Tickets on Sale Now for Festival City Symphony’s 2019-20 Concert Season

Milwaukee, Wis.— Advance tickets are now on sale for Festival City Symphony’s 2019-2020 Symphony Sundays—Classical Music for All Ages series of four concerts. Admission to each concert is $14 for adults and $8 for children, students, and seniors. Discount early-bird season ticket packs are available on the FCS website, festivalcitysymphony.org. With the Season Family Pack, families of all sizes can attend all four concerts for $75 if ordered before September 1. The Couples Pack is $72 per couple, the Senior/Student Pack is $28 per person, and the Single Adult Pack is $50 per person, for all four concerts.

Milwaukee’s Festival City Symphony (FCS) is the area’s oldest performing symphony orchestra. Symphony Sundays concert performances are held at 2 p.m. in 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.

The first concert of the season is “Esplanade: Pictures at an Exhibition” on Sept. 22, 2019, featuring Modest Mussorgsky’s Russian masterpiece Pictures at an Exhibition, orchestrated by French composer Maurice Ravel. The symphony also will perform Huapango by José Pablo Moncayo, Intermezzo from “Goyescas” by Enrique Granados, and The Three Cornered Hat, Suite no. 2 by Manuel de Falla.

“Tales and Impressions” is the second concert of the season, on Nov. 10, 2019. Music Director Carter Simmons invites concertgoers to “experience a concert of works by two Frenchmen who changed music forever.” The program will feature Claude Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun and Petite Suite, and Maurice Ravel’s Pavane for a Dead Princess and Mother Goose (Ballet).

The season will continue on March 22, 2020, with “Let Freedom Ring!” a powerful concert featuring master composers and hometown connections. “Milwaukee’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated composer and educator John Downey influenced many musical lives through his work at UWM and the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra,” said Simmons, “including Wauwatosa native and world-renowned composer Michael Torke.” The concert will include Ode to Freedom by John Downey; December by Michael Torke; Symphony no. 5, op. 43, “Sinfonia Sacra” by Howard Hanson; and Mathis der Maler by Paul Hindemith.

The Symphony Sundays season will conclude on May 3, 2020 with “Monuments.” Simmons said, “This is a program of monumental works by composers who provided the foundation to everything we enjoy at the symphony.” Festival City Symphony Principal Flute, Emma Koi, will be the featured performer on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Flute Concerto, No. 1, K. 313 in G. The symphony also will perform Coriolan Overture, op. 62 by Ludwig van Beethoven and Symphony no. 1, op. 68 in C minor by Johannes Brahms.

During the season, FCS also performs three free Pajama Jamboree concerts for children, parents, and grandparents. These 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.

The orchestra will begin its Pajama Jamboree concert series on Wed., Dec. 4, 2019, with Holiday Pajama Jamboree featuring traditional holiday favorites, including performances by the Whitefish Bay High School Choir. The concert will conclude with FCS’s holiday sing-along. Attendees are encouraged to bring a nonperishable food donation for Milwaukee’s Hunger Task Force.

The Pajama Jamboree series will continue with Winter Pajama Jamboree on Wed., Feb. 12, 2020. The orchestra will cure the winter blues with a concert of cheerful music featuring a guest performance by students of the Milwaukee High School of the Arts Orchestra.

This series will conclude on Wed., May 6, 2020, with Spring Pajama Jamboree, a concert of patriotic tunes and lively melodies to welcome spring. As always, FCS will close its season with children from the audience conducting the orchestral finale, Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever.

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.