MSO4 PROGRAM. FEBRUARY - MARCH 2025

FEBRUARY — MARCH 2025

ENCORE

Volume 43 No. 4

15 February 14 - 16 — Pops

Casablanca: Film with Orchestra

17 February 21 & 22 — Classics

American Voices

23 February 28 & March 1 — Classics

Ingrid Fliter Plays Mozart

31 March 7 - 9 — Classics

Mendelssohn’s Third Symphony

39 March 15 — Special Chris Thile with the MSO

45 March 21 - 23 — Classics

Bach Celebration

5 Orchestra Roster

7 Music Director

8 Music Director Laureate

9 Principal Pops Conductor

10 Assistant Conductor

11 Milwaukee Symphony Chorus

58 MSO Endowment/ Musical Legacy Society

59 Annual Fund

62 Gala Paddle Raisers/Gala Sponsors/ Corporate & Foundation

63 Matching Gifts/Golden Note Partners/ Marquee Circle/Tributes

66 MSO Board of Directors

67 MSO Administration

This program is produced and published by ENCORE PLAYBILLS. To advertise in any of the following programs:

• Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra

• Florentine Opera

• Milwaukee Ballet

• Marcus Performing Arts Center Broadway Series

• Skylight Music Theatre

• Milwaukee Repertory Theater

• Sharon Lynne Wilson Center

Please contact: Scott Howland at 414-469-7779 scott.encore@att.net

MILWAUKEE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA 212 West Wisconsin Avenue Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53203 414-291-6010 | mso.org

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The MSO and the Bradley Symphony Center have partnered with KultureCity to improve our ability to assist and accommodate guests with sensory needs. For information on available resources, visit mso.org.

MILWAUKEE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, led by Music Director Ken-David Masur, is among the finest orchestras in the nation and the largest cultural institution in Wisconsin. Since its inception in 1959, the MSO has found innovative ways to give music a home in the region, develop music appreciation and talent among area youth, and raise the national reputation of Milwaukee.

The MSO’s full-time professional musicians perform over 135 classics, pops, family, education, and community concerts each season in venues throughout the state. A pioneer among American orchestras, the MSO has performed world and American premieres of works by John Adams, Roberto Sierra, Philip Glass, Geoffrey Gordon, Marc Neikrug, Camille Pépin, Matthias Pintscher, and Dobrinka Tabakova, as well as garnered national recognition as the first American orchestra to offer live recordings on iTunes.

In January of 2021, the MSO completed a years-long project to restore and renovate a former movie palace in the heart of downtown Milwaukee. The Bradley Symphony Center officially opened to audiences in October 2021. This project has sparked a renewal on West Wisconsin Avenue and continues to be a catalyst in the community.

The MSO’s standard of excellence extends beyond the concert hall and into the community, reaching more than 30,000 children and their families through its Arts in Community Education (ACE) program, Youth and Teen concerts, Family Series, and Meet the Music pre-concert talks. Celebrating its 35th year, the nationally recognized ACE program integrates arts education across all subjects and disciplines, providing opportunities for students when budget cuts may eliminate arts programming. The program provides lesson plans and supporting materials, classroom visits from MSO musician ensembles and artists from local organizations, and an MSO concert tailored to each grade level. This season, more than 5,900 students and 500 teachers and faculty are expected to participate in ACE both in person and in a virtual format.

Photo by Jonathan Kirn

2024.25 SEASON

KEN-DAVID MASUR

Music Director

Polly and Bill Van Dyke

Music Director Chair

EDO DE WAART

Music Director Laureate

BYRON STRIPLING

Principal Pops Conductor

Stein Family Foundation Principal Pops

Conductor Chair

RYAN TANI

Assistant Conductor

CHERYL FRAZES HILL

Chorus Director

Margaret Hawkins Chorus Director Chair

TIMOTHY J. BENSON

Assistant Chorus Director

FIRST VIOLINS

Jinwoo Lee, Concertmaster, Charles and Marie Caestecker Concertmaster Chair

Ilana Setapen, First Associate Concertmaster, Thora M. Vervoren First Associate Concertmaster Chair

Jeanyi Kim, Associate Concertmaster

Alexander Ayers

Autumn Chodorowski

Yuka Kadota

Sheena Lan**

Elliot Lee**

Dylana Leung

Kyung Ah Oh

Lijia Phang

Yuanhui Fiona Zheng

SECOND VIOLINS

Jennifer Startt, Principal, Andrea and Woodrow Leung Second Violin Chair

Ji-Yeon Lee, Assistant Principal (2nd chair)

John Bian, Assistant Principal (3rd chair)*

Hyewon Kim, Acting Assistant Principal (3rd chair)

Glenn Asch

Lisa Johnson Fuller

Clay Hancock

Paul Hauer

Janis Sakai**

Mary Terranova

VIOLAS

Robert Levine, Principal, Richard O. and Judith A. Wagner Family Assistant Principal (2nd chair), Friends of Janet F. Ruggeri Viola Chair

Samantha Rodriguez, Assistant Principal (3rd chair)

Elizabeth Breslin

Georgi Dimitrov

Alejandro Duque

Nathan Hackett

Erin H. Pipal

CELLOS

Susan Babini, Principal, Dorothea C. Mayer Cello Chair

Shinae Ra, Assistant Principal (2nd chair)

Scott Tisdel, Associate Principal Emeritus

Madeleine Kabat

Peter Szczepanek

Peter J. Thomas

Adrien Zitoun

BASSES

Principal, Donald B. Abert Bass Chair

Andrew Raciti, Acting Principal

Nash Tomey, Acting Assistant Principal (2nd chair)

Brittany Conrad

Omar Haffar**

Paris Myers

HARP

Julia Coronelli, Principal, Walter Schroeder Harp Chair

FLUTES

Sonora Slocum, Principal, Margaret and Roy Butter Flute Chair

Heather Zinninger, Assistant Principal

Jennifer Bouton Schaub

PICCOLO

Jennifer Bouton Schaub

OBOES

Katherine Young Steele, Principal, Milwaukee Symphony League Oboe Chair

Kevin Pearl, Assistant Principal

Margaret Butler

ENGLISH HORN

Margaret Butler, Philip and Beatrice Blank English Horn Chair in memoriam to John Martin

CLARINETS

Todd Levy, Principal, Franklyn Esenberg Clarinet Chair

Jay Shankar, Assistant Principal, Donald and Ruth P. Taylor Assistant Principal Clarinet Chair

Besnik Abrashi

E-FLAT CLARINET

Jay Shankar

BASS CLARINET

Besnik Abrashi

BASSOONS

Catherine Van Handel, Principal, Muriel C. and John D. Silbar Family Bassoon Chair

Rudi Heinrich, Assistant Principal

Beth W. Giacobassi

CONTRABASSOON

Beth W. Giacobassi

HORNS

Matthew Annin, Principal, Krause Family French Horn Chair

Krystof Pipal, Associate Principal

Dietrich Hemann, Andy Nunemaker

French Horn Chair

Darcy Hamlin

Scott Sanders

TRUMPETS

Matthew Ernst, Principal, Walter L. Robb Family Trumpet Chair

David Cohen, Associate Principal, Martin J. Krebs Associate Principal

Trumpet Chair

Tim McCarthy, Fred Fuller Trumpet Chair

TROMBONES

Megumi Kanda, Principal, Marjorie Tiefenthaler Trombone Chair

Kirk Ferguson, Assistant Principal

BASS TROMBONE

John Thevenet, Richard M. Kimball Bass Trombone Chair

TUBA

Robyn Black, Principal, John and Judith Simonitsch Tuba Chair

TIMPANI

Dean Borghesani, Principal

Chris Riggs, Assistant Principal

PERCUSSION

Robert Klieger, Principal

Chris Riggs

PIANO

Melitta S. Pick Endowed Piano Chair

PERSONNEL

Antonio Padilla Denis, Director of Orchestra Personnel

Paris Myers, Hiring Coordinator

LIBRARIANS

Paul Beck, Principal Librarian, James E. Van Ess Principal Librarian Chair

Matthew Geise, Assistant Librarian & Media Archivist

PRODUCTION

Tristan Wallace, Production Manager/ Live Audio

Lisa Sottile, Production Stage Manager

* Leave of Absence 2024.25 Season

** Acting member of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra 2024.25 Season

Located on the shores of Lake Michigan on the East Side of Milwaukee, Ovation Communities offers independent and assisted living apartments as well as skillednursing, rehabilitation, and a new state-ofthe-art memory care community, allowing residents to age in place while living every day to the fullest!

KEN-DAVID MASUR, MUSIC DIRECTOR

Hailed as “fearless, bold, and a life-force” (San Diego Union-Tribune) and “a brilliant and commanding conductor with unmistakable charisma” (Leipziger Volkszeitung), Ken-David Masur is celebrating his sixth season as music director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and principal conductor of the Chicago Symphony’s Civic Orchestra.

Masur’s tenure in Milwaukee has been notable for innovative thematic programming, including a festival celebrating the music of the 1930s, when the Bradley Symphony Center was built; the Water Festival, which highlighted local community partners whose work centers on water conservation and education; and last season’s city-wide Bach Festival, celebrating the abiding appeal of J.S. Bach’s music in an ever-changing world. He has also instituted a multi-season artistic partnership program, and he has led highlyacclaimed performances of major choral works, including a semistaged production of Peer Gynt. This season, which celebrates the eternal interplay between words and music, he continues an artistic partnership with bass-baritone Dashon Burton and conducts Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. In Chicago, Masur leads the Civic Orchestra, the premiere training orchestra of the Chicago Symphony, in a variety of programs, including an annual Bach Marathon.

In the summer of 2024, Masur made his debut at the Oregon Bach Festival and returned to the Tanglewood Festival, where he conducted the Boston Symphony, both in a John Williams film night and in a program honoring the BSO’s longtime music director Seiji Ozawa. This season also features return appearances with the Louisville Orchestra, the Colorado Symphony, and the Omaha Symphony, and in September, Masur made his subscription debut with the New York Philharmonic. The following month, he made his subscription debut with the Chicago Symphony in a program featuring soloist Anne-Sophie Mutter.

Masur has conducted distinguished orchestras around the world, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, National, and San Francisco symphonies, l’Orchestre National de France, Minnesota Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic, Norway’s Kristiansand Symphony, and Tokyo’s Yomiuri Nippon Symphony. He has also made regular appearances at Ravinia, Tanglewood, the Hollywood Bowl, Grant Park, and international festivals including Verbier. Previously, Masur was associate conductor of the Boston Symphony, principal guest conductor of the Munich Symphony, associate conductor of the San Diego Symphony, and resident conductor of the San Antonio Symphony.

Music education and working with the next generation of young artists are of major importance to Masur. In addition to his work with Civic Orchestra of Chicago, he has conducted orchestras and led masterclasses at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts, New England Conservatory, Manhattan School of Music, Boston University, Boston Conservatory, Tokyo’s Bunka Kaikan Chamber Orchestra, the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, and The Juilliard School, where he led the Juilliard Orchestra last season.

Masur is passionate about contemporary music and has conducted and commissioned dozens of new works, many of which have premiered at the Chelsea Music Festival, an annual summer festival in New York City founded and directed by Masur and his wife, pianist Melinda Lee Masur. The festival, which celebrated its 15th Anniversary in 2024, has been praised by The New York Times as a “gem of a series” and by Time Out New York as an “impressive addition to New York’s cultural ecosystem.”

Masur and his family are proud to call Milwaukee their home and enjoy exploring all the riches of the Third Coast.

Photo by Adam DeTour

EDO DE WAART, MUSIC DIRECTOR LAUREATE

Throughout his long and illustrious career, renowned Dutch conductor Edo de Waart has held a multitude of posts with orchestras around the world, including music directorships with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Antwerp Symphony, New Zealand Symphony, and Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and a chief conductorship with the De Nederlandse Opera and Santa Fe Opera.

Edo de Waart served as principal guest conductor of the San Diego Symphony, conductor laureate of both the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra and Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, and music director laureate of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.

As an opera conductor, de Waart has enjoyed success in a large and varied repertoire in many of the world’s greatest opera houses. He has conducted at Bayreuth, Salzburg Festival, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Opéra Bastille, Santa Fe Opera, and the Metropolitan Opera. With the aim of bringing opera to broader audiences where concert halls prevent full staging, he has, as music director in Milwaukee, Antwerp, and Hong Kong, often conducted semi-staged and opera in concert performances.

A renowned orchestral trainer, he has been involved with projects working with talented young players at the Juilliard and Colburn schools and the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara.

Edo de Waart’s extensive catalogue encompasses releases for Philips, Virgin, EMI, Telarc, and RCA. Recent recordings include Henderickx’s Symphony No. 1 and Oboe Concerto, Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, and Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius, all with the Royal Flemish Philharmonic.

Beginning his career as an assistant conductor to Leonard Bernstein at the New York Philharmonic, de Waart then returned to Holland, where he was appointed assistant conductor to Bernard Haitink at the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.

Edo de Waart has received a number of awards for his musical achievements, including becoming a Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion and an Honorary Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia. He is also an Honorary Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.

Photo by Jesse Willems

Cassie King

Pre-Arrangement Specialist

cassie@feerickfuneralhome.com

Generations Family Owned & Operated 2025 East Capitol Drive

Shorewood | 414.962.8383

BYRON STRIPLING, PRINCIPAL POPS CONDUCTOR

With a contagious smile and captivating charm, conductor, trumpet virtuoso, singer, and actor Byron Stripling ignites audiences across the globe. In 2024, Stripling was named Stein Family Foundation Principal Pops Conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. Stripling is also principal pops conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and he currently serves as artistic director and conductor of the highly acclaimed Columbus Jazz Orchestra. Stripling’s baton has led countless orchestras throughout the United States and Canada, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood and the orchestras of San Diego, St. Louis, Virginia, Toronto, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Fort Worth, Rochester, Buffalo, Florida, Portland,

As a soloist with the Boston Pops, Stripling has performed frequently under the baton of Keith Lockhart, including as the featured soloist on the PBS television special Evening at Pops with

Since his Carnegie Hall debut with Skitch Henderson and the New York Pops, Stripling has become a pops orchestra favorite throughout the country, soloing with over 100 orchestras around the world. He has been a featured soloist at the Hollywood Bowl and performs at festivals around the world.

An accomplished actor and singer, Stripling was chosen, following a worldwide search, to star in the lead role of the Broadway-bound musical Satchmo. Many will remember his featured cameo performance in the television movie The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, and his critically acclaimed virtuoso trumpet and riotous comedic performance in the 42nd Street production of From Second Avenue to Broadway.

Television viewers have enjoyed his work as soloist on the worldwide telecast of The Grammy Awards. Millions have heard his trumpet and voice on television commercials, TV theme songs including 20/20 and CNN and soundtracks of favorite movies. In addition to multiple recordings with his quintet and work with artists from Tony Bennett to Whitney Houston, his prolific recording career includes hundreds of albums with the greatest pop, Broadway, soul, and jazz artists of all time.

Stripling earned his stripes as lead trumpeter and soloist with the Count Basie Orchestra under the direction of Thad Jones and Frank Foster. He has also played and recorded extensively with the bands of Dizzy Gillespie, Woody Herman, Dave Brubeck, Lionel Hampton, Clark Terry, Louis Bellson, and Buck Clayton in addition to the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, The Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, and The GRP All Star Big Band.

Stripling is devoted to giving back and supports several philanthropic organizations, including the United Way and The Community Shelter Board. He also enjoys sharing the power of music through seminars and master classes at colleges, universities, conservatories, and high schools.

Stripling was educated at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and the Interlochen Arts Academy in Interlochen, Michigan. One of his greatest joys is to return, periodically, to Eastman and Interlochen as a special guest lecturer.

A resident of Ohio, Stripling lives in the country with his wife Alexis, a former dancer, writer, and poet and their beautiful daughters.

Photo by John Abbott

RYAN TANI, ASSISTANT CONDUCTOR

Ryan Tani is in his second season as assistant conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. In 2021, he completed his two-year tenure as the Orchestral Conducting Fellow for the Yale Philharmonia under Music Director Peter Oundjian, where he was the recipient of the Dean’s Prize for artistic excellence in his graduating class. Committed to meaningful community music-making in the state of Montana, Tani has directed the Bozeman Chamber Orchestra, Bozeman Symphonic Choir, Second String Orchestra, and MSU Symphony Orchestras. He frequently serves as cover conductor for the St. Louis, Colorado, and Bozeman symphonies and recently served on the faculty at the Montana State University School of Music.

Tani recently concluded his tenure as music director of the Occasional Symphony in Baltimore. A fierce advocate of new music, Tani curated over 20 commissions from Baltimore-based composers during his fouryear directorship of OS. As resident conductor of the New Music New Haven series, he has collaborated, under the guidance of Aaron Jay Kernis, with Yale University composition students and faculty.

