“The Jacksonville Symphony will expand its programming during the 2016-2017 season [with] 12 Masterworks concerts and 12 Pops concerts, up from 10 of each this season,” writes Charlie Patton in Wednesday’s (2/24) Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville). “Five of the Masterworks concerts and one Pops concerts will have Sunday matinees [which] have proved quite popular this year, said Robert Massey, president and CEO of the symphony…. There will be four ‘Symphony in 60’ concerts, which are one-hour concerts beginning at 6 p.m., followed by a social hour. There are three on this season’s schedule. Music director Courtney Lewis … said he’s excited to begin and end the season with ‘two towering masterpieces that have been long absent from Jacksonville,’ ” Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” and Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. In addition to symphonies by Brahms, Beethoven, Sibelius, and Tchaikovsky, the season will include “Henri Dutilleux’s ‘Metaboles’ (1964); Gyorgy Ligeti’s Piano Concerto (1988); Marty Schiff’s ‘Stomp’ (1990); Julian Anderson’s ‘Imagin’d Corners’ (2002); and Andrew Norman’s ‘Unstuck’ (2008)…. There will also be an opera next season, ‘Hansel and Gretel.’ … The Pops season will include three Film with Orchestra concerts…. The symphony will perform two weeks of community concerts, free concerts at various venues.”
Posted February 25, 2016
Pictured: Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, with Music Director Courtney Lewis (right) and Assistant Conductor Nathan Aspinall in the front row
