A NOTE FROM THE MAESTRO

“Shaking the Senses and Stirring the Soul”.  This motto for the season is surely an accurate one.  Great music, like any great art, has the ability to engage our emotions and our minds simultaneously; just a string of sounds in the right hands can at once delight, surprise, seduce, horrify—i.e. “shake our senses”—and if masterfully sculpted in time, then we have beauty and “our souls are stirred!”   We have composers for you that I guarantee will provide the former and I sincerely hope will provide the latter.

 Our Master Series features a true “symphonic” thread throughout, as each program leaves its mark with an established and renowned symphony: Dvorak 9th (New World), Beethoven 5^th Shostakovich 5^th and Brahms 4^th.   In addition we will pay anniversarial tributes by playing music of three of the truly greats:  Mozart (250^th anniversary of his birth), Schumann (150^th anniversary of his death) and Shostakovich (100^th anniversary of his birth).  Surround this with some real beauties—Barber “Adagio for Strings”, and Rachmaninov “2^nd piano concerto” - add some scintillating and spectacular soloists and, I hope you will agree, we have a season to savor!

And for those who like to be ONLY shaken (and not stirred), be sure to attend our Pops concert on October 7…

I have completed five hugely enjoyable years leading this marvelous orchestra in bringing great music to you, and I hope that this season, my last as your Symphony’s Music Director, will be our most satisfying and fulfilling yet.

For more information about Maestro Zimmerman visit his website: www.christopherzimmerman.net