What about the music?
An inside look with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra
Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy & Sibelius’s Second Symphony
Friday, October 3, 2025 | 7:30PM | Diamonstein Concert Hall – Ferguson Center – Get Tickets
Saturday, October 4, 2025 | 7:30PM | Chrysler Hall – Get Tickets
Thomas Wilkins, conductor
Albert Cano Smit, piano
Virginia Symphony Orchestra Chorus
Michael Abels: Amplify*
Franz Schubert: Hunters’ Chorus from Rosamunde
Ludwig van Beethoven: Choral Fantasy
Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 2
By Stella Feliberti
The Performers
VSO Principal Guest Conductor
Thomas Wilkins
Thomas Wilkins is currently principal conductor of the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, Artistic Advisor for Education and Community Engagement at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and he holds the Henry A. Upper Chair of Orchestral Conducting at Indiana University. He recently stepped down after 17 successful years leading the Omaha Symphony and his guest conducting credits include every major American orchestra.
Devoted to promoting a life-long enthusiasm for music, Mr. Wilkins brings energy and commitment to audiences of all ages. He is hailed as a master at communicating and connecting with audiences. Following his highly successful first season with the Boston Symphony, the Boston Globe named him among the “Best People and Ideas of 2011.” In 2014, Mr. Wilkins received the prestigious “Outstanding Artist” award at the Nebraska Governor’s Arts Awards, for his significant contribution to music in the state while in 2018 Thomas Wilkins received the Leonard Bernstein Lifetime Achievement Award for the Elevation of Music in Society conferred by Boston’s Longy School of Music.
Mr. Wilkins is a graduate of the Shenandoah Conservatory of Music and the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. He and his wife Sheri-Lee are the proud parents of twin daughters, Erica and Nicole.
Photo by Chris Lee
Piano
Albert Cano Smit
A musician who has been praised as “a moving young poet” (Le Devoir of Montreal), Spanish/Dutch pianist Albert Cano Smit enjoys a growing international career on the orchestral, recital, and chamber music stages. Noted for his captivating performances, storytelling quality and nuanced musicality, the First Prize winner of the 2019 Young Concert Artists Susan Wadsworth International Auditions has appeared as a soloist with the Seattle Symphony, Las Vegas Philharmonic, the San Diego Symphony, Montréal Symphony, the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle, Orchestra of St Luke’s, Barcelona Symphony, Catalonia National Orchestra, Manchester Camerata.
A polyglot who speaks five languages, Albert was born in Geneva, the son of a Dutch mother and Spanish father. He left home at 9 to join the Escolania de Montserrat choir school, where hours of rehearsal every day strongly affected his musical development. Albert recently completed an Artist Diploma and Masters Degree with Robert McDonald at the Juilliard School, where he was awarded the 2020 Rubinstein Prize for Piano. He also holds a BA in Piano Performance from the Colburn School with Ory Shihor, and studied at Chetham’s School of Music with Marta Karbownicka and Graham Caskie. He is an alum of the Verbier Festival Academy and Ravinia Steans Institute. He currently resides in New York City.
Virginia Symphony Orchestra Chorus
The 2023-2024 season marks the 34nd anniversary of the Virginia Symphony Chorus, and its twenty-seventh under the direction of Chorusmaster Robert Shoup. In addition to regular appearances with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, the chorus has performed outside Hampton Roads to remarkable acclaim. Under the baton of Mr. Shoup, the Chorus has traveled to sold-out houses as far afield as Prague, Vienna, Berlin, Leipzig, Munich, Salzburg and closer to home at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The Chorus has appeared twice at the Breckenridge Music Festival in Colorado, was an integral part of the 400th anniversary of Jamestown Celebration, and in 2010 was the featured chorus of the critically acclaimed Virginia Arts Festival performance of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass. In 2012, the Chorus was a key participant with the Virginia Arts Festival presentation of Mahler’s 8th Symphony. Most recently, a commendable performance of Stravinsky’s Les Noces was presented and recorded in Norfolk, in May of 2013.
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The Creators
Michael Abels
Fast Facts:
- Michael Abels is an American composer and film-scorer born in 1962. He grew up in Phoenix and South Dakota, starting piano lessons from a young age. He would later attend the University of Southern California.
