George Enescu Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 in A major, Op. 11    George Enescu (known also as Georges Enesco) was born in 1881 in Liveni, Romania, and died in Paris in 1955. He composed this work in 1901, and led the first performance in Bucharest in 1903. The score calls for 3 flutes, piccolo, 3… Read More

Saturday, September 30, 2023  Sunday, October 1, 2023    PSO Music Director Eckart Preu is joined by the singers of Portland’s ChoralArt for a program of music that paints vivid pictures. Visual artists from the Maine College of Art and Design have created new work inspired by Mussorgsky’s great 1874 solo piano work Pictures at… Read More

George Gershwin  An American in Paris     George Gershwin was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1898 and died in Hollywood in 1937. He composed An American in Paris in 1928, and it was first performed later that year by the New York Philharmonic under the direction of Walter Damrosch. The score calls for… Read More

Brian Nabors Pulse Brian Raphael Nabors was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1991. His piece Pulse was first performed by the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Maestro Giancarlo Guerrero on September 9th, 2019 in Laura Turner Concert Hall at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center, Nashville, TN for the NSO 2019 Composer Lab Showcase. The score calls for 3… Read More

This program is a snapshot of the richness of London musical life in the years before the First World War. The British Empire, upon which the sun never set, was at its zenith, and its capital basked in its diversity and wealth. The country’s artists looked abroad for inspiration, but also, finally, searched England’s history… Read More

Max Bruch Kol Nidrei for violoncello and orchestra, Adagio on Hebrew Themes This work by the German composer Max Bruch (1838-1920) remains one of his most popular, along with his first violin concerto and his Scottish Fantasy. Three symphonies, two additional violin concertos, numerous choral and chamber works are largely unheard today, though curious listeners… Read More

Daniel Sonenberg First Light – A Fanfare for Maine I was quite honored when the Portland Symphony Orchestra commissioned me, a transplanted New Yorker (but one who has now lived almost a third of his life in Maine) to compose a fanfare celebrating the state’s 200th birthday. In contemplating how to approach the piece, I… Read More

Florence Price Dances in the Canebrakes Florence Price was born in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1887 and died in Chicago, Illinois in 1953. She completed her work Dances in the Canebrakes in 1953, and it was later orchestrated by William Grant Still. The score calls for 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons,… Read More

Rachel Carson (1907 –1964), the American marine biologist, environmentalist and author, built a cottage on Southport Island, Maine in 1953. She spent countless summer hours exploring tidal pools, the evolving shoreline, the woods, plants and animals at all hours of the day and night, the ever changing patterns of life – all touched by the… Read More