A rich season of orchestras, Mahler and Shostakovich is on tap for 2014-15

By David Fleshler

In addition to leading New World Symphony concerts, Michael Tilson Thomas will bring his San Francisco Symphony to the Arsht Center November 22.

In addition to leading New World Symphony concerts, Michael Tilson Thomas will bring his San Francisco Symphony to the Arsht Center November 22.

This season will bring to South Florida plenty of Shostakovich and Mahler, visits from an array of European orchestra and an impressive number of world premieres on the opera, concert and ballet stages.

If you appreciate Shostakovich, there will be performances of his Symphonies Nos. 5, 6, 8 and 10, as well as his Violin Concerto No. 1 and Piano Concerto No. 2. Do you enjoy Orff’s Carmina Burana? You can hear two different performances this season, one by the Master Chorale of South Florida, the other by the Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus. Mahler aficionados will be able to hear his Symphony No. 1, No. 6 and Das Lied von der Erde.

Here is a sampling of what’s in store for the 2014-15 season:

ORCHESTRAS

New World Symphony
World premieres, famous guest conductors and a stellar lineup of soloists will mark this season of the New World Symphony (nws.edu).

The season opens Oct. 11 under the baton of music director Michael Tilson Thomas in a program of works rarely heard in South Florida, including Stravinsky’s Symphony in C, a choreographed version of George Antheil’s A Jazz Symphony and the Monn/Schoenberg Cello Concerto with soloist Tamás Varga, principal cellist of the Vienna Philharmonic.

Among the soloists will be some old friends of the New World Symphony, as well as newcomers. The violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter will make a rare South Florida appearance to perform Berg’s Violin Concerto and the violin concerto En rêve by the late Swiss composer Norbert Moret (April 25-26). Russian pianist Yefim Bronfman will arrive for a busy weekend of concerto, recital and chamber performances. He will perform the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2, which will be paired with symphonic music from Wagner’s Götterdammerung on Oct. 17 and with Schumann’s Symphony No. 1 on Oct. 18. The next day he will play Prokofiev’s Piano Sonatas Nos. 6 and 7 and Beethoven’s Archduke Trio with two members of the orchestra.

Violinist James Ehnes will perform the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto (Jan. 10). Flutist Paula Robison will perform Leon Kirchner’s Music for Flute and Orchestra with Tilson Thomas on the podium, in a program that will also include the Sibelius Symphony No. 1 (Feb. 21-22). Baritone Thomas Hampson will perform a recital and then appear with the orchestra to sing John Adams’ setting of Walt Whitman’s poem The Wound-Dresser (Feb. 15). Joshua Bell will perform the Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 1 (March 21).

Among guest conductors will be the early music specialist Jeannette Sorrell, who will lead the orchestra and play the harpsichord for a program entitled “A Night at Bach’s Coffeehouse.” Among the works to be heard will be Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 3 and 4, Vivaldi’s Concerto in G Minor for Two Cellos and Handel’s Suite from Terpsichore (March 7-8). Another guest conductor, Robert Spano, music director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, will conduct Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 and Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra (Nov. 8-9). Alasdair Neale, a frequent guest conductor at New World, will lead a concert called “A Dvořák Journey,” with some of the composer’s symphonic, chamber and operatic works (Nov.23). James Conlon, music director of the Los Angeles Opera and the Ravinia Festival, will lead the orchestra in Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 (Jan. 9-10). The French conductor Stéphane Denève will conduct a mostly French program, including Poulenc’s The Model Animals, Honegger’s Summer Pastoral and Saint-Saëns’ Symphony No. 3, known as the Organ symphony (April 11-12).

New music always plays a big part in the orchestra’s programming, and there will be several programs of contemporary works, as well as the avant-garde music of previous eras. The composer John Adams will lead the orchestra in his own Saxophone Concerto with soloist Timothy McAllister, in a program that will also include Copland’s El Salón México, Try by the young American composer Andrew Norman and Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements (Dec. 6). Tilson Thomas will conduct world premieres of works to be announced by the American composers Ted Hearne and Michael Gordon (Jan. 30-31). The Hungarian composer Péter Eötvös will conduct his own works Chinese Opera and da capo for cimbalom and ensemble with soloist Chester Englander, as well as the U.S. premiere of Stockhausen’s Points (April 4).

