Oct/Nov 2025 Symphony Program Book by Madison Symphony Orchestra

MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

222 W. Washington Ave., Suite 460

Madison, WI 53703

Phone (608) 257-3734

Fax (608) 280-6192 madisonsymphony.org info@madisonsymphony.org

Madison Symphony Orchestra, Inc.

Heather Rose, Editor Email: hrose@madisonsymphony.org

For advertising information, contact: Peter Rodgers (608) 260-8680 x226 prodgers@madisonsymphony.org

LAND ACKNOWLEDGMENT

As we gather in this space for these concerts, the Madison Symphony Orchestra acknowledges the Ho-Chunk Nation’s ancestral lands and celebrates the rich traditions, heritage, and culture that thrived long before our arrival. We respectfully recognize this Ho-Chunk land and a rm that we are better when we stand together.

JOHN DEMAIN

Music Director

In his 32nd and ﬁnal season as Music Director of the Madison Symphony Orchestra (MSO), Grammy and Tony Awardwinning conductor John DeMain is noted for his dynamic performances on concert and opera stages throughout the world. American composer Jake Heggie assessed the conductor’s broad appeal, saying, “There’s no one like John DeMain. In my opinion, he’s one of the top conductors in the world.” In January 2023 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Opera Association, the NOA’s highest award.

During more than three decades in Madison as MSO’s Music Director, DeMain has consistently raised the quality of the orchestra by introducing blind auditions and expanding the repertoire to encompass ever more challenging and virtuosic works, including highly-acclaimed performances of the complete symphonies of Gustav Mahler. DeMain also oversaw the move into the world-class Overture Hall and expanded the subscription season to triple performances.

His active conducting schedule has taken him to the stages of the National Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the symphonies of Seattle, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Columbus, Houston, San Antonio, Long Beach, and Jacksonville, along with the Paciﬁc Symphony, Boston Pops, Aspen Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Orchestra of Seville, the Leipzig MDR Sinfonieorchester, and Mexico’s Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional.

Prior engagements include visiting San Francisco Opera as guest conductor for General Director David Gockley’s farewell gala, Northwestern University to conduct Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah, and the Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center in D.C. to conduct Kurt Weill’s Lost in the Stars In 2019, he conducted the world premiere of Jeanine Tesori’s Blue at the Glimmerglass Festival to critical acclaim — he “drew a vibrant performance from an orchestra of nearly 50 players; the cast was superb.” (The New York Times).

DeMain also serves as principal conductor for Madison Opera and in their 2024-2025 season conducted The Barber of Seville, DonGiovanni and Opera in the Park. This season, he will conduct La Bohème and return next summer for Opera in the Park. He has been a regular guest conductor with Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center and has made appearances at the Teatre Liceu in Barcelona, New York City Opera, Michigan Opera Theatre, Los Angeles Opera, Seattle Opera, San Francisco Opera, Virginia Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Aspen Music Festival, Portland Opera, Chautauqua Opera, and Mexico’s National Opera. He served as Music Director for 10 years at Opera Omaha.

During his distinguished 17-year tenure with Houston Grand Opera, DeMain led a history-making production of Porgyand Bess, winning a Grammy Award, Tony Award, and France’s Grand Prix du Disque for the RCA recording. In spring 2014, the San Francisco Opera released an HD DVD of their most recent production of PorgyandBess, conducted by John DeMain.

DeMain began his career as a pianist and conductor in his native Youngstown, Ohio. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at The Juilliard School and made a highly-acclaimed debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. DeMain was the second recipient of the Julius Rudel Award at New York City Opera and one of the ﬁrst six conductors to receive the Exxon/ National Endowment for the Arts Conductor Fellowship for his work with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.

DeMain holds honorary degrees from the University of Nebraska and Edgewood College and he is a Fellow of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. He resides in Madison and his daughter, Jennifer, is a UW–Madison graduate.

A Madison Symphony Christmas

This spectacular annual celebration has become a joyful way to begin the holiday season in our community for concertgoers of all ages. Maestro DeMain is bringing two of his favorite soloists, soprano Alexandra LoBianco and bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen, to share their gifts, for his 32nd season. The Madison Symphony Chorus, Madison Youth Choirs, and the Mt. Zion Gospel Choir join us to bring this special concert to life. You’ll experience the same blend of familiar and new once again this year. The experience starts with caroling in the lobby with the Chorus before each performance to set the mood. Bring your family and friends to share this beloved Madison tradition with us!

PRESENTING SPONSOR

Lau and Bea Christensen

MAJOR SPONSORS

American Printing Fiore Companies, Inc.

ADDITIONAL SPONSORS

Reinhart Boerner van Deuren s.c. Wisconsin Arts Board

Judith Werner, in memory of Stephen Caldwell

Richard and Pamela Reese, in memory of Maurice and Arlene Reese

Peggy and Tom Pyle

John and Twila Sheskey Charitable Fund, in memory of Jennie Biel Sheskey

An Anonymous Friend

John DeMain, Conductor

Alexandra LoBianco, Soprano

Kyle Ketelsen, Bass-Baritone

Madison Symphony Chorus, Beverly Taylor, Director

Mt. Zion Gospel Choir, Tamera & Leotha Stanley, Directors

Madison Youth Choirs, Michael Ross, Artistic Director

Primal Light

PROGRAM

John DeMain | Music Director

100th Season | Overture Hall | SubscriptionProgram No. 1

John DeMain, Conductor

Christopher Taylor, Piano

Jeni Houser, Soprano

Emily Fons, Mezzo-Soprano

Madison Symphony Chorus, Beverly Taylor, Director

MASON BATES (b. 1977)

Resurrexit

CÉSAR FRANCK (1822-1890)

Symphonic Variations for Piano and Orchestra MR. TAYLOR

INTERMISSION

GUSTAV MAHLER (1860-1911)

Symphony No. 2 in C minor, “Resurrection” Allegro moderato Andante moderato In ruhig ﬂießender Bewegung (With quietly ﬂowing movement)

Endowment support for the music library collection is the gift of John & Carolyn Peterson.

Urlicht (Primal Light) Im Tempo des Scherzos (In the tempo of the scherzo)

MS. HOUSER

MS. FONS

MADISON SYMPHONY CHORUS

The Hamburg Steinway piano is the gift of Peter Livingston and Sharon Stark in memory of Magdalena Friedman.

The Overture Concert Organ is the gift of Pleasant T. Rowland.

WELCOME TO THE MSO!

Please silence your electronic devices and cell phones for the duration of the concert. Photography and video are not permitted during the performance. You may take and share photos during applause. Thank you!

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MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA 2025-2026 MUSICIAN ROSTER FOR PRIMAL LIGHT

VIOLIN I

Naha Greenholtz

Concertmaster

William and Joyce Wartmann Chair

Suzanne Beia

Co-Concertmaster

Steinhauer Charitable Trust Chair

Leanne Kelso

Associate Concertmaster

George and Candy Gialamas Chair

Huy Luu

Associate Concertmaster

Olga Pomolova

Assistant Concertmaster

Endowed by an Anonymous Friend

Maynie Bradley

Annetta H. Rosser Chair

Kina Ono

Neil Gopal

Elspeth Stalter-Clouse

Tim Kamps

Jon Vriesacker

Katherine Floriano

Laura Burns

Alec Tonno

Naomi Schrank

Jerry Loughney

VIOLIN II

Xavier Pleindoux

Principal

Dr. Stanley and Shirley Inhorn Chair

Hillary Hempel

Assistant Principal

Elyn L. Williams Chair

Peter Miliczky

Holly Wagner

Rolf Wulfsberg

Olga Draguieva

Kathryn Taylor

Wendy Buehl

Geri Nolden

Robin Ryan

Matthew Dahm

Wes Luke

Glen Kuenzi

Laura Mericle

VIOLA

Christopher Dozoryst

Principal

James F. Crow Chair

Katrin Talbot

Assistant Principal

Dove Family Chair

Diedre Buckley

Renata Hornik

Elisabeth Deussen

Judy Huang

Janse Vincent

Jennifer Paulson

Hanna Pederson

David Beytas

Melissa Snell

Charlie Alve

CELLO

Karl Lavine

Principal

Reuhl Family Chair

Mark Bridges

Assistant Principal

Patricia Kokotailo & R. Lawrence

DeRoo Chair

Karen Cornelius

Knapp Family Chair

Margaret Townsend

Lisa Bressler

Trace Johnson

Alex Chambers-Ozasky

Ryan Louie

Becky Pan

Amy Harr

BASS

David Scholl

Principal

Carl Davick

Assistant Principal

Zachary Betz

Tom Mohs Chair

Je Takaki

August Jirovec

Jason Nieho

Mike Hennessy

Matthew Boothe

FLUTE/PICCOLO

Stephanie Jutt

Principal

Terry Family Foundation Chair

Collin Stavinoha

Linda Pereksta

Dawn Lawler

OBOE

Izumi Amemiya

Principal

Jim and Cathie Burgess Chair

Andrea Gross Hixon

Lindsay Flowers

Laura Medisky

ENGLISH HORN

Lindsay Flowers

Laura Medisky

CLARINET

JJ Koh

Principal

Barbara and Norman Berven Chair

Nancy Mackenzie

Gregory Smith

Joseph Sanchez

Alicia Lee

E-Flat Clarinet

Nancy Mackenzie

Alicia Lee

BASS CLARINET

Gregory Smith

BASSOON

Cynthia Cameron

Principal

Amanda Szczys

Carol Rosing

Nathaniel Hale

CONTRABASSOON

Carol Rosing

HORN

Emma Potter

Principal

Steve and Marianne Schlecht Chair

Michael Wright

Michael Szczys

William Muir

Dafydd Bevil

Linda Kimball

Ingrid Mullane, Assistant

Mary Buscanics-Jones

John Wunderlin

Sarah Gillespie

Micah Lancaster

TRUMPET

John Aley

Principal

Marilynn G. Thompson Chair

John Wagner

Jean Laurenz

Kai-Chun Chang

Theodore Ekstrand

Brent Turney

Daniel Cross

Robert Rohlﬁng

TROMBONE

Joyce Messer

Principal

Fred and Mary Mohs Chair

Benjamin Skroch

Richard Seybold

BASS TROMBONE

Ben Zisook

TUBA

Joshua Biere

Principal

TIMPANI

John Jutsum

Principal

Eugenie Mayer Bolz Foundation Chair

Gregory Beyer

PERCUSSION

Nicholas Bonaccio

Principal

JoAnn Six Plesko and E.J. Plesko Chair

Richard Morgan

Gregory Hinz

Tom Ross

HARP

Johanna Wienholts

Principal

Endowed by an Anonymous Friend

Margaret Mackenzie

ORGAN

Gregory Zelek

Principal

The Elaine and Nicholas Mischler Curatorship

PIANO/CELESTE

Daniel Lyons

Principal

Stephen D. Morton Chair

Orchestra Committee

Mark Bridges, Chair

Lisa Bressler, Vice-Chair

Elspeth Stalter-Clouse, Secretary

David Scholl, Treasurer

John Wagner, Member-at-large

Librarian

Jennifer S. Goldberg

John and Carolyn Peterson Chair

Stage Manager

Benjamin Skroch

Personnel Manager

Alexis Carreon

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BEVERLY TAYLOR

Claudia Berry & David E. Miran Director, Madison Symphony Chorus

Beverly Taylor, Emerita Professor of Music at University of Wisconsin-Madison and Director of the Madison Symphony Chorus, is a frequent guest conductor at festivals throughout the United States. She has been recognized by critic Richard Dyer (The Boston Globe) as a conductor who “has the crucial gift of inspiring people to give of their best, and beyond.” Taylor assumed the post of Director of Choral Activities at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1995, where she served as director of the Concert Choir and the Choral Union, and led the graduate choral conducting program until her retirement in 2020. From 1989-2012, she was conductor of the Boston Bar Association Orchestra, and for seven years the Music Director of the Back Bay Chorale, in which she conducted concerts with the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra and other professional orchestras. Their recording of Robert Kyr’s Passion According to Four Evangelists is available on the New Albion label. She served as Assistant Conductor of the Madison Symphony Orchestra from 1996-2018.

In 1995, Taylor completed 17 years as the Associate Director of Choral Activities at Harvard University. In this position, she directed both the prize-winning Radcli e Choral Society and the Harvard-Radcli e Chorus. She led the groups on frequent domestic and international tours, directed a number of premieres of American music, and produced two recordings on the AFKA label. As a guest conductor, Taylor has led the Artur Rubinstein Philharmonic Orchestra in Poland, the St. Louis Symphony Chorus, the Vermont Symphony, the Harvard Chamber Orchestra, the Madison Opera, the U.S. Air Force Band and Orchestra, the Harvard Radcli e Collegium Musicum, and the Wellesley Chamber Singers. She worked with John Williams to prepare for a July 4th concert with the Boston Pops Summer Esplanade Chorus. A graduate of the University of Delaware and Boston University, Taylor studied with Gustav Meier, Paul Vermel, Andrew Davis, Helmuth Rilling, Robert Shaw, Margaret Hillis, and Herbert Blomstedt. She received a fellowship from Chorus America and an orchestral fellowship from Aspen. She was a 2016 ﬁnalist for the American Prize in choral conducting, college division, and a 2017 recipient of the Emily Mead Baldwin Award in the Creative Arts at UW-Madison.

MADISON SYMPHONY CHORUS

Beverly Taylor, Claudia Berry & David E. Miran Director

Drew Collins, Assistant Director

Dan Lyons, Accompanist and Manager

Formed in 1927, the Madison Symphony Chorus gave its ﬁrst public performance on February 23, 1928, and has performed regularly with the Madison Symphony Orchestra ever since. The chorus is comprised of more than 150 volunteer musicians who come from all walks of life and enjoy combining their artistic talent. In 2017, the chorus sang three Brahms Requiems in Germany with regional orchestras under Ms. Taylor’s direction.

In recent seasons, the Chorus has joined the MSO for such awe-inspiring works as Mahler’s Symphony of a Thousand, Or ’s Carmina Burana, Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass, Rossini’s jubilant Stabat Mater, the Requiems of both Verdi and Mozart, Holst’s The Planets, John Adams’ challenging On the Transmigration of Souls, Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection), excerpts from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Rachmanino ’s magniﬁcent TheBells, Vaughan Williams's Toward the Unknown Region, and excerpts from Handel’s Solomon, among others.

