Although the Jacksonville Symphony has performed more than sixty concerts since September, the New Year brings the majority of concerts to be presented in the 2017-2018 season. With eight Masterworks, seven Pops Series concerts and reappearances at Daily’s Place, just to name a few, the Jacksonville Symphony is ready for everyone to have a happy, musical New Year.
Masterworks programs include Requiem for an Angel, Shostakovich Five and a standout performance entitled Mozart and Friends. Being presented in March, this concert features two pieces by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and two by composers who spent their careers admiring his music: Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Claude Debussy. You’ll hear selections from Mozart’s Idomeneo, Tchaikovsky’s beloved Serenade in C major for Strings and Debussy’s well-known Prelude to The Afternoon of the Faun. All are masterpieces in a concert paying homage to Mozart’s musical influence.
April brings a Brahms and Bruckner concert, as well as Classical Conversations featuring guest conductor and pianist Sergey Neller. This appropriately titled concert will feature works by Haydn, Mozart and Stravinsky. Following will be American Landscape, a concert of works written by beloved American composers Ellington, Barber and Bernstein. The symphony will end the season with a spectacular performance featuring selections from Wagner’s magnificent Gotterdämmerung. Also known as The Ring, this momentous production will feature stars from the Metropolitan Opera performing some of the most dramatically powerful music in all of opera.
Those who love the Jacksonville Symphony’s Pops Series concerts will find a wide selection still to be heard. From The Music of David Bowie to music from your favorite Broadway hits in Reineke, Rodgers and Hammerstein, there is something for everyone to enjoy. The Pops season will end with an uplifting concert of Patriotic Pops honoring the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country in a celebration of Memorial Day.
New this season are two Special Presentation concerts. On the weekend of April 20, the Jacksonville Symphony will perform two concerts. The first, EarShot, is a program that serves as a component of the National Orchestra Competition Discovery Network, bringing up-and-coming composers together with orchestras. Composers submit works to be selected and performed by orchestras across the nation and will spend a week with the chosen symphony workshopping their compositions. The composers selected for Jacksonville will work under the guidance of Music Director Courtney Lewis, the musicians of the Jacksonville Symphony and mentor composers. The week concludes on April 20 with a concert featuring works that just may be among the next generation’s greatest hits.
The second of these two Special Presentations, Become Ocean, will honor Earth Day on Sunday, April 22. Earth Day brings John Luther Adams’ Become Ocean to Jacoby Symphony Hall. Adams’ luscious score has been described as “elemental, tectonic, unstoppable.” Interestingly enough, this piece that ebbs and flows much like its namesake, was composed in a desert. Adams says this of his monumental work: “Life on this earth first emerged from the sea. As the polar ice melts and sea levels rise, we humans find ourselves facing the prospect that once again we may quite literally become ocean.” Become Ocean brings together the Jacksonville Symphony and Dr. Quinton White, the executive director of Jacksonville University’s Marine Science Research Institute. Dr. White will open the concert with a presentation to further inspire those in attendance in honor of Earth Day.
For more information: jaxsymphony.org.
Tickets: (904) 354-5547.
