Prepare to be swept away by a magnificent blend of classical traditions and contemporary innovations as the Sheboygan Symphony Orchestra (SSO) unveils its spectacular 2024-2025 season. This extraordinary lineup features three captivating events: the timeless splendor of Handel's 'Messiah,' a retrospective journey through musical legacies from Mozart to Montgomery, and the luminous melodies of the season finale, 'Luminescence.' Whether you're a seasoned symphony-goer or a curious newcomer, this season promises to captivate your senses and ignite your passion for orchestral music.

A Symphony of Traditions and Innovations: Unveiling Sheboygan Symphony Orchestra's 2024-2025 Season

The Sheboygan Symphony Orchestra is set to captivate audiences in 2026 with an exciting lineup of events, each offering a unique auditory experience. From the cozy setting of Chamber Music at the Loft to the grand orchestral movements of Link Up – The Orchestra Moves, and the timeless storytelling in America@250, these events promise to showcase a range of musical genres and artistic expressions. Join us as we dive into a year of sound, rhythm, and emotion through the world of symphonic music.

Exploring the Symphonic Journey: Sheboygan Symphony Orchestra's 2026 Events

The Sheboygan Symphony Orchestra is set to captivate audiences with a series of unique events, each offering a distinctive musical journey. From the intimate charm of Chamber Music at the Loft to the grandeur of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and the cultural tapestry of America@250, these events promise an enriching experience. Notable performances by acclaimed artists like Kathryn Henry and Llewellyn Sánchez-Werner underscore the orchestra's commitment to diversity and artistic excellence. Join us as we explore the vibrant soundscapes that await in Sheboygan, WI.

A Symphony of Experiences: Sheboygan's Diverse Musical Endeavors

The Sheboygan Symphony Orchestra is set to captivate music enthusiasts with a series of compelling performances in 2026. From the enchanting tales of 'Hansel and Gretel' to the dynamic journey of 'Link Up – The Orchestra Moves,' and culminating in the celebration of American musical heritage in 'America@250', each event promises a unique auditory experience. These concerts, featuring works like 'Symphonie Fantastique' and 'West Side Story,' offer a deep dive into the narratives woven by renowned composers, bringing music to life in captivating ways.

Sheboygan Symphony Orchestra: A Symphony of Stories, Movements, and American Classics

Plunge into the enchanting world of symphonic storytelling with the Sheboygan Symphony Orchestra's diverse lineup of events. From the classic tale of 'Hansel and Gretel' to the innovative orchestral exploration in 'Link Up – The Orchestra Moves', and the iconic 'West Side Story' in 'America@250', these events promise a rich tapestry of musical experiences. Hosted at the prestigious Stefanie H. Weill Center for the Performing Arts and other venues, these performances will showcase the genius of composers like Bernstein, Gershwin, and Still, offering an unforgettable journey through sound and emotion.

Symphonic Journeys: From Timeless Tales to Iconic Melodies

West Side Story is a singular, iconic musical theater work that combines the genius of Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Jerome Robbins, and Arthur Laurents. Based on Shakespeare’s play Romeo & Juliet, the musical stylizations draw heavily from jazz, Afro-Caribbean, and Mexican sources.

EPSG:4326

America@250

Stefanie H. Weill Center for the Performing Arts

Sound travels, it moves. Music moves. Music is highly organized sound, and is temporal, moving through time and space slowly or quickly, from low frequency to high frequency, structured through myriad patterns. Composers create these organized sounds that stimulate us intellectually, move us emotionally, and even dance.

Link Up – The Orchestra Moves

Hansel and Gretel (Overture), Symphonie Fantastique

Storytellers

Chamber music with tasting flight and appetizers.

Chamber Music at the Loft – Jan, 2026

Black Pig

Featuring the animated film The Snowman, scenes from The Nutcracker, three songs from Home Alone and the Sheboygan Symphony Chorus

Snowmen, Nutcrackers…and Kevin McCallister!?

