In Wednesday’s (3/19) Isthmus (Madison, Wisconsin), John Barker writes, “The Madison Symphony Orchestra announces its plans for the 2014-15 season today…. Conductor and music director John DeMain … emphasized one overarching theme, a celebration of the 10th anniversary of Overture Hall, which he says ‘has changed our lives.’ Thus, the first of the eight programs (Sept. 19-21) will include Saint-Saëns’ Symphony No. 3 (the ‘Organ’ Symphony), which the MSO performed at its first concert in the venue. With it comes Frank Martin’s colorful Concerto for Seven Winds and Richard Strauss’ massive Also sprach Zarathustra, which also calls for an organ.… The most unconventional program of the season will come next spring … when the MSO will explore the work of three ‘exiles’ from Nazi Europe: Franz Waxman, Miklós Rósa and Erich Wolfgang Korngold. They will each be represented by a formal ‘classical’ work—in Korngold’s case, his Violin Concerto, with Daniel Hope as soloist—and then by examples of their movie music from their new and influential lives in Hollywood.” Also planned for 2014-15 are Grieg’s Lyric Suite, Bernstein’s Serenade After Plato’s Symposium, and symphonies by Beethoven, Shostakovich, Nielsen, Schumann, and Bruckner.
Posted March 20, 2014
