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From our music director...

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The 2023-2024 concert season marks my 30th season as Music Director of the Civic Orchestra of Minneapolis, and it will be my final season. I hope you will join us for my Farewell Season.

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In planning the season, I thought of honoring music of all kinds – beloved classics, neglected masterpieces, and new music – A Salute to Music. My first concert 30 years ago included Brahms' Symphony No. 3, along with music by Aaron Copland and Joan Tower. To remember that first concert, we will be revisiting the Brahms symphony. We’ll also perform the full orchestra version of Copland’s Appalachian Spring and Michael Torke’s Bright Blue Music.

 

December’s concert, titled Remembrance and Reflection, will feature British classics and will including readings from Dylan Thomas' A Child's Christmas in Wales. During Black History Month we will be performing the too-long neglected Symphony No. 1 by Florence Price. When the Chicago Symphony Orchestra premiered Price’s symphony in 1933, it was the first time a symphony by a Black woman was performed by a major American orchestra.

 

The Family Concert in April will be all fun. Its concert program is called Nature and Music, and the concert will feature an interactive instrumental “petting zoo” with instrument demos in stations scattered around the performance hall. The season will conclude with a performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 5, which opened the Civic Orchestra’s inaugural season over 70 years ago.

 

Please join us as we celebrate Music!

 

Cary John Franklin