SOPRANO

Caryn Baham

Jill Bailey

Judith Brauer

Alexis Buchanan

Sophie Bur

Lisa Burns

Ashley Calderon-McHugh

Jennifer Christensen

Christine Esche

Linda Feiler

Sydney Fine

Susan Galasso

Kate Grovergrys

Kimberly R. S. Han

Margaret Harrigan*

Sophia Hawley

Rose Heckenkamp-Busch

Sara Hendrickson

Katie Hess

Laurie Holman

Patricia Jenkins-Bock

Marjasana Kay

Holly Keevil

Sherri Kelly

Maureen Kind

Susan Kittleson

Veronica Kleckner

Julie Klein

Jennifer Kuckuk

Marie Kulackoski

Sarah Lang

Amber Lehnherr

Grace Lewallan

Lisa Middleton

Claudia Berry Miran

Eleanor Monroe

Genevieve Mullen

Connie Nelson

Sally Norman

Vanessa Orr

Christine Otth

Myleen Passini

Libby Pier

Kristen Radley

Susan Roehlk

Erin Selbee*

Erin Singer

Anya Smith

Nadine Thomas

Samantha Tushaus

Casey Umhoefer

Sarah Walker

Keaton Whitehurst

Pam Wilinski

Merina Witz

ALTO

Annemarie Adams

Lauren Almeida

Jaime Alvis

Kristina Geiger

Lori Grapentine

Jane Henneberry

Rebecca Hillary

Talia Ivry

Amy Johnson

Jessica Jones

Susan Jones

Alana Katz

Estelle Katz

Heidi Kramer

Elena Lahti

Sally Lanz

Heather Laurila

Sarah Magenheim

Kathleen Berkley

Sharon Blattner Held*

Ti any Brunhoefer

Penny Carlson

Roberta Carrier

Spencer Chaplin

Johanna Chworowsky

Mackenzie Cole

Wendy Coleman

Lavonne Dettmers*

Chloe Diehl-Walker

Susan Ecroyd

Tammy Elmer

Gwen Evans

Tola Ewers

Deb Flanders

Erika Gallagher

Denise Garvin

Holly Gefroh-Grimes

Denise Martin

Brittney Mitchell

Rachel Mokelke-Heineman

Fran Puleo Moyer

Jacklyn O’Brien

Chloe Orr

Susan Peterson

Jamie Pu er

Emily Regenold

Angela Reisetter

Christine Richards

Deb Roever

Veronica Rueckert

Kathleen Schell

Nancy Shook

Ray Calderon

Bradley Carter

Drew Collins

Je Cooper

Bryan Endres

Robert Factor

Christopher Feyrer

Michael Hammer

David Hanson

Glenn Hanson

Mark Hanson

John Hayward

Mooyoung Kim

James Kleckner

Alex Kovensky

Kathy Lewinski

Murali Meyer

Jonathan Myers

Thomas Ott

Mitchell Patton

Dave Roever

Basil Rutkowski

Scott Seyforth

David Snook

James Staskal

LeRoy Stoner

Thomas Swartz

Craig Wuerzberger*

Steve Yeazel

David Flanders

Elliot Frie

Benson Gardner

Robert Gentile

Michael Green

Charles Hodulik

Colin Holden

Alexander Jankowski

David Johnson

Mitch Lattis

Jules Lee

Lyle Lichty

Denaly Min

Donald Olsen

Greg Polacheck

Brayden Remerowski

Barry Rokusek

Greg Schmidt

Tradd Schmidt

Michael Schmit

George Shook

Chris Sink

Grant Steele

John Unertl

James Wear

Ryan Westergaard

Craig Wille*

Isaac Wojcicki

Latisha Smith-Chase

Elaine Sullivan

Robin Swadley

Julianne Wilke

Katie Wisz

Megan Yockey

TENOR

Gordon Brand

BASS

Steve Beversdorf

James Blanchard

Evan Bruns

Paul Bushland

Mike Byrne

Mark Danforth

Robert DeBroux

Robert Dinndorf

William Bremmer

Alan Ferguson

*Section Leader

OFFICERS

Rose Heckenkamp-Busch, President

James Wear, Vice-President

Samantha Tushaus, Secretary

CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR

Piano

Hailed by critics as “frighteningly talented” ( The New York Times ) and “a great pianist” ( The Los Angeles Times ), Christopher Taylor has distinguished himself throughout his career as an innovative musician with a diverse array of talents and interests. He is known for a passionate advocacy of music written in the past 100 years — Messiaen, Ligeti, and Bolcom figure prominently in his performances — but his repertoire spans four centuries and includes the complete Beethoven sonatas, the Liszt Transcendental Etudes , Bach’s Goldberg Variations , and a multitude of other familiar masterworks. Whatever the genre or era of the composition, Mr. Taylor brings to it an active imagination and intellect coupled with heartfelt intensity and grace.

Mr. Taylor has concertized around the globe, with international tours taking him to Russia, Western Europe, East Asia, and the Carribean. At home in the U.S., he has appeared with such orchestras as the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, and the Milwaukee Symphony. As a soloist he has performed in New York’s Carnegie and Alice Tully Halls, in Washington’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Ravinia and Aspen festivals, and dozens of other

venues. In chamber settings, he has collaborated with many eminent musicians, including Robert McDu e and the Borromeo, Shanghai, Pro Arte, and Ying Quartets. His recordings have featured works by Liszt, Messiaen, and present-day Americans William Bolcom and Derek Bermel. Throughout his career Mr. Taylor has become known for undertaking memorable and unusual projects. Examples include: an upcoming tour in which he will perform, from memory, the complete transcriptions of Beethoven symphonies by Liszt; performances and lectures on the complete etudes of György Ligeti; and a series of performances of the Goldberg Variations on the unique double-manual Steinway piano in the collection of the University of Wisconsin. He has actively promoted the rediscovery and refurbishment of the latter instrument; in recent years he has also been building a reinvented and modernized version of it, a project that relies on his computer and engineering skills and was unveiled in a demonstration recital in 2016.

Numerous awards have confirmed Mr. Taylor’s high standing in the musical world. He was named an American Pianists’ Association Fellow for 2000, before which he received an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1996 and the Bronze Medal in the 1993 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. In 1990 he took first prize in the William Kapell International Piano Competition, and also became one of the first recipients of the Irving Gilmore Young Artists’ Award.

Mr. Taylor owes much of his success to several outstanding teachers, including Russell Sherman, Maria Curcio-Diamand, Francisco Aybar, and Julie Bees. In addition to his busy concert schedule, he currently serves as Paul Collins Associate Professor of Piano Performance at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He pursues a variety of other interests, including: mathematics (he received a summa cum laude degree from Harvard University in this field in 1992); philosophy (an article he coauthored with the leading scholar Daniel Dennett appears in the Oxford Free Will Handbook); computing; linguistics; and biking, which is his primary means of commuting. Mr. Taylor lives in Middleton, Wisconsin, with his wife and two daughters. Christopher Taylor is a Steinway artist.

JENI HOUSER

Soprano

Staud’s Die Weiden, after which she joined the company for its productions of Die Zauberflöte and Trojahn’s Orest

Ms. Houser has sung Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos with Austin Opera and Minnesota Opera; at the latter, she also sang Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, the Charmeuse in Thais, and Mrs. Grady in the world premiere of Paul Moravec’s The Shining. With Madison Opera, she has previously sung Olympia in Les contesd’Ho mann, Johanna in Sweeney Todd, Anne Egerman in ALittleNightMusic, and Amy in Adamo’sLittleWomen. She has sung further performances of Johanna in SweeneyTodd with Mill City Summer Opera and Baltimore Concert Opera. She joined On Site Opera as Susanna in Marcos Portugal’s Le nozzediFigaro, Odyssey Opera in Boston as Cecily in Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s The Importance of BeingEarnest, Opera Saratoga as Josephine in H.M.S. Pinafore, and Fort Worth Opera as Viv in the premiere of Peters’ Companionship

Opera News lauds Jeni Houser’s performances as “commanding and duplicitous, yet also vulnerable. She has a bright future above the staff.” In the 2024-25 season, she returns to the Metropolitan Opera for both Die Zauberflöte and its beloved English-language production of The Magic Flute —into which she last season reprised her sought-after Queen of the Night. Also last season, she sang further performances of DieZauberflöte with latter performances at the Grand Teton Music Festival with Donald Runnicles conducting. She also returned to Madison Opera as Cunegonde in Candide and joined the Phoenix Symphony for CarminaBurana .

On the concert stage, she has previously sung Orff’s CarminaBurana with Madison Symphony, Las Vegas Philharmonic, Florida Orchestra and Atlanta Ballet and Brahms’ EindeutschesRequiem, Haydn’s Creation, and Mozart’s RequiemwithAbendmusik: Lincoln (Nebraska).

She recently made debuts with the Metropolitan Opera, Los Angeles Opera, and Dallas Opera as Königin der Nacht in DieZauberflöte , a role she has also sung to great acclaim with Minnesota Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Cincinnati Opera, Central City Opera, and Kentucky Opera. She recently made her role debut as Lucia di Lammermoor in a return to Madison Opera and repeated the role at the Seoul Arts Center. She returned to the Dallas Opera stage as the title role in The Golden Cockerel With the Wiener Staatsoper, she made her international debut as Frantzi in the world premiere of

The soprano is an alumnus of the young artist programs of the Glimmerglass Festival, Virginia Opera, and Opera Saratoga. She won second place at the Nicholas Loren Vocal Competition in 2014. She was a district winner and regional finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2013 and 2011 after earning an encouragement award in 2010, and was a national semifinalist in the NATS Artist Award Competition in 2010. She holds degrees from the University of NebraskaLincoln and Lawrence University.

Be part of the experience.

EMILY FONS

Mezzo-Soprano

Mezzo-Soprano Emily Fons has made several exciting role and company debuts in recent seasons that have set her apart as a versatile, powerful, and engaging performer.

Ms. Fons was hailed by Opera News as one of opera’s rising stars and one of the best singing actresses of her generation, and received a Grammy nomination for her work on Jennifer Higdon’s ColdMountain

Ms. Fons has been lauded for her virtuosic abilities in Baroque and Bel Canto repertoire, her winning portrayals of opera’s traditional “trouser roles,” and the dramatic commitment and musicality she brings to modern works. In recent seasons she has sung with Canadian Opera Company, Seattle Opera, The Berlin Philharmonic, The Santa Fe Opera, The International Händel Festspiele,

the Cleveland Orchestra, Palm Beach Opera, Haymarket Opera, San Diego Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Madison Opera, the Seiji Ozawa Music Academy, and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.

Ms. Fons is enjoying a successful international career while also staying committed to performing in and giving back to the communities she works in, and her home state of Wisconsin. She presents cabaret style performances with pianist Janna Ernst, and is coauthoring a book on personal finance for young singers with financial wellness educator and expert Rebecca Eve Selkowe in the hopes of educating future singers on the importance of building careers that work for them and provide stability for the lives they desire.

Starring Renée Richardson, Terrence Chin-Loy, Emily Secor, Kyle White Conducted by John DeMain, Directed by Alison Pogorelc

Featuring the Madison Opera Chorus, Madison Youth Choirs, and Madison Symphony Orchestra

PROGRAM NOTES

OCT 17-18-19, 2025

Michael Allsen

program notes by J.

Our 100th season opens with the transcendent Symphony No. 2 by Gustav Mahler. The “Resurrection” symphony will be played by an expanded MSO, with two vocal soloists, soprano Jeni Houser and mezzo-soprano Emily Fons, together with the Madison Symphony Chorus. This symphony, one of Mahler’s most profound artistic and spiritual statements, begins and ends with titanic movements: the funeral march and mourning of the opening movement is answered by the glorious reassurance of the conclusion. The title of this program, Primal Light, comes from one of the internal movements, which Mahler described as the “voice of innocent faith.” And what better way to celebrate 100 years than to look ahead to the future: our opener is a 2024 work by the American composer Mason Bates. His Resurrexit is an exciting and thoroughly satisfying work…that also happens to be the perfect program pairing for the Mahler. Then Madison’s own Christopher Taylor joins us to play the challenging piano part of Franck’s SymphonicVariations. Mr. Taylor makes his ﬁfth appearance with the orchestra at this program. Previous appearances were in 2007 (Gershwin, Concertoin F), 2011 (Schumann, PianoConcerto), 2015 (Bach, KeyboardConcerto No. 4 and Liszt, PianoConcerto No. 1), and 2018 (Bernstein, Symphony No. 2, “The Age of Anxiety”).

Mason Bates, certainly among America’s most popular living composers, is notable both for his incorporation of electronica in many works, but also for the wide variety of musical inﬂuences he adopts, and for the approachability of his music.

Mason Bates

Born: January 23, 1977, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Resurrexit

Composed: 2024.

Premiere: September 30, 2024 by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Manfred Honeck. The work was commissioned to celebrate Honeck’s sixtieth birthday.

Previous MSO Performance: This is our ﬁrst performance of the work. Duration: 10:00.

Background

Resurrexit, a work written for a traditional symphony orchestra deals with the biblical story of the Resurrection.

Grammy Award-winning composer Mason Bates divides his e orts between composing symphonic music and DJ’ing electronic dance music. Beginning with his Concerto for Synthesizer (1999), Bates has often blended electronica and symphonic music in works such as LiquidInterface (2007), The B-Sides (2009), and Mothership (2011), or most recently, SiliconHymnal (2025—an “electroacoustic book of songs” written for the phenomenal trio Time for Three). Nor has he neglected more traditional idioms; Bates has written two operas, The (R)evolution of Bill Gates (for which Bates won his second Grammy in 2019; his ﬁrst was in 2017, for a recording of three of his works by the San Francisco Symphony), and The AmazingAdventures of Kavalier & Clay (which will open the Metropolitan Opera’s 2025-26 season) and symphonic works like his Piano Concerto (2022—written for pianist Danil Trifonov), NomadConcerto (2023—for violinist Gil Shaham) and Resurrexit (2024). Bates has also written ﬁlm scores, including a score for PhilharmoniaFantastique, an innovative animated introduction to

the instruments the of the orchestra for children. Regarding his Resurrexit, Bates writes:

Composers from Bach to Mahler have set the Resurrection in large-scale choral settings, but the story has not been animated in the purely symphonic, kinetic form that attracted me. Resurrexit challenged me to consider a subject and soundworld I had never explored musically, a biblical narrative full of mystery and the supernatural.