- Abels is known for his compositions for large ensembles. Some of his works like Global Warming have received hundreds of performances by many of the major American Orchestras.
- He also enjoys reinventing classical styles and popular idioms. Abels blends styles from Baroque to minimalism to West African idioms.
- Abels is also a prolific film composer. His most recent films include Nope and Get Out, both of which have been recognized for their musical ingenuity.
- Abels is a co-founder of Composer Diversity Collective, which is an advocacy group to promote composers of color in film and gaming. He also has collaborated with the Sphinx organization, which supports Black and Hispanic Artists.
Franz Schubert
Fast Facts:
- Franz Schubert was born in 1797 in Vienna. He began his musical studies from a young age with piano lessons at age five, violin at eight, and composition by the time he was a teenager.
- Schubert was also part of a family string quartet where he played viola. His brothers played first and second violin while his father played cello. It was for this ensemble that he wrote his earliest string quartets.
- Schubert is most known for his art songs, or Lied in German. By the time of his death, he wrote over 600 songs.
- He was known for hosting lavish musical parties called “Schubertiads.” It was here that he and other composers were able to perform and discuss new compositions. Some notable attendees were Ludwig van Beethoven and Anton Diabelli.
- Schubert lived a short life and died at age 31 due to syphilis. It wasn’t until after his death that some of his most notable compositions like his “Unfinished Symphony,” his and Symphony No.9 “The Great” were finally brought to light.
Ludwig van Beethoven
Fast Facts:
- Beethoven started composing around age 9 and published his first compositions in 1783.
- Beethoven learned how to play violin, viola, and piano from a very young age. He got his first job as a musician as the court’s organist under Christian Gottlob Neefe.
- Beethoven started to study under Franz Joseph Haydn in 1792 where he took counterpoint lessons and studied violin. Though he studied with the great Haydn, Beethoven aspired to meet and study with Mozart. However, the two never met despite their efforts to connect.
- Beethoven is known for writing masterwork Symphonies but is also highly regarded for his chamber music, especially his string quartets.
- Beethoven is known for leading the transition from the Classical Era into the Romantic Period, leading to his high regard as one of the most famous composers of all time.
- While most consider Beethoven to be completely deaf by his later symphonies, including the 7th Symphony played on this concert, he did not lose his hearing completely until 1826 when his String Quartet in B-flat Op.130 premiered.
Jean Sibelius
Fast Facts:
- Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer born in 1865. His parents weren’t musicians as his father was a doctor and mother, a house wife. However after his father’s death, he moved with his mother to live with his grandmother where his uncle introduced him to music through the violin.
- Sibelius first grew up as a violinist after his uncle started giving him lessons at age 10. His uncle became his musical adviser as he was the one who encouraged Sibelius to begin composing.
- Despite showing promise as a self-taught composer, Sibelius still sought to be a violinist first. He even auditioned for the Vienna Philharmonic, but was sadly denied. He eventually turned to composing full time, allowing him to realize his full potential.
- Sibelius from a young age enjoyed nature and the Finnish landscape. Many of his pieces tap into the natural world to reflect his love for nature.
- Sibelius is now known for his contributions to the symphonic repertoire. His seven symphonies and symphonic poems. He had a unique approach to form, theme, harmony, and orchestration that inspired many composers like Ralph Vaughn Williams and William Walton.
The Piece
Abels
Amplify
Listen to Abels’ inspiration and story behind Amplify:
- Amplify was written by Michael Abels as a commission* from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Jader Bignamini, Music Director; Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Eric Jacobsen, Music Director; Colorado Music Festival, Peter Oundjian, Music Director; and the Sarasota Orchestra, Giancarlo Guerrero, Music Director.
- This piece for orchestra is about propaganda*, yet it was first inspired by the 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky’s overture is a Russian patriotic piece that celebrates the victory of the war in 1812, acting as a piece of propaganda for the country. Now, this overture is used by US orchestras to celebrate Independence Day and other patriotic events.
- Abels, following Tchaikovsky’s lead, wanted to create a similar patriotic propaganda piece to reflect the world today. He borrowed styles from both Tchaikovsky and American melodies to examine the complex structure of today’s world.
