Family Foundation
Walker Forge, Inc.
$1,000 and above
Albert J. & Flora H. Ellinger Foundation
Anthony Petullo Foundation, Inc.
Barney Family Foundation
Clare M. Peters Charitable Trust
Curt and Sue Culver Family Foundation
Delta Dental of Wisconsin
DeWitt Law Firm
Educators Credit Union
Festival Foods
Greater Milwaukee Foundation
Cottrell Balding Fund
Bechthold Family Fund
Cream City Foundation
Irene Edelstein Memorial Fund
George and Joan Hoehn Family Fund
David and Marion Meissner Fund
George and Christine Sosnovsky Fund
Carrie Taylor & Nettie Taylor
Robinson Memorial Fund
Eleanor N. Wilson Fund
Gruber Law Offices LLC
Hupy and Abraham, S.C.
Mars Family Foundation
Michael Koss/Koss Foundation
Loyal D. Grinker
SixSibs Foundation
Summit Credit Union
Townsend Foundation
Usinger Foundation
$500 and above
Greater Milwaukee Foundation
Robert C. Archer Designated Fund
de Hartog Family Fund
Roxy and Bud Heyse Fund/Journal Fund
Wealthspire Advisors
Wisconsin Women’s Health Foundation
The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra gratefully acknowledges the following corporations and foundations who match their employees’ contributions to the Annual Fund.
Abbvie
ATC
Aurora Health Care
Benevity Community Impact Fund
BMO Harris Bank
Caterpillar Foundation
CyberGrants, LLC
Dominion Foundation
Eaton Corporation
GE Foundation
Google Inc.
Johnson Controls Foundation
Kohl’s Corp.
Microsoft Corp.
National Philanthropic Trust
Northwestern Mutual
Paypal Giving Fund
Renaissance Charitable Foundation
Rockwell Automation
SherwinWilliams
Stifel
Sun Life
Thrivent Financial
U.S. Charitable Gift Trust
United Way of Greater Milwaukee and Waukesha County
Wintrust Financial Corporation
Wisconsin Energy Corporation
The MSO gratefully acknowledges the following organizations and individuals for their gifts of product or services:
Belle Fiori – Official Event Florist of the MSO
Beth and Michael Giacobassi
The Capital Grille
Central Standard Craft Distillery
Coffman Creative Events
Downer Avenue Wine & Spirits
Drury Hotels
Encore Playbills
Foley & Lardner LLP
GO Riteway Transportation Group
Hilton Milwaukee
Kohler Co.
Residence Inn – Marriott Milwaukee
Sojourner Family Peace Center
Steinway Piano Gallery of Milwaukee
Studio Gear – Official Event Partner of the MSO
Wisconsin Public Radio
The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra proudly partners with the following members of the 2025.26 Marquee Circle. We thank these generous partners of our annual corporate subscription program for their charitable contributions and for connecting their corporate communities with the MSO.
DeWitt Law Firm
Ellsworth Corporation
Hupy and Abraham, S.C.
Walker Forge, Inc.
In memory of Patricia Anders
Kay and Douglas Simpkin
In memory of John “Steve” Anderson
Mr. and Mrs. Anthony W. Asmuth, III
Sara and Dick Aster
Warren, Cathy, Olin & Everett Banholzer
Priscilla and Anthony Beadell
Sandy and Jean Custer
Kurt and Rosemary Glaisner
James and Gisela Kuist
Serigraph Incorporated
Sharon, Sophia, and Sarkis at Kirkland
In memory of Louie Andrew
Michael Schmitz
In honor of Glenn Asch and his many years performing with the MSO
Stephen and Jerilyn Smith
In memory of Italo Babini
Terry Burko and David Taggart
In honor of Robyn Black, Principal Tuba
Dennis and Patricia DuBoux
In honor of Andrew Banach
James Banach
In memory of Clair Baum
Julie and Gary Anderson
Sara and Dick Aster
Barbara and Philip Bail, Jr.