Tani is also a graduate of the Peabody Institute, where he studied conducting with Marin Alsop and Markand Thakar, and of the University of Southern California, where he studied voice with Gary Glaze. In 2015, he was declared the winner of the ACDA Undergraduate Student Conducting Competition at their national conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. In addition to his studies at Yale and Peabody, Tani has also studied conducting with Larry Rachleff, Donald Schleicher, Gerard Schwarz, Grant Cooper, and José-Luis Novo. Tani currently resides in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he can be found in the park with his dog, playing board games with friends and family, in the library with a good book, or in the practice room with his violin.

MILWAUKEE SYMPHONY CHORUS

The Milwaukee Symphony Chorus, founded in 1976, is known and respected as one of the finest choruses in the country. Under the direction of Dr. Cheryl Frazes Hill, the 2024-25 season with the MSO includes works by Poulenc, Brahms, Wagner, Verdi, and Mozart, as well as Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and the Hometown Holiday Pops performances.

The 150-member chorus has been praised by reviewers for “technical agility,” “remarkable ensemble cohesion,” and “tremendous clarity.” In addition to performances with the MSO, the chorus has appeared on public television and recorded performances for radio stations throughout the country. The chorus has performed a cappella concerts to sold-out audiences and has made guest appearances with other performing arts groups, including Present Music, Milwaukee Ballet, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The chorus has also made appearances at suburban Chicago’s famed Ravinia Festival.

The Margaret Hawkins Chorus Director Chair was funded by a chorus-led campaign during the ensemble’s 30th anniversary season in 2006, in honor of the founding chorus director, Margaret Hawkins.

Comprised of teachers, lawyers, students, doctors, musicians, homemakers, and more, each of its members brings not only musical quality, but a sheer love of music to their task. “We have the best seats in the house,” one member said, a sentiment echoed throughout the membership. Please visit mso.org/chorus for more information on becoming a part of the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus.

Photo by Jonathan Kirn

CHORUS MEMBERS & STAFF

Jahnavi Acharya

Anna Aiuppa

Mia Akers

Laura Albright-Wengler

Anthony Andronczyk

James Anello

u Thomas R. Bagwell

Evan Bagwell

Barbara Barth Czarkowski

Marshall Beckman

Yacob Bennett

Emily Bergeron

JoAnn Berk

Edward Blumenthal

Jillian Boes

u Scott Bolens

Neil R. Brooks

Michelle Budny

Noah Buhle

Ellen N. Burmeister

Gabrielle Campbell

Katie Cantwell

Elise Cismesia

Ian Clark

Sarah M. Cook

Amanda Coplan

Sarah Culhane

Phoebe Dawsey

Colin Destache

Rebeca Dishaw

Megan Kathleen Dixson

Rachel Dutler

James Edgar

Joe Ehlinger

Katelyn Farebrother

Michael Faust

Catherine Fettig

Marty Foral

STAFF

Robert Friebus

u Karen Frink

Maria Fuller

Jonathan Gaston-Falk

Willie Gesch

Samantha Gibson

Jessica Golinski

Mark R. Hagner

Mary Hamlin

Beth Harenda u Karen Heins

Mary Catherine Helgren

Kurt Hellermann

Melissa Kay Herbst

Nathan Hickox-Young

Eric Hickson

Michelle Hiebert

Laura Hochmuth

Amy Hudson

Matthew Hunt

Stan Husi

u Tina Itson

• Christine Jameson

Paula J. Jeske

John Jorgensen

Caitleen Kahn

• Heidi Kastern

Christin Kieckhafer

Robert Knier

Jill Kortebein

Kaleigh KozakLichtman

Kyle J. Kramer

u Joseph M. Krechel

Julia M. Kreitzer

Savannah Grace

Kroeger

• Harry Krueger

Benjamin Kuhlmann

Cheryl Frazes Hill, chorus director

Timothy J. Benson, assistant director

Terree Shofner-Emrich, primary pianist

Melissa Cardamone, Jeong-In Kim, rehearsal pianists

Darwin J. Sanders, language/diction coach

Christina Williams, chorus manager

Rick Landin

Alexandra Lerch-Gaggl

Nicholas Lin

Robert Lochhead

Kristine Lorbeske

Grace Majewski

Douglas R. Marx

Joy Mast

Justin J. Maurer

Betsy McCool

Shannon McMullen

Hilary Merline

Kathleen O. Miller

Megan Miller

Bailey Moorhead

Jennifer Mueller

Lucia Muniagurria

Matthew Neu

Kristin Nikkel

Jason Niles

Alice Nuteson

Robert Paddock

Elizabeth Phillips

R. Scott Pierce

u Jessica E. Pihart

Olivia Pogodzinski

Bianca Pratte

Kaitlin Quigley

Mary E. Rafel

Jason Reuschlein

Rehanna Rexroat

James Reynolds

Marc Charles Ricard

Amanda Robison

Veronica Samiec

u

Bridget Sampson

James Sampson

Joshua S. Samson

Darwin J. Sanders

Alana Sawall

John T. Schilling

Sarah Schmeiser

Rand C. Schmidt

Randy Schmidt

u Allison Schnier

Andrew T. Schramm

Matthew Seider

Bennett Shebesta

u Hannah Sheppard

David Siegworth

Bruce Soto

u Joel P. Spiess

u Todd Stacey

u Donald E. Stettler

Scott Stieg

Donna Stresing

Laura Sufferling

Ashley Ellen Suresh

Joseph Thiel

Dean-Yar Tigrani

Clare Urbanski

Matthew Van Hecke

Tess Weinkauf

Emma Mingesz Weiss

Michael Werni

Erin Weyers

Charles T. White

Christina Williams

Emilie Williams

Sally Salkowski Witte

Kevin R. Woller

Rachel Yap

Jamie Mae Yu

Michele Zampino

Katarzyna Zawislak

Stephanie Zimmer

u Section Leader

• Librarian

DR. CHERYL FRAZES HILL, CHORUS DIRECTOR

Dr. Cheryl Frazes Hill is now in her eighth season as director of the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus. In addition to her role in Milwaukee, she is the associate conductor of the Chicago Symphony Chorus. Frazes Hill is professor emerita at Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts, where she served for 20 years as director of choral activities and head of music education. During the 2024-25 season, Frazes Hill will prepare the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus for classical performances of Poulenc’s Gloria, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, Brahms’s German Requiem, and concluding with Great Moments in Grand Opera.

In her role as the Chicago Symphony Chorus associate conductor, she has prepared the chorus for Maestros Alsop, Boulez, Barenboim, Conlon, Levine, Mehta, Salonen, Tilson Thomas, and many others. Recordings of Frazes Hill’s chorus preparations on the Chicago Symphony Orchestra label include Beethoven, A Tribute to Daniel Barenboim, and Chicago Symphony Chorus: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.

Under her direction, the Roosevelt University choruses have been featured in prestigious and diverse events, including appearances at national and regional music conferences and performances with professional orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Sinfonietta, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and the Illinois Philharmonic. The Roosevelt Conservatory Chorus received enthusiastic reviews for their American premiere of Jacob ter Veldhuis’s Mountaintop. Other recent performances have included the internationally acclaimed production of Defiant Requiem and three appearances with The Rolling Stones during a recent United States concert tour.

Frazes Hill received her master’s and doctoral degrees in conducting from Northwestern University and bachelor’s degrees in voice and music education from the University of Illinois. An accomplished vocalist, she is a featured soloist in the Grammy-nominated recording CBS Masterworks release Mozart: Music for Basset Horns. An award-winning conductor and educator, Frazes Hill recently received the ACDA Harold Decker Conducting Award, the Mary Hoffman Music Educators Award, and in past years, the Commendation of Excellence in Teaching from the Golden Apple Foundation, the Illinois Governor’s Award, Roosevelt University’s Presidential Award for Social Justice, the Northwestern University Alumni Merit Award, and the Outstanding Teaching Award from the University of Chicago, among others.

Frazes Hill’s recently released book, Margaret Hillis: Unsung Pioneer, a biography of the famed female conductor, received a commendation from the 2023 Midwest Book Awards. Frazes Hill is nationally published on topics of her research in choral conducting and music education. A frequent guest conductor, clinician, and guest speaker, Frazes Hill regularly collaborates with Maestro Marin Alsop at Ravinia Festival’s Breaking Barriers, providing workshops for Taki Alsop women conducting fellows. Upcoming appearances this season include a presentation at the American Choral Directors National Conference and a three-day residency at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music.

CASABLANCA

FILM WITH ORCHESTRA

Friday, February 14, 2025 at 7:30 pm

Saturday, February 15, 2025 at 7:30 pm

Sunday, February 16, 2025 at 2:30 pm

ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL

Ryan Tani, conductor

SCREENPLAY BY

Julius J. Epstein

Philip G. Epstein

Howard Koch

DIRECTED BY

Michael Curtiz

PRODUCED BY

Hal B. Wallis

Jack L. Warner

MUSIC BY Max Steiner

PRODUCTION CREDITS

Producer: John Goberman

Live orchestral adaptation: Patrick Russ

Technical Supervisor: Pat McGillen

Music Preparation: Larry Spivack

FILM COURTESY OF Warner Bros.

Entertainment Inc.

The producer wishes to acknowledge the contributions and extraordinary support of John Waxman (Themes & Variations). A Symphonic Night at the Movies is a production of PGM Productions, Inc. (New York) and apprears by arrangement with IMG Artists.

Today’s performance lasts approximately 2 hours and 15 minutes, including a 20 minute intermission. The performance is a presentation of the complete film Casablanca with a live performance of the film’s entire score. Out of respect for the musicians and your fellow audience members, please remain seated until the conclusion of the end credits. Film projectors generously donated by MARCUS CORPORATION. This weekend’s media sponsor is ONMILWAUKEE.

MAY 16, 2025 AT 7:30PM

MAY 18, 2025 AT 2:30PM

UIHLEIN HALL, MARCUS PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

AMERICAN VOICES

Friday, February 21, 2025 at 11:15 am

Saturday, February 22, 2025 at 7:30 pm

ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL

Ken-David Masur, conductor

Todd Levy, clarinet

Laura Snyder, narrator

AARON COPLAND

Lincoln Portrait

RICHARD DANIELPOUR

Laura Snyder, narrator

Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra: “From the Mountaintop”

I. Con rubato, molto cantabile – Subito poco più mosso

II. Cadenza: Liberamente

III. Moderato, con moto

Todd Levy, clarinet

INTERMISSION

CHARLES IVES

Symphony No. 2

I. Andante moderato

II. Allegro molto (con spirito)

III. Adagio cantabile

IV. Lento maestoso

V. Allegro molto vivace

The 2024.25 Classics Series is presented by the UNITED PERFORMING ARTS FUND and ROCKWELL AUTOMATION.

The length of this concert is approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes. All programs are subject to change.

Guest Artist Biographies

TODD LEVY

Principal clarinet of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra and participant in the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, four-time Grammy Award-winner Todd Levy has performed as a soloist at Carnegie Hall, Mostly Mozart, with the Israel Philharmonic, and at the White House, among many other venues. An active chamber musician, Levy has appeared with members of the Guarneri, Juilliard, Orion, Ying, Miro, and Miami string quartets, and with James Levine, Christoph Eschenbach, and Mitsuko Uchida. He has also been a participant at the Marlboro Music Festival for four summers and was a member of the Naumburg Award-winning Aspen Wind Quintet.

In demand as guest principal clarinet with the top American orchestras, Levy has played principal clarinet with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera, and frequently for Seiji Ozawa and Riccardo Muti in Japan with Tokyo Opera Nomori and the Mito Chamber Orchestra. An avid supporter of new music, he has performed world premieres of concerti and chamber works by composers such as John Harbison, Joan Tower, Peter Schickele, Paquito D’Rivera, Morton Subotnick, Magnus Lindberg, Marc Neikrug, and Outi Tarkiainen. He performs on the new release of Marc Neikrug’s Through Roses with violinist Pinchas Zukerman, actor John Rubenstein, and the composer conducting.

Levy’s new CD for Avie, Rhapsodie, features 20th-century classics for clarinet. He has also recorded the Brahms clarinet sonatas and Schumann’s romances and Fantasiestücke for Avie, as well as three educational CDs of clarinet competition works entitled The Clarinet Collection for G. Schirmer and Hal Leonard. In 2021, he compiled a book of French repertoire for publisher Alphonse Leduc called French Music for Clarinet. In addition, Levy has recorded and edited the new exclusive editions and CDs of the Bernstein clarinet sonata and Gerald Finzi’s five bagatelles for Boosey and Hawkes in addition to more than 20 other orchestral and chamber music CDs on the Deutsche Grammophon, Sony, and Decca labels. He performs on Vandoren reeds, mouthpieces, and ligatures, and Selmer Signature clarinets. Levy serves on the clarinet faculty at the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University and at UW-Milwaukee. Levy is a graduate of The Juilliard School and an alum of the New World Symphony.

LAURA SNYDER

Laura Snyder began her musical training at the prestigious High School of Music and Art in New Your City as well as the Dalcroze School of Music, studying with New York Philharmonic bassist Homer Mensch. She went on to Indiana University, studying bass and voice. She joined the MSO in 1970 and retired in December 2020. An avid teacher of hundreds of students, Snyder has given private lessons for more than 40 years. She has served on the faculties of the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music, Carroll College, Wisconsin Lutheran College, and UW-Milwaukee. Snyder is the recipient of multiple awards including the Distinguished Citizen Award from the Civic Music Association of Milwaukee and the Black Excellence in Music from the Milwaukee Times.

Program notes by David Jensen

AARON COPLAND

Born 14 November 1900; New York City, New York

Died 2 December 1990; North Tarrytown, New York

Lincoln Portrait

Composed: February – April 1942

First performance: 14 May 1942; Andre Kostelanetz, conductor; Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

Last MSO performance: 19 January 2013; Francesco Lecce-Chong, conductor; Tom Barrett, narrator

Instrumentation: 2 flutes (both doubling on piccolo); 2 oboes; English horn; 2 clarinets; bass clarinet; 2 bassoons; contrabassoon; 4 horns; 3 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; percussion (bass drum, cymbals, glockenspiel, sleigh bells, snare drum, tam-tam, xylophone); harp; celesta; strings

Approximate duration: 14 minutes

It was in the first days of 1942 that the Russian-born popular music conductor Andre Kostelanetz approached “the dean of American composers” with a commission for a musical portrait of an esteemed personage from American history. It was an effort to bolster the minds and hearts of a citizenry that suddenly found itself at war to a degree previously unthinkable: the strike at Pearl Harbor had taken place only a few weeks before, thrusting America into what remains the most violent and destructive conflict in recorded history.

The proposal had been issued to two other composers, Virgil Thomson and Jerome Kern, who had chosen Fiorello La Guardia, then the mayor of New York City, and Mark Twain as their subjects. Aaron Copland had initially thought of Walt Whitman, “the patron poet of all composers,” but when Kostelanetz explained that Kern had already decided on a literary figure, he was relegated to the “inevitable” choice of a wartime stateman. “With the voice of Lincoln to help me,” he wrote, “I was ready to risk the impossible.”

Despite whatever personal reservations Copland might have harbored, progress was swift and assured. He began sketching his ideas in February, completing the portrait on 16 April and molding its orchestration in the weeks leading up to its premiere with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra on 14 May. The music was entirely original apart from the inclusion of two nineteenthcentury tunes: Stephen Foster’s “Camptown Races” and the ballad “On Springfield Mountain,” which were not directly transcribed, but adapted freely, much like his treatment of cowboy and folk song in his ballet Billy the Kid.

In Copland’s own words, “The composition is roughly divided into three sections. In the opening section I wanted to suggest something of the mysterious sense of fatality that surrounds Lincoln’s personality. Also, near the end of that section, something of his gentleness and simplicity of spirit. The quick middle section briefly sketches in the background of the times he lived in. This merges into the concluding section where my sole purpose was to draw a simple but impressive frame about the words of Lincoln himself.” The text of the narration is extracted from Lincoln’s own letters and speeches, making use of an excerpt from the Gettysburg Address only briefly at the work’s conclusion.

Somewhat ironically, Copland was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for his leftist political leanings during the Red Scare of the 1950s, having previously supported the Communist Party in the 1936 presidential election and the Progressive Party in 1948. Like dozens of other leading notables in the performing arts, he was blacklisted, and his Lincoln Portrait was withdrawn from President Dwight Eisenhower’s inaugural concert in 1953.

