The Mobile Symphony Orchestra (MSO), one of America’s best regional orchestras, has announced a stellar lineup of seven outstanding concerts for its 25th Anniversary season, beginning this fall. Season memberships are now on sale.
“For our 25th season, we wanted to bring together all the things that characterize the Mobile Symphony – diverse and engaging programming, close relationships with world-renowned guest artists, musical curiosity, and more than anything else, the sheer exuberance of our musicians,” MSO Music Director Scott Speck explains.
The season opens Sept. 24 and 25, 2022, with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, featuring MSO concertmaster Jenny Grégoire. The concert includes Capriccio Espagnol, another Rimsky-Korsakov favorite, and New Orleans composer Louis Gottschalk’s Night in the Tropics.
The orchestra’s annual casual concert, Beethoven and Blue Jeans, Nov. 19 and 20, 2022, highlights phenomenal violinist Tessa Lark. “We’ve wanted to bring her to Mobile for a long time,” Speck says. “Here she performs a concerto written especially for her and her Kentucky bluegrass roots – Sky, by Michael Torke.” Also on the program, Aaron Copland’s music from Rodeo and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7.
On Jan. 21 and 22, 2023, the MSO presents Symphonic Innovations, named in honor of the fund allowing the orchestra to commission (along with Munich Philharmonic and Chicago Philharmonic) a new Mandolin Concerto by celebrated composer Jennifer Higdon and performed by Avi Avital. An earlier innovative work – Dvorak’s New World Symphony – completes the program
Two of classical music’s most romantic masterworks – Tchaikovsky’s Romeo & Juliet and Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with Joyce Yang – make Musical
Romance, March 11 and 12, 2023, an irresistible concert. William Grant Still’s Afro-American Symphony evokes an important part of the American experience.
Alabama native Norman Huynh joins the MSO April 15 and 16, 2023, to conduct Brahms’ Symphony No. 4. The concert also features choral works performed with the University of South Alabama Concert Choir and Mobile Opera Chorus. “A thrilling overture by Carl Maria von Weber opens the program like a rocket ship taking off,” Speck adds.
The season ends May 6 and 7, 2023 with Lords of the Ring, contrasting Howard Shore’s brilliant score to Lord of the Rings films with orchestral highlights from Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle. André Raphel returns to guest conduct.
The Mobile Symphony’s annual holiday concert is always a much-anticipated family tradition. This season, on Dec. 10 and 11, 2022, the orchestra presents A Cinematic Christmas, packed with holiday favorites from popular movies.
All concerts in the series are performed twice: Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. at Mobile’s historic Saenger Theatre
Six-concert season memberships are $102-$408. Tickets to all individual performances, including the holiday concert, will go on sale Aug. 8 for $20-$89. Memberships and Tickets can be purchased online, by phone at 251-432-2010 or at the symphony box office, 257 Dauphin Street. Student tickets are $10. Through the MSO Big Red Ticket program sponsored by the Alabama Power Foundation, students in grades K-12 can attend any of the season’s six classical Sunday performances free when accompanied by a paying adult (excludes special event A Cinematic Christmas). More details can be found online at www.mobilesymphony.org.
All concerts have been made possible by grants from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