What You’ll Hear

This is a work with a dramatic arch, from a mysterious and quiet beginning through a triumphant ending.

Bates provides the following description of Resurrexit:

The piece opens in darkness, with the dusty mystery of the Middle East evoked by exotic modes and sonorities, as a throaty melody laments the death of Christ. The entrance of the beautiful Easter chant Victimae Paschali Laudes signals the first stirrings of life, conjured by trills, altar bells, and the remarkable Semantron (a large wooden plank hammered by huge mallets used by Byzantine monks as a call to prayer). Mystery turns into magic as the ‘re-animation’ is illustrated by quicksilver textures that whirl and flicker, building to exhilarating finale which features a soaring reprise of the Easter chant.

The piece has a clear dramatic form, from the quiet mystery of the opening, through the statement of the chant by woodwinds and percussion, leading to a wild acceleration. Following a long, turbulent passage, the trumpets proclaim Victimae Paschali Laudes as the opening of a triumphant conclusion that ends with the

CÉSAR FRANCK

MASON BATES

GUSTAV MAHLER

chant thundered out by the full brass section.

Franck, one of the 19th century’s great organists, wrote this work for piano and orchestra for a French piano virtuoso, Louis Diémer.

César Franck

Born: December 10, 1822, Liège, Belgium.

Died: November 8, 1890, Paris, France.

Symphonic Variations for Piano and Orchestra

Composed: 1885.

Premiere: It was ﬁrst performed in Paris on May 1, 1886, with Louis Diémer as soloist.

Previous MSO Performances: Previous performances of this work have featured Sigfrid Prager (1932—Prager was the orchestra’s ﬁrst conductor and also a ﬁne pianist), Morton Schoenfeld (1944), Leo Ste ens (1968), and Jorge Bolet (1985).

Duration: 15:00.

Background

The Symphonic Variations were written as “a little something” for Diémer, in gratitude for the pianist’s role in the success of a Franck orchestral piece in early 1885.

Variations is one of these mature works. It was inspired by the playing of virtuoso Louis Diémer, one of the leading French pianists of the late 19th century. In March 1885, Diémer played the piano part in the premiere of a now-little-known Franck symphonic poem, Les Djinns Franck credited much of the success of this performance to the stellar playing of Diémer and pledged to reward him with “a little something.” That “little something” turned out to be the SymphonicVariations, completed in December 1885. This was a success at its ﬁrst performance and remains—with the Symphonyin Dminor of a few years later—one of Franck’s most often-played works.

What You’ll Hear

The piece features a relatively equal partnership between the piano and the orchestra. It has an innovative form in which the “variations” of the title are only a central episode, surrounded by large introduction and ﬁnale sections.

The unhurried introduction begins with a dour orchestral statement, answered by a melancholy idea from the piano. This theme and a few secondary ideas are developed carefully in a musical dialogue between piano and orchestra. The piano alone introduces the theme, a simple triple-meter tune. The first five variations are fairly straightforward, but the sixth, carried largely by the cellos, ends with a free passage that culminates in a long trill. This leads into the finale—really a miniature symphonic movement in itself. This introduces and develops a pair of much brighter themes, before a forceful ending.

Background

Mahler had composed the ﬁrst four movements by 1893, without a clear idea of how to ﬁnish the work. His breakthrough came as result of an experience at the funeral of Hans von Bülow, one of Mahler’s important early supporters.

Franck was known for much of his career as one of the greatest organists in an age of great French organists. Born in Belgium, he spent nearly all of his career in Paris, as organist at the church of SteClothilde, and eventually as organ instructor at the Paris Conservatoire. Something of a late bloomer as a composer, Franck wrote most of his truly signiﬁcant music after reaching his mid 50s. The Symphonic

The SymphonicVariations was a strikingly original piece for its time, both in its scoring and musical form. In Les Djinns, the piano part Diémer played was soloistic, but also clearly a part of the orchestral texture. Franck took a similar approach in the SymphonicVariations. The piano here is more of a “concertante” instrument in the Baroque sense of an equal balance between soloist and orchestra. While the piano does get the ﬂashiest bits, the orchestra plays an equal role in developing Franck’s ideas. The form was also innovative. Not a traditional theme and variations, Franck’s Symphonic Variations is instead a three-part form: a relatively brief episode in the middle with a theme and six variations, surrounded by a long introduction and a huge ﬁnale.

This autobiographical symphony has Mahler wrestling with the essential questions of existence: does our life have meaning and does our soul survive after death? As you will hear in the glorious ending, he answers these questions in the most a rmative way possible!

Gustav Mahler

Born: July 7, 1860, Kalischte, Bohemia.

Died: May 18, 1911, Vienna, Austria.

Symphony No.2 in C minor, “Resurrection”

Composed: Between 1888 and 1894.

Premiere: After a partial premiere of the ﬁrst three movements in March 1895, Mahler conducted the ﬁrst public performance of the entire work in Berlin on December 13, 1895. Previous MSO Performances: 1996 and 2011.

Duration: 80:00.

“One score always lies on my piano—that of Mahler’s second symphony–and I never cease learning from it.” - Richard Strauss

For Gustav Mahler, composing was autobiography. He saw his own life as the substance of his musical works, writing in 1897 that his symphonies “…exhaust the content of my whole life—they are what I have experienced and what I have su ered, truth and poetry in tones...if one were to read close enough, he would indeed see my life transparently reflected in them.” This autobiographical ideal is nowhere more evident than in the second symphony, where he tackles the subjects of death and resurrection. The movements of the symphony, particularly the finale, do indeed reflect the events of his life, but they also reflect a crisis of religious belief. A Jew by heritage, and Catholic by conversion, Mahler was never comfortable in his beliefs and struggled with his own reaction to the Klopstock poem Resurrection. This poem inspired the final movement, but he obviously saw it as a statement that needed a response. In searching for text to complete the finale, Mahler “ransacked the religious literature of the world” before deciding to write the concluding lines himself—all of text from “Believe, O my heart” onwards is Mahler’s most profound statement of his own faith.

The composition of this work extended over six years, 1888-94. The enormous ﬁrst movement, to which he gave the title Totenfeier (“Funeral Rites”) was completed

by 1893. During that year, Mahler showed it to his mentor and artistic patron, conductor Hans von Bülow, who was impressed and just a little shocked by the movement’s size and boldness. The internal movements were completed in the summer of 1893. While the Andantemoderato, sketched out for the ﬁrst time in 1888, was always intended as the second movement of a large C minor symphony—both the third and fourth movements both have their origins in songs—settings of texts from an early 19th-century collection of folk poetry titled DesKnaben Wunderhorn (“The Boy’s Magic Horn”). The scherzo is a reworked version of his setting of St. Anthony’s Sermon to theFishes. The fourth movement, PrimalLight, was also intended originally for his orchestral cycle of Wunderhorn songs. Mahler adapted it here, however, as the bridge to the as-of-then uncompleted ﬁnale.

By the end of 1893, Mahler had reached a creative roadblock: he had posed an enormous question in the opening movement, and had three internal movements, but was unsure about how to end the symphony. The inspiration for the ﬁnal movement came just a few months later, with the unexpected death of Hans von Bülow. The memorial service for this man, for whom Mahler had boundless respect, served as the catalyst needed to complete the Symphony No. 2. Later, he wrote:

At that time, I had long planned to introduce the chorus into the last movement, but hesitated, for fear that this might be viewed as a superﬁcial imitation of Beethoven... As I sat there and thought about [Bülow], my mood was precisely that of the work that was occupying me. At that moment, the chorus, up in the organ loft, intoned Klopstock’s “Resurrection” chorale.

It struck me like a bolt of lightning, and everything stood clear and vivid before my soul. It was the ﬂash, the “Holy Annunciation” that all creative artists wait for.

Mahler completed the ﬁnal movement just a few months after this “lightning bolt.”

What You’ll Hear

The symphony is cast in ﬁve movements:

• An immense and turbulent ﬁrst movement in sonata form.

• A placid and pastoral slow movement.

• A pastoral scherzo with uneasy undertones.

• A serene movement with a mezzo-soprano solo.

• A gigantic ﬁnale that moves from apocalyptic imagery through a serene choral passage, to a magniﬁcent conclusion.

Mahler was always hesitant about attaching programs to his symphonies and abandoned this device altogether in his later works. He did, however, provide a rather extensive program for the Symphony No. 2, which sheds some light on his intentions. In describing the opening movement, he wrote:

We are standing beside the co n of a man beloved. For the last time, this man’s life, battles, su erings, and purpose pass through our mind. And now, at this profound moment, we are gripped by a voice of awe-inspiring solemnity... What next? it says. Is it all an empty dream, or does our life and death have a meaning? If we are to go on living, we must

answer this question.

The ﬁrst movement is a sonata form of gigantic proportions, with its main divisions set o by a furious motive from the basses, and a doleful march theme. Contrast comes in the guise of more pastoral music from the strings and horns, but the anger of opening soon creeps in once more. Subtly working its way into the development section is a motive drawn from the Catholic Mass for the Dead—the ﬁrst four notes of the chant Diesirae (Day of wrath). After the recapitulation, the basses and horns enter again to announce a surprisingly understated coda.

Coming almost as a relief after the ferocity of the opening, the second movement (Andantemoderato) begins with a placid string melody, which gives way to a more agitated triplet figures in the strings below a flute melody. The opening melody returns, now with a lovely cello counterpoint. Mahler brings his contrasting melody back, now in more forceful minor-key variation. In the final section, the main idea creeps back again, now in pizzicato strings, punctuated by “cuckoos” from the piccolos. Mahler described this movement as a remembrance of “a sunny scene, calm and untroubled, from the life of this hero.”

After the “nostalgic dream” of the Andantemoderato, we awaken in the scherzo and “return to life’s confusion.” Mahler explained the mood of this movement:

…the perpetually moving, unending, always incomprehensible hustle and bustle of life becomes eerie to you, like the movements of dancing ﬁgures in a brightly-lit ballroom into which you gaze out of the dark night—from such a distance that you cannot hear the dance music! Life becomes

senseless to you then, a ghastly apparition from which you may recoil with a cry of disgust!

The music is set in a large threepart form. In the two outer panels, the strings play a ﬂowing melody above a boisterous country-dance background. The brief central section, beginning with solo trumpet, is more questing in nature. The ﬁnal section builds gradually towards a series of forceful brass chords—the “cry of disgust” described in Mahler’s program—and just as gradually subsides back into the country-dance feel of the opening.

The fourth movement, titled Urlicht (Primal Light), marks an important moment of transition in the flow of this work. In his program for the movement, Mahler wrote: “The mourning voice of innocent faith falls upon our ears.” This marks the first appearance of the mezzo-soprano soloist, singing a text from DesKnabenWunderhorn Her opening invocation and the answering brass chorale set a serene and contemplative mood. Even at the moment when the text becomes more agitated and narrative in nature, the solo line is simple and unhurried. This text sets up what is to come in the finale, expressing the central theme, a search for redemption and resurrection.

The first and fifth movements stand at either end of the SymphonyNo.2, massive anchors of a colossal arch. If the first movement poses the essential questions of existence, Mahler’s struggles and faith come through in the fifth, which he described as “a fresco of the Day of Judgment.” The finale shatters the placid mood of Urlicht with an echo of the scherzo’s “cry of disgust.”

O stage brass give the ﬁrst hints of the great summons that is to come. The ﬁrst peak of emotion comes at the close of a pianissimo trombone

chorale on the Diesirae, as the music comes rest triumphantly in C Major. The mood soon changes, as Mahler launches into an extended orchestral fantasy on the Diesirae motive. The character subsides once more, only to build into another frantic climax. In his program for this opening section, Mahler draws on appalling imagery from the text of the Diesirae: the graves have opened, and “marching in a mighty phalanx” come the trembling and terriﬁed dead, rich and poor, peasants and kings, all together waiting for judgement. Finally, a section of the score titled Der grosse Appell (the great summons) begins with o stage brass and pastoral woodwinds. The chorus, held in reserve until this most

profound moment of all, begins unaccompanied, and almost sotto voce with the Klopstock chorale that inspired the movement. Then, in Mahler’s own words, the soloists and chorus transmit a message of resurrection and faith, culminating in the triumphant: “Rise again! Yes, you will rise again, my heart, in but a moment! What you have fought for will carry you to God!”

Complete program notes for the 2025-2026 season are available at madisonsymphony.org.

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FOURTH MOVEMENT:

URLICHT

Mezzo-soprano:

O Röschen roth!

MAHLER, SYMPHONY NO.2

TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS

PRIMAL LIGHT

O little red rose!

Der Mensch liegt in grösster Noth! Mankind lies in greatest need!

Der Mensch liegt in grösster Pein! Mankind lies in greatest pain!

Je lieber möcht’ ich im Himmel sein! I would much rather be in Heaven!

Da kam ich auf einen breiten Weg, I then came upon a broad road; da kam ein Engelein und wollt’ mich abweisen. then a little angel appeared, and tried to turn me away.

Ach nein! Ich liess mich nicht abweisen! Ah no! I would not let myself be turned away!

Ich bin von Gott und will wieder zu Gott! I am from God, and will return to God!

Der liebe Gott wird mir ein Lichtchen geben, The beloved God will give me a small light, Wird leuchten mir bis in das ewig selig Leben! which will guide me to a blessed, eternal life!

(Anonymous, from “Des Knaben Wunderhorn”)

FIFTH MOVEMENT:

Chorus and Soloists:

Aufersteh’n, ja aufersteh’n wirst du,

Rise again—yes, you will rise again mein Staub, nach kurzer Ruh! my dust, after a short rest! Unsterblich Leben! Unsterblich Leben Eternal life! You will be granted eternal wird, der dich rief, dir geben. life by He who called you. Wieder auzublüh’n wirst dur gesät!