RICHARD DANIELPOUR

Born 28 January 1956; New York City, New York

Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra: “From the Mountaintop”

Composed: 2013

First performance: 20 January 2014; James Freeman, conductor; Anthony McGill, clarinet; Orchestra 2001

Last MSO performance: MSO Premiere

Instrumentation: 2 flutes (2nd doubling on piccolo); 2 oboes (2nd doubling on English horn); 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 3 horns; 2 trumpets; 2 trombones; timpani; percussion (bass drum, chimes, cowbell, crash cymbal, floor toms, glockenspiel, guiro, high hat, slapstick, snare drum, suspended cymbals, tam-tam, tom-toms in three pitches, triangle, vibraphone, wood block, xylophone); harp; piano (doubling on celesta); strings

Approximate duration: 28 minutes

Writing in The Muse that Sings, a compilation of essays by living composers, Danielpour cited Leonard Bernstein as having influenced not only his development as a composer, but his perspective on living a life in music: “[He] once told me that in the end, what a composer really does is share love.”

With a career spanning more than 40 years, Richard Danielpour carries every pedigree of which an American composer might dream. Born to Iranian Jewish parents in New York City, he studied piano and composition at Oberlin College, the New England Conservatory of Music, and the Juilliard School, where he received his doctoral degree under the tutelage of Vincent Persichetti and Peter Mennin. He has received awards and fellowships from Columbia University, the American Academy in Berlin, the Rockefeller and Guggenheim Foundations, and the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, taught at the Manhattan School of Music, UCLA, and the Curtis Institute of Music, and even collaborated with Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison on his 2005 opera Margaret Garner

His clarinet concerto was the result of a joint commission by the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the Kansas City Orchestra, and Orchestra 2001. Danielpour wrote the solo clarinet part with Anthony McGill, Principal Clarinet for the New York Philharmonic, in mind, envisioning a “minister in a Southern Baptist church” with the orchestra as its congregation. The concerto honors the life and labors of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., inspired in part by his final speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop.” King’s words to that Memphis crowd in April 1968 carried an unusual gravity as he spoke of racial justice, political unity, and the means to those ends — but his closing remarks would prove tragically oracular:

We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life; longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will.

He would be assassinated the following day, indelibly altering the trajectory of American history. The music itself draws upon the pulsing, incisive rhythms of mid-century jazz, with the score calling for a battery of percussion instruments, which provide the soloist with a diverse variety of vividly textured backings. The clarinet winds its way through a panoply of orchestral colors and neo-Romantic harmonies, invoking an enormous spectrum of emotions — from the ebullient optimism of the flourishing civil rights movement to the shock and despair which resounded throughout the nation on that fateful afternoon.

CHARLES IVES

Born 20 October 1874; Danbury, Connecticut

Died 19 May 1954; New York City, New York

Symphony No. 2

Composed: 1897-1901; revised 1909-1910

First performance: 22 February 1951; Leonard Bernstein, conductor; New York Philharmonic

Last MSO performance: 1 October 1978; Kenneth Schermerhorn, conductor

Instrumentation: piccolo; 2 flutes; 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; contrabassoon; 4 horns; 2 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; percussion (bass drum, snare drum, triangle); strings

Approximate duration: 37 minutes

If the adjective “visionary” could accurately describe a composer in a given time and place, it would be Charles Ives. A descendent of the founding colonists of Connecticut, Ives was steeped in American musical language from his boyhood; his father George, a bandleader during the American Civil War, led concerts in the Danbury town square with his son in tow, taught him harmony and composition, and exposed him to the music of Stephen Foster, the leading composer of American parlor music during the middle nineteenth century. By 14, he was working as an organist, composing his own hymns for use in church services.

He enrolled at Yale in 1894, studying under Horatio Parker, but — perhaps sensing his own radical inclinations would hardly be financially sustainable — opted for a career in the insurance industry following his graduation. Despite composing in seclusion for most of his life, he was constantly experimenting with polytonality, aleatoric (or “chance”) components, and tone clusters, preceding the most radical American composers by decades. Drawing on an enormous body of aesthetic inspiration, his principal skill as a composer lay not merely in integrating American folk, sacred, and popular music into his compositions, but assimilating those elements so completely that they became indistinguishable from his own musical thoughts.

He began plotting the second symphony sometime around 1897 while still a student at Yale, which may account for its “softer” quality relative to his later surrealist ventures. There is a conscious melding of American and European traditions as the sprawling five-movement work carefully weaves in allusions to American popular and folk song in counterpoint to excerpts from Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and Wagner. It was completed around 1901, and Ives continued his tinkering nearly a decade later, but it wasn’t until 1951 that Leonard Bernstein gave the world premiere with the New York Philharmonic. Ives, for reasons unknown, had chosen not to attend, but was coaxed into listening to a radio broadcast at a neighbor’s home. In his typically inscrutable fashion, it was reported that, at the concert’s conclusion, he stood, spat in the fireplace, and walked out of the room.

Despite the success of the premiere in igniting national interest in Ives as a prototypically American artist, it later came to light that Bernstein’s score contained hundreds of errors — including unauthorized revisions of Bernstein’s own. It wasn’t until 2000 that the Charles Ives Society published a critical edition of the score, restoring Ives’s original intentions. It was Kenneth Schermerhorn, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s second music director, who had the distinction of producing the first recording of that edition with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra.

INGRID FLITER PLAYS MOZART

Friday, February 28, 2025 at 7:30 pm

Saturday, March 1, 2025 at 7:30 pm

ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL

Michael Sanderling, conductor

Ingrid Fliter, piano

FREDERICK DELIUS/arr. Thomas Beecham

The Walk to the Paradise Garden from A Village Romeo and Juliet

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

Concerto No. 17 in G major for Piano and Orchestra, K. 453

I. Allegro

II. Andante

III. Allegretto

Ingrid Fliter, piano

INTERMISSION

SERGEI PROKOFIEV

Suite from Romeo and Juliet, Opus 64bis/ter

Montagues and Capulets

Juliet as a Young Girl

Masks

Friar Laurence

Dance

Romeo and Juliet Before Parting

Romeo at Juliet’s Tomb Death of Tybalt

The MSO Steinway was made possible through a generous gift from MICHAEL AND JEANNE SCHMITZ. The 2024.25 Classics Series is presented by the UNITED PERFORMING ARTS FUND and ROCKWELL AUTOMATION

The length of this concert is approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes. All programs are subject to change.

Guest Artist Biographies

MICHAEL SANDERLING

Michael Sanderling has been chief conductor of the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester since 2021. His appointment followed a successful collaboration over many years, with a common goal of further developing the orchestra in late Romantic repertoire such as Bruckner, Mahler, and Strauss. Under Sanderling’s direction, the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester has toured Asia, South America, and Germany. Their performance of Shostakovich’s tenth symphony at the Wiener Konzerthaus, accompanied by William Kentridge’s animated film Oh to Believe in Another World, attracted particular attention.

Since the start of his tenure as chief conductor, several highly-acclaimed CDs have been released. These include a Brahms cycle released in 2023 by Warner Classics, with the four symphonies as well as his “fifth” — a piano quartet orchestrated by Arnold Schoenberg — and a recording of the Schumann and Grieg piano concertos with Elisabeth Leonskaja.

As a guest conductor, Sanderling directs leading orchestras around the world. These include the Berlin Philharmoniker, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, the NHK Symphony Orchestra, the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, the Wiener Symphoniker, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

From 2011 to 2019, Sanderling was chief conductor of the Dresden Philharmonic. During this time, he raised the orchestra’s profile, establishing it as one of Germany’s leading ensembles. He performed with them both on the concert stage in Dresden and on numerous international tours, resulting in recordings of the complete symphonies of Beethoven and Shostakovich for Sony Classical. Previously, he was chief conductor of the Kammerakademie Potsdam, where he was artistic director from 2006 to 2011.

In addition to the recordings mentioned above, Sanderling’s discography includes recordings of major works by Dvořák, Schumann, Prokofiev, and Tchaikovsky, as well as works for cello and orchestra by Bloch, Korngold, Bruch, and Ravel with Edgar Moreau and the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester.

Sanderling is a passionate supporter of young musicians. He teaches at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts and works regularly with the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra. From 2003 to 2013, he was chief conductor of the Deutsche Streicherphilharmonie youth orchestra.

Guest Artist Biographies

INGRID FLITER

Argentine pianist Ingrid Fliter has won the admiration of audiences around the world for her passionate, thoughtful, and sensitive music-making. Winner of the 2006 Gilmore Artist Award — one of only a handful of pianists and the only woman to have received the honor — she divides her time between North America and Europe.

Fliter made her American orchestral debut with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra just days after the announcement of her Gilmore award. Since then, she has appeared with most of the major North American orchestras, including the Cleveland and Minnesota orchestras, the Boston, San Francisco, Detroit, National, Cincinnati, and New World symphonies, as well as at the Mostly Mozart, Tanglewood, Aspen, Ravinia, and Grant Park summer festivals. During the 2024-25 season, Fliter returns to the Vancouver and Milwaukee symphony orchestras and the Minnesota Orchestra. Equally busy as a recitalist, she has performed in New York at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, the Metropolitan Museum, and the 92nd Street Y, at Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, and in Boston, San Francisco, and Detroit, as well as for the Van Cliburn Foundation in Fort Worth.

In Europe, Fliter has performed in recital in Amsterdam, London, Paris, Barcelona, Milan, Prague, Salzburg, Cologne, and Stockholm, and participated in festivals such as La Roque d’Anthéron, Prague Autumn, and the BBC Proms. Recent orchestral engagements include appearances with the Helsinki and Royal Stockholm philharmonics, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Ulster Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lyon, and Norrköping Symphony Orchestra. In Asia, she has performed in recital in Singapore and at The World Pianist Series in Tokyo and with orchestras including the Israel, Hong Kong, and Osaka philharmonics.

Born in Buenos Aires in 1973, Fliter began her piano studies in Argentina with Elizabeth Westerkamp. In 1992, she moved to Europe, where she continued her studies in Freiburg with Vitaly Margulis, in Rome with Carlos Bruno, and with Franco Scala and Boris Petrushansky at the Academy Foundation “Incontri col Maestro” in Imola, Italy, where she has been teaching since 2015. Fliter began playing public recitals at the age of 11 and made her professional orchestral debut at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires at the age of 16. Already the winner of several competitions in Argentina, she went on to win prizes at the Cantu International Competition and the Ferruccio Busoni Competition in Italy, and in 2000 was awarded the silver medal at the Frederic Chopin Competition in Warsaw.

Program notes by David Jensen

FREDERICK DELIUS

Born 29 January 1862; Bradford, Yorkshire, England

Died 10 June 1934; Grez-sur-Loing, France

The Walk to the Paradise Garden from A Village Romeo and Juliet

Composed: 1900-1901

First performance: 21 February 1907; Fritz Cassirer, conductor; Komische Oper Berlin

Last MSO performance: 12 March 2011; Edo de Waart, conductor

Instrumentation: 2 flutes; oboe; English horn; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 4 horns; 2 trumpets; 3 trombones; timpani; harp; strings

Approximate duration: 8 minutes

Despite his comparative obscurity in the landscape of modern English art music, Frederick Delius spent his life perfecting an idiosyncratic musical idiom that distinguished him as a wholly singular voice. He was born in Yorkshire as Fritz Theodor Albert (he didn’t adopt the name “Frederick” until his middle age) to German parents that had immigrated to England in search of more propitious professional circumstances. His family was a musical one, with the household welcoming as guests such luminaries as Joseph Joachim and Carlo Piatti, two of the great string virtuosi of their generation, and he began studying the violin at the age of six.

But his father Julius, an industrialist in the wool trade, expected him to inherit the mantle of the family business. Assignments to various posts as his father’s representative in England, Germany, Sweden, and France (and even a stint managing an orange plantation in Florida) were constantly undermined by his obsession with music and the cultural life of whatever country he happened to occupy at the time. By 1886, it was clear that he was bent on pursuing a life as a composer — his father began subsidizing his studies, and he enrolled in the conservatory at Leipzig, where he discovered his lifelong inspirations. He befriended the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg, whose naturalistic approach to melody and form would influence his earliest works, but it was the extended, continuously developing chromatic harmonies of the Wagnerian school and the impressionistic stylings of Ravel and Debussy that would shape him most profoundly.

The Walk to the Paradise Garden is an intermezzo inserted between scenes in his opera A Village Romeo and Juliet, a pastoral reimaging of the Shakespearean tragedy penned in the first years of the twentieth century. The drama follows Sali and Vrenchen, the son and daughter of two wealthy farming families warring over a plot of land. But the otherwise serene title belies a darker narrative: following a violent altercation that renders Vrenchen’s father insane, the pair make their way to a run-down inn — the “Paradise Garden” — where they draw the conclusion that their only choice is to die in each other’s arms.

The short tableau remains one of Delius’s most beloved for its sensuous orchestration and watercolor palette of sounds. The scene begins slowly and softly in a bucolic E-flat major, with winding, attractive melodies passing from one pairing of wind instruments to the next, supported by muted, syncopated strings. Motivic fragments emerge only briefly before being subsumed by the continually flowing harmonies woven by the strings. The music slides effortlessly between tonal centers without ever reading as overtly dissonant, making careful use of otherwise conventional scoring to build sparkling walls of sound that reach resplendent summits, and the interlude concludes with the soft haze of flutes suspended over the orchestra.

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

Born 27 January 1756; Salzburg, Holy Roman Empire

Died 5 December 1791; Vienna, Austria

Concerto No. 17 in G major for Piano and Orchestra, K. 453

Composed: 1784

First performance: Uncertain; either 26 April 1784; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, piano; Kärntnertortheater, Vienna; or 13 June 1784; Barbara Ployer, piano; Ployer residence, Vienna

Last MSO performance: 30 September 1995; Eri Klas, conductor; Emanuel Ax, piano

Instrumentation: flute; 2 oboes; 2 bassoons; 2 horns; strings

Approximate duration: 30 minutes

The early 1780s were among the happiest and most constructive years of Mozart’s life. He had relocated to Vienna, unceremoniously bucked his commitments as composer to Hieronymus von Colloredo, Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, and — much to his father’s chagrin — married the soprano Constanze Weber. Earning his living as a freelance musician, he had quickly established himself as one of the greatest pianists in Vienna, and his opera The Abduction from the Seraglio had premiered to great success, earning him a reputation as a composer of the first rank. He studied the music of Bach and Handel, began keeping a catalog of his compositions, and even befriended Franz Joseph Haydn, who both admired and inspired him. Mozart was not yet 30, and it must have seemed to him as though he could do anything.

By 1782, he was staging concerts to promote both his music and his talent at the keyboard, premiering multiple new piano concerti each season, and the nexus of opportunity, talent, and effort helped Mozart to effectively force the evolution of the genre. He began breaking new ground, striking a balance between technical mastery and symphonic dialogue, weaving the piano into an elegant, carefully sculpted orchestral canvas. The Piano Concerto No. 17, written for his pupil Barbara Ployer, is one of six concerti that Mozart drafted in 1784, and it stands out as a brilliant example of Mozart’s ability to craft charming and original musical material, develop it with facility, and conjure depth of expression and range of affect by means of meticulous orchestration.

The newfound prominence of the woodwinds is apparent from the beginning: the first movement allows for a sparkling exchange between soloist and orchestra, and the themes introduced at the outset are immediately varied and metamorphosed by the soloist, who carries them through harmonically adventurous terrain before they reach their apotheosis in one of Mozart’s own cadenzas. The central movement, making as much use of silence as it does of sound, treads a broad range of emotional territory, unraveling as a lyrical set of variations and splitting the difference between melodic simplicity and ornamental embellishment. The finale opens with an ebullient tune, and the soloist offers five variations on the theme before making a headlong musical leap into the closing Presto, calling to mind the virtuoso displays afforded to the closing numbers of his finest operas.

A few weeks after the concerto’s completion, Mozart noted the purchase of a common starling in his expense book. Impressed by its musical mimicry, he notated a melody it had chirped — almost identical to the theme of the K. 453 concerto’s third movement — alongside the remark: “Das war schön!” (“That was beautiful!”) Whether the bird was taught the tune by Mozart or had heard it whistled by a passing concertgoer is a matter of question.

