Musicians of all ages performing great music
2026-2027 Season
The Four Elements Trilogy (volume 1)
Sunday, November 15th, 2026, 3:00pm | Dalton Theatre, Kalamazoo College
Jean-Féry Rebel: Le Cahos from Les élémens (Prologue)
Lera Auerbach: Icarus (Air)
Béla Bartók: Dance Suite (Earth)
Zygmunt Noskowski: Morskie Oko (Water)
Igor Stravinsky: Firebird Suite (Fire)
The elements are an ancient understanding of our world, one so intuitive and fundamental that their resonance is felt even in the present day. Composers throughout history have accordingly been deeply inspired either by these elements directly, or stories in which the elements play a major role. This performance will be the first in a multi-concert exploration of these ideas over three seasons, each providing the perfect backdrop for diverse, evocative programs. As a prologue, we begin with the music of French Baroque composer Jean-Féry Rebel, who sought to represent the chaos before the elements had separated into their respective domains with one of the most audacious dissonances imaginable in 1730s; four distinct themes, each representing an element, then overlap each other haphazardly in the passages that follow. After this, we dive into the music of contemporary composer Lera Auerbach, who paints a harrowing picture of Icarus’s thrilling but tragic air-borne flight. Béla Bartók frequently roamed the villages of his native Hungary and neighboring lands, seeking the authentic expression of the people who lived there; this collection of rough and rugged dances pays homage to the spirit of what he saw, bare feet hitting black earth. Zygmunt Noskowski was once celebrated in his native Poland, but is unjustly overlooked today; his ode to Morskie Oko – a stunning lake in the Tatra mountains, whose name means “Eye of the Sea” – is clear evidence of his atmospheric mastery. And finally, we return to the music of Igor Stravinsky, to the work which made his international reputation. The Firebird of Slavic myth not only shimmers like its namesake element, but it is also dangerous or beneficent, depending on how it is treated. Stravinsky’s ballet score accordingly sparkles with menace and jubilant triumph.
Echoes of Faith
Saturday, March 6th, 2027, 7:30pm | Dalton Theatre, Kalamazoo College
Christopher Theofanidis: Rainbow Body
Farhad Poupel: Laughter of Gordafarid (Orchestral World Premier) Negar Afazel, narrator
Andrea Cassarubios: Cello Concerto No. 2 (Michigan Premiere, Kalamazoo Philharmonia Co-Commission) Amit Peled, soloist
Norman Dello Joio: Variations, Chaconne, and Finale
Amit Peled is one of the most celebrated and sought-after performing cellists today. He is also a great teacher: one of his former students, Andrea Cassarubios, is now a successful cellist in her own right, but also a Grammy-nominated composer. The latter has written a new work for the former, which the Philharmonia has been proud to co-commission. Our performance of this work – inspired by “the radiance…of the Ladino musical traditions of [Peled’s] Sephardic [Jewish] roots in the Spanish city of Toledo” – will mark its regional premiere. Rounding out the program are other works which distantly represent concepts of faith in the world’s major religions. Christopher Theofanidis was inspired by the Tibetan Buddhist concept of a Rainbow Body – the highest achievement of meditation, where one’s physical form is transmuted into pure light – to honor the work of Hildegard von Bingen, a mystic abbess of Medieval Germany. Iranian-British composer Farhad Poupel has composed a cinematic score to recreate a legendary story about a female warrior from the Shahnameh, the Book of Kings, a foundational Persian epic written to preserve the culture of Zoroastrianism during the Muslim conquest. This will be a world premiere of the work in its intended orchestral form, and it will be narrated by local artist and Tehran native Negar Afazel. To close, we perform the brawny Variations, Chaconne, and Finale of American composer Norman Dello Joio. Based on a Catholic plainchant mass, the composer deftly transforms this millennium-old music into both a deeply felt meditation and a thrilling, jazz-inflected celebration.
Resurrection
Saturday, May 22nd, 2027, 7:30 pm | Dalton Theater, Kalamazoo College
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection”
Vira Slywotzky, contralto
Alicia Renney, soprano
Presented with Kalamazoo Choral Arts (Chris Ludwa, Director)
Gustav Mahler sought for his symphonies to “be like the world…and embrace everything,” as he put it. Taking on impossibly jagged juxtapositions of disparate elements, he managed to weld them into a single, musically unified whole. Nowhere does he do this more convincingly than in the Symphony No. 2, one of the greatest compositional achievements of any era, recognized as such even in Mahler’s lifetime. From the opening Totenfeier (funeral ceremony) – chief among Gustav Mahler’s personal and musical obsessions was death – the composer progresses through nostalgia, the despair of life’s meaninglessness, a contrasting expression of faith, and a distant call from the beyond until he reaches a climactic, choral finale in which the text ecstatically concludes that “[we] must die in order to live again.” Scored for enormous forces, taking nearly 90 minutes, and aiming to engage with the most profound questions of human existence, Mahler’s Second is in every sense an epic, and experiencing this work live is an unforgettable, unmissable event.
Tickets are available at the door, and cost $7 for general admission, $3 for students, and are free for students of Kalamazoo College.
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