Na’Zir McFadden conductor
Sydney Tasker cello
Kate Shao piano

Coleridge-Taylor Ballade in a minor
Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto No. 1
Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue
Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet

Just over 100 years ago, George Gershwin composed a concerto for jazz orchestra, and the result redefined American music. Take in his Rhapsody in Blue, performed by Kate Shao, first-place winner in the piano division of this year’s Jackie McGehee Young Artists’ Competition. The youthful vigor continues with cellist Sydney Tasker, the first-place string division winner, performing Saint-Saëns’s Cello Concerto No. 1. Also on the program are Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s energetic Ballade and Tchaikovsky’s Overture-Fantasy Romeo and Juliet.

Roberto Minczuk Music Director
Olga Kern piano

Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 in d minor, Op. 30
Bruckner Symphony No. 4 in E-flat Major, WAB 104

Olga Kern is back, this time performing Sergei Rachmaninoff’s most technically challenging concerto, one made famous by Vladimir Horowitz. This will be but the latest of Olga’s visits to New Mexico, each one building upon the last. The symphonies of Anton Bruckner, including the fourth, performed here, were also built one upon the other. His Symphony No. 4 is known for both the extensive revisions it received by the composer as well as its powerful finale.

Roberto Minczuk Music Director

The New Mexico Philharmonic’s Power Concerts series is back for another season of illuminating, affordable, family-friendly concerts! This series is geared toward introducing young audience members and their families to classical music, the orchestra, and the instruments that make it all possible. Our first Power Concert of the season starts off with a bang! Our brass and percussion sections steal the show in the Power Concerts’ signature tune, the opening to Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra. Then, the magic of Bruckner meets the magic of the movies when we pair movements of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 with two of John Williams’s classics, the “Flying Theme” from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and “Darth Vader’s Theme” from Star Wars. Music Director Roberto Minczuk conducts.

Roberto Minczuk Music Director

Richter On the Nature of Daylight
Golijov Last Round
Dvorak Serenade Op. 22, B.52, E major

A serenade can be defined as a musical work to be performed outdoors on a beautiful evening. Antonín Dvořák helped define the genre with his five-movement serenade from 1875. Hear this work along with Osvaldo Golijov’s tango-flavored Last Round.

Includes coffee and donuts!

“As you wish.”

Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles … Experience one of the most beloved films of all time as never before… with the power of a full symphony orchestra performing the entire musical score live-to-picture!

Directed by Rob Reiner, The Princess Bride features an all-star cast including Robin Wright, Cary Elwes, Wallace Shawn, Mandy Patinkin, Chris Sarandon, Billy Crystal, Carol Kane, Christopher Guest, Fred Savage and André the Giant.

The great Peter Falk narrates this romantic tale of the beautiful maiden, Buttercup, and her one true love, a young farm hand named Westley. After he’s captured by a ruthless pirate and presumed dead, Buttercup’s unhappy marriage to the horrible Prince Humperdinck seems inevitable. But before the wedding can take place, she’s kidnapped by three outlaws and it’s up to a mysterious Man in Black to come to her rescue.

Composer Mark Knopfler’s unforgettable score has been specially arranged for symphony orchestra. Missing this cinematic concert experience would be inconceivable!

So, in the words of Miracle Max, “Have fun stormin’ the castle!”