SERGEI PROKOFIEV

Born 27 April 1891; Sontsovka, Russia (now Ukraine)

Died 5 March 1953; Moscow, Russia

Suite from Romeo and Juliet, Opus 64bis/ter

Composed: June – September 1935; Suites No. 1 and No. 2 compiled in summer 1936; revised August – October 1939

First performance: 11 January 1940; Kirov Theatre (now Mariinsky Theatre), Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg), Russia Last MSO performance: 12 November 2016; Cristian Măcelaru, conductor

Instrumentation: piccolo; 2 flutes; 2 oboes; English horn; 2 clarinets; bass clarinet; alto saxophone; 2 bassoons; contrabassoon; 4 horns; 2 trumpets; cornet; 2 trombones; bass trombone; tuba; timpani; percussion (bass drum, cymbals, glockenspiel, snare drum, suspended cymbals, tambourine, triangle, xylophone); harp; piano (doubling on celesta); strings Approximate duration: 35 minutes

At the time, it probably seemed impossible to Prokofiev that his Romeo and Juliet would ever achieve acclaim as one of his most admired scores. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, he had been living abroad and working as a concert pianist for years — a trade he felt merely impeded his nobler ambitions as a composer. After spending more than a decade touring and vying with Igor Stravinsky for notoriety as the greatest Russian composer of his time (and feeling cornered by the global economic downtown of the 1930s), the chance to return to his homeland with a commission from Leningrad must have felt like manna from heaven.

He chose the scenario and began negotiations with the Kirov Theatre in late 1934, collaborating with playwright Adrian Piotrovsky and director Sergei Radlov on the ballet’s libretto, but the production quickly unraveled in the wake of Radlov’s resignation shortly thereafter. By the following summer, the Bolshoi Theater had issued Prokofiev an official contract for the ballet, and he toiled steadily from June until September to put his ideas to paper, orchestrating the music in the autumn of 1935.

But by early 1936, “all kinds of missteps” were obstructing the ballet’s realization. Dancers at the Bolshoi, threatening to strike, complained that it was impossible to dance to the highly rhythmic score, and Prokofiev’s decision to alter the ending such that Romeo and Juliet happily survived kicked the proverbial hornet’s nest. Platon Kerzhentsev, chairman of the Committee on Arts Affairs, seized control of the Bolshoi’s artistic proceedings, disintegrating the administrative staff and earning Prokofiev a second cancellation.

Things went from bad to worse. In January, a printed condemnation of Dmitri Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth appeared in Pravda, the newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, stonewalling any avant-garde composer’s attempt at innovation. Piotrovsky, who had also contributed the libretto for Shostakovich’s ballet The Limpid Stream, saw his own name in the publication a week later. He was eventually arrested and executed in November 1937, one of hundreds of thousands of victims of Stalin’s Great Purge.

Having the good sense not to waste his efforts, Prokofiev distilled two suites from the ballet during the summer of 1936, which premiered to immediate success in Moscow, New York, Paris, and Prague. It was good advertising, and it ultimately landed Prokofiev the debut that the ballet deserved. In December 1938, audiences at the Mahen Theatre in Brno, Czechoslovakia finally enjoyed a one-act reduction of Romeo and Juliet. Prokofiev, having unwittingly relinquished his passport to Soviet authorities that year, was unable to attend. When the entirety of the ballet (now revised, against Prokofiev’s wishes, to restore the tragic ending) premiered at the Kirov Theatre in early 1940, it was instantly lauded as a masterpiece of Soviet ballet.

MENDELSSOHN’S THIRD SYMPHONY

Friday, March 7, 2025 at 11:15 am

Saturday, March 8, 2025 at 7:30 pm

Sunday, March 9, 2025 at 2:30 pm

ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL

David Danzmayr, conductor Claire Huangci, piano

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

Piano Concerto No. 6 in D major, Opus 61a

I. Allegro ma non troppo

II. Larghetto

III. Rondo

Claire Huangci, piano

INTERMISSION

FELIX MENDELSSOHN

Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Opus 56, “Scottish”

I. Andante con moto – Allegro un poco agitato

II. Vivace non troppo

III. Adagio

IV. Allegro vivacissimo – Allegro maestoso assai

The MSO Steinway was made possible through a generous gift from MICHAEL AND JEANNE SCHMITZ

The 2024.25 Classics Series is presented by the UNITED PERFORMING ARTS FUND and ROCKWELL AUTOMATION.

The length of this concert is approximately 2 hours. All programs are subject to change.

Guest Artist Biographies

DAVID DANZMAYR

Described by The Herald as “extremely good, concise, clear, incisive and expressive,” David Danzmayr is widely regarded as one of the most exciting European conductors of his generation.

Danzmayr is in his second season as music director of the Oregon Symphony, having started his tenure there in the orchestra’s 125th anniversary season. He also stands at the helm of the versatile ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, an innovative orchestra comprised of musicians from all over the USA. He holds the title of honorary conductor of the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra, with whom he had served as chief conductor, leading the Zagreb musicians on several European tours, with concerts in the Salzburg Festival Hall, where they performed the prestigious New Year’s concert, and the Vienna Musikverein.

Propelled into a far-reaching international career, Danzmayr has quickly become a sought-after guest conductor, having worked in America with the symphonies of Cincinnati, Minnesota, St. Louis, Seattle, Baltimore, Atlanta, Indianapolis, Detroit, Houston, North Carolina, San Diego, Colorado, Utah, Milwaukee, New Jersey, the Pacific Symphony, Chicago Civic Orchestra, and Grant Park Music Festival.

In Europe, Danzmayr has led the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Bamberger Symphoniker, Sinfonieorchester Basel, Mozarteum Orchester, Essener Philharmoniker, Hamburger Symphoniker, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Odense Symphony, Salzburg Chamber Philharmonic, Bruckner Orchester Linz, and the Radio Symphony Orchestras of Vienna and Stuttgart.

Danzmayr received his musical training at the University Mozarteum in Salzburg where, after initially studying piano, he went on to study conducting in the class of Dennis Russell Davies. He has served as assistant conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, performing in all the major Scottish concert halls and in the prestigious St Magnus Festival.

He was also strongly influenced by Pierre Boulez and Claudio Abbado in his time as conducting stipendiate of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra and by Leif Segerstam during his additional studies in the conducting class of the Sibelius Academy. He subsequently gained significant experience as assistant to Neeme Järvi, Stéphane Denève, Sir Andrew Davis, and Pierre Boulez, who entrusted Danzmayr with the preparatory rehearsals for his own music.

Guest Artist Biographies

CLAIRE HUANGCI

The American pianist Claire Huangci continuously captivates audiences with her “radiant virtuosity, artistic sensitivity, keen interactive sense and subtle auditory dramaturgy” (Salzburger Nachrichten). With an irrepressible curiosity and penchant for unusual repertoire, she proves her versatility with a wide range of repertoire spanning from Bach and Scarlatti via German and Russian romanticism to Bernstein, Amy Beach, and Barber.

Huangci’s 2024-25 season is peppered with exciting projects, starting with a new collaboration on Alpha Classics. Following a highly acclaimed Mozart concerto album with the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, she will release an all-American solo disc titled Made in USA.

Kicking off a string of international orchestral engagements, Huangci will return to the Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra, the Porto, Iceland, Vorarlberg, Nordwestdeutsche, and Pacific symphony orchestras, and debut with the Basel, Hanover, Bremen, Bochum, and Milwaukee symphonies. In recent seasons, she has been a fixture on the concert circuit, presenting an unusual breadth of repertoire and directing various concertos from the piano in the play-direct tradition.

In solo recitals and with international orchestras, Huangci has appeared in some of the most prestigious halls, including Carnegie Hall, Suntory Hall Tokyo, Paris Philharmonie, Frankfurt Alte Oper, Dortmund Konzerthaus, Munich Prinzregententheater, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Berlin Philharmonie, Vienna Konzerthaus, and Salzburg Festspielhaus. She is a welcome guest of renowned festivals, including the Lucerne Festival, Rheingau Musik Festival, and Klavier Festival Ruhr. Her esteemed musical partners include the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Musikkollegium Winterthur, Munich Chamber Orchestra, and Basel Chamber Orchestra, together with Carl St. Clair, Elim Chan, Michael Francis, Howard Griffiths, Pietari Inkinen, Jun Märkl, Cornelius Meister, Sir Roger Norrington, Eva Ollikainen, Alexander Shelley, and Mario Venzago.

Born in Rochester, New York, Huangci displayed an early penchant for piano and was invited to the White House in 1999. She studied with Gary Graffman and Eleanor Sokoloff at the Curtis Institute of Music before moving to Hanover for further studies with Arie Vardi. She rose to international prominence with top prizes at several major competitions, including the European and U.S. Chopin competitions, ARD Music Competition, Geza Anda Competition, and Grand Prix of the Paris Play Direct Academy. Since then, she has led a number of orchestras in various concerto repertoire. Huangci is a proud ambassador of the Henle Publishing House and artistic director of the Erbach Kammerkonzerte series.

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Program notes by David Jensen

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

Born 17 December 1770; Bonn, Germany

Died 26 March 1827; Vienna, Austria

Piano Concerto No. 6 in D major, Opus 61a

Composed: 1806 (arranged for piano in 1807)

First performance: 23 December 1806 (version for violin); Franz Clement, conductor and violin; Theater an der Wien; Unknown (version for piano); First publication in August 1808

Last MSO performance: MSO Premiere

Instrumentation: flute; 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 2 horns; 2 trumpets; timpani; strings

Approximate duration: 42 minutes

Ubiquitously popular among both violinists and audiences today, Beethoven’s violin concerto languished in obscurity for decades following its premiere. Written at a white-hot pace on a commission from violin virtuoso Franz Clement, then concertmaster and conductor at the Theater an der Wien, Beethoven completed the score in just a few short months in 1806. It was an incredibly fertile time for Beethoven’s imaginative faculties; indeed, he seemed to have no want of inspiration, as it was in October of the same year that his third symphony, the “Eroica,” was published, and he had already been hard at work on the Razumovsky quartets, the fourth piano concerto, and the fourth symphony.

That the violin concerto remained a relatively anonymous thing is somewhat unsurprising given its debut: Beethoven delivered the manuscript in the eleventh hour, leaving Clement to sightread at the premiere, and if first-hand accounts are to be believed, Clement even inserted one of his own compositions, played on a single string (and with the violin upside-down), between movements. It isn’t hard to imagine this sort of antic, in the context of an under-rehearsed performance, contributing to the impression that it might not have been worthy of posterity. It wasn’t until the young Hungarian prodigy Joseph Joachim championed the concerto with the London Philharmonic Society in 1844 under the baton of Felix Mendelssohn that it earned its rightful place in history as one of the finest monuments of the genre.

It is not the same vehicle for virtuoso showmanship one would expect from the likes of Brahms, Sibelius, or Tchaikovsky, but rather a deeply expressive and sensitively crafted musical statement of the loftiest lyrical quality. Like the “Eroica,” itself a herald of the Romantic period, the concerto is made up of expansive, forward-looking music that reads like an epic novel, luxuriating in its extended harmonic rhythms, finely ornamented melodies, and highly refined thematic material. An account that remains to us of Clement’s playing in Leipzig’s Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung as “indescribably delicate, neat and elegant,” with “an extremely delightful tenderness and cleanness” suggests that the concerto was tailor-made for him, and Beethoven clearly drew from the French lineage of fiddle-playing typified by the works of Kreutzer, Rode, and Viotti.

The version presented in this weekend’s performances, however, is a rare delicacy for listeners otherwise familiar with the piece. Shortly after its troublous premiere, Italian-British composer and keyboard virtuoso Muzio Clementi requested a new arrangement of the concerto for piano and orchestra, and with some convincing, Beethoven acquiesced, completing it within the following year. Sensing that the music itself was faultless, he left its instrumentation and structure intact, augmenting the soloist’s line with a harmonic framework in the middle and lower register of the piano. Marked by impeccably balanced dynamic contrasts, subtle orchestration, and an abundance of memorable tunes, the result is a charming, almost Mozartian “sixth” piano concerto that embodies the same radiance and depth of emotion as its progenitor.

FELIX MENDELSSOHN

Born 3 February 1809; Hamburg, Germany

Died 4 November 1847; Leipzig, Germany

Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Opus 56, “Scottish”

Composed: July 1829 – 20 January 1842

First performance: 3 March 1842; Feliz Mendelssohn, conductor; Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra

Last MSO performance: 4 March 2017; Edo de Waart, conductor

Instrumentation: 2 flutes; 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 4 horns; 2 trumpets; timpani; strings

Approximate duration: 40 minutes

There are those individuals throughout history whose lives, however brief, seem to contain entire generations of experience. Ignaz Moscheles, one of Europe’s greatest pianistic talents, hinted at the emergence of such a figure in his diary on 22 November 1824: “This afternoon, from two to three o’clock, I gave Felix Mendelssohn his first lesson, without losing sight for a single moment of the fact that I was sitting next to a master, not a pupil.” At 15, Mendelssohn had already composed 13 string symphonies, published two piano quartets, and premiered his first complete symphony a week prior. Three years earlier, the poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe had remarked to Carl Friedrich Zelter, who was teaching Felix composition, that “what your pupil already accomplishes bears the same relation to the [young] Mozart … that the cultivated talk of a grown-up person bears to the prattle of a child.” It is difficult to think of the boy as being anything other than destined for greatness.

He was only 20 years old when he made his way to England for the first time, where he would find fame as the most popular composer of the Victorian era. His concerts in April 1829 with the London Philharmonic Society, conducting performances of his first symphony and serving as soloist for the London premiere of Beethoven’s “Emperor” concerto, were highly favored, and after making his mark in Britain’s cultural capital, he spent the summer walking through Scotland, which would provide the seed of inspiration for his third symphony. A letter to his family in July, which included a musical incipit of the nascent work’s first theme, described his visit to the dilapidated ruins of Holyrood Chapel in Edinburgh, offering a glimpse of the landscapes that were stoking his imagination.

But unlike his overture The Hebrides, inspired by the archipelago off Scotland’s West coast and devised in its entirety by the end of 1830, Mendelssohn dithered in completing the “Scottish.” By October, he was already in Italy, quite removed from the misty and otherwise contemplative moods that had occupied him in the summer. His travels had even yielded an entirely different symphony — his fourth, aptly nicknamed the “Italian” — by 1833, after having spent months basking in the climate of that colorful peninsula. It took nearly a decade for him to return to that first youthful voyage out, but the third symphony was finally finished in January 1842. Concerts in London a few months later were so successful that Queen Victoria herself allowed Mendelssohn to dedicate the piece to her.

As are all of Mendelssohn’s mature compositions, the “Scottish” is characterized by its clarity of form, contrapuntal integrity, and thoroughly vocal melodies. His craftsman-like ingenuity is in full force, and perceptive listeners might notice that the chorale sounded by the winds and low strings at the beginning of the first movement — those mournful measures he first jotted down in Edinburgh — provides the motivic basis which permeates and unites the entire symphony. Despite the frequently dour, turbulent character of the music, Mendelssohn’s graceful renderings of the simplest ideas make obvious the rationale for his adoration by English audiences. By the time of his death only five years after the third’s premiere, Mendelssohn had composed reams of exquisite music, contributed to the revival of interest in Johann Sebastian Bach, and established his reputation as a pianist, conductor, and composer of the highest stature, cementing his place in the canon for all time.

BARB CAPRILIE FULL

CHRIS THILE WITH THE MSO

Saturday, March 15, 2025 at 7:30 pm

ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL

Ryan Tani, conductor

Chris Thile, vocalist and mandolin

Ilana Setapen, violin

Alex Sopp, soprano

Members of the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus

ARTURO MÁRQUEZ

Danzón No. 2

BÉLA BARTÓK

Romanian Folk Dances, Sz. 68, BB 76

I. Joc cu bâtă

II. Brâul

III. Pe loc

IV. Buciumeana

V. Poarga românească

VI. Mărunţel

VII. Mărunţel

JOHANNES BRAHMS/orch. Albert Parlow

Hungarian Dance No. 5 in G minor, WoO 1

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

Concerto in D minor for Two Violins and String Orchestra, BWV 1043

III. Allegro

Chris Thile, mandolin

Ilana Setapen, violin

CAROLINE SHAW And So

SAMUEL BARBER

Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 14

III. Presto in moto perpetuo

Chris Thile, mandolin

INTERMISSION

TRADITIONAL

Little Birdie

CHRIS THILE

ATTENTION! (a narrative song cycle for extroverted mandolinist and orchestra)

I. Attention

II. Lord Starbucks

III. The Rooftop

IV. Carrie Freaking Fisher

Chris Thile, vocalist and mandolin

Alex Sopp, soprano

Members of the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus

PUNCH BROTHERS/arr. Gabriel Kahane

Julep

The length of this concert is approximately 2 hours. All programs are subject to change.

