Festival City Symphony
Press Release

Milwaukee’s Festival City Symphony Announces Its 2018-19 Concert Season

In all, the symphony orchestra will perform seven concerts during the upcoming season.

By - May 25th, 2018 09:37 am

Milwaukee, Wis.— The area’s oldest performing symphony orchestra, Milwaukee’s Festival City Symphony (FCS), is announcing its schedule for the 2018-2019 “Symphony Sundays—Classical Music for All Ages” series for general audiences and the free “Pajama Jamboree” series for children, parents, and grandparents. In all, the symphony orchestra will perform seven concerts during the upcoming season. In a change from previous years, Symphony Sundays will begin at 2 p.m. this season.

Symphony Sundays:

September 30, 2018: “Glorious Symphonists”

  • Hector Berlioz’s Overture to Les Franc-Juges, op. 3
  • Antonin Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances
  • Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky’s Symphony no. 5

January 27, 2019: “Our Home in Vienna”

  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Overture to the Magic Flute, K. 620
  • Gustav Mahler’s Blumine
  • Johann Strauss II’s Where the Citrons Bloom
  • Franz Schubert’s Symphony no. 3 in D major

March 31, 2019: “Copland and Levy: American Masters” featuring Todd Levy, Principal Clarinet of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra

  • Frederick Delius’s Brigg Fair; An English Rhapsody
  • Aaron Copland’s Concerto for Clarinet
  • Jessie Montgomery’s Starburst
  • Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring

May 5, 2019: “Rhapsody and Romance: Legends of the Piano” featuring Jeannie Yu, Acclaimed Milwaukee Pianist

  • Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody no. 2, S. 359
  • Franz Liszt’s Les Preludes, S. 97
  • Frederic Chopin’s Piano Concerto no. 1, op. 11

Symphony Sundays concert performances will be held at 2 p.m. at the Pabst Theater, 144 East Wells Street. Music Director Carter Simmons conducts. FCS welcomes children to these concerts, which are most appropriate for those in second grade and older. Symphony Sundays also feature “Children’s Program Notes” at 1:45 p.m., a pre-concert activity presented by host Lynn Roginske to help children become familiar with the music they are about to hear.

Admission to each concert is $14 for adults and $8 for children, students, and seniors. Discount early-bird season ticket packs will be available for purchase in the month of August on the FCS website, festivalcitysymphony.org.

Pajama Jamborees:

October 31, 2018: Halloween Pajama Jamboree

  • Members of the orchestra and the audience are invited to come in costume for a concert of favorites.

November 28, 2018: Holiday Pajama Jamboree

  • The concert will feature traditional holiday music as well as poems of the holidays set to music, including Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus and The Night Before Christmas.
  • Attendees are encouraged to bring a nonperishable food donation for Milwaukee’s Hunger Task Force.

May 8, 2019: Spring Pajama Jamboree

  • FCS will welcome spring with lively selections.
  • The concert will close with the popular FCS tradition of young audience members conducting the orchestra’s finale.

These three free Pajama Jamboree classical pops concerts are held on select Wednesday evenings from 7-8 p.m. in the Bradley Pavilion of the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, 929 N. Water Street. Pajama Jamborees are conducted by Music Director Emeritus Monte Perkins and hosted by Jayne Perkins. These popular concerts welcome children, especially in grades kindergarten through fifth, and their parents or grandparents to attend in casual dress or pajamas for open space floor seating up close to “meet” the orchestra. Conventional seating is also available.

Milwaukee’s Festival City Symphony, the oldest performing symphony orchestra in the area, showcases area professional musicians. Its mission is to extend the reach of classical music in the community with reasonable pricing and informative formats that embrace people of all ages. For more information, visit festivalcitysymphony.org or call 262-853-6085.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. It has not been verified for its accuracy or completeness.

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