Jader Bignamini kicks off his tenure as DSO Music Director with a program spanning four centuries. DSO brass is showcased in Copland’s American anthem and Gabrieli’s Venetian School innovations, while an early gem from Richard Strauss highlights the winds. DSO strings are featured in Philip Herbe...

Puccini’s mastery of writing for strings is crystalized in I Crisantemi (Chrysanthemums), one of the famed opera composer’s few instrumental works, performed here in its string orchestra version. Dvořák’s joyous Serenade for winds was inspired upon hearing Mozart’s music on a trip to Vienna, yet ...

Tchaikovsky’s lyrical Serenade is full of robust, evocative harmonies and melancholic melodies— channeling the inventiveness and unpredictability of the composer’s idol Mozart—shot through with stirring Russian folk melodies.

TCHAIKOVSKY
Serenade for Strings in C major, Op. 48

Highly varied in style, George Walker’s elegiac Lyric for Strings and William Grant Still’s expressive Serenade showcase mid-20th century works from two prominent African American composers. Saint-Georges, born Joseph Bologne, was the son of a French plantation owner and his African slave, who ro...