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Guest Artist Biographies

CHRIS THILE

Acclaimed Grammy Award-winning mandolinist, singer, songwriter, composer, and MacArthur Fellow recipient of the prestigious “Genius Grant”, Chris Thile is a multifaceted musical talent, described by The Guardian as “that rare being: an all-round musician,” and hailed by NPR as a “genre-defying musical genius.” Thile is a founding member of the highly influential string bands Punch Brothers and Nickel Creek and has collaborated with countless luminaries from Yo-Yo Ma to Fiona Apple to Brad Mehldau. For four years, Thile hosted public radio favorite Live from Here with Chris Thile (formerly known as A Prairie Home Companion). With his broad outlook, Thile creates a distinctly American canon and a new musical aesthetic for performers and audiences alike, giving the listener “one joyous arc, with the linear melody and vertical harmony blurring into a single web of gossamer beauty” (New York Times).

Over the last year, Thile has been touring with Nickel Creek in support of the critically acclaimed 2023 release Celebrants and captivating audiences with a playfully ambitious biographical composition entitled ATTENTION! (a narrative song cycle for extroverted mandolinist and orchestra). Additionally, he has been focused on the production of a new musical variety show, The Energy Curfew Music Hour. Created with Claire Coffee and featuring Punch Brothers, season one is available on Audible and all podcasting platforms. Most recently, Chris debuted a new one-man show, The Manhattan Variations, in NYC’s Little Island about finding oneself in a little cocktail bar on the Lower East Side.

Program notes by Chris Thile

CHRIS THILE

Born 20 February 1981; Oceanside, California

ATTENTION! (a narrative song cycle for extroverted mandolinist and orchestra)

Composed: 2023

First performance: 29 June 2023; Eric Jacobsen, conductor; Chris Thile, vocalist and mandolin; The Knights Last MSO performance: MSO Premiere

Instrumentation: 2 flutes (2nd doubling on piccolo); 2 oboes (2nd doubling on English horn); 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 2 horns; 2 trumpets; trombone; timpani; percussion (drum set); strings

Approximate duration: 40 minutes

I adore orchestras. Whether scaled up for grandeur, or down for intimacy, nothing makes me prouder to be human than hearing a stage full of highly skilled orchestral musicians practicing their craft together. It’s magic, and it’s something I’ve been desperate to participate in since the early aughts, when a hero of mine, Edgar Meyer, walked me through the score of a violin concerto he wrote for another hero of mine, Hilary Hahn. In the late aughts I wrote a mandolin concerto, but after performing it quite a bit for a year or so with some truly lovely orchestras, I realized that it was basically the musical equivalent of fan fiction (like I’m tempted to rename it “Bartók meets Adés for coffee at Edgar’s”). SO, I went back to admiring orchestral music from afar, even as I continued to monitor my inner ear for something that might justify another attempt. A year or two ago, a tantalizing text from my pal, Eric Jacobsen (“Thile, whatever you wanna do with orchestra, we can make it happen!”) prompted more pro-active monitoring and I started hearing bits of what would eventually become ATTENTION! I was confused at first, ‘cause these little aural visions included not just mandolin and orchestra, but singing AND talking as well. Whoa, ok...FUN. Further dreaming led to the conviction that there should be an actual STORY, not just loosely related vignettes (which has pretty much been my MO on long form pieces with vocals up to this point). But WHAT story? I’ve always loved writing songs based on short stories, so I started there, widened the search to essays, then read a bunch of plays, but every time I got excited about something, a nagging little voice (probably remembering my last orchestral piece) would say “Yeah, but why would YOU be the one to musicalize this story?” Ugh. Fair. Ok, fine then: what is a story I like to tell about something that happened to me that my friends seem to like hearing? Ah HA! THIS ONE, hands down, no contest. If you’ve ever had a couple rounds with me at a good cocktail bar, chances are I’ve trotted it out, and the thought of turning it into a piece of orchestral music got my inner ear cranking like never before. It’s a ridiculous story, but it’s 100% true, and the more I’ve worked on the telling of it, the more aware I’ve become of what a profound impact the whole experience had on me as a person who loves to make things and show them to other people.

You can find the lyrics at christhile.com/attention, but I recommend only using it when my diction isn’t up to snuff (I’m working on it, swear to God!). Now, if you’ll just give me your attention...

BACH CELEBRATION

Friday, March 21, 2025 at 7:30 pm

Saturday, March 22, 2025 at 7:30 pm

Sunday, March 23, 2025 at 2:30 pm

ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL

Ken-David Masur, conductor

Dashon Burton, bass-baritone

Kevin Pearl, oboe

Jeanyi Kim, violin

Jinwoo Lee, violin

Sonora Slocum, flute

Heather Zinninger, flute

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

Concerto in C minor for Violin, Oboe, and String Orchestra, BWV 1060R

I. Allegro

II. Adagio

III. Allegro

Kevin Pearl, oboe

Jeanyi Kim, violin

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

Cantata No. 82, “Ich habe genug,” BWV 82

I. Aria: Ich habe genug

II. Recitative: Ich habe genug

III. Aria: Schlummert ein, ihr matten Augen

IV. Recitative: Mein Gott! wenn kömmt das schöne: Nun!

V. Aria: Ich freue mich auf meinen Tod

Dashon Burton, bass-baritone INTERMISSION

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G major, BWV 1049

I. Allegro

II. Andante

III. Presto

Jinwoo Lee, violin

Sonora Slocum, flute

Heather Zinninger, flute

Continued on page 46

BACH CELEBRATION

Continued from page 45

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

Suite No. 4 in D major for Orchestra, BWV 1069

I. Ouverture

II. Bourrée I – Bourrée II

III. Gavotte

IV. Menuet I – Menuet II

V. Réjouissance

The 2024.25 Classics Series is presented by the UNITED PERFORMING ARTS FUND and ROCKWELL AUTOMATION. The Bach Festival is sponsored by the WE ENERGIES FOUNDATION. The length of this concert is approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes. All programs are subject to change.

Guest Artist Biographies

KEVIN PEARL

Kevin Pearl is the assistant principal oboe of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, a position he assumed in the fall of 2015. Prior to his appointment in Milwaukee, Pearl was a member of the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, Florida, and toured with the orchestra to the Harris Theater, the Kennedy Center, and Carnegie Hall. During the summer, he is the oboe faculty member at Festival Napa Valley, and he performs regularly with the Grant Park Orchestra, the Mainly Mozart All-Star Orchestra, and the Lakes Area Music Festival, with whom he performed Richard Strauss’s oboe concerto in 2016. He is also the First Prize winner of the inaugural Double Reed Society’s Young Artist Competition.

As a chamber musician, Pearl was featured on the New World Symphony’s chamber series with a performance of Mozart’s piano quintet with pianist Garrick Ohlsson and as a guest soloist on Joan Tower’s Island Prelude. Outside of the traditional classical music paradigm, he writes and records with composer and producer Nathaniel Wolkstein, incorporating the oboe and English horn into symphonically-infused popular music.

With a passion for teaching, Pearl maintains a private studio in Milwaukee and coaches the woodwind sections for the Milwaukee Youth Symphony’s top three orchestras. He has given masterclasses at the University of Miami and the Mainly Mozart Festival, coached at the New World Symphony, and served on the faculty of Wisconsin Lutheran College.

Born and raised in Coral Springs, Florida, Pearl received a Bachelor of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music and a Master of Music degree from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. His primary teachers are Richard Killmer, Robert Atherholt, and Robert Weiner, with additional mentorship from Elaine Douvas, Richard Woodhams, and Nathan Hughes. When he’s not playing the oboe, Pearl enjoys spending time with his cat Niyla, playing video games, and making his friends laugh.

Guest Artist Biographies

JEANYI KIM

Jeanyi Kim is the associate concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and concertmaster of Milwaukee Musaik. A Toronto native, Kim’s command as a violinist has brought her to illustrious venues around the world, including Carnegie Hall, the Barbican Centre, Salle Pleyel, and the Concertgebouw. As a guest, she has appeared as assistant leader of the London Symphony Orchestra under Sir Colin Davis and Valery Gergiev, concertmaster of the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra, principal second violin of the National Arts Centre Orchestra, and substitute musician of the Philadelphia Orchestra. The Journal Sentinel has praised her performances, drawing likeness to that of “a glamorous international star,” and her playing has been described as “engrossing…intelligent,” and simultaneously having “easy grace” (Journal Sentinel) and “fistfuls of technical fireworks” (Urban Milwaukee).

Recent solo appearances include performances with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Musaik, Sunflower Music Festival Orchestra, and the Kenosha and Sheboygan symphony orchestras. A passionate and energetic chamber musician, Kim is a founding member of the Philomusica Quartet and is a regular artist at the esteemed Sunflower Music Festival. She has performed in a number of prominent chamber music series, including Frankly Music, Dame Myra Hess, Fine Arts at First, and Searl Pickett, as well as on radio broadcasts for Wisconsin Public Radio, WFMT Chicago, and Kansas Public Radio. In addition, she serves as vice president of the Board of Milwaukee Musaik.

A dedicated teacher, Kim has held faculty positions at various institutions, including University of Wisconsin-Parkside and University of New Haven, and during summers has taught at several festivals, including the Eleazar de Carvalho International Music Festival and the Elm City ChamberFest. Under her guidance, many of her students have gone on to win various prizes and honors. Her major teachers include Erick Friedman, Kyung Yu, Rebecca Henry, and Berl Senofsky, and important mentors include Aldo and Elizabeth Parisot, Sidney Harth, and the Tokyo String Quartet. As a graduate student at Yale, she served as a teaching assistant to Erick Friedman. Kim holds a DMA from Yale University, where she also earned her BA, MM, and MMA degrees. As an undergraduate, Kim was the recipient of the Bach Society Award.

Kim recorded for a Boosey & Hawkes compilation entitled 10 Violin Solos from the Masters, released by Hal Leonard. She performs on a 1705 Petrus Guarnerius violin.

Guest Artist Biographies

DASHON BURTON

Hailed as an artist “alight with the spirit of the music” (Boston Globe), threetime Grammy winning bass-baritone Dashon Burton has established a vibrant career, appearing regularly throughout the U.S. and Europe.

Burton’s 2024-25 season began with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl led by Gustavo Dudamel. Highlights throughout the season include returns to the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra for the second season as artistic partner for Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and Bach’s Ich habe genug, both led by Ken-David Masur; his Boston Symphony subscription debut with Michael Tilson Thomas’s Walt Whitman Songs led by Teddy Abrams; his Toronto Symphony debut in the Mozart Requiem led by Jukka-Pekka Saraste; the Brahms-Glanert Serious Songs and the Mozart Requiem with the St. Louis Symphony led by Stéphane Denève; the Mozart Requiem with the Minnesota Orchestra and Thomas Søndergård; and Handel’s Messiah with the National Symphony led by Masaki Suzuki.

Burton’s 2023-24 season included multiple appearances with Michael Tilson Thomas, including a performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the San Francisco Symphony and Copland’s Old American Songs with the New World Symphony. Burton also performed Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the Washington Bach Consort, Handel’s Messiah with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the title role in Sweeney Todd at Vanderbilt University. With the Cleveland Orchestra, Burton sang in a semi-staged version of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, and he joined the Milwaukee Symphony and Ken-David Masur for three subscription weeks as their artistic partner.

A multiple award-winning singer, Burton won his second Grammy Award in March 2021 for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album with his performance featured in Dame Ethyl Smyth’s masterwork The Prison with The Experiential Orchestra (Chandos). As an original member of the groundbreaking vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth, he won his first Grammy Award in 2013 for their inaugural recording of all new commissions and his third Grammy Award in 2024 for their most recent recording, Rough Magic, featuring more new commissions from Caroline Shaw, William Brittelle, Peter Shin, and Eve Beglarian.

His other recordings include Songs of Struggle & Redemption: We Shall Overcome (Acis); the Grammy Award-nominated recording of Paul Moravec’s Sanctuary Road (Naxos); Holocaust, 1944 by Lori Laitman (Acis); and Caroline Shaw’s The Listeners with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. His album of spirituals garnered high praise and was singled out by The New York Times as “profoundly moving … a beautiful and lovable disc.”

Burton received a Bachelor of Music degree from Oberlin College and Conservatory, and a Master of Music degree from Yale University’s Institute of Sacred Music. He is an assistant professor of voice at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music.

Program notes by David Jensen

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

Born 31 March 1685; Eisenach, Germany

Died 28 July 1750; Leipzig, Germany

Concerto

in C minor for Violin, Oboe, and String Orchestra, BWV

1060R

Composed: Unknown; possibly during Bach’s years at Köthen (17171723); version for two harpsichords arranged circa 1736

First performance: Unknown; reconstruction for oboe and violin by Max Seiffert published in 1920; arrangement for two violins by Max Schneider premiered on 20 June 1920; Adolf Busch, violin; Edgar Wollgandt, violin; Leipzig Bach Festival

Last MSO performance: MSO Premiere

Instrumentation: harpsichord; strings

Approximate duration: 16 minutes

Comparatively little is known for certain about the concerto for violin and oboe. There are no extant manuscripts of it in its original form, and what audiences will hear in the course of this performance is itself a reconstruction derived from Bach’s subsequent arrangement for two harpsichords, which he produced sometime around 1735-1740. It is likely that the first version was composed during his years in Köthen, where his appointment to Prince Leopold (a Calvinist with little use for sacred music) resulted in a rich variety of instrumental music, including the ever-popular Brandenburg concerti and the orchestral suites.

That the surviving iteration left to us is for two harpsichords isn’t unusual. Nearly all of Bach’s keyboard concerti were reimaginings of earlier pieces for varying instrumental forces, and while scholarship has roundly concluded that Bach regularly refashioned his own (and others’) music to that end, the problem of working out the exact motivations and performing circumstances for these transcriptions persists. It is unlikely that Bach wrote much, if any, of his instrumental music with an eye toward posterity, and the dearth of source documents has decidedly muddied the musicological waters.

In 1874, the Bach-Gesellschaft (“Bach Society”), then in its infancy, published an edition of the double harpsichord concerto with a preface by musicologist Wilhelm Rust suggesting that it had initially been written for two violins in D minor. Twelve years later, Woldemar Voigt, a German physicist and Bach scholar, asserted that it had been intended for violin and oboe, basing his claim in part on a 1764 entry for a lost concerto in the catalog of the Leipzig publisher Breitkopf. It wasn’t until 1920 that Max Seiffert would publish his setting in C minor for that particular combination, making it entirely possible that the “original” went unheard for more than a century.

The concerto represents the peak of Bach’s creative energies during his time Köthen, modelled closely upon the Italianate concerto form perfected by Antonio Vivaldi (whose concerti Bach studied and recast for keyboard on multiple occasions). The theme of the Allegro is subject to contrapuntal and harmonic transformation before returning to its first rendition, while the slow middle movement carefully intertwines the two solo lines in intimate, imitative counterpoint. The lively ritornello (“little return”) of the final movement calls to mind the duple rhythm of the bourrée, with each soloist elaborating upon the primary material in-between appearances of the original motive.

Cantata No. 82, “Ich habe genug,” BWV 82

Composed: 1727; revised 1731, 1735, and 1747

First performance: 2 February 1727; St. Nicholas Church, Leipzig, Germany

Last MSO performance: MSO Premiere

Instrumentation: oboe; English horn; harpsichord; organ; strings

Approximate duration: 22 minutes

When Bach was appointed Thomaskantor — or director of church music in Leipzig — in 1723, he was charged with furnishing four churches with a continuous supply of new music. He had already spent several years of his career serving as Konzertmeister at the Weimar court composing church cantatas on a monthly basis, but with his arrival in the post he would hold for the last 27 years of his life, he was expected to provide a cantata for every Sunday and feast day of the Lutheran calendar. During the first few years of his employment there, he is estimated to have written an entirely new cantata every week, a testament to his prodigious ability to cultivate and shape new ideas.

The cantata Ich habe genug (“I have enough”) was composed for the Feast of the Purification of Mary, so called (according to the gospel narrative) for Mary’s ritual purification 40 days after childbirth as she and Joseph presented the newborn Jesus at the Temple in Jerusalem. The prescribed readings for the feast day came from the Book of Malachi and the Gospel of Luke, and the cantata’s libretto, most likely written by Bach’s pupil Christoph Birkmann, is based on the Song of Simeon found in the second chapter of Luke. Promised by the Holy Ghost that he wouldn’t die before witnessing the Messiah, Simeon encountered the baby Jesus at Jerusalem, and, taking him into his arms, faced his death as a joyous emancipation from our mortal foibles: Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.

Luke 2:29-32

Scored for bass, oboe, strings, and continuo — with the singer almost certainly intended as a representation of Simeon himself — the music’s meditative quality underscores Bach’s capacity for skillfully illuminating the atmosphere and character of a given text. Bach revised the cantata several times in the years following its first performance and even crafted a transcription for soprano, and the central aria, “Schlummert ein, ihr matten Augen” (“fall into slumber, you languid eyes”), appears in one of the notebooks of Anna Magdalena Bach, his second wife, who was herself a singer by trade. Both are an indication that he thought highly of it, and rightfully so: the music remains some of Bach’s most popular, with over 200 recordings in circulation.

Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G major, BWV 1049

Composed: Unknown; possibly 1719-1720

First performance: Unknown; collection dedicated on 24 March 1721

Last MSO performance: 26 February 1989; Zdeněk Mácal, conductor; J. Patrick Rafferty, violin; Janet Millard de Roldán, flute; Judith Ormond, flute

Instrumentation: harpsichord; strings

Approximate duration: 17 minutes

Frequently recognized as one of the most industrious composers of his time, Bach made positively herculean efforts in his attempts to get ahead in the world. In 1719, he visited and performed for Christian Ludwig, the Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt, while traveling to Berlin to purchase a new harpsichord on behalf of his employer, Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen; the Margrave, apparently taken by Bach’s efforts, was inspired enough to request that he send

him some of his compositions. Bach, perhaps reading the invitation as a prospect for better employment (or at least princely remuneration), responded two years after the fact with some of the most sublime music of the Baroque era. There is, unfortunately, no evidence to suggest that Ludwig so much as acknowledged his efforts.

As with many of Bach’s instrumental works, it is difficult to determine precisely when the Brandenburg concerti were composed, but what is known is that he took the trouble to copy each of the six in his own hand when submitting them along with a letter of dedication to Christian Ludwig dated 24 March 1721. The music itself was neither entirely new nor written expressly for the Margrave, but a sort of compilation derived from sinfonias, cantatas, and other pieces written as early as 1713. The title page of the collection describes the six concertos as being for “several instruments,” which is a disservice to the innovation Bach displayed in organizing each concerto’s instrumental forces.

The concerto grosso form, having then reached a peak of development and popularity, featured two groupings of instruments: the concertino (“little ensemble,” or the group of soloists) and the ripieno (“stuffing,” or the orchestral players), and each of the six Brandenburg concerti featured a distinct — and somewhat unusual — combination of soloists. The fourth concerto is written for a concertino of violin and two flutes, although Bach’s designation for fiauti d’echo (“echo flutes”) has remained something of a puzzle for contemporary performers, who typically realize this indication with recorders or modern instruments.

The music itself more closely resembles an Italian violin concerto, with the technical bravura of the outer movements offering the violinist ample opportunity for showmanship. The pensive inner Andante provides contrast in the relative key of E minor, structured as a call-and-response between the ripieno and the flutists as the violin assumes a supporting role by furnishing the soloists with a simple bassline. More than a decade after his letter to Ludwig, Bach, who was by nature as economical as possible with every bit of his oeuvre, rearranged the work as a harpsichord concerto.

Suite No. 4 in D major for Orchestra, BWV 1069

Composed: Unknown; possibly during Bach’s years at Köthen (1717-1723)

First performance: Unknown

Last MSO performance: 5 October 1964; Harry John Brown, conductor

Instrumentation: 3 oboes; bassoon; 3 trumpets; timpani; harpsichord; strings

Approximate duration: 18 minutes

The orchestral suites are an anomaly in Bach’s catalog. His contemporary, Georg Philipp Telemann, is known to have composed hundreds of them, but only four of Bach’s remain to us. They were originally styled as ouvertures, a conscious nod to French operatic tradition, and unlike his more intellectually rigorous music, characterized by its dense textures and sophisticated polyphonic interplay, they essentially stand as collections of light (albeit beautifully contrived) dance music. French culture and musical practice were immensely popular across the continent during the eighteenth century, and Bach, being in possession of a staggering musical intellect, was quick to integrate foreign musical vernacular into his own work.

The practice of grouping together disparate dance forms had been established decades before Bach took up his pen. The seventeenth-century keyboard virtuoso Johann Jakob Froberger is typically identified as having codified the convention of gathering tonally unified dances into a single suite, which usually included an allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue, a pattern that Bach had followed closely in his cello suites and keyboard partitas. What was unique to Bach’s orchestral settings was the inclusion of a French overture as the first movement: derived from the customs of French opera, the overture was built upon a ternary (or three-part) form,

with a slow, regal introduction (marked by the use of dotted rhythms) followed by a faster contrapuntal episode before returning to the opening statement.

The fourth suite was likely written during his time at the court of Köthen, although this is impossible to confirm, as the original source has been lost. The earliest documentation we have of its existence is its adaptation for the Christmas cantata Unser Mund sei voll Lachens (“May our mouth be full of laughter”), written at Leipzig in 1725. The first sources of the suite in its definitive form are individual parts from around 1730, when Bach was busy leading the Collegium Musicum. It is the most richly orchestrated of the four suites, though scholars have speculated that the inclusion of trumpets and timpani came with the integration of the music into the cantata. The bourrée, gavotte, and menuet, each dances of French origin, are included, and it is the only suite to include a movement titled Réjouissance, a celebratory title found later in Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks.

NORTHSHORE

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VISIONARIES

Commitments of $1,000,000 and above

Two Anonymous Donors

Jane Bradley Pettit

Charles and Marie Caestecker Concertmaster Chair

Ellen and Joe Checota

The Cudahy Foundation

Franklyn Esenberg

Herzfeld Foundation

Krause Family Principal Horn Chair

Dr. Keith Austin Larson

Principal Organ Chair

Laskin Family Foundation

Dr. Brent and Susan Martin

Phyllis and Harleth Pubanz

Gertrude M. Puelicher Education Fund

Michael and Jeanne Schmitz President and Executive Director Chair

John and Judith Simonitsch Tuba Chair

Stein Family Foundation Principal Pops Conductor Chair

John Stewig

Polly and Bill Van Dyke

Music Director Chair

James E. Van Ess

Principal Librarian Chair

Thora M. Vervoren First Associate Concertmaster Chair

The Family of Evonne Winston and Paul Nausieda

PHILANTHROPISTS

Commitments of $500,000 and above

One Anonymous Donor

Donald B. Abert Principal Bass Chair

Mr. Richard Blomquist

Patrice L. (Patti) Bringe

Margaret and Roy Butter Principal Flute Chair

Donald and Judy Christl

Fred Fuller Trumpet Chair

Douglas M. Hagerman

Mrs. Alyce Coyne Katayma

Andrea and Woodrow Leung Principal Second Violin Chair and Fred Fuller

Dorothea C. Mayer Principal Cello Chair

Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra League Principal Oboe Chair

Northwestern Mutual Foundation

Melitta S. Pick Endowed Piano Chair

Dr. Carol Pohl

Walter L. Robb Family Principal Trumpet Chair

Robert T. Rolfs Foundation

Gertrude Elser and John Edward Schroeder Guest Artist Fund

Walter Schroeder Foundation Principal Harp Chair

Muriel C. and John D. Silbar Family Principal Bassoon Chair

Marjorie Tiefenthaler Principal Trombone Chair

Richard O. and Judith A. Wagner Family Principal Viola Chair

BENEFACTORS

Commitments of $100,000 and above

Four Anonymous Donors

Patty and Jay Baker Fund for Guest Artists

Mr. and Mrs. Frederick J.O. Blachly

Philip Blank English Horn Chair in memoriam to John Martin and his favorite cousin, Beatrice Blank

Judith and Stanton Bluestone

Estate of Lloyd Broehm

Louise Cattoi, in memory of David and Angela Cattoi

Lynn Chappy Salon Series

Terry J. Dorr

Elizabeth Elser Doolittle

Charitable Trust

Franklyn Esenberg

Principal Clarinet Chair

David L. Harrison Endowment for Music Education

Estate of Sally Hennen

Karen Hung and Robert Coletti

Richard M. Kimball

Bass Trombone Chair

William Randolph Hearst Foundation

Judy and Gary Jorgensen

Judith A. Keyes MSOL Docent Fund

Charles A. Krause

Donald and JoAnne Krause Music Education Endowment Fund

Martin J. Krebs

Co-Principal Trumpet Chair

Laskin Family Foundation

Charles and Barbara Lund

Mr. Peter L. Mahler

Marcus Corporation Foundation Guest Artist Fund

Annette Marra

Susan and Brent Martin

Christian and Kate Mitchell

William and Marian Nasgovitz

Andy Nunemaker French Horn Chair

John and Elizabeth Ogden

Lois and Richard Pauls

Gordana and Milan Racic

The Erika Richman MSO-MYSO

Reading Workshop Fund

Pat and Allen Rieselbach

Friends of Janet F. Ruggeri

Assistant Principal Viola Chair

Sara and Jay Schwister

Allison M. & Dale R. Smith

Percussion Fund

Estate of Walter S. Smolenski, Jr.

Bert L. & Patricia S. Steigleder

Charitable Trust

Donald B. and Ruth P. Taylor

Assistant Principal Clarinet Chair

Haruki Toyama

Mrs. William D. Vogel

Barbara and Ted Wiley

Jack Winter Guest Artist Fund

Fern L. Young Endowment

Fund for Guest Artists

MUSICAL LEGACY SOCIETY

The Musical Legacy Society recognizes and appreciates the individuals who have made a planned gift to the MSO.

The MSO invites you to join these generous donors who have remembered the Orchestra in their estate plans.

Nine Anonymous Donors

George R. Affeldt

Dana and Gail Atkins

Robert Balderson

Bruce and Margaret Barr

Adam Bauman

Priscilla and Anthony Beadell

Mr. F. L. Bidinger

Dr. Philip and Beatrice Blank

Mr. Richard Blomquist

Judith and Stanton Bluestone

Patrice L. (Patti) Bringe

Jean S. Britt

Laurette Broehm

Neil Brooks

Anthony and Vicki Cecalupo

Lynn Chappy

Ellen and Joe Checota

Donald and Judy Christl

Mary E. and James M. Connelly

Jo Ann Corrao

Lois Ellen Debbink

Mary Ann Delzer

Robert C. and Lois K. Dittus

Julie Doneis

Terry J. Dorr

Donn Dresselhuys

Beth and Ted Durant

Rosemarie Eierman

Franklyn Esenberg

John and Sue Esser

JoAnn Falletta

Donald L. Feinsilver, M.D.

Susie and Robert Fono

Ruth and John Fredericks

Mr. and Mrs. E. G. Goldsmith

Brett Goodman

Roberta Gordon

Marta P. and Doyne M. Haas

Douglas M. Hagerman

Ms. Jean I. Hamann

Ms. Sybille Hamilton

Kristin A. Hansen

David L. Harrison

Judy Harrison

Cheryl H. and Roy L. Hauswirth

Cliff Heise

Sidney and Suzanne Herszenson

Dr. and Mrs. Samuel Hoke

Glenda Holm

Jean and Charles Holmburg

Karen Hung and Robert Coletti

Myra Huth

William and Janet Isbister

Lee and Barbara Jacobi

Musical Legacy Society/Annual Fund

Leon and Betsy Janssen

Marilyn W. John

Faith L. Johnson

Mary G. Johnson

Jayne J. Jordan

Judy and Gary Jorgensen

Debra Jupka

James A. and Robin S. Kasch

Howard Kaspin

James H. Keyes

Judith A. Keyes

Richard and Sarah Kimball

Mary Krall

JoAnne and Donald Krause

Martin J. and Alice Krebs

Ronald and Vicki Krizek

Cynthia Krueger-Prost

Steven E. Landfried

Mr. Bruce R. Laning

Victor Larson

Tom and Lise Lawson

Andrea and Woodrow Leung

Mr. Robert D. Lidicker

Mr. and Mrs. John B. Liebenstein

Drs. John and Theresa Liu

Mr. Peter L. Mahler

Dr. John and Kristie Malone

Dana and Jeff Marks

Steven and Mary Rose Marinkovich

Ms. Kathleen Marquardt

Susan and Brent Martin

JoAnne Matchette

Rita T. and James C. McDonald

Patricia and James McGavock

Nancy McGiveran

Nancy McKinley-Ehlinger

Mark and Donna Metzendorf

Mrs. Christel U. Mildenberg

Christian and Kate Mitchell

Joan Moeller

Ms. Melodi Muehlbauer

Robert Mulcahy

Kathleen M. Murphy

William and Marian Nasgovitz

Andy Nunemaker

Diana and Gerald Ogren

Lynn and Lawrence Olsen

Mr. and Mrs. Philip W. Orth

Lygere Panagopoulos

Jamshed and Deborah Patel

Gerald T. and Carol K. Petersen

Mr. and Mrs. Ronald R. Poe

Dr. Carol Pohl

Julie Quinlan Brame and Jason Brame

Ms. Harvian Raasch-Hooten

Christine Radiske and Herbert Quigley

Steve and Susan Ragatz

Catherine A. Regner

Pat and David Rierson

Pat and Allen Rieselbach

Dr. Thomas and Mary Roberts

Roger B. Ruggeri and Andrea K. Wagoner

Nina Sarenac

Mary B. Schley in recognition of David L. Schley

Dr. Robert and Patty Schmidt

Michael J. and Jeanne E. Schmitz

James and Kathleen Scholler

Charitable Fund

James Schultz and Donna Menzer

Mason Sherwood and Mark Franke

John and Judith Simonitsch

Margles Singleton

Lois Bernard and William Small

Dale and Allison Smith

Susan G. Stein

John Stewig and Richard Bradley

Dr. Robert A. and Kathleen Sullo

Terry Burko and David Taggart

Lois Tetzlaff

E. Charlotte Theis

James E. Van Ess

Thora Vervoren

Dr. Richard O. and Judith A. Wagner

Veronica Wallace-Kraemer

Michael Walton

Brian A. Warnecke

Earl Wasserman

Alice Weiss

Carol and James Wiensch

Rolland and Sharon Wilson

Floyd Woldt

Sandra and Ross Workman

For more information on becoming a Musical Legacy Society member, please contact the Development Office at 414-226-7891.

ANNUAL FUND

The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra truly values the music lovers in the concert hall, and we thank our contributors to the Annual Fund for investing their time and support in this treasure. We gratefully acknowledge the contributions to the Annual Fund as of January 8, 2025.

CONDUCTOR CIRCLE

$100,000 and above

Clair and Mary Baum

Ellen and Joe Checota

David Herro and Jay Franke

Mr. and Mrs. George C. Kaiser

Donald and JoAnne Krause

Marty Krebs

Sheldon and Marianne Lubar

Charitable Fund of the Lubar Family Foundation

Drs. Alan and Carol Pohl

Michael Schmitz

Julia and David Uihlein

$50,000 and above

Laura and Mike Arnow

Mr. and Mrs. Donald S. Wilson

$25,000 and above

One Anonymous Donor

Bobbi and Jim Caraway

Anthony and Vicki Cecalupo

Mr. and Mrs. Franklyn Esenberg

Mrs. Susan G. Gebhardt

Doug Hagerman

Judith A. Keyes

Robert and Gail Korb

Dr. Brent and Susan Martin

Thomas Sherman

Drs. George and Christine Sosnovsky

Charitable Trust

Drs. Robert Taylor and Janice McFarland Taylor

Thora Vervoren

James and Sue Wiechmann

$15,000 and above

One Anonymous Donor

Marilyn and John Breidster

Elaine Burke

Mary and James Connelly

Dr. Deborah and Jeff Costakos

Mrs. Alyce Coyne Katayama

George E. Forish, Jr.

Roberta Gordon and Allen Young

Kim and Nancy Graff

Drs. Carla and Robert Hay

Jewish Community Foundation Eileen and Howard Dubner Donor

Advised Fund

Judy and Gary Jorgensen

Charles and Barbara Lund

Maureen McCabe

Christian and Kate Mitchell

Lois and Richard Pauls

Pat Rieselbach

Brian M. Schwellinger

Sara and Jay Schwister

Allison M. and Dale R. Smith

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas R. Tiffany

Haruki Toyama

Alice Weiss

$10,000 and above

Three Anonymous Donors

Dr. Rita Bakalars

Richard and JoAnn Beightol

Ara and Valerie Cherchian

Jennifer Dirks

Jack Douthitt and Michelle Zimmer

Bruce T. Faure M.D.

