2011-2012 – 30th Season
Concerts are free, though donations are requested.
The orchestra’s 30th season, its twelfth under Music Director William Schrickel, opens with a gala concert at Orchestra Hall featuring music for choruses (VocalEssence, St. Olaf College’s Manitou Singers, Magnum Chorum and The Singers) in a program that includes Holst’s Hymn of Jesus and commissioned works by two Grammy-winning American composers, William Bolcom and Michael Daugherty. Philip Brunelle and Sigrid Johnson conduct the vocal forces while Schrickel leads the MSO in Samuel Barber’s buoyant School for Scandal overture. Subsequent concerts feature MSO principal cellist Teresa Richardson in Elgar’s eloquent Cello Concerto and the orchestra’s percussion section in a thrilling piece by Thom Hasenpflug. The MSO’s Family Concerts showcase theme music for fictional characters as diverse as Darth Vader, The Lone Ranger and The Simpsons, and the program concludes with The Composer is Dead, a narrated musical setting of Lemony Snicket’s well-known children’s book. The Tenth Symphony of Russia’s greatest symphonist, Dmitri Shostakovich, is paired with Winter Bells, a work by young Russian composer Polina Nazaykinskaya. The Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and Schrickel bring down the curtain on the ensemble’s spectacular 30th season with music of Ives and Mahler, contemporaries whose revolutionary ideas altered the course of symphonic music over a hundred years ago. You won’t want to miss a single note!
The Gift of Fire: VocalEssence Collaboration
October 9, 2011—4:00 PM—Orchestra Hall, Minneapolis
Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, William Schrickel, Music Director & Conductor
VocalEssence Chorus & Ensemble Singers, Philip Brunelle, Conductor
St. Olaf College Manitou Singers, Sigrid Johnson, Conductor
The Singers, Matthew Culloton, Artistic Director
Magnum Chorum, Christopher Aspaas, Music Director
Jeffrey Biegel, piano
Concert Conversation at 3:00 pm with composers
William Bolcom and Michael Daugherty
Gustav Holst—The Hymn of Jesus, op. 37
William Bolcom—Prometheus (co-commissioned by VocalEssence)
Samuel Barber—Overture to The School for Scandal, op. 5
Michael Daugherty—Mt. Rushmore (co-commissioned by VocalEssence)
Tickets: $10, $20, $30, $40; ticket service fees may apply. All seats are reserved.
Order early for best selection. Phone: 612-371-5656 (800-292-4141)
Music of Youth & Experience
November 20, 2011—4:00 PM—Trinity Lutheran Church, Stillwater
William Schrickel, Conductor
Teresa Richardson, cello
Edward Elgar—Elegy, op. 58
Edward Elgar—Cello Concerto in E minor, op. 85
(Teresa Richardson, cello)
Georges Bizet—Symphony #1 in C major
The Composer Is Dead!!
January 29 & February 5, 2012—3:00 PM—Family Concerts
St. Matthew’s Catholic Church, St. Paul
St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, Hopkins
William Schrickel, Conductor
Gioacchino Rossini—
William Tell Overture
Danny Elfman—
The Simpsons Theme
Steve Reich—
Clapping Music John Williams—
The Imperial March from
Star Wars Suite
Nathaniel Stookey/Lemony Snicket—
The Composer is Dead (Narrator
Jake Endres)
Russian Masterpieces
March 25, 2012—4:00 PM—Normandale Lutheran Church, Edina
William Schrickel, Conductor
Vincent Youmans/Dmitri Shostakovich – Tahiti Trot (Tea for Two)
Polina Nazaykinskaya—Winter Bells
Dmitri Shostakovich—Symphony #10 in E minor, op. 93
Orchestral Pioneers: Ives & Mahler
May 13, 2012—Central Lutheran Church, Minneapolis
William Schrickel, Conductor
Thom Hasenpflug – Bicksa for 4 Percussionists
Charles Ives—Three Places in New England, S.7
Gustav Mahler—Symphony #1 in D major