Mobile Symphony Opens Season Sept. 16 & 17 with Heroes & Villains Movie Concert
The Mobile Symphony Orchestra (MSO) explores music as a superpower in Heroes and Villains, a thrilling collection of epic movie scores, Saturday, Sept. 16, at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, Sept. 17, at 2:30 p.m., at Mobile’s historic Saenger Theatre.
The concert opens the orchestra’s 2023-2024 season, headlined by superstar cellist Yo-Yo Ma on Feb. 29, 2024. Tickets for the Yo-Yo Ma concert go on sale Sept. 5. All other tickets are currently on sale.
Concerts based on movie scores are always popular with MSO audiences, and each season the orchestra takes a serious look at composers who bring the magic of Hollywood to life. “We first toyed with a program called Hollywood Heroes. Of course, there’s no shortage of those: From Rocky to Wonder Woman, from Harry Potter to Braveheart, from Superman to Rey from Star Wars,” MSO Music Director Scott Speck said.
“But then we wouldn’t have the fun of playing the themes of those delicious villains. Like Darth Vader, the Godfather himself or all those Pirates of the Caribbean – not to mention the amoral antiheroes in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” Speck explained. “And what about Lawrence of Arabia, The Magnificent Seven and Bride of Frankenstein? Were they heroes or villains? We perform, you decide.”
MSO’s next concert is its annual casual concert, Beethoven and Blue Jeans, Nov. 18 and 19, 2023, featuring young flutist Anthony Trionfo and Beethoven’s charming “Pastoral” Symphony.
Tickets are $20-$96 and can be purchased online at mobilesymphony.org, by phone at 251-432-2010 or at the symphony box office, 257 Dauphin Street. Six-concert season memberships are $105-$432. Tickets for the Feb. 29, 2024 gala Yo-Yo Ma
concert go on sale Sept. 5, but can be purchased now with a membership. Prices range from $65 to $249.
Student tickets to regular concerts are $10 (excludes Yo-Yo Ma gala). Through the MSO Big Red Ticket program sponsored by the Alabama Power Foundation and the Figures 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 the holiday concert and Yo-Yo Ma). More details can be found online at www.mobilesymphony.org.
Heroes and Villains is sponsored by Lexus of Mobile, Red or White and Harold and Carlos Parkman. WKRG is the media sponsor. All concerts have been made possible by grants from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
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The Mobile Symphony has been a regional orchestra for the central Gulf Coast since 1997. Scott Speck serves as music director. In addition to offering a full season of classical and pops concerts, the orchestra serves the area with a wide range of educational and outreach programs including student performances, string academies and a youth orchestra. http://www.mobilesymphony.org