Mary Lou M. Findley

The Paul & Connie Flagg Family

Charitable Fund

Elizabeth and William Genne

Judith J. Goetz

Stephanie and Steve Hancock

Katherine Hauser

Mr. and Mrs. Eric E. Hobbs

Dr. and Mrs. Samuel Hoke

Barbara Karol

Christine Krueger

Geraldine Lash

Mr. Peter L. Mahler

Dr. Ann H. and Mr. Michael J. McDonald

Mark and Donna Metzendorf

Dr. Mary Ellen Mitchanis

Bob and Barbara Monnat

Patrick and Mary Murphy

Andy Nunemaker

Brian and Maura Packham

Julie Peay

Ellen Rohwer Pappas and Timothy Pappas

Leslie and Aaron Plamann

Richard V. Poirier

Christine Radiske and Herbert Quigley

Lynn and Craig Schmutzer

Nancy and Greg Smith

Pamela Stampen

Mrs. George Walcott

Tracy S. Wang, MD

Evonne Winston

Diana J. Wood

Herbert Zien and Elizabeth Levins

PRINCIPAL CIRCLE

$5,000 and above

Five Anonymous Donors

Anthony and Kathie Asmuth

Fred and Kay Austermann

Thomas Bagwell and Michelle Hiebert

Robert Balderson

Natalie Beckwith

Lois Bernard

Richard and Kay Bibler

David and Sherry Blumberg

Nancy Vrabec and Alastair Boake

William and Barbara Boles

Suzy and John Brennan

Mary and Terry Briscoe

Roger Byhardt

Chris and Katie Callen

Ms. Trish Calvy

Donald and Judy Christl

Sandra and Russell Dagon

Karen Dobbs and Chris DeNardis

Mrs. William T. Dicus

Joanne Doehler

Jacquelyn and Dalibor Drummer

Beth and Ted Durant

Dr. Eric Durant and Scott Swickard

Dr. and Mrs. Harry A. Easom

Elizabeth and Herodotos Ellinas

Dr. Donald Feinsilver and JoAnn Corrao

Beth and Jim Fritz

Alison Graf and Richard Schreiner

Jean and Thomas Harbeck

Family Foundation

James and Crystal Hegge

Ms. Mary E. Henke

Mark and Judy Hibbard

Peg and Mark Humphrey

Lee and Barbara Jacobi

Leon Janssen

Jayne J. Jordan

Lynn and Tom Kassouf

Benedict and Lee Kordus

Mary E. Lacy

Alysandra and Dave Lal

Mr. and Mrs. James LaBelle

Peter and Kathleen Lillegren

Gerald and Elaine Mainman

John and Linda Mellowes

Judith Fitzgerald Miller

Rusti and Steve Moffic

William J. Murgas

Mark Niehaus

Barbara and Layton Olsen

Elaine Pagedas

Sharon L. Petrie

Dr. and Mrs. Richard A. Pierce-Ruhland

Jim and Fran Proulx

Jerome Randall and Mary Hauser

Dr. Donna Recht and Dr. Robert Newby

Dr. Marcia J.S. Richards

Steve and Fran Richman

Pat and David Rierson

Roger Ritzow

Dr. Thomas and Mary Roberts

Gayle G. Rosemann and Paul E. McElwee

Patricia and Ronald Santilli

Mr. Thomas P. Schweda

Lynne Shaner

Joan Spector

Carlton Stansbury

Mr. and Mrs. Roland E. Strampe

Bob and Betty Streng

Jim Strey

Mrs. James Urdan

Mr. and Mrs. Francis Wasielewski

Nora and Jude Werra

Janet Wilgus

Jessica R. Wirth

Mr. Wilfred Wollner

$3,500 and above

Dr. Philip and the spirit of Beatrice Blank

David and Diane Buck

Daniel and Allison Byrne

Mr. David E. Cadle

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas F. Christie

Steven and Buffy Duback

Stan and Janet Fox

Debby Ganaway

Kurt and Rosemary Glaisner

Margarete and David Harvey

Drs. Margie Boyles and Stephen Hinkle

Barbara Hunt

David and Mel Johnson

Olof Jonsdottir and Thorsteinn Skulason

Megumi Kanda Hemann and Dietrich Hemann

Stanley Kritzik

Norm and Judy Lasca

Dr. Joseph and Amy Leung

Ann Rosenthal and Benson Massey

Judy and Tom Schmid

James Schultz and Donna Menzer

Greg and Marybeth Shuppe

Richard and Sheryl Smith

Roger and Judy Smith

Sue and Boo Smith

James and Catherine Startt

Mark Valkenburgh

Corinthia Van Orsdol and Donald Petersen

Jim Ward

Larry and Adrienne Waters

Carol and Richard Wythes

Sandra Zingler

Leo Zoeller

ORCHESTRA CIRCLE

$2,000 and above

Seven Anonymous Donors

Donald and Jantina Adriano

Drs. Helmut and Sandra Ammon

Dr. Joan Arvedson

Richard and Sara Aster

Mark and Laura Barnard

Bruce and Maggie Barr

Priscilla and Anthony Beadell

Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Beckman

Jacqlynn Behnke

Roger J. Bialcik

Marlene and Bert Bilsky

Scott Bolens and Elizabeth Forman

Virginia Bolger

Dr. and Mrs. Squat Botley

Walter and Virginia Boyer

Cheri and Tom Briscoe

Marcia P. Brooks and Edward J. Hammond

Teri Carpenter

Leigh Barker-Cheesebro

Mr. and Mrs. Stephen L. Chernof

Lynda and Tom Curl

Larry and Eileen Dean

Paul Dekker

Ms. Nancy A. Desjardins

Chris Dillie

Art and Rhonda Downey

Barbara and Harry L. Drake

Sigrid Dynek and Barry Axelrood

Donald Elliott

Signe and Gerald Emmerich, Jr.

Shirley Erwin

Joseph and Joan Fall

Kristin Fewel

Mr. and Mrs. A. William Finke

Anne and Dean Fitzgerald

Jo Ann and Dale Frederickson

Allan and Mary Ellen Froehlich

Timothy Gerend

Jane K. Gertler

Barbara Gill

Pearl Mary Goetsch

Karleen Haberichter

Ginny Hall

Dale and Sara Harmelink

Millicent Hawley

Judith and David Hecker

Robert Hey

Charles and Jean Holmburg

Howard and Susan Hopwood

Robert S. Jakubiak

Pauline and Thomas Jeffers

Marilyn W. John

Ms. Lynda Johnson

Candice and David Johnstone

Maja Jurisic and Don Fraker

Matthew and Kathryn Kamm

Dr. Bruce and Anna Kaufman

Dr. Jack and Myrna Kaufman

Dr. and Mrs. Kim

Mr. and Mrs. F. Michael Kluiber

Maritza and Mario Laguna

Annual Fund

Mr. and Mrs. Ian Lambert

Drs. Kaye and Prakash Laud

Micaela Levine and Thomas St. John

Mr. and Mrs. Mark Levy

Tom Lindow

Frank Loo and Sally Long

Kathleen Lovelace

Sara and Nathan Manning

Dr. and Mrs. Debesh Mazumdar

Guy and Mary Jo McDonald

Mr. and Mrs. Dean Mehlberg

Genie and David Meissner

Mrs. Debra L. Metz

Mr. and Mrs. George Meyer

Gregory and Susan Milleville

Mark and Carol Mitchell

Melodi Muehlbauer

Richard and Isabel Muirhead

Ms. Mary Ann Mueller

Raymond and Janice Perry

Gerald T. and Carol K. Petersen

David J. Peterson

Kathryn Koenen Potos

John and Susan Pustejovsky

Philip Reifenberg

Drs. Walter and Lisa Rich

Susan Riedel

Dr. and Mrs. David Y. Rosenzweig

Dottie Rotter

Mr. Thomas Schneider

Ralph and Cheryl Schregardus

Rev. Doug and Marilyn Schoen

Mr. and Mrs. Mark W. Schwallie

Dr. and Mrs. Kevin R. Siebenlist

Paul and Frances Seifert

Margles Singleton

Mrs. George R. Slater

Dr. and Mrs. C. John Snyder

Leonard Sobczak

Loretto and Dick Steinmetz

Jeff and Jody Steren

Richard and Linda Stevens

Ian and Ellen Szczygielski

David Taggart and Terry Burko

John and Anne Thomas

Joan Thompson

Mr. Stephen Thompson

Mr. Ed Tonn

Joy Towell

Mike and Peg Uihlein

James Van Ess

Mark Van Hecke

Ann and Joseph Wenzler

Prati and Norm Wojtal

Lee and Carol Wolcott

Jim and Sandy Wrangell

Marshall Zarem

William and Denise Zeidler

$1,000 and above

Five Anonymous Donors

Mr. and Mrs. James B. Anello

Ruth Agrusa

Sue and Louie Andrew

Betty Arndt

Mr. Paul A. Baerwald

Paul Barkhaus

Steve and Mary Barney

James and Nora Barry

Rodney C. Bartlow and Judith K. Stephenson

Mr. James M. Baumgartner

Jack Beatty

Christine Beck

Dianne and David Benner

Richard Bergman

Elliot and Karen Berman

Mrs. Kristine Best

Mr. Lawrence Bialcik

Karen and Geoffrey Bilda

Ms. Elizabeth Billings

Marjorie Bjornstad

Greg Black

Robert Borch and Linda Wickstrom

Art and Jacinda Bouton

Lois and Robert Brazner

Dan and Peg Bresnahan

James Brown and Ann Brophy

Michael and Marianna Bruch

Dr. and Mrs. James D. Buck

Mike and Ericka Burzynski

Karen and Harry Carlson

Ms. Carol A. Carpenter

Mr. and Mrs. Richard J. Cecil

John Chain

B. Lauren and Margaret Charous

Edith Christian

Margaret Cieslak-Etlicher

Margaret Crosby

Garrett and Anne de Vroome Kamerling

Mrs. Linda DeBruin

Ms. Kristine Demski

Mary Paula Dix

Thomas C. Dill

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Dougherty

Gloria and Peter Drenzek

Mary Ann Dude

Thomas Durkin and Joan Robotham

Jill and George Fahr

Helen Forster

Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Freitag

Drs. Mark and Virginia Dennis

Martha Giacobassi

Matelan and Carole Glaske

Ralph and Cherie Gorenstein

Stephen and Bernadine Graff

Mr. and Mrs. James Gramentine

Greater Milwaukee Foundation

Dresselhuys Family Fund

Leesley B. and Joan J. Hardy

Jay Kay Foundation Fund

Mr. and Mrs. James Grigg

Douglas and Margaret Ann Haag

Leila and Joe Hanson

Jacqueline Heling

Jean and John Henderson

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Jenny and Bob Hillis

Mr. and Mrs. Bernard C. Hlavac

Jeanne and Conrad Holling

Richard and Jeanne Hryniewicki

Terry Huebner

Barbara Hunteman

Mr. and Mrs. James Hunter III

Suzanne and Michael Hupy

Deane and Vicky Jaeger

Kathryn and Alan Janicek

Amy S. Jensen

Faith L. Johnson

Karen and Dean Johnson

Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kahn

Mr. Stephen Kaniewski

Rose and Dale Kaser

Patrick and Jane Keily

Brain and Mary Lou Kennedy

Ms. Carole Kincaid

Robert and Dorothy King

Ms. Jane Kivlin

Joseph W. Kmoch

Jonathan and Willette Knopp

Michael Koss/Koss Foundation

Milton and Carol Kuyers

Larry and Mary LeBlanc

John and Janice Liebenstein

Mr. and Mrs. David Lindberg

Matt and Patty Linn

Ann Loder

Bruce and Elizabeth Loder

Richard and Roberta London

Neill and Fran Luebke

Wayne and Kristine Lueders

Stephen and Jane Lukowicz

Ms. Joan Maas

Ann MacIver

Stephen and Judy Maersch

Dr. John and Kristie Malone

Mr. Peter Mamerow

Jeanne and David Mantsch

Steven and Mary Rose Marinkovich

Dr. and Mrs. Francisco Martinez

Dr. Daniel and Constance McCarty

Mr. Brian and Lesli McLinden

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas L. McLinn

Drs. Daryl Melzer and Rita Hanson

Ray and Elaine Meyer

Ms. Jean L. Mileham

Steven Miller

Dr. David Miyama

Christine Mortensen

William and Laverne Mueller

David and Gail Nelson

Jean A. Novy

Laurie Ocepek

Dr. and Mrs. James T. Paloucek

William and Cynthia Prost

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Quadracci

Catherine Quirk

Dr. Francis J. Randall

Dr. Ken C. Redlin

Lysbeth and James Reiskytl

Karen and Paul Rice

Dan and Anna Robbins

Mrs. David Y. Rosenzweig

Roger Ruggeri and Andrea Wagoner

Drs. Larry and Polly Ryan

Keri Sarajian and Rick Stratton

Wilbert and Genevieve

Schauer Foundation

Lawrence and Katherine Schnuck

Annual Fund/Gala Paddle Raisers/Gala Sponsors/Corporate & Foundation

Elaine and Martin Schreiber

Stephen and Lois Schreiter

Phil Schumacher and Pauline Beck

Bob and Sally Schwarz

Dr. and Mrs. Neville Sender

Ronald and Judith Shapiro

Scott Silet and Kate Lewis

John and Judith Simonitsch

Mr. Reeves E. Smith

Ken and Dee Stein

Bonnie L. Steindorf

Sally Swetnam

Ms. Lola Tegeder

Rebecca and Robert Tenges

Tim and Bonnie Tesch

Kent and Marna Tess-Mattner

Dean and Katherine Thome

Mr. and Mrs. James S. Tidey

Drs. Steven and Denise Trinkl

Katherine Troy

Constance U’Ren

Gary and Cynthia Vasques

Michael Walton

Ruth A. Way

Ms. Beth L. Weckmueller

Henry J. Wellner and James Cook

Mr. and Mrs. Jerome T. Welz

Ann and Joe Wenzler

Barbara Wesener

David Wesley

Lynn and Richard Wesolek

Ms. Stephanie Wesselowski

Robert and Barbara Whealon

A. James White

Robert and Lana Wiese

Linda and Dan Wilhelms

Terry and Carol Wilkins

Jay and Madonna Williams

Rolland and Sharon Wilson

Ron and Alice Winkler

Daryl and Bonnie Wunrow

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Mrs. Sharon S. Ziegler

Marilyn and Doug Zwissler

GALA PADDLE

RAISERS

André Allaire

Mary Allmon

Alice Ambrowiak

Laura and Mike Arnow

Alexander Ayers

Tom and Susan Beranek

Erica and Eric Berg

John and Caroline Bolger

Virginia Bolger

Meg Boyd

Bob Bronzo

Randy Bryant and Cecelia Gore

Norman Buebendorf

Robert Burris and Marlene King

Daniel and Allison Byrne

Derrick Callister

Steven and Gillian Chamberlin

Joseph Checota and Ellen McNamara Checota

Amy and Frederick Croen

Lafayette Crump

Jillian Culver

Michael Cyrus

Benjamin Dern

George and Sandra Dionisopoulos

Jennifer Dirks

Matt Domski

Elizabeth and Robert Draper

Martha and Aaron Ebent

Linda Edelstein

Marquita Edwards

Joshua Erickson

Danielle Finn

Thayer Fisher

Moira Fitzgerald and Peter Kammer

Michael and Pamela Glorioso

Daniel and Samantha Grambow

John and Peggy Griffith

Gruber Law Offices LLC

Laura Gutierrez

Calvin Harris

Zoë Hastert

Paul Hauer

Kathryn Hausman and Matthew Millson

Barrie and Rob Henken

Renee Herzing

Karen Hung and Robert Coletti

Rachel Idso

Joan Johnson

Candice Johnstone

Judy and Gary Jorgensen

Alyce Katayama

Pat and Christine Keyes

Matt Kiefer

Marilyn King

Vivian King

Michael Krco

Konrad Kuchenbach

Tom Lindow

Xia Liu

Christopher and Krista Ludwig

Peter Mahler

Melissa and Dylan Mann

Susan and Brent Martin

Christian and Kate Mitchell

Teresa Mogensen

Theodore and Kelsey Molinari

Robert and Barbara Monnat

Bruce and Joyce Myers

Mitchell Nelles and Ellie Gettinger

Brian and Maura Packham

Nicholas and Alison Pardi

Richard and Lois Pauls

Tai and Andrew Pauls

Irina Petrakova Otto

Michael and Jayne Pink

Leslie and Aaron Plamann

Kathryn Podmokly

Deanna Singh and Justin Ponder

Anne and Thomas Reed

Kathryn Reinardy

Patricia Rieselbach

Michael Rossetto

Niko Ruud

Jakob Schjoerring-Thyssen

Michael Schmitz

Evamarie Schoenborn

Richard Schreiner and Alison Graf

Margot Schwartz

Gretchen Seamons

SixSibs Capital

Dale and Allison Smith

Pamela Stampen

Eric Stolzmann

Beth Straka

Bruce Tilley

Linda and Gile Tojek

Haruki Toyama and Brenda Bulinski

Susan Varela

Sarah Wagner

Marie Weiss

Michael and Cathy White

Jeff Yabuki and Gail Groenwoldt Yabuki

Andy Zilinskas

GALA SPONSORS

Laura and Mike Arnow

ATC

Baird Funds

BMO Bank

Brewers Community Foundation, Inc.

Ernst & Young, LLP

Godfrey & Kahn, S.C.

