NM Philharmonic announces 2023-24 classic season

Rachmaninoff’s 150th birthday will launch the New Mexico Philharmonic’s 2023-24 classic concert season opening on Sept. 30 at Popejoy Hall.

The musicians will celebrate Rachmaninoff with the composer’s Piano Concerto No. 2, performed by 2022 Olga Kern International Piano Competition winner Jonathan Mamora. The concert will end with his dramatic Symphony No. 1.

“The first symphony produced Rachmaninoff’s depression,” said executive director Marian Tanau. “(Alexander) Glazunov conducted it and he was an alcoholic and it wasn’t received well.”

The critics tore the work apart and it was never again performed during Rachmaninov’s life.

On Nov. 18, the orchestra will play Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique — a tale of unrequited love and one of the most important works in the orchestral repertoire. Guest conductor Fabio Mechetti will lead the musicians. The Brazilian maestro is the former music director of the Syracuse Symphony in New York.

“I’ve played with him at least six times in my career,” said Tanau, who is also a violinist.

2019 Olga Kern International Competition winner Tatiana Shafran will perform Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23.

Jan. 20, 2024 will find the musicians playing “Capricious Capriccios” under the leadership of Roberto Minczuk and concertmaster Cármelo de los Santos. A capriccio is a lively piece of music, short and free in form. De los Santos will play the virtuosic “Introduction and Ronda Capriccioso” of Saint-Saëns. Also on the program are two Russian composers’ takes on the folk tunes of Spain and Italy; the brightly orchestrated “Capriccio espagnol” of Rimsky-Korsakov and the “Capriccio Italien” of Tchaikovsky, inspired by a soul-healing trip the composer took to Rome.

February 17, 2024 brings “Mahler’s Resurrection” through his Symphony No. 2. The composer wove a masterpiece by musically exploring and searching for answers to the eternal questions of life and death. The program features mezzo-soprano Hannah Stephens and the University of New Mexico Chorus.

On March 9, 2024, the Phil will join star violinist Yoonshin Song for performance of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. Also on the program is a new work for strings by Diné composer and Pulitzer Prize winner Raven Chacon. The evening will end with Brahms’ tortured Symphony No, 1, a work that took the composer more than 21 years to complete.

On April 6, the musicians will join the New Mexico Ballet Company on “The Wizard of Oz Ballet,” a colorfully-staged production of L. Frank Baum’s classic.

“We organize a series of classical music that supports the story,” Tanau said.

The April 20 concert celebrates dance with “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and the Rite of Spring.”

Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” stirred a riot at its 1913 premiere. Today historians believe the choreography created by dancer Vaslav Nijinsky provoked the majority of controversy rather than Stravinsky’s score

The concert will open with Prokofiev’s “Scythian Suite,” written for a Diaghilev-commissioned ballet. Next Olga Kern International Piano Competition second-prize winner Anna Dmytrenko will play Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody, a work used in many 20th century ballets.

The series will end May 18 with “Roman Echoes” starring Italian violinist Anna Tifu in Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto. Glinka’s bombastic Overture to the opera “Ruslan and Lyudmila” opens the show followed by his “Spartucus” Suite No. 2. Respighi’s colorful and evocative “Pines of Rome” closes the concert.

See tickets at popejoypresents.evenue.net; 505-277-4569.