Cleveland Orchestra
The Cleveland Orchestra’s series at Miami’s Arsht Center for the Performing Arts (clevelandorchestramiami.com) will offer expanded programming this season, with a combination of populist favorites and dramatic symphonic works.

The season opens Nov. 14 with a light program under the baton of Giancarlo Guerrero, principal guest conductor of the series. The program, which will be repeated Nov. 15, features guitarist Miloš Karadaglić in Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez and includes Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio Italien, Respighi’s Fountains of Rome and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Español.

The orchestra’s music director, Franz Welser-Möst, takes over for the next concerts, devoted to the music of Beethoven and Shostakovich. In the past, the orchestra has performed the same program on consecutive Friday and Saturday nights. But this time, on Feb. 27 they will play Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 6, and they will follow it the next day with Beethoven’s Fifth and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10.

Welser-Möst will return to the podium for the next concerts, devoted to a single work, Mahler’s monumental Symphony No. 6 (March 6-7).

The orchestra will be joined by Fort Lauderdale’s own Nadine Sierra, a young soprano whose career is taking off, for performances of Orff’s Carmina Burana, which will be performed on three consecutive nights (March 26-28). Also singing in the performance will be the countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, baritone Stephen Powell, the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus and the Miami Children’s Chorus. The program will also include Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms.

Soprano Sydney Manscola will make a double South Florida debut, starring in Florida Grand Opera's "Pearl Fishers" (opening Feb. 28) and Palm Beach Opera's "The Daughter of the Regiment" (March xx). Photo: Dario Acosta

Soprano Sydney Manscola will make a double South Florida debut, starring in Florida Grand Opera’s “Pearl Fishers” (opening Feb. 28) and Palm Beach Opera’s “The Daughter of the Regiment” (March 20-22). Photo: Dario Acosta

Miami Symphony Orchestra
The Miami Symphony Orchestra (themiso.org) has dubbed this the “Grand Season of the Piano,” in celebration of Steinway & Sons’ 161st Anniversary. If a 161st anniversary seems an odd year to single out for celebration, the celebration will be real enough. Each concert will feature at least one work for piano and orchestra, with a climactic final concert May 3 that will conclude with six pianos wheeled onto the stage for Liszt’s Hexameron for Six Pianos and Orchestra.

Among the pianists will be Lola Astanova in Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (Oct. 5), Sebastian and Barbara Bartmann in Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals (Jan. 24), Linda Bustani in Strauss’ Burleske for Piano and Orchestra and Addinsell’s Warsaw Concerto (Feb. 14-15) and Ignasi Cambra in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major (April 11-12). The final concert will include, in addition to the gigantic Liszt work, Khachaturian’s Piano Concerto in D-Flat Major with soloist Elisha Abas, the world premiere of the Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra by the Brazilian pianist and composer André Mehmari, with Mehmari and Christopher O’Riley as soloists, and Mozart’s Concerto No. 7 in F Major for Three Pianos and Orchestra with Robert Berrocal, Ciro Fodere and Marina Radiushina.

CHORAL MUSIC

Seraphic Fire

This will be a big season for Seraphic Fire (seraphicfire.org), the Miami chamber choir that has seen its national profile rise sharply in the past few years.

The choir will start working with two first-class instrumental ensembles. First, The Sebastians, a young New York-based period-instrument group that has received stellar reviews, will collaborate in several concerts. The ensemble will join the choir for performances of Vivaldi’s Gloria (Nov. 7-9), Handel’s Messiah (Dec. 19-21), Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass (Feb. 13-15) and Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus and its musical ancestors (March 11-15).

The other ensemble that will join with Seraphic Fire is the Renaissance band Piffaro, a Philadelphia-based group with an international reputation and extensive discography, performing Vespers by the American composer Kile Smith’s Vespers (May 6-10).

Mahler’s works don’t generally lend themselves to compact ensembles, but Seraphic Fire will perform Das Lied von der Erde, a work for solo voices and symphony orchestra, arranged for smaller forces by Rainer Riehn. Joining the choir and the Firebird Chamber Orchestra for the performance will be the tenor Bryan Hymel, a regular at the Metropolitan Opera, the well-known mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer and the young baritone Dashon Burton. Also performed at the concert will be Bach’s Ich Habe Genug, his best-known cantata (April 17-19).