To bloom again where you were sown! Der Herr der Ernte geht und sammelte Garben, The Lord of harvests, goes forth to gather like sheaves uns ein, die starben. we who have died.

(F. G. Klopstock)

Mezzo-soprano:

O glaube, mein Herz, O glaube: Believe, O my heart, O believe: es geht dir nichts verloren! Nothing will be lost to you! Dein ist, dein, was du gesehnt. What you longed for is yours—yes, yours. Dein, was du geliebt, was du gestritten! Yours—whatever you have loved, whatever you have fought for!

Soprano:

O glaube:

O believe: du wardst nicht umsonst geboren, You were notborninvain, hast nicht umsonst gelebt, gelitten! nor haveyou livedandsu ered in vain!

Mezzo-soprano and Chorus: Was enstanden ist, das muss vergehen; What has been created must perish; was vergangen, auferstehen! what has perished must rise again! Hör auf zu beben! Stop your trembling! Bereite dich zu leben! Prepare yourself to live!

TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS

Chorus and Soloists:

O Schmerz! Du Alldurchdringer!

O Pain, all-piercing— Dir bin ich entrungen! I have been snatched away from you! O Tod! Du Allbezwinger! O Death, all-conquering— Nun bist du bezwungen! now you have been conquered! Mit Flügeln, die ich mir errungen, With wings I have won for myself in heissem Liebesstreben, in fervent struggles of love, werd’ ich entschweben zum Licht,

I shall soar aloft towards the light zu dem kein Aug’ gedrungen! that no eye has seen!

Sterben werd’ ich, um zu leben! I shall die—in order to live!

Aufersteh’n, ja aufersteh’n wirst du, Rise again—yes, you will rise again mein Herz, in einem Nu! my heart, in but a moment! Was du geschlagen, What you have fought for zu Gott wird es dich tragen! will carry you to God!

(G. Mahler)

[translation by M. Allsen]

PROGRAM

John DeMain | Music Director

100th Season | Overture Hall | SubscriptionProgram No. 2

Robert Moody, Guest Conductor

Alban Gerhardt, Cello

CHRISTOPHER THEOFANIDIS (B.1967)

Rainbow Body

FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN (1732-1809)

Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in D Major Allegro moderato

Skofronick Family Charitable Trust

ADDITIONAL SPONSORS

Scott and Janet Cabot, in honor of Ann Bowen

David Lauth and Lindsey Thomas

Bassam Shakhashiri

with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts

Endowment support for the music library collection is the gift of John & Carolyn Peterson.

The Overture Concert Organ is the gift of Pleasant T. Rowland

WELCOME TO THE MSO!

Adagio

Rondo: Allegro

MR. GERHARDT

INTERMISSION

MODEST MUSSORGSKY (1839-1881)

Pictures at an Exhibition (orchestrated by Maurice Ravel) Promenade

Gnomus Promenade Il vecchio castello Promenade

Tuileries

Bydlo Promenade

Ballet of the Chicks in Their Shells

Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle

The Market Place at Limoges

Catacombs

Cum mortuis in lingua mortua

The hut on fowl’s legs (Baba Yaga)

The Great Gate of Kiev

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MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA 2025-2026 MUSICIAN ROSTER FOR RADIANCE

VIOLIN I

Naha Greenholtz

Concertmaster

William and Joyce Wartmann Chair

Leanne Kelso

Associate Concertmaster

Steinhauer Charitable Trust Chair

Huy Luu

Associate Concertmaster

George and Candy Gialamas Chair

Olga Pomolova

Associate Concertmaster

Maynie Bradley

Assistant Concertmaster

Endowed by an Anonymous Friend

Kina Ono

Annetta H. Rosser Chair

Neil Gopal

Tim Kamps

Jon Vriesacker

Katherine Floriano

Laura Burns

Paran Amirinazari

Alec Tonno

Naomi Schrank

VIOLIN II

Xavier Pleindoux

Principal

Dr. Stanley and Shirley Inhorn Chair

Hillary Hempel

Assistant Principal

Elyn L. Williams Chair

Peter Miliczky

Holly Wagner

Rolf Wulfsberg

Olga Draguieva

Kathryn Taylor

Wendy Buehl

VIOLA

Christopher Dozoryst

Principal

James F. Crow Chair

Katrin Talbot

Assistant Principal

Dove Family Chair

Diedre Buckley

Renata Hornik

Elisabeth Deussen

Judy Huang

Janse Vincent

Jennifer Paulson

Hanna Pederson

David Beytas

Melissa Snell

Charlie Alves

CELLO

Mark Bridges

Principal

Reuhl Family Chair

Lindsey Crabb

Assistant Principal

Patricia Kokotailo & R. Lawrence

DeRoo Chair

Karen Cornelius

Knapp Family Chair

Jordan Allen

Margaret Townsend

Lisa Bressler

Derek Handley

Trace Johnson

Alex Chambers-Ozasky

BASS

David Scholl

Principal

Robert Rickman

FLUTE

Stephanie Jutt

Principal

Terry Family Foundation Chair

Linda Pereksta

PICCOLO

Linda Pereksta

OBOE

Izumi Amemiya

Principal

Jim and Cathie Burgess Chair

Andrea Gross Hixon

Lindsay Flowers

ENGLISH HORN

Lindsay Flowers

CLARINET

JJ Koh

Principal

Barbara and Norman Berven Chair

Nancy Mackenzie

E-Flat Clarinet

Nancy Mackenzie

BASS CLARINET

Gregory Smith

BASSOON

Cynthia Cameron

Principal

Amanda Szczys

Carol Rosing

CONTRABASSOON

TRUMPET

John Aley

Principal

Marilynn G. Thompson Chair

John Wagner

Matthew Onstad

TROMBONE

Joyce Messer

Principal

Fred and Mary Mohs Chair

Benjamin Skroch

BASS TROMBONE

Ben Zisook

TUBA

Joshua Biere

Principal

TIMPANI

John Jutsum

Principal

Eugenie Mayer Bolz Foundation Chair

PERCUSSION

Anthony DiSanza

Principal

JoAnn Six Plesko and E.J. Plesko Chair

Richard Morgan

Nicholas Bonaccio

Gregory Hinz

Tom Ross

HARP

Johanna Wienholts

Principal

Endowed by an Anonymous Friend

ORGAN

Gregory Zelek

Principal

The Elaine and Nicholas Mischler Curatorship

PIANO/CELESTE

Daniel Lyons

Principal

Stephen D. Morton Chair

Orchestra Committee

Mark Bridges, Chair

Lisa Bressler, Vice-Chair

Elspeth Stalter-Clouse, Secretary

David Scholl, Treasurer

John Wagner, Member-at-large

Librarian

Jennifer S. Goldberg

John and Carolyn Peterson Chair

Stage Manager

Benjamin Skroch

Personnel Manager

Alexis Carreon

Margaret Mackenzie

Geri Nolden

Robin Ryan

Matthew Dahm

Wes Luke

Glen Kuenzi

Laura Mericle

Assistant Principal

Carl Davick

Tom Mohs Chair

Zachary Betz

Je Takaki

August Jirovec

Grace Heintz

Mike Hennessy

Carol Rosing

HORN

Emma Potter

Principal

Steve and Marianne Schlecht Chair

Michael Wright

Michael Szczys

William Muir

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ROBERT MOODY

Conductor

Internationally acclaimed conductor Robert Moody is well known as guest conductor to the world’s greatest orchestras, including Chicago Symphony, Toronto Symphony, and Los Angeles Philharmonic, Vienna Chamber Orchestra (Austria), and many major orchestras around the world.

Moody, recently named Music Director for the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra (MD) is also Music Director for Memphis Symphony Orchestra (TN) and Arizona Musicfest, as well as Principal Conductor for Lakeland Opera (FL).

Prior to these positions he was Music Director for both the Portland Symphony Orchestra (Maine) and WinstonSalem Symphony (NC), and on conducting staff for Phoenix Symphony, Santa Fe Opera, Brevard Music Center, and the Interschool Orchestras of New York City.

Current and upcoming highlights include return engagements with the three top orchestras in South Africa, debuts with Shenzhen and Wuxi Symphonies (China) as well as Kansas City Symphony/Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Buffalo Philharmonic, Tulsa Philharmonic, and debuts with top orchestras in Finland and Romania. He collaborates often with opera superstar Renée Fleming, and will also lead concerts with Time For Three, Timothy Chooi, Rodney Gilfry, Charlie Albright, Mason Bates, and Bryan Cheng. Moody’s work can be heard on multiple commercial recordings, including Stephenson’s “Concerto for Hope” with legendary trumpet player Ryan Anthony and the Memphis Symphony Orchestra.

Maestro Moody holds degrees from Furman University (SC) and the Eastman School of Music (NY). He is a runner, swimmer, history bu , “Jeopardy!” addict, and snow-skier.

Cello

ALBAN GERHARDT

Alban Gerhardt has gained recognition as one of the world’s most versatile cellists, highly regarded for his technical mastery, profound musicality, and insatiable artistic curiosity. Notable orchestral collaborators include Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, all the British and German radio orchestras, Berliner Philharmoniker, TonhalleOrchester Zürich, Orchestre National de France, Orquesta Nacional de España as well as The Cleveland Orchestra, Philadelphia, Chicago symphony orchestras and New York Philharmonic, under conductors such as Christoph von Dohnányi, Kurt Masur, Klaus Mäkelä, Christian Thielemann, Simone Young, Susanna Mälkki, Vladimir Jurowski, and Andris Nelsons.

Alliage Saxophone Quintet and new collaboration partner, accordionist Ksenija Sidorova. The upcoming season brings Gerhardt to the Santa Catalina Festival, on tour around the UK with Steven Osborne, to Seoul Philharmonic, Shanghai Concert Hall and to and to New York’s 92nd Y for all Bachsuites in a solo recital.

Gerhardt will also appear as Artistic Curator of the Schumann Festival in Dusseldorf in June during the 2024/25 season.

Having recorded extensively for Hyperion, Gerhardt’s album of the complete Bach suites was one of The Sunday Times’s top 100 recordings of 2019. His album of Shostakovich cello concertos with the WDR Sinfonieorchester and JukkaPekka Saraste was awarded an ICMA in 2021. Gerhardt has won several awards, and his recording of Unsuk Chin’s cello concerto, released by Deutsche Grammophon, won a BBC Music Magazine Award and was shortlisted for a Gramophone Award in 2015.

Gerhardt’s wide repertoire includes all core concertos, as well as being the go-to soloist for contemporary composers.

The upcoming season sees Alban Gerhardt collaborating with Boston Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra Washington, Munich Philharmonic, the Hallé and BBC Philharmonic, Orchestre de Chambre de Paris and Warsaw Philharmonic amongst others.

A keen chamber musician, Gerhardt regularly performs with pianists Steven Osborne and Alexei Volodin, the

The 2023/24 season saw Gerhardt appearing as Artist in Focus at Aldeburgh Festival in June and as Duisburger Philharmoniker’s Artist in Residence for the season. Highlights in the 2023/24 season included Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin/Alsop, Gürzenich-Orchester Köln/Mälkki, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Manze, and Sydney Symphony Orchestra/Inkinen.

Gerhardt is passionate about outreach, and shares his experience and gift with audiences in schools, hospitals, and young offender institutions.

Alban Gerhardt plays a Matteo Gofriller cello dating from 1710.

Be part of the experience.

PROGRAM NOTES

NOV 21-22-23, 2025

Michael Allsen

program notes by J.

Guest conductor Robert Moody leads our November program. It opens with a luminous work by American composer Christopher Theofanidis, Rainbow Body, based upon a chant by the 12th-century mystic Hildegard of Bingen. Cellist Alban Gerhardt, making his fifth appearance with the orchestra, plays a fine classical concerto by Haydn. Previous appearances were in 1999 (Strauss, DonQuixote), 2008 (Elgar, CelloConcerto), 2013 (Prokofiev, Sinfoniaconcertante), and 2018 (Walton, CelloConcerto). To close, we turn to Mussorgsky’s Pictures at anExhibition, in the wonderful orchestration by Ravel, a work that clearly illustrates the visual artworks upon which it is based: from the grotesque Gnomus through the majestic Great Gate of Kiev.

RainbowBodydraws its name from a concept in Tibetan Buddhism.

Christopher Theofanidis

Born: December 18, 1967, Dallas, Texas.

Rainbow Body Composed: 2000. Premiere: April 2000, by the Houston Symphony Orchestra, under Robert Spano.

Previous MSO Performance: 2005. Duration: 13:00.

Background

Award-winning composer Christopher Theofanidis composed this work in 2000. It has since become one of the most popular and often-played pieces of contemporary American music, featured by well over 150 orchestras.

Christopher Theofanidis was born in Dallas, and currently teaches at Yale University, and at the Aspen Festival. His works have been performed by many of the world’s leading orchestras Theofanidis’s recent projects include an opera for the Houston Grand Opera, a ballet for the American Ballet Theater, and a work for the Atlanta Symphony and Chorus based on the poetry of Rumi. He has garnered an impressive number of awards (including a Grammy), prizes, and fellowships over the past decade; most relevant to these concerts is the 2003 Masterprize for Rainbow Body, an award associated with the London Symphony Orchestra, and one of the most prestigious international awards for composition. Several of his works (including RainbowBody) are available on CD, on the Albany and Telarc labels.

What You’ll Hear

The main theme of this work is drawn from a chant by Hildegard of Bingen.

The nearly eighty chants written by the 12th-century visionary and mystic Hildegard of Bingen (10891179) have inspired many musicians in recent years. Her musical style and often ecstatic Latin poetry set her chants apart within the enormous repertoire of surviving medieval music: her wide-ranging and melismatic melodies are among the most distinctive and expressive chants that survive from the Middle Ages. It was Hildegard’s music that provided the raw material for Rainbow Body. Theofanidis writes:

them apart from other chants of the period. They are very sensual and intimate: a kind of communication with the divine. This work is based on one of her chants, Ave Maria, O auctrix vite (Hail Mary, source of life).

