Name: The Nutcracker
Start: 2025-12-14T14:00:00
Location: Baylor University

Beau Benson

Ballet Frontier of Texas

Waco Symphony Orchestra

With toy soldiers, dancing snowflakes, and the Sugar Plum Fairy, you won’t want to miss The Nutcracker—a treasured holiday tradition and the only production with live orchestra in Central Texas. Back by popular demand, Ballet Frontier returns to Waco to inspire a childlike wonder in all of us.

The Nutcracker

Baylor University

Aristo Sham, the Gold Medalist and “Audience Favorite” of the 2025 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, will join Maestro Loh and the Waco Symphony in playing the first piano concerto of Johannes Brahms. This competition was named for American pianist Van Cliburn who, in 1958 during the Cold War, won the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. In tribute to that monumental feat in artistic diplomacy, the WSO will perform Tchaikovsky’s final 6th Symphony. We open this concert with music by American composer Jessie Montgomery. She wrote Starburst in 2012 for The Sphinx Virtuosi, the flagship ensemble of the Sphinx Organization. Montgomery writes the following to describe this work: “Exploding gestures are juxtaposed with gentle fleeting melodies in an attempt to create a multidimensional soundscape.”

2025 Cliburn Gold Medalist

Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is the centerpiece of the final classical concert of the 25-26 season, a symphony that is universally known and truly knows no boundaries. We will open with an exciting new work by American composer Shawn Okpebholo, Stellar Fanfare Prelude for Orchestra, written in 2024 for the Chicago Symphony. We are proud to welcome the young American cellist Sterling Elliott, a 2021 Avery Fisher Grant recipient and winner of the Senior Division of the 2019 National Sphinx Competition.

Stellar, Sterling & Beethoven 5

Maestro Loh and the Waco Symphony welcome stars from Broadway for an unforgettable night in the Emerald City and beyond! Enjoy powerhouse renditions of iconic songs, from classic Broadway standards to modern hits.