“This season, the Milwaukee Symphony will have a strong American accent,” writes Jim Higgins in Thursday’s (9/7) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “A celebration of Leonard Bernstein’s centennial year, combined with symphony leadership’s desire to celebrate American repertoire, has led to a season with 17 different classical programs featuring at least one American composition…. The Milwaukee Symphony also will play many great European works that constitute the backbone of the orchestral tradition, including Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and Mahler’s ‘The Song of the Earth.’ ” Bernstein programs will include the Candide Overture, Serenade, Chichester Psalms, Symphony No. 2 (“The Age of Anxiety”), Fancy Free, and a screening of West Side Story, with Bernstein’s score performed live. Also planned are Pierre Jalbert’s new Violin Concerto (a co-commission with St. Paul Chamber Orchestra), Joan Tower’s 1986 Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman, Jake Heggie’s Moby-Dick Suite, Julia Perry’s 1965 Study for Orchestra, Nico Muhly’s Mixed Messages, Emily Cooley’s Green Go to Me, Augusta Read Thomas’s tone poem Radiant Circles, and works by Charles Ives, John Adams, Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Christopher Rouse, John Luther Adams, Lukas Foss, and Antonin Dvořák. The season will be led by multiple guest conductors and Conductor Laureate Edo de Waart.
Posted September 8, 2017
Pictured: Lukas Foss (left) and Aaron Copland (right) enjoy a moment in 1983 during the Milwaukee Symphony’s Aaron Copland Music Festival.
