Joaquín Rodrigo  Concierto de Aranjuez for Guitar and Orchestra Joaquín Rodrigo was born in Sagunto in Valencia, Spain in 1901 and died in Madrid in 1999. He composed this work in 1939 and it was first performed the following year in Barcelona by Regino Sainz de la Maza, guitar, with the Orquesta Filarmónica de Barcelona… Read More

Sunday, April 21, 2024 Tuesday, April 23, 2024 Music Director Eckart Preu is joined by Portland Municipal Organist James Kennerley for a program of orchestra showpieces that feature or refer to the organ. The centerpiece is Saint-Saëns’ sprawling third symphony, full of learned counterpoint and yearning melodies. It was written for the Royal Philharmonic Society;… Read More

Franz Schmidt  Intermezzo from Notre Dame   Franz Schmidt was born in 1874 in Pozsony/Pressburg in the Hungarian region of Austria-Hungary; the city is now Bratislava, Slovakia. He died in 1939. The Intermezzo was first performed by the Vienna Philharmonic under the title Interlude from an Unfinished Romantic Opera on December 6, 1903. The completed… Read More

Sunday, February 25, 2024   This program is as much spectacle as concert. The sheer complication of arranging the panoply of percussion instruments required by Corigliano’s Conjurer requires hours of planning, and skillful execution by stage workers. And that’s only the beginning! Canadian conductor Marco Parisotto, appearing for the first time with the PSO, brings a… Read More

Leonard Bernstein  Overture to Candide   Leonard Bernstein was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1918 and died in New York City in 1990. He composed his operetta Candide in 1955-56 and the first performance took place in New York in 1956 under the direction of Samuel Krachmalnick. Bernstein revised the work in 1988. The first… Read More

Sunday, January 28, 2024 Tuesday, January 30, 2024 For these concerts, PSO Music Director Eckart Preu has chosen an especially wide range of music, anchored by Ludwig van Beethoven’s instantly recognizable and sublime Symphony Number 5. Franco-Belgian cellist Camille Thomas makes her PSO début with Never Give Up, a concerto written for her in 2017… Read More

Mykola Lysenko  Overture to Taras Bulba     Mykola Lysenko was born in 1842 in Hrynky, Poltava Governorate, now Ukraine, and died in 1912 in Kyiv, Russian Empire. Taras Bulba remained unperformed at the composer’s death and was first heard in 1924 in Kharkiv. The overture is scored for 3 flutes and piccolo, 3 oboes… Read More

Sunday, November 12, 2023    Guest conductor Tito Muñoz last conducted the PSO in June 2022, filling in at the last minute for an ailing Eckart Preu at Seaside Pavilion in Old Orchard Beach. For tonight’s program, he has chosen three works with the flavor of the year’s seasons, above and below the equator. The… Read More

Juan Pablo Contreras  Mariachitlán    Juan Pablo Contreras (b. 1987, Guadalajara, Mexico) is a Latin GRAMMY®-nominated composer who combines Western classical and Mexican folk music in a single soundscape. His works have been performed by 40 major orchestras in the United States, Mexico, Austria, Slovakia, Colombia, Spain, Argentina, and Venezuela. He is the winner of… Read More

Tuesday, October 12, 2023    This program could just as well be titled “National Fervor.” Musical Director Eckart Preu leads three works with immediately obvious national characteristics. Two are from countries that were part of larger empires when these pieces were written; only Romania was independent. Enescu summons a vast range of orchestral color to… Read More