Felix Mendelssohn / Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor / Concerto for Violin in G minor, op. 80.
Igor Stravinsky / The Firebird Suite
Guest Artist / Nathan Amaral, violin

OPENING NIGHT! Appropriately, the Midland Symphony Orchestra launches our season of journey and discovery with an evening that begins as a calm voyage, progresses through lyrical enchantment, and finally builds to an imaginative fiery peak! We start with an epic 19th-century sailing adventure -- Mendelssohn’s delightful Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, inspired by Goethe’s poetry. Traveling into the early 20th century, the Orchestra pairs with 2024 Sphinx Competition Robert Frederick Smith Prize winner Nathan Amaral for a performance of the work that won him the prestigious award, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Violin Concerto in G minor, op. 80. Stravinsky’s enchanting The Firebird Suite, made familiar to many in Disney’s Fantasia 2000, follows the heroic adventure of a blazing and beautiful Firebird, closing out this exciting and intrepid evening with a monumental crescendo!