The season opens with a concert of works by young American choral composers (Oct. 15-19). Other concerts include the choir’s popular Christmas concerts, which typically span 1,000 years of holiday music (Dec. 10-14), and Gregorian chant, with the Latin texts sung in staged performances by candlelight (Jan. 14-18).

One more change this season is unlikely to please listeners in Palm Beach County. The choir has dropped its Boca Raton venue, its only one in Palm Beach County, because it wasn’t generating enough ticket sales or donor interest.

Master Chorale of South Florida
The Master Chorale, going into its second season under artistic director Brett Karlin, has assembled a series of audience-friendly programs that emphasize some of the most popular choral works (masterchoraleofsouthflorida.com).

The season opens with a program called “Classical Hit Parade,” consisting of works that have become familiar through the movies, such as “O Fortuna” from Orff’s Carmina Burana and a choral adaptation of Barber’s Adagio for Strings (Oct. 24-26). There will be a communal performance Dec. 12 of Handel’s Messiah, in which chorus members will sit with the audience and anyone can sing along. They will perform the full Carmina Burana Feb. 20-22. They will sing Bach’s cantata Aus der Tiefen, along with other Baroque works by Telemann, Johann Kuhnau and Christoph Graupner (April 24-26). The chorale will also perform in a Valentine’s Day concert with pop opera star Andrea Bocelli at the BB&T Center in Sunrise (Feb. 14).

OPERA

Florida Grand Opera
The third season under general director and CEO Susan Danis contains more of the fresh programming she has been trying to bring to the company, in addition to traditional favorites (fgo.org).

Heading the list is the South Florida premiere of The Consul, Gian Carlo Menotti’s Cold War drama, set in a repressive, unnamed country in which the villain is the government bureaucracy itself (May 9-16). Despite the relatively modern setting, the plot is full of the operatic standbys of violence, love, courage and death, with great moments of musical drama. Starring in the work, which is sung in English, will be the soprano Kara Shay Thomson, a terrific Tosca last season.

Also on the schedule is Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers, a drama set in ancient Ceylon, now Sri Lanka. A product of the fruitful fascination of Romantic opera composers with the East, the work has always been overshadowed by Bizet’s final work, Carmen, and has rarely been performed in South Florida (Feb. 28-March 14).

Rounding out the season will be two classics. The soprano Kelly Kaduce, an FGO favorite, will star in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, alternating in the role with Vanessa Isiguen (Nov. 15-Dec. 6). And the company will perform Mozart’s Così fan tutte (Jan. 24-Feb. 14).

Palm Beach Opera
A rare world premiere will come to the Palm Beach Opera’s stage at the Kravis Center (pbopera.org).

The company will present Enemies, a Love Story, based on a novel by Isaac Bashevis Singer, that tells the story of a Holocaust survivor in New York in the late 1940s as he tries to navigate the complexities of contemporary life, including a wife, girlfriend and late wife who turns out to be alive (Feb. 20-22). The music is by Ben Moore, an American composer of songs, musical theater and choral music.

The season opens with Puccini’s La Bohème (Jan. 16-18) and includes a work infrequently heard in South Florida, Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment (March 20-22).

Miami Lyric Opera
South Florida’s alternative opera company (miamilyricopera.org) will offer a lineup of classics, with most performances taking place at the Colony Theater in Miami Beach. On this season’s schedule is a concert version of Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera (Sept. 20-21) and one of Bizet’s Carmen (Nov. 8), Verdi’s La Traviata (March 7 and 8), Donizetti’s Don Pasquale (April 11), Puccini’s Madama Butterfly (May 2-3) and Verdi’s Rigoletto (July 11-12, Aug. 15-16).

Ivan Fischer will conduct the Budapest Festival Orchestra at the Kravis Center January 19. Photo Marco Borgrevve

Ivan Fischer will conduct the Budapest Festival Orchestra at the Kravis Center January 19. Photo Marco Borgrevve

PERFORMING ARTS CENTERS

Arsht Center for the Performing Arts
The stage of the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts (arshtcenter.org) will be crowded with the massed forces of symphony orchestras this season, as the center has programmed an all-orchestral concert schedule.