Rainbow Body begins in an understated, mysterious manner, calling attention to some of the key intervals and motives of the piece. When the primary melody enters for the ﬁrst time about a minute into the work, I present it very directly in the strings, without accompaniment. In the orchestration, I try to capture a halo around this melody, creating a wet acoustic by emphasizing the lingering reverberations one might hear in an old cathedral.

Although the piece is built essentially around fragments of the melody, I also return to the tune in its entirety several times throughout the work, as a kind of plateau of stability within an otherwise turbulent environment. RainbowBody has a very di erent sensibility from Hildegard’s chant, with a structure that is dramatic and developmental, but I hope that it conveys at least a little of my love for the beauty and grace of her work.

The title comes from a concept in Tibetan Buddhism...that when an enlightened being dies, that person is absorbed as light and energy back into the universe rather than decaying in a physical way. For me, this had parallels with the ‘perfect’ music of Hildegard.

In the past few years, I have been listening to the music of the medieval mystic Hildegard von Bingen a great deal, and as simple and direct as this music is, I am constantly amazed by its staying power. Hildegard’s melodies have very memorable contours which set

Listening to the work, you will be struck by its clear dramatic arch. Hildegard’s melody emerges in all its beautiful simplicity after a brief chaotic introduction. Theofanidis’s sonic “halo” becomes gradually more complex, until a turbulent

JOSEPH HAYDN

CHRISTOPHER THEOFANIDIS

MODEST MUSSORGSKY

MAURICE RAVEL

central section, where the melody disintegrates into small motives. Strings reestablish large sections of the original melody and the original sense of calm at several points, but there is an almost inexorable heightening of tension until a climactic statement of the chant by full orchestra.

One of two ﬁne cello concertos by Haydn, this is one of Haydn’s last essays in the form. (Only the Trumpet Concertoof 1796 is later.)

Joseph Haydn

Born: March 31, 1732, Rohrau, Austria. Died: May 31, 1809, Vienna, Austria.

Kapellmeister to the Esterházy family, Haydn produced a staggering number of operas, Masses, chamber works, and concertos that were performed at Esterhazá, near Vienna. Concertos were always a great favorite, and they were usually designed to showcase a speciﬁc member of the prince’s orchestra. His C Major cello concerto, for example, was written in the 1760s for his friend Joseph Weigl, principal cellist in the Esterházy orchestra. Most of Haydn’s solo concertos date from the 1760s and 1770s, when he was building the orchestra into one of the ﬁnest ensembles in Europe, a group that included virtuoso players on every instrument.

record of the ﬁrst performance, but one biographer has suggested that this particularly large and impressive work might have been part of the sumptuous wedding celebration of Prince Nikolaus Esterházy and Princess Maria of Liechtenstein in September of 1783.

What You’ll Hear

The concerto is in three movements:

• An opening movement in sonata form, with a solo cadenza near the end.

• A lyrical Adagiowith two contrasting episodes.

with contrasting ideas—gives the cello space for its ﬂashiest music of the concerto, with lightning-fast passages and frequent double stops.

One of the most famous musical works inspired directly by visual art, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibitionwas originally composed as a piano suite in 1874. We will hear the colorful orchestral version arranged by Maurice Ravel in 1922.

Modest Mussorgsky

Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in D Major

Composed: 1783.

Premiere: Probably 1783. The intended soloist was almost certainly Anton Kraft.

Previous MSO Performances: This is the sixth time this work has been programmed by the MSO: previous soloists include Ennio Bolognini (1942), Jenska Slebos (1949), Leslie Parnas (1970), Warren Downs (1976), and Janos Starker (2002).

Duration: 26:00.

Background

Most of Haydn’s concertos were written to feature members of the private orchestra of the Esterházy family, which he directed for decades. In this case, it was written for Anton Kraft, a Czech cellist who played in the orchestra under Haydn for several years.

Though Haydn is best known as a composer of symphonies—104 in all— he produced a vast number of works in other genres. Laboring for decades as

Haydn was particularly adept at tailoring his works to suit his players, most of whom he had recruited himself. One of his biggest recruiting coups was the Czech cellist Anton Kraft. Kraft remained in Esterházy service from 1778 until the orchestra was dissolved in 1790. Some years later, he and his son Nikolaus—also a first-rate cellist—joined the orchestra of Prince Lobkowitz in Vienna. It was here that he became associated with Beethoven, and, in all likelihood, served as the inspiration for the virtuoso cello part in Beethoven’s TripleConcerto of 1804. Haydn’s D Major concerto was written for Anton Kraft in 1783—in fact, for nearly a century, it was assumed that it might be a work by Kraft, who was a skilled, if not-quite-first-rate composer, who had studied composition with Haydn. It wasn’t until the discovery of an autograph score in 1950 that the concerto could definitively be credited to Haydn. Though Kraft was not in the same league as Haydn as a composer, he was clearly one of the most talented cellists of the day: he seems to have had a particularly beautiful high register, which was utilized to great e ect in Haydn’s D Major concerto, Beethoven’s TripleConcerto and in his own cello concerto (1792). There is no

• A lively rondo with virtuoso ﬂourishes by the soloist.

The concerto is cast in the conventional three movements. The first movement (Allegro moderato) is in sonata form. After the opening orchestral exposition, the cello is exposed throughout and develops two contrasting and equally relaxed themes: the first opening in the high register, and the second relying on deeper, middle-register timbre. True to form, Haydn leaves space for a solo cadenza at the end of the recapitulation. The Adagio is in a simple five-part form, carried throughout by the solo line. It begins with a lovely main theme, stated by the cello above sparse string accompaniment. The cello introduces a contrasting, though equally lyrical idea before returning to a decorated version of the main theme. A minorkey orchestral passage momentarily changes the mood, before a final return of the main theme and a brief cadenza round o the movement. The final movement (Rondo:Allegro) is filled with Haydnesque good humor, and the relative simplicity of its form—the lively opening theme returns several times in alternation

Born: March 21, 1839, Karevo, Russia. Died: March 28, 1881, Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Pictures at an Exhibition (orchestrated by Maurice Ravel)

Composed: Mussorgsky’s piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition was completed in June of 1874, and was published posthumously in 1886 with a dedication to Vladimir Stassov. The orchestration by Ravel dates from 1922.

Premiere: Ravel’s orchestration was commissioned by Serge Koussevitsky, who conducted the premiere in Paris on October 19, 1922.

Previous MSO Performances: 1979, 1992, 2001, 2007, and 2019. Duration: 33:00.

Background

When architect Victor Hartmann died in 1873, his friends arranged a retrospective exposition of his drawings and sketches. One of the admiring attendees was Mussorgsky, who paid tribute to Hartmann in a series of musical impressions of the artwork.

When the Russian architect Victor Hartmann died at age 39 in 1873, writer Vladimir Stassov and several other of Hartmann’s friends and associates arranged a memorial exhibition of some 400 drawings and paintings by the architect. One of the visitors to the gallery was Mussorgsky, who had long admired Hartmann’s work. Within a few months of the exhibition, Mussorgsky had composed a suite of piano pieces based upon some of his favorites among Hartmann’s drawings. The form of this programmatic suite was unusual: it portrays the composer himself walking through the gallery, standing before several pictures and forming his own musical impressions of each one.

Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition remained relatively obscure until 1922, when Ravel completed an orchestration of the suite for conductor Serge Koussevitsky. Ravel’s scoring was not the ﬁrst attempt to transform Pictures into an orchestral piece, nor was it the last: there have been at least a dozen arrangements of Pictures, beginning with an orchestration by Mikhail Tushmalov in 1891, and orchestral versions by Sir Henry Wood, Ravel, Leonidas Leonardi, Leopold Stokowski, Lucien Caillet, Walter Goehr, and Sergei Gorchakov. There have also been scorings for other groupings of instruments, including Elgar Howarth’s brass ensemble version, a guitar version by Yamashita, Tomita’s electronic scoring, and even a fancifully staged version by the prog-rock band Emerson, Lake, and Palmer in the 1970s. Ravel’s masterful orchestration is better known than any other...including Mussorgsky’s own piano suite!

What You’ll Hear Ravel has e ectively ﬂeshed out Mussorgsky’s original music in imaginative orchestrations, culminating

with the stirring, brassy Great Gate of Kiev.

Here is a movement-by-movement “walking tour” of Pictures:

Promenade - This most familiar of Mussorgsky melodies, appearing between several of the movements, is used to bind the work together.

In Stassov’s descriptive notes for the ﬁrst published edition of Pictures, he writes: “Mussorgsky has represented himself roving right and left, sometimes hesitantly and sometimes briskly, in order to get close to pictures that have caught his attention.” The uneven 5/4-6/4 meter gives a characteristically Russian feel to this passage.

Gnomus - The ﬁrst of Hartmann’s drawings to be interpreted by Mussorgsky is of a nutcracker carved in the shape of an ugly, grinning gnome. Stassov’s notes suggest that this contorted ﬁgure “...accompanies his droll movements with savage shrieks.” Mussorgsky’s music is suitably gruesome, with awkward, limping lines.

Promenade

Il vecchio castello (The Old Castle)This was Hartmann’s watercolor study of a medieval castle, painted when he was a student in Italy. A troubadour standing by the gate gives a sense of the castle’s size. This movement gives the impression of the troubadour’s lute quietly strumming in support of a melancholy melody played by the solo saxophone.

Promenade

Tuileries - This sketch shows children playing in the famous public gardens of the Tuileries in Paris. There is an argument and a chase after some high-spirited play, all portrayed in Mussorgsky’s light-footed music and Ravel’s transparent orchestration.

Bydlo - A sketch made by Hartmann in the Polish town of Sandomierz shows a wagon with enormous wheels being pulled by oxen (Bydlo is a Polish word for “cattle.”). In Ravel’s orchestration, this evocative melody has been given to the tuba.

Promenade

Ballet of the Chicks in Their ShellsThis was Hartmann’s costume design for one of the scenes in Trilbi, a ballet presented in St. Petersburg in 1871. In this scene, children dance as baby canaries trying to break out of their shells.

Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle - This movement is based upon two of Hartmann’s drawings of Sandomierz: one showing a rich and well-dressed Jew wearing a fur hat, and the other showing a poor Jew in threadbare clothes. In Mussorgsky’s inventive setting, the two characters have been joined in a conversation. Ravel scored the pompous tones of Goldenberg for unison strings and winds, while the whining Schmuyle is portrayed by muted trumpet. At the end, Goldenberg’s music become even more imperious, ending with an abrupt dismissal.

The MarketPlace at Limoges - There are several surviving Hartmann drawings made during a visit to the French town of Limoges, but the speciﬁc picture that inspired this movement has apparently been lost. According to a marginal note in Mussorgsky’s manuscript, this movement shows the “good gossips of Limoges” exchanging the most important news of the day: Monsieur de Puissangeout’s lost cow, Mme. de Remboursac’s new false teeth, and Monsieur Panta-Pantaleon’s excessively large nose.

Catacombs - This sketch shows the artist peering into the catacombs of Paris by the light of a lantern,

which reveals several skulls. Ravel’s orchestration brings out dark sonorities from the brasses and woodwinds.

Cum mortuis in lingua mortua (With the dead, in the language of the dead) - This rather spooky version of the Promenade theme is based not upon a Hartmann picture, but rather on Mussorgsky’s reaction to Catacombs In the margin of his manuscript, the composer wrote: “The creative spirit of the dead Hartmann leads me to the skulls and calls to them; they begin to glow with a soft light.”

The hut on fowl’s legs (Baba Yaga)Baba Yaga was a witch who terrified generations of Russian children at bedtime. Her hut, hidden deep in the forest, was perched on chicken legs so that it could turn to face anyone who chanced to find it. No broomstick for this lady: she rode cackling through the woods in a huge wooden mortar propelled by an equally formidable pestle (no doubt in search of naughty children to grind up and eat). Ravel’s orchestration is at its most colorful in this section. This movement leads directly into the finale.

The Great Gate of Kiev - After Czar Alexander II narrowly escaped assassination in Kiev in 1866, the city council of Kiev asked Hartmann to produce a design for a monument to commemorate God’s intervention on behalf of the Czar. Hartmann’s design (which was never built) was a fanciful and immense arch surmounted by the Russian imperial eagle, and other symbols of the Czar’s authority. This picture was a great favorite of Mussorgsky’s, and he commented on it with a massive and powerful hymn of thanksgiving.

Complete program notes for the 2025-2026 season are available at madisonsymphony.org.

Heartbeat

Your Symphony’s new year begins with Gabriela Lena Frank’s Escaramuza (meaning “skirmish” in Spanish) — a dynamic and colorful work inspired by her Peruvian heritage. This spirited piece captures the energy of the lively Kachampa Andean dance, celebrating the agility and strength of Inca warriors. Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier Suite is a symphonic distillation of his beloved opera, bursting with elegance, humor, and romantic nostalgia sweeping waltzes and tender love duets that have enchanted audiences for more than a century. Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 is a monumental work that combines virtuosic piano passages with symphonic grandeur. One of our favorite pianists, the magisterial Yeﬁm Bronfman, brings his formidable technique and interpretative depth to this masterpiece. The sheer beauty of this work will lift our spirits to start a new year together.

PRESENTING SPONSOR

Marvin J. Levy

MAJOR SPONSORS

Madison Magazine

Martha and Charles Casey

Madison Gas & Electric Foundation, Inc.

Fred Mohs, in memory of Mary Mohs

ADDITIONAL SPONSORS

Dr. Steven Ewer and Abigail Ochberg

Dr. Peter and Beth Rahko

Mary Lang Sollinger

Wisconsin Arts Board

Kazem Abdullah, GuestConductor

Yeﬁm Bronfman, Piano

MUSIC

GABRIELA LENA FRANK Escaramuza

RICHARD STRAUSS Suite from Der Rosenkavalier, Op. 59

JOHANNES BRAHMS

Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major, Op. 83

KATE LIU

SAT. NOV. 1 at 7:30 PM Chopin

ADAM NEIMAN

SAT. JAN. 17 at 7:30 PM

Brahms, Prokoﬁev, Rachmaninoﬀ

HILDA HUANG

Concert: FEB. 28 at 7:30 PM

Instrument Demo: MAR. 1 at 3 PM

Bach

ANGIE ZHANG

SAT. APR. 18 at 7:30 PM

Margaret Bonds, Clara Schumann, Beethoven

BILL CHARLAP

SAT. MAY 9 at 7:30 PM

SUN. MAY 10 at 2 PM

Jazz standards

Verena

Bruening

Carol Friedman

Luther Memorial Church

MUSIC AT MIDDAY

WEDNESDAYS , SEP, 3–DEC. 18 | NOON

A beloved Madison tradition of 55 years, this series features free, 30-minute concerts performed by area musicians, including the Just Bach ensemble.