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony featuring Kathryn Henry, Aaron Wardell, and the Sheboygan Symphony Chorus

Unity & Hope

Chamber Music at the Loft

Experience the grandeur of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 featuring pianist Fanya Lin, who wowed our audience in 2023, and Sibelius’ Nordic opus, Symphony No. 2, in SSO’s blockbuster Season Finale. Embark on a journey through the captivating soundscape of German-American Ingrid Stölzel’s City Beautiful as it opens the program.

Luminescence

Grammy Award winner Jessie Montgomery blends jazz and baroque elements into her unique musical tapestry, while Carlos Simon delves into Beethoven’s legacy. Meanwhile, Mozart and Tchaikovsky reflect on their own musical past in this retrospective program.

Retrospection

Handel’s Messiah has been performed somewhere in the world every single year since its premiere in 1741! The Sheboygan Symphony Chorus celebrates its 30th season with this timeless masterpiece. Join in singing during the Hallelujah Chorus! Sheet music will be provided for audience participation.

Messiah

The season opens with Beethoven’s Pastorale Symphony, a delightful promenade through the Viennese countryside, alongside the world premiere of Jacob Bancks’ The Healing Machine, an SSO commission drawing inspiration from the Kohler Art Preserve’s treasures.

Nature

We end the season triumphantly, with one of the greatest American masterpieces, Samuel Barber’s youthful violin concerto, with lush passages and a fireworks finale. Gustav Mahler’s First Symphony, called “Titan,” features evocations of nature, Austrian country dances, darkly witty klezmer tunes and a stunning grand finale.

Titan

In March we present Louise Farrenc’s Symphony No. 3, a hidden gem with exuberant intensity. Mozart’s Requiem is long admired for its powerful expression of grief and consolation ever since it was performed soon after the composer’s untimely death. Today, it’s heard in film scores nearly as often as in the concert hall.

Requiem

Our holiday concert features a variety of seasonal selections, including audience favorites like Sleigh Ride and Silent Night plus pieces new to the SSO: Symph-Hanukkah and Navidad Latina.

Holiday Pops

We open our second season under Maestro Estigarribia with an Sheboygan Symphony Orchestra premiere, a rhythmic and energetic piece titled Fiesta! by Peruvian Jimmy López Bellido, followed by Mozart’s 21st Piano Concerto with its ravishing slow movement. Brahms’ dramatic and triumphant First Symphony completes this festive program.

Fiesta!

Minnesota composer Bancks takes us to both rural and urban “wild” spaces, followed by Prokofiev’s dazzling Second Violin Concerto. And Beethoven’s Fifth, from its bold first notes to its triumphant conclusion, will be the perfect season finale!

Cause For Celebration

In honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day (April 17), the SSO String Quartet, the Sheboygan Symphony Chorus and the Sheboygan Symphony Chamber Singers present a concert of music by composers tragically silenced by the Nazis, plus a moving set of Hebrew Love Songs by Eric Whitacre. This concert is sure to be a poignant experience that will remind all of us that, indeed, “Love Conquers Hate.”

Remembering The Holocaust

Beth El Congregation

Walker’s Lyric for Strings was written as a lament for his grandmother born into slavery. Mozart’s sublime Clarinet Concerto, one of his last completed works, will feature Milwaukee Symphony Principal Clarinet, Todd Levy. And to end, Dvořák’s Sixth Symphony is rich in melody and Czech dance rhythms.

A Lyrical Evening

The world-famous CLASSICAL KIDS production of “Beethoven Lives Upstairs” features a lively exchange of letters between young Christoph and his uncle. Their subject: the “madman” who has moved into the upstairs apartment of Christoph’s Vienna home. Through a touching correspondence, dramatically underscored with the composer’s most beautiful excerpts, Christoph slowly comes to understand the genius of Beethoven and the beauty of his music.

Family Concert

Weill Center for the Performing Arts

Enjoy a thirty-minute concert featuring Sheboygan Symphony Orchestra musicians performing chamber music in a more intimate and casual setting with tasting flights and appetizers in the upper level Berkshire Loft of the Black Pig.

