The Midcoast Symphony Orchestra (MSO), conducted by Rohan Smith, returns to the stage for its 34th concert season with performances in Topsham and Lewiston from October 2023 to May of 2024. This year’s concert series features a diverse mixture of both canons from the classical musical repertoire by such composers as Beethoven, Mozart, and Shostakovich, as well as many contemporary works including pieces by Latin composers Ginastera, Moncayo, and Piazzolla, as well as well known African American composers William Grant Still and the up and coming Jessie Montgomery.

The MSO is celebrating Music Director Rohan Smith’s 20th year as conductor. When reflecting on his longevity, Smith commented, “Sometimes you have relationships that really work when the conductor and orchestra grow together and that is what we have here. The conductor learns from the orchestra, and the orchestra learns from the conductor.  Both grow together and discover things together.”  Smith is Director of Orchestral and Chamber Music at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, where he conducts the Symphony and Chamber orchestras. As an orchestral violinist in New York, Smith performed regularly with the American Symphony Orchestra, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra, the New Orchestra of Westchester, and on Broadway. 

One of the main aspects of the MSO’s volunteer musicians that continues to impress Smith is “the players [motivation] to play because of their intense desire…to perform and study orchestral music from many different time periods, cultures and genres.” He is excited by the inclusion in the 2023/24 season of a diverse selection of material that mixes challenging material from both the old school composers of Europe and America along with some of the newer voices who are just beginning to receive the prominence they deserve. According to Mr. Smith, “The professionals knew about these wonderful composers, but they just didn't really get the exposure they deserved, and that has just widened the musical experience for all of us, it has broadened it all out which is a really wonderful thing. So I am really glad to see that Midcoast is consciously programming diverse voices from the present and the past, which is great.”

The MSO’s upcoming season also features a mixture of professional guest artists in keeping with the MSO’s tradition of featuring the best artists in the region to accompany the Midcoast’s best known community orchestra.  The guest artist for the October concerts is pianist Anatasia Antonacos, who will be joining the MSO for Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3. Antonacos is the founding director of 240 Strings, the Artistic Director of Fox Islands Concerts, and a faculty member at the University of Southern Maine.  Baritone Philip Lima will be bringing to life many of the songs in the MSO’s second concert that features song and dance music from around the world.  Lima has appeared as soloist with the Boston Pops and over 70 orchestras, choral societies, and concert series across the US, in Korea and Ukraine, and he is the Assistant Chair of Berklee College of Music’s Voice Department.

The first MSO concert of the 2023/24 season is “Soulful Expressions” over the weekend of Oct. 28 and 29. The concert begins with “Aspiration” from William Grant Still’s “Symphony No. 1.” Still was the most immediately successful African American classical composer in the first half of the 20th century and is considered by many to be the dean of African American composers. The second piece features Anastasia Antonacos in Beethoven’s “Piano Concerto No. 3,” one of the beloved composers most popular works in that genre. The concert concludes with a performance of Shostakovich’s landmark “Symphony No 5,”  which was composed as a reflection on criticism to artistic work by Soviet authorities. According to Smith, the symphony hits the listeners “like a coded message of endurance of suffering in a country under invasion” one that is “exceptionally appropriate to be played in the midst of this horrible war in Ukraine.”

MSO’s second concert, “Song and Dance Music from Around the World,” on Jan. 20 and 21, 2024 and is suitable for family audiences with its mixture of popular medleys and a “Meet the Instruments” event before the formal portion of the concert. This popular event allows children of all ages the chance to experiment with the various instruments played by symphony members to engage their curiosity about the genre. The program begins with three dance pieces by composers from Argentina and Mexico that will feature Latin rhythms familiar to many audience members; several old American songs by Aaron Copland that originate in hymn tunes and folk songs. A polka by Johann Strauss, Jr. and three songs from “The Boy’s Magic Horn,” by Gustav Mahler, set the stage for the well-known music from “West Side Story,” composed by Leonard Bernstien..

The Midcoast Symphony Orchestra is thrilled to welcome guest conductor Emily Isaacson for the third concert in the series “A New Artistic Mélange” offered on March 23 and 24, 2024.  Isaacson is the founder and artistic director of Classical Uprising. One of only a handful of female conductors in the country, Isaacson was named the 2018 Maine Artist of the Year by the Maine Arts Commission, one of 50 Mainers Leading the State by Maine Magazine, and the 2022 winner of the American Prize. The evening begins with the “Hymn for Everyone” written by Jessie Montgomery in 2022 as a partial response to the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The next piece, Mozart’s “Symphony No. 38,” is another audience favorite that features strong and varied wind and brass parts. The final work in this concert is “Enigma Variations,” composed by Edward Elgar as a series of sketches about his friends.

The 2023/24 concert series ends the weekend of May 18 and 19, 2024, with an evening titled “Cityscape, Seascape, Soundscape” consisting of three pieces, beginning with Copland’s “Quiet City” which will feature symphony soloist Tim Kenlan on trumpet and Billie Jo Brito on English Horn. That work is followed by “La Mer,” the middle of Claude Debussy’s three great orchestral trilogies. The final piece is Beethoven’s “Symphony No 7.”

The public is invited to read more about all of the compositions that are part of the 2023/24 MSO season, on the company’s website at www.midcoastsymphony.org. Complete concert and ticket information is available at midcoastsymphony.org. Season tickets for the four classical concerts are now available for $75. Individual tickets are $25 in advance and $30 at the door. All concert tickets are free for students ages 18 and under, or for college students with ID. Audiences are encouraged to purchase tickets in advance online or by calling the box office at (207) 481-0790.