Perhaps the biggest news from the Louisville Orchestra’s new 2017-18 season announcement is that in November, conductor Teddy Abrams will premiere “The Greatest: Muhammad Ali,” a musical celebration and tribute to the Louisville athlete and humanitarian.
This work comes off an eight-minute composition called “Float, Rumble, Rest,” which Abrams recorded with My Morning Jacket frontman and Louisville native Jim James shortly after Ali’s death in June.
This season — the orchestra’s 80th — offers works for both adventurous listeners, as well as those seeking balance in their selections. Other performances throughout the year include:
Why Beethoven?
Oct. 14, 2017
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 7
Conducted by Abrams, this is an All-Beethoven concert exploring the mind and heart of a composer whose influence still resounds today.
Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto
Jan. 13, 2018
Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 7 (in one movement)
Pytor Tchaikovsky: Concerto for Violin + Orchestra
War + Peace
Feb. 3, 1018
Samuel Barber: Adagio for Strings
Maurice Ravel: La Valse
Ralph Vaughn Williams: Dona Nobis Pacem
Claudio Monteverdi: Madrigals of War and Love (selections)
Gustav Mahler: “Revelge” from Des Knaben Wunderhorn
Charles Ives: They Are There
Avo Pärt: Summa
Kurt Weill: The Ballad of the Soldier’s Wife (Und was bekam des Soldaten Weib)
Arnold Schoenberg: A Survivor from Warsaw
Sergei Prokofiev: Waltz from War + Peace
Kentucky Classics: Festival of American Music 1
March 24, 2018
Aaron Copland: Four Dance Episodes from Rodeo
Michael Cleveland, fiddle and “I’m with Her” trio
Other selections include 2017 Musical America's Artist of the Year, Yuja Wang, performing Rachmaninoff; 2017 Grawemeyer winner Andrew Norman's "Play" as well as Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" as a powerful season finale.
But if pop is maybe more your thing, Bob Bernhardt, the orchestra’s principal pops conductor, has you covered with a 50th anniversary celebration of The Beatles' “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” an evening of B52s tributes and the jazz duo Mambo Kings at the LO Pops.
A full schedule of the season is available here.