Stacy Wilson-Baum
Richard Bergman
Richard and Kay Bibler
Jane Lee and William Buege
Barbara and Allen Cairns
Joan Callan
Sinikka and Gilbert Church
Joyce Cupertino
Ryan Daniel
Barbara Dobbs
Marcia Dollerschell
Carol Dolphin
Patricia and Daniel Fetterley
Louise and David Gartzke
Judith Goetz
Alison Graf and Richard Schreiner
Tonya Hennen
Joseph and Louise Hoffman
Jayne J. Jordan
Alice Kuramoto
Gerald and Joan Luettgen
Harold and Goldie Markey
Patricia Morrison
Roxy Mortvedt and Charles Lewis
J.C. Oehlschlager
Richard and Suzanne Pieper
Frederick and Patricia Rudie
Carol Ryan
Richard Schmidt
Mary Ann Schwartz
Dr. and Mrs. C. John Snyder
Judith Tarabek
Dean and Katherine Thome
Jack Warden
Kathleen and Thomas Wilson
In memory of Virginia Beatty
Jack Beatty
In memory of Margaret and Roy Butter
Anne Butter and Jeffrey Frey
Dr. John and Rev. Dr. Sarah Butter
In honor of Carol Cobus
Mary Jo Wolf
In honor of Beth and Mike
Giacobassi
Cindy and Tim Friedmann
In memory of Dr. Jon Gudeman
Howard and Eileen Dubner
In memory of Carmen Haberman
Terry Burko and David Taggart
In honor of Darcy Hamlin
Mimi Lewellen
In honor of the helpful
MSO Box Office Staff
Fred Keller
In honor of Celia and Stanley
Holland
Mark Holland
In memory of Dolores Johnson
Lynda Johnson
In memory of Roman Kontorovsky
Mr. and Mrs. Michael Hauer
In honor of Stephanie Kruse
Richard Kruse
In memory of Elaine Mainman
Ann and Mark Johnson
In honor of Susan Martin
Caroline Ham
In memory of Dr. A. Stratton
McAllister
Dr. Caryl McAllister
In memory of Gail Louise McCarthy
David and Ellen Easley
Dawn (Chris) Linder
Donald and Joan Logan
Tina (John) Muswieck
Starr (Jeff) Sanders
Jon and Jeanne Thayer
Curt Thomas
Kim (Martha) Thomas
In memory of Sally Prodoehl
Mr. and Mrs. J.T. Christofferson
Barbara and Daniel Dedrick
Janet Friestad
Diane Lane
Dr. William and Susan LeFeber
Nancy R. Little
Michele Masters
Robin B. Petzold and Allan E. Erickson
Tracie Zoll
In memory of Dr. Thomas Roberts
Mary Roberts
In memory of Carl Romer
Beulah Romer Erickson
In memory of Colleen Rose
Brenda Bertram
James and Maryellen Clinton
Mary Gerbig and William Houlihan
In memory of Leonhard Rose, 1960s Trombone
Barbara and Paul Ahlf
Ann and Richard Cotter
Mary Gerbig and William Houlihan
Laura and Victor Ruiz
In honor of Carol Seefeld
Doris Strunk
In honor of Hilde Strigenz
Maria Pretzl
In gratitude for their time:
David Taggart and Julie Jahn
David Harrison
In honor of Dr. Robert Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor
In honor of Julia Uihlein
Dr. Joseph E. and Jane C. Kerschner
In memory of Judith Margaret
Wagner
Steven A. and Lisa L. Wagner
S O U N D B I T E S
YOUR PRE-CONCERT DINING IN THE BRADLEY SYMPHONY CENTER
Enhance your pre-concert dining with Indulge Catering Company — A Bianchini Experience at the Bradley Symphony Center. Begin your evening with an elevated meal in the Ellen & Joe Checota Atrium and delight in a delicious selection of appetizers, salad, entrées, sides, and desserts. Located steps away from your evening’s MSO performance, this curated dining option allows for a seamless experience. Sound Bites meals are offered beginning at 6:00 pm before all Friday and Saturday night concerts.
OFFICERS
Gregory Smith, Chair
Susan Martin, Immediate Past Chair; Secretary; Chair, Governance Committee
David Uihlein, Honorary Co-Chair
Julia Uihlein, Honorary Co-Chair
Patrick Murphy, Treasurer; Chair, Finance Committee
Mark Niehaus, President & Executive Director, Michael and Jeanne Schmitz Chair
EX OFFICIO DIRECTORS
Douglas M. Hagerman, Chair, Chair’s Council
Ken-David Masur, Music Director, Polly and Bill Van Dyke Music Director Chair
Mark Niehaus, President & Executive Director, Michael and Jeanne Schmitz Chair
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Gregory Smith, Chair
Susan Martin, Immediate Past Chair; Secretary; Chair, Governance Committee
Dan Byrne, UPAF Liaison
Douglas M. Hagerman, Chair, Chair’s Council
Renee Herzing, Chair, Audience Development Task Force
Robert Klieger, Chair, Players’ Council
Mark A. Metzendorf, Chair, Advancement Committee
Patrick Murphy, Treasurer; Chair, Finance Committee
Mark Niehaus, President & Executive Director, Michael and Jeanne Schmitz Chair
Michael J. Schmitz
Pam Stampen, Chair, Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion (EDI) Task Force
Haruki Toyama, Chair, Music Director Search Committee
ELECTED DIRECTORS
Steve Hancock, Chair, Education Committee
