Past Events › Music: Symphony

Ruth Reinhardt, a young conductor from Germany with a master’s degree in that discipline from The Juilliard School, makes her Kansas City Symphony debut from February 10 to 12 with “programmatic imagination,” something she is known for. She’ll also introduce us to a work by little-known Polish composer and violinist Grażyna Bacewicz whose spirited Overture gives us a melodic, violin-forward flourish, first bloomed in World War II Poland. Billy Childs, a four-time Grammy Award winner, will offer a classical/pop/jazz saxophone…

Dubbed “America’s greatest quartet” by Time Magazine, the revered Emerson String Quartet is on their farewell tour. Concert goers will have the rarest of opportunities to hear them alongside the man who has been their cellist for more than 35 years, David Finckel, in the transcendental Schubert Quintet. Don't miss the opportunity to hear this great Quartet perform one last time!

Founded in 1891, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is consistently hailed as one of the greatest orchestras in the world. Performing more than 150 concerts each year, the orchestra’s talented musicians are the driving force behind the famous sound heard on best- selling recordings as well as in performance. Their concert in Kansas City will feature one of the world’s preeminent conductors, Riccardo Muti, as well as violinist Julia Fischer performing Schumann’s Violin Concerto as well as Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony. 

Guest conductor Matthias Pintscher brings his unique insight to György Ligeti’s San Francisco Polyphony. Composed while Ligeti was living near San Francisco, the work’s melodic patterns rise out of the fog but fall back into a miasma of sound. Two marvelous works by Maurice Ravel form the heart of this program. Pianist extraordinaire George Li returns to Kansas City for another star turn in Ravel's delightful Piano Concerto in G Major. Drawing on his mother’s Basque heritage, Ravel captured the flavor…

Grammy Award-winning saxophonist Kenny G is the top-selling instrumental musician of our time. His easy style and smooth sounds will transport you to Havana and beyond. Hear Songbird, Forever in Love, Heart and Soul, Silhouette, and My Heart Will Go On. Kenny G will captivate and carry you away. Sponsored by Country Club Bank.

You’ll delight in this marvelous springtime program led by guest conductor Thomas Wilkins, principal conductor of the Hollywood Bowl orchestra. English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s ballet Hiawatha draws on his musical setting of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic ode. The music is radiant, rhythmically animated and utterly captivating. Gershwin’s ever-popular Rhapsody in Blue features rising talent Ray Ushikubo. Bridging the worlds of classical and popular music, Rhapsody in Blue is beloved for its cheeky tunefulness, jaunty rhythms and unabashed sentimentality. Confronted with the ravages of World War I,…