BACH CANTATA VESPERS

SUNDAY, OCT. 26 | 4 pm

The Luther Memorial Adult Choir, soloists and orchestra present Bach Cantata 140. A reception will follow.

LESSONS & CAROLS FOR ADVENT

SUNDAY, DEC. 14 | 4 pm

The Luther Memorial Adult Choir and instrumentalists weave scripture, poetry, hymns and choral anthems together in a stirring service to prepare our hearts for Christmas.

ADMISSION IS FREE Info at www.luthermem.org

Luther Memorial Church 1021 University Avenue Madison, Wis.

INDIVIDUAL DONORS

Madison Symphony Orchestra

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The Madison Symphony Orchestra and our a liate organizations rely on generous donor support to fund the fulﬁllment of the Symphony’s mission each year. We gratefully acknowledge all individual donors for their gifts and sponsorships to the Madison Symphony Orchestra, Madison Symphony Orchestra League, and/or Friends of the Overture Concert Organ. Donors are listed according to the total amount of their monetary donations supporting the 2025-26 Season* as of September 17, 2025

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Cleo & Judy Weibel

Jim Werlein & Jody Pringle

William White

John Young & Gail Snowden

Steven & Patty Zach

Debra Zillmer & Daniel Leaver

Four Anonymous Friends

$50–$249

Jonathan Accola

Jason & Erin Adamany

Reed & Jan Andrew

Livia Asher

Brian & Tracy Bachhuber

Rachel Bain

Leigh Barker Cheesebro

George & Donna Beestman

Ruth Benedict

Bruce Bengtson

Ramsay Bittar

Jonathan Boott

Cindy Borch

Yvonne A. Bowen

Chris & Gretchen Brace

Steven Braithwait

Waltraud Brinkmann

Lou & Nancy Bruch

Kevin & Tracey Buhr

Charles & Joanne Bunge

Walter Burt & Deborah Cardinal

Thomas Corbett

Anne-Marie & Paul Correll

Ed & Vicki Cothroll

Randall Crow & Patricia Kerr

Bruce & Samantha Crownover

John Daane

Nanette Dagnon

Beverly Dahl

Suzanne Davis

Sally A. Davis

Douglas J. Deboer

Frances Degra

Jeannine & Edouard Desautels

Daniel & Lavonne Dettmers

Michael & Carla Di Iorio

Ulrike Dieterle

Bob & Paula Dinndorf

Donalea Dinsmore

Dan & Carole Doeppers

Meranda Dooley

Rosemary M. Dorney

Sue Dornfeld

Richard & Doris Dubielzig

Katy & Edward Dueppen

Kenneth Edenhauser

Alan & Ramona Ehrhardt

Ann Ellingboe

William & Jill Emmons

John & Joann Esser

Elizabeth Fadell

Linda Fahy

Douglas & Carol Fast

Lorna Filippini & Clyde Paton

Grace Fleming

John & Signe Frank

Raelene & LisaAnn Freitag

Janet & Byron Frenz

James Fromm

Greg & Clare Gadient

Kenneth & Molly Gage

Susan Gandley

Jill Gaskell

Laurie Gauper

Michael George & Susan Gardels

Ari Georges

Lynn Burke

Shawn Gillen

Carl & Peggy Glassford

William & Sharon Goehring

Janice Golay

Jane & Paul Graham

Barbara Grajewski & Michael Slupski

David Gri eath & Catherine Loeb

Courtney Grimm

Dale & Linda Gutman

Jennifer Haack

Kate Habrel

Ryan Hahn

Bob & Beverly Haimerl

Thomas & Vicki Hall

Jane Hallock & William Wolfort

Paul Haskew & Nancy Kendrick

H. William & Susan Hausler

Dan Hayes

Gregg Heatley & Julie James

Cheryl Heiliger

Steven & Kate Henderson

Nona Hill & Clark Johnson

William & Sara Lee Hinckley

Peter & Candace Huebner

Robert & Ellen Hull

Frank Iltis

Mark & Catherine Isenberg

Judith A. Louer

Dick & Cindy Lovell

Doug & Mary Loving

Kathy Luker

Nancy & Mark Mackenzie

Frank & Nancy Maersch

Mark & Linda Malkin

Chuck & Linda Malone

Richard Margolis

Peter & Marjorie Marion

Edward Matkom

Bruce Matthews & Eileen Murphy

Jan L. McCormick

Paul & Jane McGann

Cynthia McKenna

Kate Meagher

Lori J. Merriam

Dale Meyer & Mary Seay

Stanley Michelstetter

Christine Miles

Susan Millar

Margaret & Paul Miller

Linda Miller

Sharla Miller

Richard & Donna Reinardy

Drs. Joy & David Rice

Catherine Richard

Rick & Sara Richards

Mark & Zoe Rickenbach

Lorraine & Gary Roberts

Sara Roberts & Carolyn Carlson

Matt & Laura Roethe

Howard & Mirriam Rosen

John Ross

Fred & Mary Ross

John & Rachel Rothschild

Nathaniel Ruck

Robert & Nancy Rudd

Anne Thurber & Yjan Gordon

Tom & Dianne Totten

Margaret Trepton

Colleen & Tim Tucker

Doris

Van Houten

John & Shelly Van Note

Rebekah Verbeten

Jan Vidruk

Angela Vitcenda & Jerry Norenberg

Liz Vowles

Janet & Tim

Janet Ruszala-Coughlin & Tim Coughlin

Dean Ryerson

Steven & Lennie Sa an

Paul Saganski

Morris & Carolyn Waxler

Mary Webster

Steven Wendor

Dorothy Whiting

Sinikka Santala & Gregory Schmidt

Dennis & Janice Schattschneider

John & Susan Schauf

Wade W. & D. Whitmus

Karl & Ellen Westlund & Shelley & Ellen Wickland

Nancy & Tripp Widder

Steven & Widder

Candy Wilke Wilke

Greg & Doreen Jensen

Doug & Kathy Johnson

& Doreen Jensen & Johnson

Dan & Janet Johnson

Theresa & Pell Johnson

Heather Johnson

Aaron & Sarah Johnson

Conrad & Susan Jostad

Wendy Miller

& Maureen Minnick

Jerry & Maureen Minnick

Rolf & Judith Mjaanes

Douglas & Rosemary Moore

Terry Morrison

Gary & Carol Moseson

Bruce Muckerheide & Robert Olson

Michelle & Christopher Kaebisch

Kathy & Chuck Kamp

Michelle & Kaebisch & Chuck

Corliss & Bill Karasov

Estelle Katz

Marilyn

Arlan Kay

Joseph

Raymond & Jane Kent

Melissa

Maureen Kind

Michele Davanis Klaus & Michael Klaus

Marie Frances Klos

Douglas Kopp

Steven Koslov

Kevin & Theresa Kovach

Merilyn Kupferberg

Katherine Kvale & Thomas Schirz

Ann Lacy

Paul Lambert & Anne Griep

Mary & Steve Langlie

Jim Larkee

Carl & Jerilyn Laurino

Laurie Laz & Jim Hirsch

Richard & Lynn Leazer

Sally Leong

Gary Lewis & Ken Sosinski

Steve Limbach & Karen Rinke

Bob & Sally Lorenz

Rolf & Judith & Rosemary Moore Morrison & Carol Moseson & Karen

Craig & Karen Myers

Lynn Hallie Najem

Raymond Nashold

Jack & Carol Naughton

Thomas & Schmidt

Thomas & Lynn Schmidt

Gerald Schneider

Beverly Schrag

Eve Wilkie

Suzy Wilko

Scott & Donna Wilson

Ann & Gary Scott

Ann & Scott

Vicki Semo Scharfman

Bambi Wilson

Michael Shank & Carol Troyer-Shank

Sandy Shepherd

Elena Vetrina & Wallace Sherlock

Daryl Sherman

Jackson Short

Eve Siegel Beck

Michael Shank & Carol Sherman Beck

Scott & Jane Wismans

Brad Wolbert & Rebecca Karo

Jon Woods

Celeste Woodru & Bruce Fritz

Nancy Woods

Rick Wirch Woods

David

David Wuestenberg

Mary & Susan Nelson

Deborah & Jim Neuman

Andrew Nowlan

Thomas & Barbara Oatman

Nicholas Olson

Richard & Marcia Olson

Richard & Mary Ann Olson

James & Joan Parise

Mitchell L. Patton

Phillip & Karen Paulson

John Pepple

Ernest J. Peterson

Roger & Linda Pettersen

Donna Jean Phelps & Thomas Phelps

Luke & Linda Plamann

Ann Pollock & James Coors

Diana Popowycz

Paula Primm

Mark E. Puda & Carol S. Johnston

Thomas & Janet Pugh

Neal & Agnieszka Silbert

Neal & Silbert

Sydnee Singer

J.R. & Patricia Smart

Reeves Smith & Glenna Carter

Eileen M. Smith

Derrick & Carrie Smith

Somerson & Helena Tsotsis

Gretchen Zelle

Ron Zerofsky

Joan N. Zingale

35 Anonymous Friends

Joan N. Friends

We also thank 58 donors for their contributions of $1 to $49.

Stephanie Sorensen

Keith Sperling

Gary & Jackie Splitter

Robert & Barbara Stanley

Joanne Stark

Gareth L. Steen

Robert & Barbara L.

Franklin & Jennie Stein

Michael Stemper

Taylor Sto et

Michael Sto et

Jonathan & Jessica Storey

Eric & Emily James Strauss

Carol Strmiska

Rob & Mary Stroud

Eric & James Strauss & Stroud

David & Susan

David & Shirley Susan

Matthew Sykes

Cheri Teal

John 257-3734.

*Total includes MSO’s 2025-26 Annual MSOL 2025-26 Events & General 2025-26 Friends of the Overture Concert 2025-26 Annual Campaign. MSOL and basic dues and event ticket not included. thresholds listed here do not levels within have made every e ort ensure the accuracy of this list. If have any or contact our Olson & Karen Paulson

Randall & Deb Raasch

Donald & Roz Rahn

Kathryn Rasmussen

Loren & Margaret Rathert

Howard & Elizabeth Teeter

Gerald & Priscilla Thain

Matthew Theiss

Glen Thio & Ka Her

*Total includes gifts supporting: MSO’s 2025-26 Annual Campaign; MSOL 2025-26 Events & General Support; 2025-26 Organ Concerts; Friends of the Overture Concert Organ’s 2025-26 Annual Campaign. MSOL and FOCO basic membership dues and fundraising event ticket purchases are not included. Giving thresholds listed here do not correspond to giving levels within speciﬁc campaigns included. We have made every e ort to ensure the accuracy of this list. If you have any questions or corrections, please contact our development department at (608) 257-3734.

support

Experience Wisconsin’s finest musical performances! Stream La Crosse Symphony’s Midnight in Paris, Concerts on the Square, WSMA State Honors Concerts and more on the free PBS app or at pbswisconsin.org.

La Crosse Symphony’s Midnight in Paris

BUSINESS, FOUNDATION AND GOVERNMENT DONORS

Madison Symphony Orchestra

Madison Symphony Orchestra League

Friends of the Overture Concert Organ

The Madison Symphony Orchestra and our a liate organizations rely on generous donor support to fund the fulﬁllment of our mission each year. We gratefully acknowledge all companies, foundations and government agencies for their grants, sponsorships, general contributions, and gifts-in-kind.

Organizations that have contributed to the Madison Symphony Orchestra, Madison Symphony Orchestra League, and/or Friends of the Overture Concert Organ are listed according to the total amount of their donations supporting the 2025-2026 Season* as of Sept 30, 2026.

$100,000 OR MORE

Madison Symphony Orchestra Foundation

Madison Symphony Orchestra League

WMTV 15 News

$50,000–$99,999

Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation

$25,000–$49,999

American Printing

Irving and Dorothy Levy Family Foundation, Inc.

The Madison Concourse Hotel & Governor’s Club

Madison Magazine

Madison Media Partners

$15,000–$24,999

An Anonymous Foundation

Capitol Lakes

The Evjue Foundation, Inc.

Fiore Companies, Inc.

National Endowment for the Arts

Nimick Forbesway Foundation

Wisconsin Arts Board

with additional funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts

$10,000–$14,999

Lake Ridge Bank

Kenneth A. Lattman Foundation, Inc.

Madison Gas & Electric Foundation, Inc.

Marriott Daughters Foundation

PBS Wisconsin

University Research Park

U.S. Bank Foundation

$5,000–$9,999

Boardman Clark Law Firm

Dane County Arts, with additional funds from the Endres Mfg.

Company Foundation, The Evjue Foundation, Inc., charitable arm of The Capital Times, the W. Jerome Frautschi Foundation, and the Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation

DeWitt LLP

Exact Sciences

Fields Auto Group

Hooper Corporation

J.H. Findor & Son Inc.

Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren s.c.

Richman & Richman LLC

The Steven P. Robinson Family Fund

Sub-Zero Group, Inc.

SupraNet Communications, Inc.

von Briesen & Roper, s.c.

West Bend Insurance Company

Wisconsin Public Radio

Woodman’s Food Markets

$2,500–$4,999

Group Health Cooperative of South Central Wisconsin

Kohls & Mackie, LLC

Madison Arts Commission

Midwest Patrol & Investigative LLC

Sta ord Rosenbaum LLP

UW Health & Unity Health Insurance

$1,000–$2,499

Baird/The Woodford Group

BRAVA Magazine

The Capital Times Kids Fund

Capitol Bank

Festival Foods

Google

Herb Kohl Charities

Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation

Thermo Fisher Scientiﬁc, Inc.

