Diane Wittry, Conductor
Camille Zamora, Vocals
The Parkland High School Chorale, Guest Chorus

A sell-out every year and now an Allentown holiday music tradition!  Classics, carols, sing-a-longs and plenty of surprises (including a visit from a certain North Pole resident!). Perfect for family, friends, and co-workers. 

Diane Wittry, Conductor
Camille Zamora, Vocals
The Parkland High School Chorale, Guest Chorus

A sell-out every year and now an Allentown holiday music tradition!  Classics, carols, sing-a-longs and plenty of surprises (including a visit from a certain North Pole resident!). Perfect for family, friends, and co-workers. 

Have yourself a merry holiday season! The annual festive Holiday Pops Spectacular celebrates the jolliest time of year with a special appearance by Santa and Gettysburg Children’s Choir. The York Symphony and Chorus entertains concertgoers with Christmas classics and catchy songs and the memorable sing-along.

Have yourself a merry holiday season! The annual festive Holiday Pops Spectacular celebrates the jolliest time of year with a special appearance by Santa and Gettysburg Children’s Choir. The York Symphony and Chorus entertains concertgoers with Christmas classics and catchy songs and the memorable sing-along.

Chamber Orchestra of New York’s special event performance features contralto Alessandra Visentin in Ottorino Respighi’s song cycle Tre Liriche (Three Art Songs), following the October 11th release of its world premiere recording under Naxos Records. The song cycle was restored and completed orchestration by the orchestra’s Music Director & Composer, Salvatore Di Vittorio. The program will begin with John Barry’s James Bond Suite and conclude with Maurice Ravel’s Ma Mère l’Oye (Mother Goose) Suite, from the children’s complete ballet.

The facinating rhythms of George Gershwin will fill the air when Simon Mulligan joins the Allentown Symphony for this centennial salute to "Rhapsody in Blue." Plus Steven Banks performs a commissioned concerto from Grammy-winning composer Billy Childs.

SAMUEL COLERIDGE-TAYLOR  Ballade, Op. 33
BILLY CHILDS  Saxophone Concerto
WILLIAM GRANT STILL. Symphony No. 1 “Afro-American Symphony”
GEORGE GERSHWIN  Rhapsody in Blue

The facinating rhythms of George Gershwin will fill the air when Simon Mulligan joins the Allentown Symphony for this centennial salute to "Rhapsody in Blue." Plus Steven Banks performs a commissioned concerto from Grammy-winning composer Billy Childs.

SAMUEL COLERIDGE-TAYLOR  Ballade, Op. 33
BILLY CHILDS  Saxophone Concerto
WILLIAM GRANT STILL. Symphony No. 1 “Afro-American Symphony”
GEORGE GERSHWIN  Rhapsody in Blue

Opening Gala
Orli Shaham Plays Mozart
October 20, 2024 | 4:00 pm
Paramount Theatre, Middletown, NY

André Raphel, conductor
Orli Shaham, piano

J. Strauss, Jr. | Die Fledermaus Overture
Mozart | Piano Concerto No. 17 in G Major, K.453 
Orli Shaham, piano

INTERMISSION

Jessie Montgomery | Starburst 
(Ms. Montgomery is a 2024 GRAMMY Award Winner)
Stravinsky | Firebird Suite 1919 

This is Halloween! Accompanied by live orchestra, the classic Disney Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas” features stop motion animation for one incredibly memorable night at the York Symphony Orchestra. Watch on the cinema-sized screen as Pumpkin King Jack Skellington schemes to transform Halloween Town into a Christmas extravaganza.

This film is rated “PG.”

Presentation licensed by Disney Concerts.

The York Symphony Orchestra begins the 24-25 season with Gustav Holst’s beloved The Planets. Each movement highlights the seven planets from mystifying Neptune to war mongering Mars. John Williams’ famous Star Wars’ Main Title transports you among the stars to the Star Wars universe. Influenced by his Mexican roots, Arturo Márquez’s Paisajes bajo el signo de cosmos exudes compelling melodies and pervasive rhythm. Featuring Kenneth Osowski and Gretchen Dekker on pianos, Francis Poulenc composed Concerto for Two Pianos & Orchestra to purely entertain with charming melodies and jazz themes.

