Conductor

Pianist

Music Director

Die Walküre is the second of Wagner’s four-opera Ring cycle. The first act narrates the tale of a forbidden romance with Wagnerian grandeur and themes that call the cycle’s other operas and characters to mind. FWSO Music Director Robert Spano leads the orchestra and star vocalists in a special concert version of this act, preceded by Sibelius’ Symphony No. 6, which the composer poetically described as “cold spring water” and the “scent of first snow.”

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Wagner’s Walküre and Sibelius’ Sixth

Bass Performance Hall

When Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 premiered in Leningrad, listeners gave an ovation that lasted longer than half an hour, catapulting this gripping, emotional work to immediate and lasting success. It’s one of the few works to unite both critics and the public in their positive opinions. To open the concert, Beethoven’s Egmont Overture suggests societal unease in its churning rhythms before five famous knocking notes open Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. Youthful violinist Stephen Waarts takes to the stage for this staple of violin repertoire while FWSO music director Robert Spano helms the orchestra.

Beethoven’s Violin Concerto: Beethoven and Shostakovich

Felix Mendelssohn was a child prodigy on the level of Mozart. When he was 16 he composed his Octet, blending youthful exuberance with a maturity and sophistication of style that helped launch his international career due to the sheer charm of the music, including the Faust-inspired scherzo, with its flitting melodies and lighter-than-air sensations, a particular specialty of Mendelssohn’s. Completing the program are American composer Samuel Barber’s hazy wind quintet Summer Music, and music for two pianists by Ligeti, Debussy and Amy Beach featuring FWSO Music Director Robert Spano and Pedja Mužijevic.

 Mendelssohn, Barber, and music for two pianists

Sundance Square

In the piano world, it's known as the "Rach Three," a moniker that comes with reverence, a quickening of the heart, and a dash of terror. Among the most difficult of all the popular piano concertos, it was written by one of the greatest pianists who ever lived: Sergei Rachmaninov (a composer who, let’s be honest, had huge hands). For all its difficulty, the Third is equally charming to the listener. To pull off this feat of artistry and virtuosity, the ASO welcomes one of the best: pianist Garrick Ohlsson. Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Music Director Laureate Robert Spano returns for a two-week residency. The longtime leader of the ASO brings with him an old friend of the Orchestra, Emmy Award-winning composer Adam Schoenberg for the world premiere of his Concerto for Orchestra.



Robert Spano + Garrick Ohlsson

Atlanta Symphony Hall

Much has been written about the riot that disrupted the 1913 world premiere of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. What incited such a reaction? Was it the music or the choreography? Was it the subject matter (human sacrifice), or was it personal? No one knows for sure, but by 1940, Walt Disney saw fit to include the piece in his feature film Fantasia. Today, The Rite of Spring isn’t quite so shocking but delivers a thrilling sound experience in the hands of a great orchestra. This week, ASO Music Director Laureate Robert Spano conducts Stravinsky’s masterpiece and welcomes the return of American composer Jonathan Leshnoff for the world premiere of his oratorio Sacrifice of Isaac.



Robert Spano + Rite of Spring

With his characteristic humor, swagger, and irreverence, Geoff Nuttall transformed Spoleto’s Bank of America Chamber Music series into something akin to rock-and-roll rather than buttoned-down classical. To honor Nuttall’s curatorial genius and infectious enthusiasm, some of his closest musical colleagues and special guest stars perform a concert of virtuosic debauchery—a brilliant tribute to a singular artist.

Celebrating Geoff Nuttall

Gaillard Center

In partnership with the International Trombone Festival and Texas Christian University, The FWSO’s season finale goes out with a blast, spotlighting the brass instruments of the orchestra. Music Director Robert Spano will lead the ensemble in a brand-new double concerto for trombone and piano by Texas Christian University alumnus Kevin Day as well as Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Jennifer Higdon’s river sings a song to trees. For the big finish: Mahler’s Symphony No. 5.

Season Finale: Jennifer Higdon, Kevin Day, and Mahler 5

Tchaikovsky, one of Russia’s greatest musical geniuses, was prone to bouts of self-doubt and reflection, but with his sixth and final symphony he knew he had a masterpiece on his hands. The “Pathétique” (“Passionate Symphony”) is an abstract exploration of the depth of human feeling and the centerpiece of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra’s celebratory opening weekend with Music Director Robert Spano and star violinist James Ehnes performing Sibelius’ glacial Violin Concerto with its “polonaise for polar bears” and Berlioz’s swashbuckling Roman Carnival Overture.