Chamber Music at the Loft – Bourbon & Bites

Jonathan Leshnoff is a GRAMMY-nominated composer known for his use of striking harmonic language and compelling melodies. Score, premiered in 2022, is a brief, ebullient piece that is ideally suited to serve as the season’s opening music.

Epic

Chamber Music at the Loft – Wine & Swine

George Frideric Handel’s oratorio Messiah is now considered one of the singularly most popular works of Classical music, but its premiere in April 1742 took place in Dublin, Ireland and had only a modest public reception. Many different iterations of how to perform this work have occurred throughout the 280-plus years since then, from re-orchestrations to having several hundred singers, to a return to more historically accurate performance practices. This is a large-scale work. The oratorio is comprised – in full – of three large parts, 16 scenes, and 53 smaller recitatives/movements. Its popularity, and mutability for how to approach its performance, are a testament to the greatness of this music and to Handel.

Messiah 2026

In collaboration with the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, we are presenting a chamber orchestra in the Matrix featuring 13 of our musicians in a program of all American composers. Structured around Aaron Copland’s now iconic score for the Martha Graham ballet Appalachian Spring, James Stephenson’s 2023 work Persephone for 13 Players was, in fact, intended to be a companion piece. Rounding out this program is Barbara Harbach’s 2006 piece American Solstice for Chamber Ensemble. Experiencing a smaller-scale orchestra in the intimate Matrix space at JMKAC is yet another way to come together with friends and family to hear great quality music.

All American

John Michael Kohler Arts Center

Chamber Music at the Loft – Island Vibes

This concert is a special showcase for the Sheboygan Symphony Chorus and its Director Jonathan Laabs. Accompanied by eight instrumentalists, this 70-minute, 2013 work composed by Bob Chilcott, is a setting from the Gospel of Saint John, and an uplifting retelling of the Passion story. Most often an orchestra chorus director’s role is behind the scenes, preparing the choir over a period of weeks for a public concert where the orchestra’s music director serves as conductor. For this concert, Dr. Jonathan Laabs will conduct. The Chorus will be joined by soloists Chelsea Betz, Jeremiah Cawley, and Joel Rathmann. The architectural and spiritual beauty of Holy Name Catholic Church is the perfect venue to hear this music and experience the communal power of listening together.

Passion

Holy Name Catholic Church

There are two short, newer works on this program that are noteworthy. The first is Spun by Molly Herron. Herron has described her compositions “as a collision between old compositional ideas (such as those of Vivaldi and Haydn) and my contemporary ears.” This work was inspired by the poems of Jean Gallagher, who shares a similar artistic sensibility. The second is by Wisconsin-native Michael Torke. Oracle has a distinctly dignified character, but clearly highlights Torke’s inventiveness of instrument combinations and harmonies, eliciting a kaleidoscope of sonic colors.

The major works for this concert are the Sibelius Violin Concerto and Stravinsky’s The Firebird Suite.

Colors

Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 in C minor, also known as the “Resurrection” symphony, is a gigantic work of five movements that explores life, death, and spiritual rebirth. The orchestra is enormous, requiring extended brass, woodwind, and percussion sections. Judiciously utilized are two vocal soloists and large chorus to sing text from Friedrich Klopstock’s poem “Die Auferstehung” (“The Resurrection”). The final inspiration for Mahler was his presence at his friend and world-famous conductor Hans von Bülow’s funeral where the Klopstock poem was recited. As with much of Mahler’s symphonic writing, the music vacillates between emotional states – sometimes wildly – and highly complex music contrasting with the simplest of folk songs. It is always a journey … and one well worth taking.

Sheboygan Symphony Orchestra

Sep 10, 2026

Chamber Music at the Loft – Bourbon & Bites

Oct 10, 2026

Epic

Oct 29, 2026

Chamber Music at the Loft – Wine & Swine

Dec 12, 2026

Messiah 2026

Jan 14, 2027

All American

May 16, 2026

America@250

Mar 10, 2026

Link Up – The Orchestra Moves

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