Interstate Parking

Johnson Controls, Inc.

Johnson Financial Group

Marietta Investment Partners

Susan and Brent Martin

Bob and Barb Monnat

Northern Trust

Northwestern Mutual

Old National Bank

PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP

Quarles

Rockwell Automation

SixSibs Capital

Dale and Allison Smith

We Energies Foundation

Westbury Bank

Herb Zien and Liz Levins

CORPORATE & FOUNDATION

The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra truly values the generosity of musicloving patrons in the concert hall and throughout the community. We especially thank our Corporate and Foundation contributors for investing their time and support in this treasure. We gratefully acknowledge contributions from:

$1,000,000 and above

United Performing Arts Fund

$250,000 and above

Argosy Foundation

The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation

Laskin Family Foundation

Matching Gifts/Golden Note Partners/Marquee Circle/Tributes

$100,000 and above

Dr. John H. and Sara Sue Esser Fund

Herzfeld Foundation

Rockwell Automation

We Energies Foundation

$50,000 and above

Bader Philanthropies, Inc.

Chase Family Foundation

Greater Milwaukee Foundation

Norman and Lucy Cohn Family Fund

Helen and Jeanette Oberndorfer Fund

Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Fund

Melitta S. and Joan M. Pick

Charitable Trust

$25,000 and above

Anonymous

Greater Milwaukee Foundation

Gertrude Elser and John Edward Schroeder Fund

Johnson Controls

Milwaukee County Arts Fund (CAMPAC)

National Endowment for the Arts

R.D. and Linda Peters Foundation

Schoenleber Foundation, Inc.

Wisconsin Arts Board

$15,000 and above

A.O. Smith Foundation, Inc.

Bert L. & Patricia S. Steigleder

Charitable Trust

Greater Milwaukee Foundation

David C. Scott Foundation

Krause Family Foundation

U.S. Bank

Wisconsin Department of Tourism

$10,000 and above

Ayco Charitable Foundation

Brico Fund

Ellsworth Corporation

General Mills Foundation

Gladys E. Gores Charitable Foundation

Greater Milwaukee Foundation

Donald and Barbara Abert Fund

William A. and Mary M Bonfield, Jr. Fund

Jane Bradley Pettit Foundation

Komatsu Mining Corp Foundation

Northwestern Mutual

Ralph Evinrude Foundation, Inc.

William and Janice Godfrey Family Foundation

Wispact Foundation

$5,000 and above

Charles D. Ortgiesen Foundation

Frieda and William Hunt Memorial

Gene and Ruth Posner Foundation, Inc.

Greater Milwaukee Foundation

Margaret E. Sheehan Memorial Fund

Roxy and Bud Heyse Fund/Journal Fund

Herb Kohl Philanthropies

Julian Family Foundation

Koeppen-Gerlach Foundation, Inc.

Milwaukee Arts Board

Richard G. Jacobus

Family Foundation

$2,500 and above

Camille A. Lonstorf Trust

Dean Family Foundation

Dorothy Inbusch Foundation, Inc.

Enterprise Holdings

Greater Milwaukee Foundation

Del Chambers Fund

Eleanor N. Wilson Fund

ELM II Fund

Henry C., Eva M., Robert H. and Jack J. Gillo Charitable Fund

Margaret Heminway Wells Fund

Mildred L. Roehr & Herbert W. Roehr Fund

Hamparian Family Foundation

Theodore W. Batterman Family Foundation

Westbury Bank

$1,000 and above

Albert J. & Flora H. Ellinger Foundation

Anthony Petullo Foundation, Inc.

Clare M. Peters Charitable Trust

Curt and Sue Culver Family Foundation

Delta Dental of Wisconsin

Educators Credit Union

Gardner Foundation

Greater Milwaukee Foundation

Bechthold Family Fund

Carrie Taylor & Nettie Taylor

Robinson Memorial Fund

Cottrell Balding Fund

George and Christine Sosnovsky Fund

George and Joan Hoehn Family Fund

Irene Edelstein Memorial Fund

Gruber Law Offices LLC

Japan Foundation

Loyal D. Grinker

Steinway Piano Gallery of Milwaukee

Townsend Foundation

Usinger Foundation

$500 and above

Barney Family Foundation

Greater Milwaukee Foundation

Robert C. Archer Designated Fund

MLG Capital

MATCHING GIFTS

The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra gratefully acknowledges the following corporations and foundations who match their employees’ contributions to the Annual Fund.

Abbvie

ATC

Aurora Health Care

Benevity Community Impact Fund

BMO Harris Bank

Caterpillar Foundation

CyberGrants, LLC

Eaton Corporation

GE Foundation

Kohl’s Corp.

National Philanthropic Trust

Rockwell Automation

SherwinWilliams

Stifel

Thrivent Financial

United Way of Greater Milwaukee and Waukesha County

Wisconsin Energy Corporation

GOLDEN NOTE PARTNERS

The MSO gratefully acknowledges the following organizations and individuals for their gifts of product or services:

Becker Design

Belle Fiori – Official Event Florist of the MSO

Beth and Michael Giacobassi

Brian and Maura Packham

The Capital Grille

Central Standard Craft Distillery

Coffman Creative Events

Downer Avenue Wine & Spirits

Drury Hotels

Encore Playbills

Eric and Brenda Hobbs

GO Riteway Transportation Group

Hilton Milwaukee

Kohler Co.

Peter Mahler

Marcus Hotels & Resorts

Marcus Corporation

Susan and Brent Martin

Ogletree Deakins

Sojourner Family Peace Center

Steinway Piano Gallery of Milwaukee

Studio Gear – Official Event Partner of the MSO

Wisconsin Public Radio

MARQUEE CIRCLE

The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra proudly partners with the following members of the 2024.25 Marquee Circle.

We thank these generous partners of our annual corporate subscription program for their charitable contributions and for connecting their corporate communities with the MSO.

DeWitt Law Firm

Ellsworth Corporation

Hupy and Abraham, S.C.

Walker Forge, Inc.

TRIBUTES

In honor of Jacob and Shayna Bilsky

Adam Bilsky

In honor of Barry Blackwell, M.D.’s 90th Birthday

Elliot and Eva Lipchik

Tributes

In memory of Dr. Henry Burko

Burko Memorial Fund

In memory of Thallis Hoyt Drake

Charles Q. Sullivan

In memory of Alan I. Ettinger

Mrs. Suzy B. Ettinger

Frank Loo and Sally Long

Eugene Guszkowski

In memory of Robert Fewel

Janet Bollow

Dale and Darlene Kirchner

Ann Terwilliger

In memory of Bob Fono

Terry Burko and David Taggart

Fred and Kay Austermann

Christel Mildenberg

Mary and James Connelly

In memory of Michael Patrick Hauer

Marlene Cook

Linda Cutler

Gertrude Czajkowski

Jean Czajkowski

Jim and Nancy Czajkowski

Paul and Naomi Dang

Sandra Degeorge

Mary Duffy

Joan Hauer

Don and Debbie Hecker

Greg and Dawn Hecker

Yuqiu Jiang

Julianne John

Patricia Krajnak

Debby Lazich

Christel Mildenberg

JoAnna Poehlmann

Jane and Jim Schneider

In memory of Christine Hausladen

Alex Kaker

Cheryl Limmex

Laurie Reid

Carol Walsh

In memory of Dolores Johnson

Lynda Johnson

In honor of Tim Klabunde’s long career with the MSO and retirement

Dr. and Mrs. David Daniels

In honor of Jennifer & Dion Lewis

Jennifer and Dion Lewis

In memory of Ann Loder

Caitlin, Trey, and Charlie Bagwell

The James Hennes Family

Shirley Haugen

Tim Hennes

Lauri Romine

Kari and Keith Seelig

Bruce and Lizz Loder

Will Loder

Monica Meyer

Barb Osborn and Family

Lynda Read

Howard and Judy Tolkan

Karin Wentz and Mark Otness

Thomas Wentz

In honor of the 70th Wedding Anniversary of Wayne and Marguerite Lueptow

John and Linda Zimmermann

In honor of Susan and Brent Martin

Sarah Nordstrom

In memory of Dr. A. Stratton McAllister

Dr. Caryl McAllister

In memory of Ken McHugh

Mr. and Mrs. Michael Hauer

In honor of our wonderful, joygiving, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra

Judith Gregor

In honor of the MSO’s Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion Work

Tina Itson

In memory of Dr. Alan Pohl

Robert and Nan Ciralsky

Kathleen Eilers and Barry Blackwell

Linda Frank

Alan and Iris Goldberg

Anne Hazelwood

Dr. and Mrs. Gordon E. Lang

Ari Osur

Dr. Carol Pohl

Vera Ries

Dr. and Mrs. Neville Sender

In memory of Dave Rierson

Jack and Donna Hill

Judy and Gary Jorgensen

Patricia Rieselbach

Jim and Sandy Wrangell

In memory of I. Carl Romer

Beulah Romer Erickson

In honor of Patrick Schley

Imogene Schley

In honor of Kara and Brian Sichi

Kara Krueger Sichi

In memory of Jane Tisdel

Dr. Paul Loewenstein and Jody Kaufman Loewenstein

In memory of Frank Thometz

Mr. and Mrs. Anthony W. Asmuth, III

Charles Brennan and Beth Stohr

Mary and James Connelly

JoAnn Corrao

Gregory Custer

Nancy Einhorn

Dr. Bob Henschel

Judy and Gary Jorgensen

Edmund Jung

Spencer Marquart

Dan and Susan Minahan

Christine Rahardt

Dr. and Mrs. Neville Sender

Michael and Cathy White

In honor of Alice Valkenburgh

The Valkenburgh Family

In memory of Judith Margaret Wagner

Steven A. and Lisa L. Wagner

MSO Board of Directors

OFFICERS

Susan Martin, Chair

David Uihlein, Honorary Co-Chair

Julia Uihlein, Honorary Co-Chair

Gregory Smith, Secretary; Chair, Governance Committee

Patrick Murphy, Treasurer; Chair, Finance Committee

EX OFFICIO DIRECTORS

Douglas M. Hagerman, Chair, Chair’s Council

Ken-David Masur, Music Director, Polly and Bill Van Dyke Music Director Chair

Mark Niehaus, President & Executive Director, Michael and Jeanne Schmitz Chair

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Susan Martin, Chair

Jennifer Dirks

Douglas M. Hagerman Chair, Chair’s Council

Eric E. Hobbs

Robert Klieger, Chair, Players’ Council

Mark A. Metzendorf, Chair, Advancement Committee

Christian Mitchell

Patrick Murphy, Treasurer; Chair, Finance Committee

Mark Niehaus, President & Executive Director, Michael and Jeanne Schmitz Chair

Michael J. Schmitz

Gregory Smith, Secretary; Chair, Governance Committee

Pam Stampen, Chair, Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion (EDI) Task Force

Haruki Toyama, Chair, Artistic Direction Committee

ELECTED DIRECTORS

Daniel Byrne

Jeff Costakos

Steve Hancock, Chair, Education Committee

Renee Herzing

Alyce Coyne Katayama

Peter Mahler, Chair, Grand Future Committee

Teresa Mogensen

Robert B. Monnat

Leslie Plamann, Chair, Audit Committee

Craig A. Schmutzer

Jay E. Schwister, Chair, Retirement Plan Committee

Dale R. Smith

Herb Zien, Chair, Facilities Management Committee

DESIGNATED DIRECTORS

City

Sachin Chheda

Theodore Perlick Molinari

Pegge Sytkowski, Chair, Marketing & Advocacy Committee

County

Fiesha Lynn Bell

Rene Izquierdo

Garren Randolph

Niko Ruud

PLAYER DIRECTORS

Robert Klieger, Chair, Players’ Council

Ilana Setapen, Player-at-Large

CHAIR’S COUNCIL

Douglas M. Hagerman, Chair

Chris Abele

Laura J. Arnow

Richard S. Bibler

Charles Boyle

Roberta Caraway

Judy Christl

Mary E. Connelly

Donn R. Dresselhuys

Eileen Dubner

Franklyn Esenberg

Marta P. Haas

Jean Holmburg

Barbara Hunt

Leon Janssen

Judy Jorgensen

James A. Kasch

Lee Walther Kordus

Michael J. Koss

JoAnne Krause

Martin J. Krebs

Keith Mardak

Susan Martin

Andy Nunemaker

James G. Rasche

Stephen E. Richman

Michael J. Schmitz, Immediate Past Chair

Joan Steele Stein

Linda Tojek

Joan R. Urdan

Larry Waters

Kathleen A. Wilson

MSO ENDOWMENT & FOUNDATION TRUSTEES

Bruce Laning, Trustee Chair

Amy Croen

Steven Etzel

Douglas M. Hagerman

Bartholomew Reute

David Uihlein

PAST CHAIRS

Andy Nunemaker (2014-2020)

Douglas M. Hagerman (2011-2014)

Chris Abele (2004-2011)

Judy Jorgensen (2002-2004)

Stephen E. Richman (2000-2002)

Stanton J. Bluestone* (1998-2000)

Allen N. Rieselbach* (1995-1998)

Edwin P. Wiley* (1993-1995)

Michael J. Schmitz (1990-1993)

Orren J. Bradley* (1988-1990)

Russell W. Britt* (1986-1988)

James H. Keyes (1984-1986)

Richard S. Bibler (1982-1984)

John K. MacIver* (1980-1982)

Donn R. Dresselhuys (1978-1980)

Harrold J. McComas* (1976-1978)

Laflin C. Jones* (1974-1976)

Robert S. Zigman* (1972-1974)

Charles A. Krause* (1970-1972)

Donald B. Abert* (1968-1970)

Erhard H. Buettner* (1966-1968)

Clifford Randall* (1964-1966)

John Ogden* (1962-1964)

Stanley Williams* (1959-1962)

* deceased

MSO 2024.25 Administration

EXECUTIVE

Mark Niehaus, President & Executive Director, Michael and Jeanne Schmitz Chair

Bret Dorhout, Vice President of Artistic Planning

Tom Lindow, Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Monica K. Meyer, Vice President of Advancement

Terrell Pierce, Vice President of Orchestra Operations

Kathryn Reinardy, Vice President of Marketing & Communications

Rick Snow, Vice President of Facilities & Building Operations

Marquita Edwards, Director of Community Engagement

Sean McNally, Executive Assistant & Board Liaison

ADVANCEMENT

Michael Rossetto, Senior Director of Advancement & Major Gifts

William Loder, Gift Officer

Kathryn Hausman, Individual Giving Manager, Research & Discovery

Julie Jahn, Campaign Manager

Tracy Migon, Development Systems Manager

Andrea Moreno-Islas, Advancement Manager

Mitch Nelles, Giving Manager, New Acquisition

Leah Peavler, Institutional Giving Manager

Abby Vakulskas, Giving Manager, Advancement Communications

EDUCATION & COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Rebecca Whitney, Director of Education

Courtney Buvid, ACE & Education Manager

Nathan Hickox-Young, Concerts for Schools & Education Manager

FINANCE

Nicole Magolan, Controller

Jenny Beier, Senior Accountant

Arianis Hernandez, Accounting Coordinator

Cynthia Moore, Human Resources, Diversity & Inclusion Manager

MARKETING

Lizzy Cichowski, Director of Marketing

Erin Kogler, Director of Communications

Adam Cohen, Patron Systems Manager

Katelyn Farebrother, Marketing Coordinator

David Jensen, Publications Manager

Zachary-John Reinardy, Lead Designer

BOX OFFICE

Luther Gray, Director of Ticket Operations & Group Sales

Al Bartosik, Box Office Manager

Marie Holtyn, Box Office Supervisor

Adam Klarner, Patron Services Coordinator

OPERATIONS

Sean Goldman, Director of Operations

Antonio Padilla Denis, Director of Orchestra Personnel

Kayla Aftahi, Operations Coordinator

Paul Beck, Principal Librarian, James E. Van Ess Principal Librarian Chair

Maiken Demet, Assistant to the Music Director

Albrecht Gaub, Artistic Coordinator

Matthew Geise, Assistant Librarian & Media Archivist

Emily Wacker Schultz, Artistic Associate

Lisa Sottile, Production Stage Manager

Tristan Wallace, Production Manager/Live Audio, MSO | Technical Director, BSC

Christina Williams, Chorus Manager

FACILITIES & EVENT SERVICES

Sam Hushek, Director of Events

Donovan Burton, Facilities Manager - 2nd Shift

Travis Byrd, Facilities Manager

Lisa Klimczak, House Manager

David Kotlewski, House Manager

Zed Waeltz, Event Services Manager

RESONANCE FOOD CO.

Josh Langenohl, General Manager of Premium

Ben Bartlett, Executive Sous Chef

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