Alyce Coyne Katayama
Teresa Mogensen
Robert B. Monnat
Leslie Plamann, Chair, Audit Committee
Jay E. Schwister, Chair, Retirement Plan Committee
Laurie Simpson
Dale R. Smith
Tracy Tavolier
Tom Zale
Herb Zien, Chair, Facilities Management Committee
DESIGNATED DIRECTORS
City
Sachin Chheda
Theodore Perlick Molinari
Pegge Sytkowski County
Rene Izquierdo
Niko Ruud
PLAYER DIRECTORS
Robert Klieger, Chair, Players’ Council
Ilana Setapen, Player-at-Large
CHAIR’S COUNCIL
Douglas M. Hagerman, Chair
Chris Abele
Laura J. Arnow
Richard S. Bibler
Charles Boyle
Roberta Caraway
Judy Christl
Mary E. Connelly
Donn R. Dresselhuys*
Eileen Dubner
Franklyn Esenberg
Marta P. Haas
Jean Holmburg
Barbara Hunt
Leon Janssen
Judy Jorgensen
James A. Kasch
Lee Walther Kordus
Michael J. Koss
JoAnne Krause
Martin J. Krebs
Keith Mardak
Susan Martin
Andy Nunemaker
James G. Rasche
Stephen E. Richman
Michael J. Schmitz, Immediate Past Chair
Joan Steele Stein
Linda Tojek
Joan R. Urdan
Larry Waters
Kathleen A. Wilson
MSO ENDOWMENT & FOUNDATION TRUSTEES
Bruce Laning, Trustee Chair
Amy Croen
Steven Etzel
Douglas M. Hagerman
Bartholomew Reuter
David Uihlein
PAST CHAIRS
Susan Martin (2020-2025)
Andy Nunemaker (2014-2020)
Douglas M. Hagerman (2011-2014)
Chris Abele (2004-2011)
Judy Jorgensen (2002-2004)
Stephen E. Richman (2000-2002)
Stanton J. Bluestone* (1998-2000)
Allen N. Rieselbach* (1995-1998)
Edwin P. Wiley* (1993-1995)
Michael J. Schmitz (1990-1993)
Orren J. Bradley* (1988-1990)
Russell W. Britt* (1986-1988)
James H. Keyes (1984-1986)
Richard S. Bibler (1982-1984)
John K. MacIver* (1980-1982)
Donn R. Dresselhuys* (1978-1980)
Harrold J. McComas* (1976-1978)
Laflin C. Jones* (1974-1976)
Robert S. Zigman* (1972-1974)
Charles A. Krause* (1970-1972)
Donald B. Abert* (1968-1970)
Erhard H. Buettner* (1966-1968)
Clifford Randall* (1964-1966)
John Ogden* (1962-1964)
Stanley Williams* (1959-1962)
* Deceased
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
Colleen Bruce, Director of Major Gifts
Leah Peavler, Director of Institutional Advancement
Jessica Tedamrongwanish, Director of Individual Gifts
William Loder, Gift Officer
Julie Jahn, Campaign & Planned Giving Manager
Megan Martin, Donor Stewardship Manager
Tracy Migon, Development Systems Manager
Andrea Moreno-Islas, Advancement Manager
Abby Vakulskas, Giving Manager, Advancement Communications
Rebecca Whitney, Director of Education
Courtney Buvid, ACE & Education Manager
Nathan Hickox-Young, Concerts for Schools & Education Manager
Nicole Magolan, Controller
Jenny Beier, Senior Accountant
lyana Dixon, Accounting Coordinator
Crystal Reed-Hardy, Human Resources Manager
Lizzy Cichowski, Director of Marketing
Erin Kogler, Director of Communications
Adam Cohen, Patron Systems Manager
Katelyn Farebrother, Marketing Coordinator
David Jensen, Publications Manager
Zachary-John Reinardy, Lead Designer
BOX OFFICE
Luther Gray, Director of Ticket Operations & Group Sales
Al Bartosik, Box Office Manager
Marie Holtyn, Box Office Supervisor
Adam Klarner, Patron Services Coordinator
OPERATIONS
Sean Goldman, Director of Operations
Antonio Padilla Denis, Director of Orchestra Personnel
Paul Beck, Principal Librarian, James E. Van Ess Principal Librarian Chair
Sofia Castanho-Bollinger, Artistic Coordinator
Maiken Demet, Assistant to the Music Director
Matthew Geise, Assistant Librarian & Media Archivist
Miles McConnell, Artistic Operations Assistant
Paris Meyers, Assistant Manager of Orchestra Personnel
Emily Wacker Schultz, Artistic Associate
Lisa Sottile, Production Stage Manager
Tristan Wallace, Production Manager/Live Audio, MSO | Technical Director, BSC
Christina Williams, Chorus Manager
Sam Hushek, Director of Events
Anthony Andronczyk, House Manager
Donovan Burton, Facilities Manager - 2nd Shift
Travis Byrd, Facilities Manager
Lisa Klimczak, House Manager
David Kotlewski, House Manager
Steve Pfisterer, House Manager
Jenn Sorvick, Event Operations Coordinator
Zed Waeltz, Event Services Manager
Marta Bianchini, Chief Executive Officer
Marc Bianchini, Executive Chef
Cristina Bianchini, Director of Marketing and Event Coordinator
Valentina Bianchini, Director of Operations and Event Coordinator
thrives with community suppor t.
Across Southeastern Wisconsin, per formances of ever y size come to life because the community shows up From premiere venues to emerging companies, shared suppor t keeps music, theater, and dance vibrant and accessible for all.