The San Francisco Symphony will open the series Nov. 22 under music director Michael Tilson Thomas. On the program is Drive and Providence by Samuel Carl Adams, son of the composer John Adams, Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé and the Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 2 with soloist Gil Shaham.

The famous Mariinsky Orchestra of St. Petersburg will perform Feb. 6 under the baton of Valery Gergiev, Russia’s best-known conductor, whose concerts in the United States and Europe have been shadowed in recent years by his vocal support for the policies of Vladimir Putin. The orchestra will perform Shchedrin’s Concerto for Orchestra No. 1, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, and Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2 in G major, a work usually passed over in favor of its more famous predecessor, with soloist Denis Matsuev.

The violinist Ray Chen, familiar to those who have attended his recitals on the Sunday Afternoons of Music series in Coral Gables, will perform the Sibelius Violin Concerto on Feb. 14 with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. The conductor originally scheduled to lead the orchestra had been Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, but with his death in June at the age of 80, a replacement was found in Cristian Mǎcelaru, associate conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra. In addition to the Sibelius, the orchestra will perform Nielsen’s Symphony No. 4, the most famous work by their country’s most famous composer.

The series will end April 15 with a performance by the BBC Concert Orchestra led by Keith Lockhart. On the program are two English works, Vaughan Williams’ The Wasps Overture and A Shropshire Lad: Rhapsody for Orchestra by George Butterworth, who was killed in the Battle of the Somme in World War I at the age of 31. Also on the program is Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8 and the Shostakovich Piano Concerto No. 2 with soloist Charlie Albright.

Broward Center for the Performing Arts

After a season in which the Broward Center (browardcenter.org) failed to sell many tickets for such esoterica as The Rite of Spring played on the piano and a violin recital devoted to the legacy of Joseph Joachim, the center has planned a season that focuses on big names and classical pops ensembles.

The series will open Nov. 1 with the violinist Joshua Bell performing sonatas by Schubert, Grieg and Prokofiev, as well as works to be announced from the stage. The perennial South Florida recitalist, violinist Itzhak Perlman, will perform March 23, with the program to be announced.

There will be performances by two leading pops orchestras. First, the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra will perform Dec. 8 under conductor John Morris Russell, with Broadway vocalist Brian Stokes Mitchell. The Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra conducted by Keith Lockhart will perform Feb. 9 in a program of Dvořák, Copland, Ellington, Gershwin, Queen and John Williams. Another likely crowd-pleaser will be a Dec. 19 performance of Handel’s Messiah by the choir Seraphic Fire.

The pianist Jonathan Biss will play a recital Jan. 16 with a number of rarely heard works, including Schoenberg’s Sechs Kleine Klavierstücke, Op. 19, Schumann’s Waldszenen, Op. 82, Berg’s Piano Sonata Op. 1, Beethoven’s Sonata in F minor, Op 2 no. 1 and his Sonata Op. 101. Martin Fröst, one of the world’s leading clarinetists, will perform the Mozart Clarinet Concerto with the Australian Chamber Orchestra April 22, in a concert that will also include the composer’s Symphony No. 40.

Kravis Center for the Performing Arts
Those who regard classical music as an essentially European art form will find little contradiction in the Kravis Center’s lineup this season (kravis.org). Traditionally offering the most extensive classical program of South Florida’s performing arts centers, Kravis has scheduled a stellar lineup of European orchestras, along with a few concerts for smaller forces.

Three orchestras will come from Russia, and that means lots of Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich and Prokofiev. The Russian State Symphony Orchestra conducted by Valery Polyansky will perform Nov. 18 in Rachmaninoff’s rarely heard Symphony No. 1 and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 in C Minor with soloist Vladimir Feltsman. The next day the orchestra will perform Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 3 and his Piano Concerto No. 2 with Feltsman again at the keyboard.

The St. Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra led by Vladimir Lande on Jan. 7 will perform the Shostakovich Symphony No. 5 and Schumann Cello Concerto with soloist Dmitry Kouzov. The Mariinsky Orchestra will perform the Shostakovich Symphony No. 8 and Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 3 with soloist Behzod Abduraimov (Feb. 4).

