VIRGINIA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ANNOUNCES 2017-2018 CLASSICS SEASON

HAMPTON ROADS, VA [Jan. 19, 2017] – The Virginia Symphony Orchestra (VSO) announced today its programs for the 2017-2018 Classics season. In what will be its 97th season—and conductor JoAnn Falletta’s 27th season as Music Director—the VSO brings eight weeks of classical-subscription programs to venues in Norfolk, Newport News, and Virginia Beach.

The seasons starts with a not-to-be-missed performance featuring five-time Grammy award-winning bassist Victor Wooten. Named one of the “Top 10 Bassists of All Time” by Rolling Stone, Wooten has been the bassist for Béla Fleck and the Flecktones since the group’s formation in 1988 and is a graduate of Denbigh High School in Newport News. Wooten will perform The Bass Whisperer, a piece composed especially for him, on a concert that also celebrates the 100^th anniversary of NASA Langley. To help commemorate the significance of this anniversary, the VSO presents Gustav Holst’s The Planets—a work that has inspired sci-fi movie music for generations—and the premiere of Randall Svane’s Quantum Flight.

Come October, the VSO presents a condensed version of Richard Wagner’s 15-hour Ring Cycle—a composition that is to opera what Lord of the Rings is to literature and film! JoAnn Falletta and a special guest narrator weave this timeless fairy tale full of love, greed, revenge, and jealousy into a single night of scintillating and captivating music.

Next, in November, the Symphony marks the 500th anniversary of the Reformation by presenting one of Felix Mendelssohn’s grandest symphonies—one written “to celebrate the Church Revolution”—together with the piece that inspired it: Bach’s Cantata No. 80. We welcome to the stage for her first-ever performances in Hampton Roads renowned international star and best-selling pianist Simone Dinnerstein to hear two wonderful keyboard concerti from Bach’s hand.

With Christmas fast upon us, JoAnn Falletta conducts the Virginia Symphony Orchestra for the time-honored Christmas tradition of George Frideric Handel’s revered oratorio, Messiah. Get in the spirit of the season with this distinguished performance of Handel’s sacred masterpiece that presents the austere and dramatic narrative of the Messiah. From Isaiah’s prophecies to the Hallelujah Chorus, you will be brought to your feet in the Messiah performance of the season.

As weather gets even chillier in January, warm up with the VSO as we travel through of the seven hills of Rome during Ottorino Respighi’s powerful Roman Festivals, the third in his popular “Roman Trilogy” of orchestral favorites. This enchanted concert opens with Beethoven’s ever-beloved Violin Concerto performed through the hands of master soloist Tianwa Yang, quoted to be, “the most important violinist to come on the scene in many a year.” Rounding out this concert is Pietro Mascagni’s beautiful Intermezzo from Cavelleria Rusticana which musically illustrates the beautiful Sicilian countryside in which this one-act opera is set and is sure to be an unforgettable evening.

In February, a Virginia premiere brings to light a recently rediscovered piece by Igor Stravinsky, Funeral Song, which was found in 2015 in the St. Petersburg Conservatory. French pianist, Prisca Benoît, known for her intense and powerful sound, performs Chopin’s moving Piano Concerto No. 2. Twenty-one years after its conception, Brahms wrote his first symphony after hearing Beethoven’s Ninth, both pieces in D minor.

Moving into March, the Symphony welcomes guest conductor Eric Jacobsen (conductor and co-founder of the out-of-the-box orchestral ensemble The Knights) for a contemporary masterwork by Philip Glass, featuring two of the VSO’s beloved principal players, Michael Laubach and Robert Cross. This performance will thrill audiences in substance and style with the Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Orchestra. Also on this concert is Scheherazade—the musical portrayal of a story from One Thousand and One Nights in which the Persian queen Scheherazade saves her own life through cunning story-telling.

Finally, the season closes with one of the most recognizable works of all time—Carmina Burana. Based on 24 of the poems found in the medieval collection Carmina Burana, this 20th-century choral masterpiece has been heard countless times in film, television and even at professional sporting events. Also on this dynamic program is the world premiere of Michael Daugherty’s Concerto for Orchestra—commissioned by Susan and David Goode—which is inspired by the steam locomotive photography of O. Winston Link. Our partners for this production include the Virginia Museum of Transportation and the O. Winston Link Museum in Roanoke.

Season tickets are available in packages for all 8 concerts in Newport News, Norfolk and Virginia Beach and range in price from $176 to $765. Tickets for individual concerts will go on sale mid-summer. Season tickets are available by calling Patron Services at 757.892.6366 or visiting virginiasymphony.org/subscriptions. As always, subscribers receive the greatest savings and benefits.

JoAnn Falletta is internationally celebrated as a vibrant ambassador for music, an inspiring artistic leader, and a champion of American symphonic music. She has been praised by The Washington Post as having “Toscanini’s tight control over ensemble, Walter’s affectionate balancing of inner voices, Stokowski’s gutsy showmanship, and a controlled frenzy worthy of Bernstein.”

Acclaimed by The New York Times as “one of the finest conductors of her generation,” she serves as the Music Director of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of the Brevard Music Center.

Falletta is the recipient of many of the most prestigious conducting awards including the Seaver/National Endowment for the Arts Conductors Award, the coveted Stokowski Competition, and the Toscanini, Ditson and Bruno Walter Awards for conducting, as well as the American Symphony Orchestra League’s prestigious John S. Edwards Award. She is an ardent champion of music of our time, introducing over 500 works by American composers, including more than 110 world premieres. Hailing her as a “leading force for the music of our time,” she has been honored with twelve ASCAP awards.