Arturo Márquez: Paisajes bajo el signo de cosmos [Landscapes Under the Sign of the Cosmos]

Francis Poulenc: Concerto for Two Pianos & Orchestra

Gustav Holst: The Planets

John Williams: Main Title from Star Wars

Johann Strauss II - Overture to Die Fledermaus
Eunike Tanzil - Veni, Vidi, Vici
Takashi Yoshimatsu - Cyberbird Concerto
     Valentin Kovalev, saxophone
Ludwig van Beethoven - Symphony No. 5

Johann Strauss II - Overture to Die Fledermaus
Eunike Tanzil - Veni, Vidi, Vici
Takashi Yoshimatsu - Cyberbird Concerto
     Valentin Kovalev, saxophone
Ludwig van Beethoven - Symphony No. 5

Diane Wittry, conductor

Tine Thing Helseth, trumpet

EMILIE MAYER Overture No. 2

ALEXANDER ARUTIUNIAN Trumpet Concerto

ASTOR PIAZZOLLA Libertango

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 5

Diane Wittry, conductor

Tine Thing Helseth, trumpet

EMILIE MAYER Overture No. 2

ALEXANDER ARUTIUNIAN Trumpet Concerto

ASTOR PIAZZOLLA Libertango

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 5

Sir George Benjamin is not only one of the most important composers of our time but also a great conductor. Which is why we have invited him to the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra (LFCO) in both capacities. Benjamin will perform two completely different concertos with the young musicians. As Luciano Berio’s paradoxical title indicates, his work Solo keeps the solo trombone and orchestra from interacting with each other as in a traditional concerto; instead, he stages a “meeting of two solitudes.” The soloist will be Jörgen van Rijen, principal trombone of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra who for this evening takes on a “side gig.” Meanwhile, in Benjamin’s own Concerto for Orchestra from 2021, the orchestra itself is the star: it dances and revels, each group of instruments taking the spotlight to show off their potential and specific musicians frequently stepping forward to deliver dazzling solos. “This piece is the most virtuoso thing I’ve composed in a long time,” says Benjamin. Hans Abrahamsen’s Vers le Silence, also premiered in 2021, likewise proves to be a celebration of timbral colors, with its four movements striving towards silence as the goal of all music.

Morton Feldman thought on the large scale: performances of his works can last several hours. In comparison, Coptic Light, his final orchestral piece, lasts just under 30 minutes and almost seems like a miniature. Inspired by ancient Coptic textiles he saw in the Louvre in Paris, Feldman weaves a gently billowing tapestry of sound from countless voices and motifs that overlap, shift in relation to each other, and constantly create new effects of light and color. Which is why Markus Güdel will complement the performance with lighting design. Beat Furrer has expressly requested Coptic Light for his Lucerne residency and will juxtapose the world premiere of his own work with Feldman’s trance-like, slow-motion music. He will also conduct a new trumpet concerto, showing how long-lasting the work of the Lucerne Festival Academy is: both the composer Lisa Streich and the soloist, Opus Klassik prizewinner Simon Höfele, were significantly shaped by their previous experiences at the Academy.

Curiosity is the driving force behind music history, as this survey by the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra (LFCO) shows. With his Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 16, Arnold Schoenberg ventured into free atonality at the beginning of the 20th century, using an expressively condensed “alternation of colors, rhythms, and moods.” Composer-in-residence Lisa Streich similarly thinks in terms of sound: Ishjärta (“Ice-heart”), which was premiered last summer by the Berliner Philharmoniker, oscillates between warm, pulsating textures and icy, frozen harmonies. There will also be works by two central stars of the Lucerne Festival Academy. Wolfgang Rihm composed In-Schrift for St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice, attempting to “inscribe” the famous sacred space into his music through bells, choral sounds, and a darkly luminous instrumentation lacking high strings. Pierre Boulez’s Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna, one of his most-evocative scores, likewise conjures a sacred aura as eight orchestral groups develop a “ceremony of remembrance” to the regular pulse of the percussionists, according to Boulez.