From Hungary will come the Budapest Festival Orchestra, an ensemble that has earned a sterling reputation, with Gramophone magazine ranking it among the world’s top 20 orchestras. The orchestra, led by Iván Fischer, who has conducted it since its founding, will perform Brahms’ Symphonies No. 1 and 3 on Jan. 19. The next day, Pinchas Zukerman will conduct and serve as soloist in Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5. Also on the program is Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream.

The Danish National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Cristian Mǎcelaru will perform Feb. 15, playing Sibelius’ Valse Triste, Nielsen’s Symphony No. 4 and the Sibelius Violin Concerto in D minor, with soloist Ray Chen.

Johannes Moser, one of the world’s leading young cellists, will perform March 2 with the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra led by Michael Sanderling. He will play Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme and Memoirs of a Geisha from the film score by John Williams. On March 3 the orchestra will perform Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 and Symphony No. 6.

From England comes the BBC Concert Orchestra, which will play two concerts under the direction of Keith Lockhart, each with a generous amount of English music. The orchestra will perform Vaughan Williams’ The Wasp Overture, A Shropshire Lad: Rhapsody for Orchestra by George Butterworth, Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8 and Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with soloist Charlie Albright (April 13). The following day, the orchestra will offer more English music, Walton’s March Crown Imperial, Vaughan Williams’ Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1 and Britten’s Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell, as well as Ravel’s Le Tambeau de Couperin and his Piano Concerto in G Major, with Albright again as soloist (April 14).

Pianist Leon Fleisher will be joined by his wife, the pianist Katherine Jacobson Fleisher, for a performance of Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos No. 7 in F Major with A Far Cry chamber orchestra (March 25). The Boston-based ensemble will also perform Mozart’s Symphony No. 29, Suk’s Serenade for Strings in E-flat Major and excerpts from Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances.

There will be several solo recitals. The young Hungarian violinist Kristóf Baráti will perform solo works by Bach and Ysaÿe on Jan. 13, as he begins a North American tour that will include his Carnegie Hall debut. The pianist Michael Brown will perform Feb. 16, playing works by Couperin, Ravel, Copland and Stravinsky, as well as a composition of his own. The superstar pianist Lang Lang will perform Feb. 23, playing Bach’s Italian Concerto, Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons and Chopin’s Four Scherzos. The violinist Joshua Bell will perform March 23, with the program to be announced.

As for chamber ensembles, the Takács Quartet will perform works of Haydn, Debussy and Beethoven on Dec. 11. The pianist Anton Kuerti, whose on-stage collapse abruptly ended a recital in Miami last season, returns to South Florida to perform the Brahms Piano Quintet in F Minor on Jan. 2 with the Pacifica Quartet. Also on the program is the Haydn String Quartet No. 63, Op. 76 No. 4, known as the Sunrise Quartet, and the Ravel String Quartet.

Anne-Sophie Mutter will perform music of Alban Berg and Norbert Moret with the New World Symphony April 25-26.

Anne-Sophie Mutter will perform music of Alban Berg and Norbert Moret with the New World Symphony April 25-26.

CHAMBER MUSIC
A major South Florida presenter will be absent this season, with the closing of the Sunday Afternoons of Music series after 33 years. But there will still be ample chamber music performances at venues throughout the region.

Friends of Chamber Music of Miami
The high-quality concerts offered by Friends of Chamber Music of Miami (miamichambermusic.org) rarely break new ground. But this year, the series will give the world premiere of a Viola Concerto by one of the leading composers in the United States, Jennifer Higdon, whose Violin Concerto won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Music. Performing the solo part will be the renowned violist Roberto Díaz, a frequent performer on the series. He will be accompanied by the Curtis Chamber Orchestra conducted by Robert Spano (March 11).

Other concerts on the series include the Ehnes Quartet with violist Michael Tree and cellist William De Rosa in Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht and Schubert’s Quartet in A Minor (Rosamunde) (Oct. 27), the Russian pianist Denis Kozhukhin (Nov. 18), the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio (Jan. 11), the Hugo Wolf Quartet (Feb. 7), the pianist Stephen Hough (Feb. 24), Chamber Orchestra Kremlin (March 22) and the tenor Anthony Kalil and pianist Ken Noda (April 19).

