Symphony schedule released
Soloists, music pieces announced for Masterworks season
Violinist Jennifer Frautschi returns to the stage of Little Rock’s Robinson Center Sept. 30-Oct. 1, soloing in “Poeme” by Ernest Chausson and Florence Price’s single-movement Violin Concerto No. 2 to kick off the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra’s 2023-24 Masterworks season.
The program will also include the Overture to “The Thieving Magpie” by Giocchino Rossini and “The Pines of Rome” by Ottorino Respighi.
Frautschi will be making her fourth solo appearance with the orchestra, performing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 in the fall of 2003, Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto in the fall of 2013 and Jean Sibelius’ Violin Concerto in the fall of 2017.
The repertoire is the work of the orchestra’s artistic director, Geoffrey Robson, who has been shepherding the orchestra since its previous music director, Philip Mann, left the orchestra at the end of the 2018-19 season. The orchestra is in the midst of a conductor search and hopes to name Mann’s permanent replacement in June, according to orchestra CEO Christina Littlejohn.
The rest of the Masterworks season lineup (all concerts at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday at Robinson, 426 W. Markham St. at Broadway, Little Rock; programs and performers are subject to change):
■ Nov. 11-12: Conrad Tao, one of the season’s two Artists of Distinction, also makes a return visit to the orchestra to solo in the
Piano Concerto No. 3 in d minor, op.30, by Sergei Rachmaninoff. Atlanta-based guest conductor Tamara Dworetz will be on the podium. The remainder of the program: the chamber orchestra version of “Duo Ye” by Chen Yi and the full orchestra version of Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring” suite.
Tao first soloed with the orchestra in Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major in November 2021. As the Lee Ronnel Artist of Distinction, he will join members of the orchestra for a River Rhapsodies chamber music concert Nov. 14 at the Clinton Presidential Center. The program for that concert, as well as the rest of the River Rhapsodies series, is still in the works.
■ Jan. 27-28, 2024: Carolyn Brown, the orchestra’s principal flutist, will solo in the Flute Concerto in d minor by C.P.E. Bach. The program will also include the “Organ Symphony” (the Symphony No. 3 in C major) by Camille Saint-Saens with an organist to be named, and “Tangazo” by Astor Piazzolla.
■ Feb. 24-25, 2024: Violinist Kerson Leong, the Richard Sheppard Arnold Artist of Distinction, solos in the Violin Concerto in D major, op.61, by Ludwig van Beethoven. Also on the program: “The Wind and Petit Jean” by Christopher Theofanidis and “Halcyon Sun” by Jonathan Bailey Holland. Leong will join members of the orchestra for a Feb. 27 chamber music concert at the Clinton Presidential Center.
■ April 6-7, 2024: Gustav Holst’s “The Planets” shares the program with “Night Ferry” by Anna Clyne. The “Planets” performance is timed ahead of the total solar eclipse the following Monday, when the path of totality includes Arkansas.
■ May 4-5, 2024: Michelle Cann solos in the Piano Concerto in a minor, op.7, by Clara Schumann. The Prelude to Richard Wagner’s opera “Tristan und Isolde” opens the program; the Symphony No. 4 by Johannes Brahms closes out both the concert and the season.
To be announced: the conductors for five of the six concert pairings. The orchestra is still in the process of auditioning as guest conductors several candidates, many of them for the second time:
■ Vladimir Kulenovic, music director of the Lake Forest (Ill.) Symphony, who was on the podium Oct. 1-2.
■ Stephen Mulligan, associate conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, who conducted concert pairs Nov. 12-13 and Sept. 29-30.
■ Akiko Fujimoto, music director of the Mid-Texas Symphony in Seguin, Texas, who conducted Masterworks programs in January of this year and April 9-10 last year.
■ Andrew Crust, assistant conductor of the Vancouver Symphony, who is conducting the orchestra Feb. 25-26 after a April 30-May 1, 2022, debut.
Robson, who conducts a pair of early April Masterworks concerts featuring cellist Zuill Bailey, is also still in the running for the permanent job, Littlejohn confirmed.
Matthew Kraemer, music director and principal conductor of the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, had been scheduled to conduct May 6-7 concerts with pianist Samantha Ege in the Concerto for Piano and Strings by Doreen Carwithen and the “Symphonie Fantastique” by Hector Berlioz. He had originally conducted the orchestra May 14-15, 2022. However, he has recently taken a job as music director of the Louisiana Philharmonic and has withdrawn his name from consideration.
Kazem Abdullah, an American conductor currently living in Nurnberg, Germany, and music and artistic director of the German city of Aachen from 2012 to 2017, is replacing him. Littlejohn says he, too, is among the conductors that members of the orchestra requested to “see.”
Meanwhile, the orchestra’s 2023-24 Pops season opens Oct. 21-22 with a special concert featuring the music of John Williams.
The rest of the pops lineup:
■ Dec. 15-17: “Home for the Holidays”
■ Feb. 10-11, 2024: “Bond & Beyond,” music from James Bond movies, two singers
■ March 9-10, 2024: “She’s Got Soul,” the return of Broadway veteran Capathia Jenkins
■ May 11-12: “Arkansas Idol,” the culmination of yearlong community competition project featuring what Robson called some of Arkansas’ premier up and coming talent, plus “multiple special guests to be named soon.”