MDSO Masterworks II:
October 20, 2018, 7:30pm
Celebrate the Bernstein Centenary with an evening of American art music! This program features all twentieth-century composers whose music together paints a vibrant portrait of what it means to be American. Selections include Charles Ives’s Variations on America as well as Bernstein’s overture to Candide and his Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. Faculty vocalist Ian Greenlaw joins the MDSO for Aaron Copland’s Old American Songs. Tickets will be available for purchase through the Kirkland Ticket Office beginning September 10th.
Millikin Chamber Orchestra Live with Film
November 3, 2018, 2:00pm to 7:30pm
Transport yourself to the early days of film with the Millikin Chamber Orchestra providing live accompaniment to the classic 1921 silent film, The Kid!
Charlie Chaplin's The Kid
November 3, 2018, 2:00pm
Transport yourself to the early days of film with the Millikin Chamber Orchestra providing live accompaniment to the classic 1921 silent film, The Kid. Tickets for this performance will be available starting September 10th!
Advent Service
December 9, 2018, 10:30am
Millikin Chamber Orchestra
Sun Dec 9, 2018, 10:30am
Free and open to the public
MDSO Masterworks III:
February 2, 2019, 7:30pm
Edward Elgar’s clever Enigma Variations were dedicated “to my friends depicted within”: musical portrayals of his close companions in a series of unnamed orchestral sketches. Since its premiere in 1899, listeners have delighted in pairing friends with sketches and have been perplexed by Elgar’s enduring unresolved question: who, or what, is ‘The Enigma’? Millikin’s own friends, winners of the annual Concerto and Aria Competition, will make their solo debuts with the MDSO.
Mahler's Resurrection Symphony Lecture Series with Dr. Marshall Tuttle
February 26, 2019, 5:30pm to March 1, 2019, 5:30pm
MAHLER: Reception History and Performance Practices
Tues, Feb 26, 5:30-7:00 PM, University Commons, Banquet Room A
Mahler: Reception History and Performance Practices
MDSO Masterworks IV:
March 2, 2019, 7:30pm
Famed composer-conductor Gustav Mahler believed that “to write a symphony is, for me, to construct a world.” Hear the MDSO and the Millikin Union of Choirs recreate this musical process in their performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. Known as the “Resurrection Symphony,” this monumental piece brings together over 300 performers to celebrate the profound beauty of afterlife and redemption.
Mahler's Resurrection Symphony Lecture Series with Dr. Marshall Tuttle
MDSO: Sleeping Beauty with Alabama Ballet
March 30, 2019, 7:30pm to March 31, 2019, 2:00pm
Audiences young and young at heart will be enchanted by the artistry of the Alabama Ballet’s performance of Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty, accompanied by members of the MDSO. In this classic fairytale featured in film and bedtime stories for generations, Princess Aurora falls victim to an evil spell forcing her to sleep for a hundred years and to be awoken only by the kiss of a prince. In addition to its international prominence as a premiere classical and contemporary ballet company, the Alabama Ballet emphasizes dance education and community outreach as vital to its mission.
MDSO Masterworks V:
April 13, 2019, 7:30pm
The MDSO brings its 2018-19 season of rhapsodic stories and American dreams to a brilliant close with Dvorak’s Symphony no. 9, “From the New World.” Inspired by the “wide open spaces” of the prairies and the rich sounds of folk music, Dvorak composed this symphony on commission from the New York Philharmonic to represent uniquely American music. MDSO principal cellist and faculty member Amy Catron will perform Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov’s bold Azul, for cello, obbligato group and orchestra.