Minnesota Orchestra launches “Sam and Sarah,” successor series to “Inside the Classics”

On February 7 in Minneapolis, the Minnesota Orchestra will perform the first concert of its Sam and Sarah series of concerts that include curated conversation and musical examples, in a program titled “Music and the Mind.” The Sam and Sarah series is successor to the orchestra’s Inside the Classics series, designed and hosted by orchestra violist Sam Bergman and Sarah Hicks, principal conductor of Live at Orchestra Hall, and features a pre-concert happy hour, local craft brews, and receptions with musicians after the performance. The February 7 event will explore connections between music and neuropsychology and delve into the lives of composers whose mental conditions shaped the structure and sound of their music. Music will include selections from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Mozart’s Symphony No. 39, Schoenberg’s Accompaniment to a Cinematic Scene, Messiaen’s L’Ascension, Four Meditations for Orchestra, Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4, Schumann’s Symphony No. 2, Revueltas’s Sensemaya, Todd Levin’s Blur, and Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2. The second concert in the series on March 7, “The Russian Century,” will feature music by Mussorgsky, Kabalevsky, Shostakovich, and Prokofiev, plus contemporary composers Lera Auerbach, Sofia Gubaidulina, and Polina Nazaykinskaya.