Opening Weekend: Tchaikovsky’s Sixth and Sibelius’ Violin Concerto

Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique is widely regarded as the first important symphonic poem, complete with shepherd’s pipes, a dance, a “March to the Scaffold,” a beheading, a “Witches’ Sabbath,” and more for sharp-eared listeners. FWSO Music Director Robert Spano serves as guide on this exploration of Berlioz’s psyche, which follows Debussy’s hazy Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun and Schumann’s Cello Concerto with FWSO Principal Cellist Allan Steele.

The Fwso’s Allan Steele: Schumann Cello Concerto and Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique

There are tectonic forces at play here: In December, the FWSO will give the world premiere performance of American composer Jake Heggie and Librettist Anita Amirrezvani’s, Earth 2.0 — a work exploring ecology and the environment in music — featuring star counter-tenor Key’mon Murrah and in partnership with the New York-based dance troupe Urban Bush Women. The orchestra’s Music Director Robert Spano will conduct the premiere before turning to one of the most universal works in the classical canon, Beethoven’s “Eroica” symphony.

Spano Conducts Beethoven and Jake Heggie

Who doesn’t love the story of 1,001 Arabian Nights? In Scheherazade, Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov used the full might of the symphony orchestra to retell a few of those tales. Heavy brass portray the sultan while a violin solo spins out the beginning of each of Scheherazade’s tales. Balancing the program is another of music’s most famous tales, Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, a ferocious story of sacrifice and rebirth where the orchestra and dancers share the stage.

Musical storytelling Spano Conducts: Scheherazade and The Rite of Spring

When Arnold Schoenberg met the woman he would marry, he was taken over by such strong emotion that he committed his impressions to music. The string sexted Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) follows the five stanzas of a poem with the same name, and though he’s now remembered for his work in atonality, this early offering is still as tonal and romantic as they come. After intermission, members of the FWSO will turn to Brahms’ G minor Piano Quartet, which finishes with its fiery Hungarian-style rondo.

Brahms and Schoenberg

A multi-Grammy Award winner and 2018 Olivier Award winner for Outstanding Achievement in Opera, Joyce DiDonato entertains audiences across the globe, and has been proclaimed “perhaps the most potent female singer of her generation: by The New Yorker.  With a voice “nothing less than 24-carat gold” according to The New York Times, she has towered at the top of the industry both as a performer, a producer, and a fierce advocate for the arts.

 Gala Concert Starring Joyce DiDonato

A superstitious composer, Mahler greatly feared the musical “curse of the ninth,” which claimed the lives of other great symphonists like Beethoven, Schubert and Bruckner. His own ninth, a work of epic melodies and proportions, was indeed his final symphonic offering, a four-movement work that many hear as Mahler’s farewell to life, a glorious work that sets the soul aflame. Be there when Music Director Robert Spano and the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra explore this tour-de-force, which begins with an irregular rhythm that Bernstein suggested was Mahler’s failing symphonic heartbeat.

Spano conducts Mahler’s Ninth

Wagner’s opera The Flying Dutchman is a eerie tale of redemption through love, set in the fearsome world of a ghost sea captain. To close out the symphonic season, the FWSO has assembled an all-star vocal cast and chorus to bring this spectral story to life in sharp relief, with all the tempestuousness and drama of Wagner’s music distilled in a special semi-staged production.

Wagner's The Flying Dutchman

In this not-to-be-missed program, the FWSO’s own Principal Clarinetist Stas Chernyshev steps to the front of the stage for Mozart’s sublime clarinet concerto, a work of utter elegance and refinement written for a fellow freemason. An all-Mozart affair, the performance also includes the madcap Overture to The Marriage of Figaro and the Symphony No. 39, which opens with one of the grandest fanfares in the canon before launching into a grand, courtly affair that has captivated the ear for more than 200 years.

Robert Spano

Conductor, Pianist, Music Director

Events

19 - 21 Apr, 2024

Wagner’s Walküre and Sibelius’ Sixth · Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra

3 - 5 May, 2024

Beethoven’s Violin Concerto: Beethoven and Shostakovich · Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra

May 4, 2024

Mendelssohn, Barber, and music for two pianists · Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra

9 - 11 May, 2024

Robert Spano + Garrick Ohlsson · Atlanta Symphony Orchestra

16 - 18 May, 2024

Robert Spano + Rite of Spring · Atlanta Symphony Orchestra

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