Season marks 20-year milestone for LV Philharmonic
Something old, something new — and something to celebrate.
That’s the Las Vegas Philharmonic’s upcoming 20th-anniversary season, which orchestra officials announced Thursday at TPC Summerlin, where the Philharmonic will present an Independence Day concert-and-fireworks program July 4.
That’s the something old; two decades ago, an Independence Day concert with a hastily assembled orchestra marked the debut of what would become the Las Vegas Philharmonic.
The something new includes the premiere of a new piano concerto by celebrated composer Philip Glass, which was commissioned by a consortium of orchestras — including the Philharmonic — for pianist Simone Dinnerstein, whose performance of Bach’s Concerto for Keyboard No. 7 in G minor inspired the composer to write it. The pianist will perform both works Nov. 3 at The Smith Center’s Reynolds Hall, the Philharmonic’s concert home.
Other season highlights range from a live performance of Bernard Herrmann’s “Psycho” score
— in conjunction with a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 classic — to another “Music of John Williams” program featuring music from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Star Wars” and more.
The week-long “Music Unwound” collaboration between the Philharmonic and UNLV, which began last year, returns with “Dvorak in America,” exploring not only the composer’s work (including his “New World Symphony,” written in New York) but his influence on other composers.
Next season’s Philharmonic repertoire includes everyone from Leonard Bernstein to Johannes Brahms and Ludwig van Beethoven, whose inspirational “Ode to Joy” — part of his Symphony No. 9 — will conclude the 20th-anniversary season in May 2019.
Philharmonic music director Donato Cabrera, who introduced the 201819 season, got “more excited” about the lineup he planned as he introduced each concert during Thursday’s presentation, he said. “I thought, ‘Wow, we’ve come up with a pretty fun season.’ “
To Philharmonic concertmaster De Ann Letourneau, who also will perform as a soloist with the orchestra next season, the 20th-anniversary lineup “feels as though we’ve arrived,” she commented. “Every concert has meaning to the musicians.”
Letourneau was one of the musicians, 20 years ago, who played at that First Fourth of July concert. “It’s hard for me to believe I’ve been here 20 years, making music,” she notes.
Richard Mcgee, who conducted that first concert — and will conduct the Philharmonic’s Dec. 1 “Classic Holiday” concert — recalled conversations with Harold Weller, the Philharmonic’s founding music director, “about someday maybe trying to collaborate and get an orchestra going.”
That someday turned into July 4, 1998, when Weller called Mcgee “in a panic” in late June, telling him, ” ‘We’ve got nine days — Fourth of July is open at Hills Park. Do you think we can get an orchestra together?’ And I said, ‘Suuure.’ “
After that ragtag beginning, “the only issue was, ‘OK, how do we keep it going?’ ” Mcgee remembered. “I think it is so amazing we’re at the 20th anniversary. … I just think the future is very, very bright for the orchestra.”
Contact Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272. Follow @Carolscling on Twitter.