Beethoven's Symphony No. 5

SEPT 15 – 17

Boettcher Concert Hall

KEVIN PUTS Millennium Canons
MASON BATES The B-Sides: Five Pieces for Orchestra
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67

Hear Beethoven’s monumental Symphony No. 5 in all its forceful grandeur at Music Director Brett Mitchell’s inaugural Classics concert. Kevin Puts’ Millennium Canons, a celebratory and optimistic composition written to usher in the new millennium, befits a premiere weekend. Versatile composer Mason Bates joins the Symphony as electronic soloist in The B-Sides: Five Pieces for Orchestra, a symphonic-electronica piece blending jazzy, city-pulse allure with exotic sounds that will sweep you away to another world.

Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue

SEPT 22 – 24

Boettcher Concert Hall

Leonard Bernstein once likened Gershwin and Tchaikovsky as among the world’s most “inspired melodists,” and Tchaikovsky’s bold, booming Symphony No. 5 drives this riveting program, conducted by Music Director Brett Mitchell. Pianist Kevin Cole, famed for his interpretations of Gershwin, will deliver a peerless rendition of the composer’s intoxicating Rhapsody in Blue, which was inspired by the “steely rhythms [and] rattle-ty bang” of a New York train. Composer and fellow New Yorker Missy Mazzoli, hailed as “Brooklyn’s post-millennial Mozart” (Time Out New York), offers a dreamscape that is as approachable as it is transcendent in These Worlds in Us.

Queen of Jazz: A Tribute to Ella Fitzgerald

SEPT 30

Boettcher Concert Hall

A Tribute to Ella Fitzgerald honors “The First Lady of Song” on what would have been her 100th birthday in 2017. This program will feature many of her chart-topping hits from the Great American Songbook, including “It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing),” “How High the Moon,” “I Got Rhythm,” “Summertime,” “A Tisket, A-Tasket,” “Satin Doll,” “Blue Skies,” “Bewitched,” and many more. Several songs will be performed with the original Nelson Riddle and Billy May orchestrations, along with others newly created by Tony Award®-nominated arranger Larry Blank. This program stars three amazing singers: Capathia Jenkins, Aisha de Haas, and Metropolitan Opera diva Harolyn Blackwell.