Schubert
Hunting Song from Rosamunde
Listen to Schubert’s Hunters’ Chorus from Rosamunde by The Chamber Orchestra of Europe:
- Rosamunde originally was a play by Helmina von Chézy, which was turned into incidental music (music written to accompany a dramatic performance on stage, film, radio, television, or recording) by Franz Schubert in 1823.
- The music tells the story follows Rosamunde, a cursed princess raised by mariners, who attempts to reclaim her throne. The governor, Fulgentius (or Fulvio in some versions) tries to stop Rosamunde through marriage proposal and attempted poisoning. However, Rosamunde supported by the Cyrpiots and Cretan Prince Alfonso, her intended husband. Thus, Rosamunde is successful and ascends the throne.
- The “Hunting Song” or “Jägerchor” from Rosamunde expresses the joy and excitement of the countryside and the pursuit of the hunt.
- The original score for Rosamunde was not found until 1867 by music writer George Grove and composer Arthur Sullivan who found it in the “farthest corner, a bundle of music-books two feet high.” The entirety of the work was not published until 1891 with all the numbers of the incidental music finally all joined together in one publication in full orchestration.
Beethoven
Choral Fantasty
Listen to Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy by the Singapore Symphony:
- Beethoven wrote his Choral Fantasy in 1808 for a benefit concert (a concert hosted by a composer to premiere new works and generate income. Composers would rent halls, hire musicians, sell tickets, and perform new works to generate income. Any money left after paying everyone involved would directly go to the composer for their benefit) he was hosting in December. In addition to this work, he would premiere his fifth and sixth symphonies, his fourth piano concerto, and excerpts from his Mass in C.
- At its premiere*, the Fantasy was described as an “improvisation for piano with gradual entrance of the orchestra and finally a choral section and finale.” Like many of the works on this program, the Choral Fantasy was sight-read on the spot due to limited rehearsal time; the piano solo part was not notated entirely until 1809, which was after the premiere in 1808, making it likely that the composer himself improvised for the premiere.
- Some musicologists note similarities of the main theme of the Fantasy to Beethoven’s later Symphony No.9 with the infamous “Ode to Joy” variations at the end of the fourth movement. It is widely felt that this piece acts as an early version to the later masterwork of Symphony No.9. Beethoven even acknowledged the similarities as he desired to set the text of “Ode to Joy” in a similar manner to Choral Fantasy.
- The Choral Fantasy is a set of free-variations that allow for fantastical and improvised-like melodies from the piano, highlighting Beethoven’s skills as a pianist. The chorus and orchestra add to the heroic grandeur and lyricism that adds musical depth to the unmistakable virtuosic piece.
Sibelius
Symphony No. 2
Listen to Sibelius’ Symphony No.2 by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra:
- Sibelius composed his second symphony between 1901 and 1902. He recently had been pressured to travel the world to broaden his inspiration as his contemporaries Tchaikovsky and Richard Strauss had done. Here he had images of Don Juan and Jean Paul haunt him, inspiring some of the major themes of the work.
- During the composition process, Sibelius noted images with certain motifs and themes he sketched. He noted on some drafts themes for Death and Christ for the second movement, hinting at a possible theme of death, defeat, and resurrection. However, Sibelius says that he only writes absolute music* indicating that the work is not programmatic*.
- After the premiere of the work, the public admired the majestic finale as it resonated with the recent struggle for Finland’s independence. Some even dubbed the piece the “Symphony of Independence.” Sibelius never revealed whether the symphony was made with independence and nationalism in mind.
- Robert Kajanus, founder and conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, describes the entire symphony best: “The Andante strikes one as the most broken-hearted protest against all the injustice that threatens at the present time to deprive the sun of its light and our flowers of their scent.… The scherzo gives a picture of frenetic preparation. Everyone piles his straw on the haystack, all fibers are strained and every second seems to last an hour. One senses in the contrasting trio section with its oboe motive in G-flat major what is at stake. The finale develops towards a triumphant conclusion intended to rouse in the listener a picture of lighter and confident prospects for the future.”
Glossary
Absolute Music
Music that has no association with an outside source
Programmatic Music
instrumental music that musically renders a narrative, picture, idea, or piece of literature
Premiere
The first performance of a piece
Commission
Paying composers to write a new piece for a specific purpose or event
Propaganda
Communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade and audience