Under her direction, the VSO has risen to celebrated artistic heights and is ranked in the top ten percent of professional orchestras nationwide. The VSO, which made critically acclaimed debuts at the Kennedy Center and New York’s Carnegie Hall under Falletta, entered into their first multinational recording agreement with Naxos. During the 2015-2016, the Orchestra recorded three discs for the Naxos label; Mahler (arr. Schoenberg) The Song of the Earth, The Songs of a Wayfarer, and two discs of music of Stravinsky, The Soldier’s Tale (complete) and Suite from The Soldier’s Tale, Les Noces and Octet.

Ms. Falletta received her undergraduate degree from the Mannes College of Music in New York and her master’s and doctorate degrees from The Juilliard School.

Under the leadership of GRAMMY-winning music director JoAnn Falletta, the Virginia Symphony Orchestra is Virginia’s preeminent professional symphony orchestra with a mission of inspiring, educating and connecting audiences of all ages.

Founded in 1921, it is ranked in the top ten percent of professional orchestras nationwide and serves the entire Southeastern Virginia region with Classics, Pops and Family concert series in Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Newport News and Williamsburg as well as performances in outlying Virginia and North Carolina communities, reaching nearly 150,000 concert-goers every year. Additionally, the orchestra annually reaches 45,000 children, students and lifelong learners with its education and community programs. The Virginia Symphony has performed at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center and is the cornerstone of the performing arts in Hampton Roads.

2017-2018 Virginia Symphony Orchestra Classics Season at a Glance

Programs, artists, dates and venues are subject to change

Holst’s The Planets!
Friday, September 22, 2017, 8PM, Ferguson Center for the Arts, Newport News
Saturday, September 23, 2017, 8PM, Chrysler Hall, Norfolk
Sunday, September 24, 2017, 2:30PM, Sandler Center for the Performing Arts, Virginia Beach 

JoAnn Falletta, conductor
Victor Wooten, double bass
Women of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra Chorus
Robert Shoup, chorusmaster

Randall Svane: Quantum Flight
Conni Ellisor: The Bass Whisperer
Holst: The Planets

 The Best of Wagner’s Ring Cycle
Friday, October 20, 2017, 8PM, Ferguson Center for the Arts, Newport News
Saturday, October 21, 2017, 8PM, Chrysler Hall, Norfolk
Sunday, October 22, 2017, 2:30PM, Sandler Center for the Performing Arts, Virginia Beach 

JoAnn Falletta, conductor

Wagner: The Ring 

From the Music of Bach to the Reformation Symphony
Friday, November 3, 2017, 8PM, Ferguson Center for the Arts, Newport News
Saturday, November 4, 2017, 8PM, Chrysler Hall, Norfolk
Sunday, November 5, 2017, 2:30PM, Sandler Center for the Performing Arts, Virginia Beach

Benjamin Rous, conductor
Simone Dinnerstein, piano
Virginia Symphony Orchestra Chorus
Robert Shoup, chorusmaster

 Bach: Cantata No. 80 (Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott)
Bach: Keyboard Concerto
Mendelssohn: Reformation Symphony 

Handel’s Messiah
Friday, December 15, 2017, 8PM, First Baptist Church Newport News, Newport News
Saturday, December 16, 2017, 8PM, Harrison Opera House, Norfolk

JoAnn Falletta, conductor
Virginia Symphony Orchestra Chorus
Robert Shoup, chorusmaster

Handel: Messiah

A Roman Holiday
Friday, January 19, 2018, 8PM, Ferguson Center for the Arts, Newport News
Saturday, January 20, 2018, 8PM, Chrysler Hall, Norfolk
Sunday, January 21, 2018, 2:30PM, Sandler Center for the Performing Arts, Virginia Beach

 JoAnn Falletta, conductor
Tianwa Yang, Violin

Beethoven: Violin Concerto
Mascagni:  Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana
Respighi:  Roman Festivals

Classics from Chopin and Brahms
Friday, February 23, 2018, 8PM, Ferguson Center for the Arts, Newport News
Saturday, February 24, 2018, 8PM, Chrysler Hall, Norfolk
Sunday, February 25, 2018, 2:30PM, Sandler Center for the Performing Arts, Virginia Beach

JoAnn Falletta, conductor
Prisca Benoît, piano

Stravinsky: Funeral Song (Virginia premiere)
Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 2
Brahms: Symphony No. 1

Scheherazade and a Philip Glass Fantasy
Friday, March 9, 2018, 8PM, Ferguson Center for the Arts, Newport News
Saturday, March 10, 2018, 8PM, Chrysler Hall, Norfolk
Sunday, March 11, 2018, 2:30PM, Sandler Center for the Performing Arts, Virginia Beach

Eric Jacobsen, conductor
Michael Laubach, timpani
Robert Cross, timpani

Philip Glass: Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Orchestra
Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade

Carmina Burana PLUS a World Premiere!
Friday, April 6, 2018, 8PM, Ferguson Center for the Arts, Newport News
Saturday, April 7, 2018, 8PM, Chrysler Hall, Norfolk
Sunday, April 8, 2018, 2:30PM, Sandler Center for the Performing Arts, Virginia Beach

JoAnn Falletta, conductor
Virginia Symphony Orchestra Chorus
Virginia Children’s Chorus

Michael Daugherty: Concerto for Orchestra
Orff: Carmina Burana