UP TO $999

Above the Bar Marketing

Alliant Energy Foundation

Matching Gifts Program

Ascendium Education Group

Badger Bus

Bobbi Petersen Photography

Choles Floral

Costco Wholesale Corporation

Farley’s House of Pianos

GE Healthcare

Hartmeyer Ice Arena

Heid Music and Heid Music

Family Charitable Fund

Promega Corporation

Sold with Faith Real Estate, Restaino & Associates

*Total includes donations that support 2025-2026 Madison Symphony Orchestra Concerts, 2025-2026 Organ Concerts, 2025-2026 Education and Community Engagement Programs; Madison Symphony Orchestra League’s 2025-2026 Events and Activities including Symphony at Sunset 2025; and Friends of the Overture Concert Organ’s 2025-2026 Annual Campaign. Fundraising event ticket purchases are not included. We have made every e ort to ensure the accuracy of this list. If you believe an error has been made, please contact our development department at (608) 257-3734.

PLANNED GIVING: THE STRADIVARIUS SOCIETY

The individuals listed below have informed the MSO that they have included gifts for the Symphony in their estate plans. If you have remembered the Symphony in your will, living trust, or have made other arrangements for a future gift, we would love to know so we can thank you! We honor all requests for anonymity. Contact Casey Oelkers at (608) 260-8680 x228 for more information.

Fernando & Carla Alvarado

Emy Andrew

Dennis Appleton & Jennifer Buxton

Judy Ashford

Diane Ballweg

Margaret B. Barker

Dr. Beverly S. Simone

JoAnn Six

Mary Lang Sollinger

Lois M. Jones

Shirley Jane Kaub

Helen B. Kayser

Chuck Bauer & Chuck Beckwith

Dr. Annette Beyer-Mears

Rosemarie & Fred Blancke

Shaila & Tom Bolger

Michael K. Bridgeman

Sharon Stark & Peter D. Livingston

Gareth L. Steen

Jurate Stewart

John & Mary Storer

Richard Tatman & Ellen Seuferer

Patricia Koenecke

Teddy H. Kubly

Arno & Hazel Kurth

James V. Lathers

Renata Laxova

Stella I. Leverson

Alexis Buchanan & James Baldwin

Scott & Janet Cabot

Clarence Cameron & Robert Lockhart

Martha & Charles Casey

Elizabeth A. Conklin

James Dahlberg & Elsebet Lund

Barbara & John DeMain

Robert Dinndorf

Audrey & Philip Dybdahl

Jim & Marilyn Ebben

Endo Family Trust

George Gay

Tyrone & Janet Greive

Terry Haller

Robert Horowitz & Susan B. King

Richard & Meg LaBrie

Steven Landfried

David Lauth & Lindsey Thomas

Ann Lindsey & Charles Snowdon

Claudia Berry Miran

Elaine & Nicholas Mischler

Stephen D. Morton

Margaret Murphy

Reynold V. Peterson

David & Kato Perlman

Judith Pierotti

Michael Pritzkow

Gordon & Janet Renschler

Joy & David Rice

Joan & Kenneth Riggs

Harry & Karen Roth

Edwin & Ruth Sheldon

Marilynn Thompson

Ann Wallace

Richard & Barbara Weaver

Carolyn & Ron White

John Wiley & Andrea Teresa Arenas

Mary Alice Wimmer

Helen L. Wineke

Ten Anonymous Friends

ESTATE GIFTS RECEIVED

Elizabeth S. Anderes

Donald W. Anderson

Helen Barnick

Norman Bassett

Nancy Becknell

DeEtte Beilfuss-Eager

Theo F. Bird

Marian & Jack Bolz

Kenneth Bussan

Margaret Christy

Frances Z. Cumbee

Teddy Derse

Dr. Leroy Ecklund

Mary J. Ferguson

Linda I. Garrity

Maxine A. Goold

Beatrice B. Hagen

Martin R. Hamlin

Sybil A. Hanks

Elizabeth Harris

Julian E. Harris

Jane Hilsenho

Carl M. Hudig

Dr. Stanley & Shirley Inhorn

Martha Jenny

Lila Lightfoot

Jan Markwart

Geraldine F. Mayer

Mr. & Mrs. Frederick W. Miller

Janet Nelson

Sandra L. Osborn

Elmer B. Ott

Ethel Max Parker

Josephine Ratner

Mrs. J. Barkley Rosser

Harry D. Sage

Joel Skornicka

Chalma Smith

Marie Spec

Charlotte I. Spohn

Evelyn C. Steenbock

Harry Steenbock

Virginia Swingen

Gamber F. Tegtmeyer, Jr. & Audrey Tegtmeyer

Katherine Voight

William & Joyce Wartmann

Sally & Ben Washburn

Sybil Weinstein

Mr. & Mrs. J. Wesley Thompson

Glenn & Edna Wiechers

Elyn L. Williams

Margaret C. Winston

Jay Joseph Young

Two Anonymous Friends

A Legacy of Music

The Madison Symphony Orchestra is a grateful recipient and faithful steward of planned gifts from individuals who have remembered the Symphony in their estate plans. Through a planned gift, you can help preserve MSO’s legacy of great music for generations to come. All planned gifts qualify for Stradivarius Society recognition, and requests for anonymity will be honored.

Learn more madisonsymphony.org/stradivarius

“I have designated a gift for the Symphony in my will to help ensure the orchestra will have outstanding artistic leadership for generations to come.”

– Mary Alice Wimmer, Stradivarius Society Member

In honor of Mike Allsen

Gale Barber

In honor of Barbara Berven

Barbara Peterman

Janet Renschler

In honor of Ann Bowen

Scott and Janet Cabot

In honor of John DeMain

Anonymous

In honor of Barb Karlen

Ann Kruger

In honor of Jing “Connie” Li

Tom and Heidi Notbohm

In honor of Nick and Elaine Mischler

José Madera and Kimberly Santiago

In honor of Elliot Lesperance

Jennifer Vasam

In honor of Casey Oelkers

Doug and Norma Madsen

In honor of Elspeth Stalter-Clouse

Randall and Pamela Clouse

In honor of Lynn Stathas

Steve and Jan Alpert

In honor of John Toussaint

Reynold V. Peterson

Dave Willow

TRIBUTES

The Madison Symphony Orchestra gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their contributions honoring family & friends.

In memory Aas

In memory of Paul Aas

Melodie Aas

Mary Dzick

Joe Aas and Nancy Morris

R. Patrick and Laura Morelli

David Sherlock and Jennifer Gottwald

In memory of Bert Adams

Diane Adams

In memory of Adolph and Eugenie Bolz

Cathy and Eric Wilson

In memory of Jack and Marian Bolz

Joan Bolz Cleary and Je Cleary

In memory of Marian Bolz

Samuel C. Hutchison

In memory of Jim & Betty Bruce

Samuel C. Hutchison

In memory of Roman Bukolt

Susan Vergeront

In memory of Stephen Caldwell

Judith Werner

Rev.

Samuel C. Hutchison

Perry Henderson

Elaine and Nicholas Mischler

Mary Mohs

Samuel C. Hutchison

Margaret Elizabeth McEvilly

Sam and Mary Hutchison

In memory Inhorn

Shirley Inhorn

David and Vicki Cary

David and Vicki

Phyllis Lorenz Lorenz

In memory Stanley Inhorn

In memory Inhorn

Douglas Kopp

Anonymous

Sandra Osborn

Samuel C. Hutchison

Lillian Porcaro

Alexis M. Carreon

Valerie and Andreas Kazamias

In memory of Stan and Shirley Inhorn

In memory Stan and Inhorn

Harry and Linda Argue

Patricia Bernhardt

Ramsay Bittar

Tyrone and Janet Greive

William and Sara Lee Hinckley

Stan and Nancy Johnson

Valerie and Andreas Kazamias

Elaine and Nicholas Mischler

Ruth M.D.

Ruth Sheldon, M.D.

In memory Elizabeth ,

In memory of Rev. Dr. Terry A. Purvis-

Samuel C. Hutchison

Maurice and Arlene Reese

Richard and Pamela Reese

Jean Reuhl

Valerie and Andreas Kazamias

In memory of Jeanette Ross

John Ross

In memory of Jim Ruhly

Carol Ruhly

In memory of Robert Carwithen

In memory

Samuel C. Hutchison

In memory

In memory of Wayne Chaplin

Gail

Gail Bergman

In memory

In memory of Clela Duemler

Anonymous

In memory of Jim Ebben

Ann Willow

In honor of Mary Ann Willow

In honor of Carolyn White

Sharon M. Berkner

White

In honor of Greg Zelek

In Zelek

Anonymous

In honor of Greg Zelek & Amanda Elfman

Zelek & Amanda Elfman

Suzy Wilko

Wilko

In memory of Jim Ebben Ebben

Marilyn Ebben

In memory

In memory of Jon S. Enslin

Enslin

Crystal Enslin

In memory Esser

In memory of Mary Esser

Jane Esser

Jane Harberg

In memory of Professor Ed Feige

Jane In memory

The Dove Family

In memory of Douglas J. Fritsch

Brian Fritsch

Judith and Nick Topitzes

Judith and Nick

Donna and Roger Wetzel

Anonymous

In memory of Howard Kidd

In memory

Margaret Murphy

In memory of Dr. Edith G. King

In memory Dr. Edith G.

Samuel C. Hutchison

In memory of Barbara Landau

In memory

Anonymous

In memory Joan

In memory of Joan Lippincott

Samuel C. Hutchison

In memory

In memory of Connie Maxwell

Samuel C. Hutchison

Valerie and Andreas Kazamias

Elaine and Nicholas Mischler

In memory

In memory of Dr. Donald McDonald

Samuel C. Hutchison

In memory Judith

In memory of Judith Saganski

Paul

Paul Saganski

In memory Schroeder

In memory of Dorothy Schroeder

Anonymous

In memory of Jennie Biel Sheskey

In memory Jennie Biel

John and Twila Sheskey Charitable Fund

John and Twila Charitable Fund

In memory of Joan Marie Smith

In memory

Rozan and Brian Anderson

In memory

In memory of Chuck Snowdon

Ann

Ann Lindsey

In memory

In memory of Anne Stanke

Alexis M. Carreon

In memory of John Lloyd Straughn

Alexis M. Carreon

Andrea and Bill Hixon

John Wendt and Kathryn Kleckner

Rod and Jo MacDonald

Susan Ramsey

Christine & Robert Reed

Mary Ellen Straughn

The Family of John Straughn

Two Anonymous Friends

In memory of Patricia D. Struck

Larry Bechler

In memory of Christina Cuthbert Stuart

The Stuart Family

In memory of Les Thimmig

Patricia Crowe

In memory of John Toussaint

Samuel C. Hutchison

In memory of Daniel Van Eyck

Barbara J. Merz

In memory of William Allan Winkle

Anonymous

In memory of Margaret C. Winston

John W. Erickson

Paul and Susan Erickson

In memory of Barbara Zanoni

Burwell Enterprises, LLC

Kelly Gwiazda

Kathy Hunter

Cheratee James

Jay Kennedy

Kylie Reinhart

Mary Schulz

Courtney Thomas

Julie Woodward

Piano Specialists

Playful Pursuits

Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a decidedly playful overture by a very youthful Felix Mendelssohn (composed when he was just 17 years old). This sparkling work captures the magic of the fairy kingdom, the humor of the lovers’ entanglements, and the grandeur of Theseus’ court. Violinist Rachel Barton Pine returns to play Korngold’s

Violin Concerto — a lush and romantic work that glows with cinematic beauty and emotional depth — bridging the worlds of classical music, and Hollywood ﬁlm scores. Debussy’s

Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune is dreamlike music inspired by Stéphane Mallarmé’s poem about a faun’s sensual reverie, that paints a lush and languid musical landscape and a sense of wonder. Stravinsky’s ballet Petrushka tells the story of a tragic puppet brought to life by a magician, set against the vibrant backdrop of a Russian fair. All four of these lively pieces of music will ﬁll us with a lightness of being.

PRESENTING SPONSOR

Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation

MAJOR SPONSORS

Madison Symphony Orchestra League

Peter and Leslie Overton

Cyrena and Lee Pondrom Richman & Richman LLC

ADDITIONAL SPONSORS

Jane Hamblen and Robert F. Lemanske

Kenneth A. Lattman Foundation, Inc.

Ann Lindsey, in memory of Chuck Snowdon Wisconsin Arts Board

SINGLE TICKETS ON SALE madisonsymphony.org, the Overture Center Box O ce, or (608) 258-4141

Dates, artists, and programs subject to change.

MUSIC

FELIX MENDELSSOHN

Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Op. 21

ERICH WOLFGANG KORNGOLD

Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35

CLAUDE DEBUSSY

Prélude á l’après-midi d’un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun)

IGOR STRAVINSKY Petrushka (1947 version)

Tania Miller, Guest Conductor

Rachel Barton Pine, Violin

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CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY DONORS

We are deeply grateful to these donors who have made gifts or commitments for the Madison Symphony Orchestra’s Centennial Anniversary to support special projects, programs, or performances, as of September 16, 2025.

$100,000+ CENTENNIAL CHAMPIONS

Diane Ballweg

Joel and Kathryn Belaire

Norm and Barbara Berven

W. Jerome Frautschi

Myrna Larson

Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation

Judith and Nick Topitzes

$50,000 - $99,999

Madison Gas & Electric Foundation, Inc.

Peggy and Tom Pyle

$25,000 - $49,999

Jim and Susan Bakke

Lau and Bea Christensen

Madison Symphony Orchestra League

Elaine and Nicholas Mischler

Kay Schwichtenberg and Herman Baumann

$10,000 - $24,999

Fernando and Carla Alvarado

Scott and Janet Cabot

Capitol Lakes

James Dahlberg and Elsebet Lund

Larry Hands and Karen Kendrick-Hands

Marriott Daughters Foundation

Gary and Lynn Mecklenburg

Joe and Mary Ellyn Sensenbrenner

$5,000 - $9,999

Je rey and Angela Bartell

John W. Erickson

Paul and Susan Erickson, in memory of Margaret C. Winston

David Falk and JoAnne Robbins

David Flanders and Susan Ecroyd

Dr. Robert and Linda Graebner

Terry Haller

Kathleen Harker

Hooper Corporation

J.H. Findor & Son Inc.