Society of the Four Arts

At the Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach, the pianist and commentator Jeffrey Siegel will present three of his “Keyboard Conversations” events, in which he discusses and performs the works of various composers. This season they will be devoted to the music of Gershwin (Jan. 7), Chopin and Grieg (Feb. 15) and “popular piano classics” (March 29).

Also scheduled is a strong series of concerts, including the American Chamber Players (Jan. 11), the Rastrelli Cello Quartet (Jan. 18), the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (Jan. 25), the Hugo Wolf Quartet (Feb. 8), the baritone Thomas Hampson singing American songs (Feb. 11), the pianist Vladimir Feltsman (Feb. 18), a trio consisting of the violinist Philip Setzer, cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han (Feb. 22), Cuarteto Casals (March 8) and the Minetti Quartet (March 15).

Broward College Bailey Concert Hall

At the concert hall of Broward College (baileyhall.org/signature-series), the Amernet String Quartet will perform Jewish liturgical music featuring the American cantor Daniel Gross and pianist Alan Mason (Nov. 9). To celebrate the hall’s new Steinway grand piano, the pianist Gustavo Romero will play all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas in eight recitals (Jan. 16 – March 29).

FESTIVAL MIAMI

The University of Miami’s Frost School of Music will open its Festival Miami series Oct. 10 with a concert of American music performed by the Frost Symphony Orchestra conducted by Thomas Sleeper (festivalmiami.com). The program, called “Made in America,” will include well-known works such as Ives’ Unanswered Question, Bernstein’s Candide Overture and Barber’s Violin Concerto with soloist Michael Ludwig. It will also include rarities like Paul Creston’s Saxophone Concerto, with soloist Dale Underwood, and Carl Ruggles’ Sun-Treader, and the world premiere of Three Glorious Days by Matthew Evan Taylor, a Frost doctoral candidate (Oct. 10).

The Pulse chamber trio will perform music from China, Cuba, Hungary, Russia and the United States, including the world premiere of Heroic Measures by Dorothy Hindman (Oct. 15). There will be an evening of classical guitar, featuring the music of the Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo, with guitarists Rafael Padrón, Rene Izquierdo, Isaac Bustos, and Federico Musgrove (Oct. 21).

The renowned soprano Dawn Upshaw will perform the Florida premiere of Winter Morning Walks, the Grammy-winning song cycle by the American composer Maria Schneider, with the composer conducting the Frost School’s Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra (Oct. 25). The young Ukrainian pianist Vadym Kholodenko, gold medal winner in the 2013 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, will perform a recital that will include Handel’s Suite in F Major, Mozart’s Sonata in A Minor, Beethoven’s Andante Favori, Debussy’s Children’s Corner Suite and Pour le Piano and Balakirev’s Islamey (Nov. 4).

REGIONAL ORCHESTRAS

The Symphonia

The Symphonia of Boca Raton (bocasymphonia.org) plans a four-concert season at its home at Saint Andrew’s School. Soloists include David Kim, concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra, who will perform Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (Dec. 21); cellist Julian Schwarz for the Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto No. 1 (Jan. 11); violinist Gareth Johnson and violist Scott O’Donnell for Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante (Feb. 22) and Jeffrey Kaye in the Haydn Trumpet Concerto (April 12). Conductors include Gerard Schwarz, former music director of the Seattle Symphony, Alexander Platt, music director of the Wisconsin Philharmonic and other orchestras, and James Judd, former music director of the Florida Philharmonic.

Symphony of the Americas
Symphony of the Americas (symphonyoftheamericas.org) plans a pops-focused season that begins with a performance by the Salani Piano Duo (Oct. 14) and continues with a concert by Cirque de la Symphonie that will include dancers, acrobats and jugglers (Nov. 9-11), a holiday performance by the piano duo Dunlap and Pennington (Dec. 7-9), an all-Dvořák program with the Israeli cellist Yehuda Hanani performing the Cello Concerto (Feb. 10), a concert of classics and Broadway (March 10) and a program with the Gay Men’s Chorus of South Florida (April 7 and 12).

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