Nancy Mohs

The Parker Family

Lynn Stegner

Peter and Leslie Overton

Thomas E. Terry

Jim and Jessica Yehle

$2,500 - $4,999

Rozan and Brian Anderson

Rosemarie and Fred Blancke

BMO

Ellsworth and Dorothy Brown

Catherine Buege

Steven Ewer and Abigail Ochberg

Dr. Thomas and Leslie France

Kelly Family Foundation Inc.

Allan and Sandra Levin

Mark and Nancy Moore

Dennis and Karen Ne

Reynold V. Peterson

Cyrena and Lee Pondrom

Beth and Peter Rahko

Doug and Katie Reuhl

Richman & Richman LLC

Fredrick and Karen Schrank

Bassam Shakhashiri

Mary Lang Sollinger

Stark Company Realtors

Lynn Stathas

U.S. Bank Private Wealth Management

Jasper and JoAnne Vaccaro

UP TO $2,499

Mike Allsen and Robin Hackman

Ellis and Susan Bauman

Michael Bridgeman and Jack Holzhueter

Capitol Bank

Doug and Sherry Caves

Cavi, Fortune & Associates

Dawn Crim and Elton Crim Jr.

Farley’s House of Pianos

Tyrone and Janet Greive

Jane Hamblen and Robert F. Lemanske

Brandon S. Hayes

Bob and Louise Jeanne

Valerie and Andreas Kazamias

David Lauth and Lindsey Thomas

Ann Lindsey

Linda and Michael Lovejoy

Charles McLimans and Dr. Richard Merrion

Stephen Morton and Rochelle Stillman

Jeanne Myers

Myron Pozniak and Kathleen Baus

Janet Renschler and Sandra Dolister

Orange Schroeder

Lise R. Skofronick

Sharon Stark

Carolyn White

IN-KIND

American Printing

BRAVA Magazine

Fiore Companies, Inc.

Madison Media Partners

Surroundings Events and Floral

WMTV 15 News

METAMORPHOSIS

TICKETS AT:

LUNART CHOIR INAUGURAL CONCERT

SUN, NOV 16 2025 2:30PM WYSO CENTER FOR MUSIC

Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras

A Gift of Music

Thank you for attending this Madison Symphony Orchestra concert!

Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras

Did you know that ticket sales cover less than half the costs of presenting our concert season? Contributions from dedicated MSO patrons help bridge this gap, allowing people from all walks of life to experience thrilling live orchestral performances in Overture Hall. Make a gift to the MSO Annual Fund today and take pride in knowing you have helped share these magniﬁcent concerts with others in your community.

View giving levels and donate at madisonsymphony.org/individual

WAYS TO GIVE

Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras

Auctions.

Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras

https://secure.qgiv.com/

ate

Check Credit Card

Donor Advised Fund QCD from your IRA

Appreciated Stock

Matching Gift from Employer

Monthly sustaining gift

Orchestras

ENDOWMENT GIVING: THE CENTURY SOCIETY

Century Society members are always welcome. Visit madisonsymphony. to learn more about endowment giving and view a full list of endowment donors. our as of 2025. a can a in come.

We gratefully acknowledge our Century Society donors, who have made commitments of $100,000 or more to the Madison Symphony Orchestra’s endowment through outright or planned gifts, as of August 2025. Their gifts create a solid ﬁnancial foundation upon which the MSO can realize its vision to be a leader in classical music performance, education, community engagement, and artistic innovation for generations to come.

New org/endowment a

Please support our advertisers and let them know you saw their ad in the Madison Symphony Orchestra program book. Interested in advertising with us? Visit madisonsymphony.org/ads to learn more.

American Printing

Capitol Lakes

Farley’s House Of Pianos 29 Farley’s Salon Piano Series

Fiore Companies

Lake Ridge Bank

Carla and Fernando Alvarado

Dennis Appleton and Jennifer Buxton

Diane Ballweg

Chuck Bauer and Chuck Beckwith

Barbara and Norman Berven

Dr. Annette Beyer-Mears

Rosemarie and Fred Blancke

Eugenie Mayer Bolz Family Foundation

Jim and Cathie Burgess

Martha and Charles Casey

Margaret Christy

Pat and Dan Cornwell

James F. Crow

James Dahlberg and Elsebet Lund

William and Alexandra Dove

The Evjue Foundation, Inc.

Linda I. Garrity

George Gay

George and Candy Gialamas

Tyrone and Janet Greive

Terry Haller

Carl M. Hudig

Dr. Stanley and Shirley Inhorn

Patricia Kokotailo and R. Lawrence DeRoo

Arno and Hazel Kurth

Myrna Larson

James Victor Lathers

Peter Livingston and Sharon Stark

Madison Symphony Orchestra League

Claudia Berry and David E. Miran

Nicholas and Elaine Mischler

David and Kato Perlman

John L. Peterson

Sheila Read

The Reuhl Family

Pleasant T. Rowland

Harry D. Sage

JoAnn Six

Gareth L. Steen

Harry and Evelyn C. Steenbock

Steinhauer Charitable Trust

Thomas E. Terry

Marilynn Thompson

Judith and Nick Topitzes

Katherine and Thomas Voight

William and Joyce Wartmann

Elyn L. Williams

Margaret C. Winston

Six Anonymous Friends

LunArt 30 Luther Memorial Church

The Madison Concourse Hotel

Madison Opera 30 Madison Magazine 19 Madison Media Partners

29 Madison Gas & Electric Foundation, Inc.

29 Madison Veterinary Specialists 39 Oakwood Chamber Players

Wisconsin 48 Supranet

27 University of Wisconsin Opera 35 Wisconsin Public Radio 27 Wisconsin Union Theater 44 Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestra 42 WMTV 15 News

OVERTURE HALL INFORMATION BOARDS & ADMINISTRATION

RESTROOMS

Women’s and men’s restrooms are located on each level of Overture. Family assist/gender inclusive restrooms, available to persons of any gender identity and expression, are available in the following areas:

• Lower-Level Rotunda: to the right of the stairway.

• First ﬂoor lobby / Overture Hall: near coat check.

• Second ﬂoor: Gallery 2—second door to the left o the elevators.

Amenities at gender-inclusive restrooms include:

• Lockable door to provide privacy for individual users

• Ample room for an assistant/family member, if needed

• Accessible sink, stool and urinal (ﬂoor level)

• Changing stations

• Power-assist doors (Level 1 restrooms only)

ACCESSIBILITY

Overture Center is fully accessible to persons with mobility, hearing, and visual impairments. Ushers are available at each concert to assist you. Wheelchair or transfer seating is available; please notify the Overture Center Box O ce when purchasing your ticket. If you require an assistive-listening device, please alert an usher at the concert. Braille programs are also available upon request. Please contact Heather at hrose@madisonsymphony.org at least three weeks prior to the concert you wish to attend.

GUEST CONSIDERATIONS

The musicians and your fellow audience members thank you!

• Please arrive early to ensure plenty of time to get through security and to be seated. If you arrive late, you will be seated during an appropriate break in the music at the discretion of the house sta . If you need to leave during the concert, please exit quietly and wait to be reseated by an usher at an appropriate break.

• Please feel free to take photos before and after the concert, and during intermission! Once the lights dim, please turn o all cell phones and electronic devices.

• Please do not wear perfumes, colognes or scented lotions as many people are allergic to these products.

• Smoking is not permitted anywhere in Overture Center for the Arts.

• The coat-check room is open when the weather dictates and closes 20 minutes after the performance ends.

• Food and beverages are available at bars and concession stands in the Overture Lobby. Beverages are allowed in Overture Hall, but please enjoy food in the lobby. Please unwrap cough drops and candies before the concert begins.

Please take note: We will adhere to all public health guidelines and cooperate with Overture Center for the Arts to ensure your safety. We invite you to visit madisonsymphony.org/health for more information on health and safety. Overture Center safety information can be found at overture.org/health

MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC. BOARD OF DIRECTORS, 2025-2026

OFFICERS

Michael Richman, Chair

Janet Cabot, Secretary

Doug Reuhl, Treasurer

Ellsworth Brown, Immediate Past Chair

Barbara Berven, Member-at-large

Oscar Mireles, Member-at-large

Derrick Smith, Member-at-large

Lynn Stathas, Member-at-large

Anna Trull, Member-at-large

DIRECTORS

Lynn Allen-Ho mann

Brian Anderson

Ruben Anthony

Barbara Berven

Rosemarie Blancke

Ellsworth Brown

Janet Cabot

Cecilia Carlsson

Bryan Chan

Elton Crim

James Dahlberg

Robert Dinndorf

Audrey Dybdahl

Marc Fink

Jane Hamblen

Paul Ho mann

Mooyoung Kim

Phillip La Susa

David Lauth

Robert Lemanske

Ann Lindsey

Marta Meyers

Oscar Mireles

Richard Morgan

Leslie Overton

Jon Parker

Lester Pines

Michael Richman

Sophia Rogers

Carole Schae er

John Sims

Derrick Smith

Lynn Stathas

Todd Stuart

Anna Trull

Jasper Vaccaro

Ellis Waller

Eric Wilcots

Michael Zorich

ADVISORS

Elliott Abramson

Michael Allsen

Carla Alvarado

Je rey Bauer

Ted Bilich

Camille Carter

Martha Casey

Laura Gallagher

Tyrone Greive

Michael Hobbs

Mark Huth

Stephanie Lee

José Madera

Joseph Meara

Gary Mecklenburg

Larry Midtbo

Abigail Ochberg

Greg Piefer

Cyrena Pondrom

Margaret Pyle

Jacqueline Rodman

Kay Schwichtenberg

Mary Lang Sollinger

Judith Topitzes

Carolyn White

Anders Yocom

Stephen Zanoni

LIFE DIRECTORS

Terry Haller

Valerie Kazamias

Elaine Mischler

Nicholas Mischler

Douglas Reuhl

HONORARY DIRECTORS

Jennifer Berne, President Madison College

Kathy Evers, FirstLady of the State of Wisconsin

Melissa Agard, DaneCountyExecutive

DIRECTORS EMERITUS

Helen Bakke

Wallace Douma

Fred Mohs

Stephen Morton

Beverly Simone

John Wiley

EX OFFICIO DIRECTORS

Rozan Anderson

Mark Bridges

Rose Heckenkamp-Busch

William Ste enhagen

EX OFFICIO ADVISORS

Dan Cavanagh

Daniel Davidson

Josh Biere

MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA FOUNDATION

INC. BOARD, 2025-2026

OFFICERS

Nicholas Mischler, President

Jon Parker, Vice President

Robert Reed, Secretary-Treasurer

DIRECTORS

Ellsworth Brown

Joanna Burish

Jill Friedow

Juan Gomez

Jane Hamblen

Nicholas Mischler

Jon Parker

Gregory Reed

Robert Reed

Douglas Reuhl

Michael Richman

MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA LEAGUE BOARD OF DIRECTORS, 2025–2026

OFFICERS

Rozan Anderson, President

Don Sanford, President-Elect

Ledell Zellers, Recording Secretary

Janet Renschler, Corresponding Secretary

Leslie Overton, Treasurer

Michael Richman, MSO Board Chair

Barbara Berven, Immediate Past President/ Nominations

Louise Jeanne, VP Administration

Jackie Judd, AVP Administration

Kathy Forde, VP Communications

Cathy Buege, AVP Communications

Kathy Forde, AnnualReport

Lori Poulson, VP Education (and Youth Docent Programs)

Jacqui Shanda, AVP Education

Judy Kalan, MusicDiscoveryTalks

Jessica Yehle, VPMembershipRecruitment & Retention

Michael Bridgeman, VPMembershipRecords

Lynn Stegner, VPSpecialProjects

Teressa Smith, AVP SpecialProjects

Don Sanford, Parties of Note2024-2025

Jan Cibula, VPSocialActivities

Mary Lou Tyne, FallLuncheon

Rosemarie Blancke, SpringLuncheon/

Annual Meeting

Valerie Kazamias, Mid-winterLuncheon

Pat Bernhardt, HolidayParty

Jim Patch, Men’sBridge

Marilyn Ebben, Women’s & CouplesBridge

ADVISORS

Pat Bernhardt

Rosemarie Blancke

Janet Cabot

Marilyn Ebben

Valerie Kazamias

Fern Lawrence

Ann Lindsey

Linda Lovejoy

Elaine Mischler

Beth Rahko

Judith Topitzes

Carolyn White

Nancy Young

FRIENDS OF THE OVERTURE

CONCERT ORGAN BOARD OF DIRECTORS, 2025-2026

OFFICERS

William Ste enhagen, President

Charles McLimans, President-Elect

David Willow, Secretary-Treasurer

Robert Lemanske, Past-President

DIRECTORS

Herman Baumann

Janet Cabot

Quinn Christensen

Paula Doyle

Audrey Dybdahl

Mark Huth

Douglas McNeel

Margaret Murphy

Mary Ann Nanassy

David Parminter

Rhonda Rushing

Jennifer Younger

Be part of the experience.

ADVISORS

Fernando Alvarado

Diane Ballweg

Jim Baxter

Barbara Berven

Ellsworth Brown

John Gauder

Terry Haller

Ellen Larson Latimer

Gary Lewis

Elaine Mischler

Vicki Nonn

Reynold Peterson

Teri Venker

Anders Yocom

EX OFFICIO

Greg Zelek, Principal Organist and Elaine & Nicholas Mischler Curator of the Overture Concert Organ

MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC.

ADMINISTRATION

Robert Reed, Executive Director

David Gordon, Executive Assistant & Board Liaison

Ann Bowen, General Manager

Simon Arno, Receptionist & Administrative Assistant

Alexis Carreon, Personnel Manager

Jennifer Goldberg, Orchestra Librarian, John & Carolyn Petersen Chair

Lisa Kjentvet, Director of Education & Community Engagement

Katelyn Hanvey, Education & Community Engagement Manager

Casey Oelkers, Director of Development

Meranda Dooley, Manager of Individual Giving

Rachel Cherian, Manager of Grants & Sponsorships

Peter Rodgers, Director of Marketing

Heather Rose, Marketing Communications Manager

Isabella Clinton, Audience Experience Manager

Greg Zelek, Principal Organist and Elaine & Nicholas Mischler Curator of the Overture Concert Organ