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Ricky Lee Skaggs…bluegrass roots, southern charm and artistic style. The singer, producer and multi-instrumentalist has been making music for much longer than I’ve even been alive, and has received accolade and recognition of the highest honor, and has worked with people across a number of genres. He is well respected as an artist by many of his fans, as well as his peers.

When he takes the stage, he is extremely polite, and most definitely brings the Southern charm wherever he goes. He gets onto stage, mandolin wrapped around him ready for what’s to come, and a giant smile on his face, both of which remain with him until the end of the show. As he plays, you can see how happy it makes him, no matter where he could have been at any given moment. In between songs he is always having a conversation with the audience, not just talking at them. He will always say thank you, and for almost every song he introduced the name of it, as well as a little about the process behind writing it. Whether you like bluegrass or not, watching his live set is a learning experience, both musically and of the human condition.

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Despite Kentucky multi-instrumentalist Ricky Skaggs fast approaching the age to bank his pension, the man continues to tour at an unrelenting pace to his wide fanbase who simply cannot get enough of his genre hopping sounds and warm personality. It is definitely noticeable that Ricky himself is a huge appeal to the live show as fans absolutely love his dry wit and humorous onstage chatter.

Away from his frontman mannerisms, the music is also incredibly solid as Skaggs switches between numerous guitars as he happily moves from blues grass to folk to gospel. The audience loudly sings along during the stomping 'Blue Night' much to the delight of the musicians onstage who simply elevate their own performance style to watch the enthusiasm of the revellers. Ricky then goes on to introduce everybody joining him onstage before saying endearing thank yous as the introductions to set closer 'A Work of Love' begin. A great musician with an interactive and entertaining live show.

As always, he is the consummate entertainer. And Kentucky Thunder is just beautiful to watch as much as to hear. There was a moment when Ricky was just whipping the mule of his mandolin and I thought there’s nothing more beautiful than to see musician become such one with his instrument and music. He always brings the mountain to this Metropolis and I enjoyed the show immensely.

Band and concert great. Thought Ricky might have done a of few country hits.

Theater: Older lady in front of us never turned off the glow of her cell. She filmed holding above her head. Did texting, surfed the web, checked her Facebook and typed replies all thru program

Everything you would expect from a living legend .So down to earth and backed by some of the best musicians and harmony vocalists in the country. If you dig skilled musicians and and old school showmanship see him .

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Ricky Skaggs tour dates and tickets 2024-2025 near you

Want to see Ricky Skaggs in concert? Find information on all of Ricky Skaggs’s upcoming concerts, tour dates and ticket information for 2024-2025.

Ricky Skaggs is not due to play near your location currently - but they are scheduled to play 8 concerts across 1 country in 2024-2025. View all concerts.

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Ricky Skaggs Announces 2023 Christmas Tour

Ricky Skaggs | Photo Courtesy of Skaggs Family Records

Fifteen-time GRAMMY® winner and Country Music Hall of Fame member Ricky Skaggs is getting in the holiday spirit with the announcement of his 2023 holiday tour, titled   Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder Christmas with Special Guests .   Skaggs and his band, Kentucky Thunder , hit the road this December with nine holiday shows scheduled to take place in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Skaggs’ upcoming holiday trek marks his first Christmas tour in seven years.

Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder will perform in Cincinnati, OH; Nashville, TN; Charleston, SC; Atlanta, GA; Birmingham, AL; Knoxville, TN; Johnson City, TN; Charleston, SC and Augusta, GA.

The show will feature songs both old and new as Skaggs and his band perform their own blend of harmony.

“Everybody loves Christmas,” notes Skaggs. “It’s the time of year when we think about others and not ourselves. We love singing songs about the greatest birth in history, Jesus Christ. We will be performing some of the old standards we’ve all grown up with, but we will also have some instrumentals and songs that you might not be familiar with.

“Concertgoers can expect to hear bluegrass tune “Christmas Time’s A Comin,’” along with a rendition of “New Star Shining,” a hit song for Skaggs and James Taylor. Beloved classic songs “Silent Night,” “Deck the Halls,” and “Let it Snow” are part of the show, along with many other special Christmas melodies. Included in this seasonal show are sing-a-longs, rounding out an exclusive assortment of holiday jewels.

“All in all, it will be a great show for the whole family,” Skaggs adds. “Get your tickets now and bring someone with you that might not be able to afford a ticket this time of year. You’ll feel great and they will have a fun time too.”

For ticketing information, visit rickyskaggs.com/tour .

Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder Christmas with Special Guests  Tour Dates:

Dec. 7 – Cincinnati, OH – Memorial Hall OTR

Dec. 8 – Chattanooga, OH – Robert Kirk Walker Theatre

Dec. 9 – Birmingham, AL – The Lyric Theatre

Dec. 10 – Nashville, TN – Ryman Auditorium

Dec. 13 – Johnson City, TN – ETSU Martin Center for the Arts

Dec. 14 – Charleston, SC – The Riviera Theater

Dec. 15 – Augusta, GA – Imperial Theatre

Dec. 16 – Knoxville, TN – Tennessee Theatre

Dec. 17 – Atlanta, GA – The Eastern

About Ricky Skaggs  Earning 12 #1 hit singles, 15 GRAMMY® Awards, 13 IBMA Awards, nine ACM Awards, eight CMA Awards (including Entertainer of the Year), two Dove Awards, the ASCAP Founders Award, three honorary Doctorate degrees, inductions into the Country Music Hall of Fame, IBMA Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, National Fiddler Hall of Fame, Musicians Hall of Fame, and GMA Gospel Music Hall of Fame, the 2013 Artist-In-Residence at the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum, an Americana Music Association Lifetime Achievement Award in the Instrumentalist category along with countless other awards, Ricky Skaggs is truly a pioneer of Bluegrass and Country music. Since he began playing music over 60 years ago, Skaggs has released more than 30 albums and has performed thousands of live shows. He started his own record label, Skaggs Family Records, in 1997 and has since released 12 consecutive GRAMMY®-nominated albums. His latest release,  Hearts Like Ours , with his wife, celebrated artist Sharon White of The Whites features the couple dueting on handpicked country love songs. And the Grand Ole Opry member has released his first-ever autobiography, “Kentucky Traveler.” The book details the life and times of Skaggs and provides a descriptive history of Country and Bluegrass music, as told by the master himself. In addition to his regular touring schedule with his band, Kentucky Thunder, he has added country tour dates as he plugs in and plays full shows of his chart-topping hits. Skaggs was a 2020 recipient of the National Medal of Arts, the highest award given to artists and arts patrons by the United States government.

For more information on Ricky Skaggs, visit  rickyskaggs.com .

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Ricky Skaggs

Ricky skaggs tour dates 2024.

• Apr 19, 2024 - Sep 6, 2024
• COUNTRY / FOLK

Ricky Skaggs, a renowned American country and bluegrass singer, is a living testament to the timeless appeal of traditional music. With a career spanning over 50 years, Skaggs has made an indelible mark in the music industry. His exceptional talent has earned him 15 Grammy Awards and he has been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Skaggs' unique blend of bluegrass and country, combined with his mastery of the mandolin, guitar, and fiddle, have made him a beloved figure among fans and fellow musicians alike. His performances are characterized by his soulful voice, incredible musicianship, and a palpable love for his craft. ConcertFix is proud to provide up-to-date information on Ricky Skaggs' tour schedules, ticket availability, and concert details. We are committed to ensuring that fans never miss a chance to witness this legendary artist perform live.

Ricky Skaggs Concert Schedule

About ricky skaggs tour albums.

Ricky Skaggs appeared on the Country / Folk scene with the release of the album 'Waitin' for the Sun to Shine' published on April 30, 1981. The track 'Don't Get Above Your Raising' quickly became a success and made Ricky Skaggs one of the newest emerging performers at that time. Since then, Ricky Skaggs came out with the extremely popular album 'Country Gentleman: The Best Of Ricky Skaggs' which contains some of the most famous work from the Ricky Skaggs discography. 'Country Gentleman: The Best Of Ricky Skaggs' includes the single 'Don't Get Above Your Raisin' (Album Version)' which has proven to be the most recognized for fans to experience during the shows. Aside from 'Don't Get Above Your Raisin' (Album Version)' , most of other tracks from 'Country Gentleman: The Best Of Ricky Skaggs' have also become recognized as a result. A handful of Ricky Skaggs's most famous tour albums and songs are found below. After 35 years since the release of 'Waitin' for the Sun to Shine' and making a huge impact in the business, fans consistently head to hear Ricky Skaggs in person to perform hits from the entire catalog.

Ricky Skaggs Tour Albums and Songs

Ricky Skaggs: Country Gentleman: The Best Of Ricky Skaggs

• Don't Get Above Your...
• You May See Me Walkin'
• Crying My Heart Out ...
• I Don't Care
• I Wouldn't Change Yo...
• Highway 40 Blues
• You've Got A Lover
• Don't Cheat In Our H...
• Honey (Open That Door)
• Something In My Heart

Ricky Skaggs: Super Hits

• Country Boy

Ricky Skaggs: Bluegrass Rules

Ricky Skaggs: 16 Biggest Hits

Ricky Skaggs: Skaggs and Rice

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Ricky Skaggs may come to a city near you. View the Ricky Skaggs schedule just above and press the ticket link to view our big selection of tickets. Browse our selection of Ricky Skaggs front row tickets, luxury boxes and VIP tickets. Once you track down the Ricky Skaggs tickets you desire, you can purchase your tickets from our safe and secure checkout. Orders taken before 5pm are usually shipped within the same business day. To purchase last minute Ricky Skaggs tickets, browse through the eTickets that can be downloaded instantly.

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Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder

• Date & Time July 25 , 2024 7:30 PM
• Time 7:30 PM
• On Sale On Sale Now
• Ticket Pricing $38.00 - $45.00

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Ryman Auditorium, located at 116 Rep. John Lewis Way North, in Nashville, Tennessee, is one of the most celebrated venues in modern music. Built in 1892, the historic 2,362-seat live performance venue is the most famous former home of the Grand Ole Opry and is revered by artists and music fans for its world-class acoustics. A bucket list moment for both fans and artists alike, her iconic stage has hosted performers from across genres, such as Elvis Presley, Bruce Springsteen, Charley Pride, Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash, Harry Styles, Wu-Tang Clan, Lizzo, and thousands more. While offering a diverse lineup and thriving concert schedule with over 200 shows per year, the venue is also open for daytime tours year-round. Along with best-in-class production technologies and livestream capabilities, the Ryman has been named  Pollstar ’s Theater of the Year for 13 years through 2021.

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Grammy winner Ricky Skaggs performs with Kentucky Thunder at Savannah Music Festival

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Ricky Skaggs

Fifteen-time GRAMMY® Award-winner Ricky Skaggs’ career is easily among the most significant in recent country music history. If Skaggs’ burgeoning trophy case full of awards wasn’t already enough evidence of that fact, consider that legendary guitarist Chet Atkins once credited Skaggs with “single-handedly saving country music.” His life’s path has taken him to various musical genres, from where it all began in bluegrass music, to striking out on new musical journeys, while still leaving his musical roots intact.

More About Ricky Skaggs

Born July 18, 1954 in Cordell, Kentucky, Skaggs showed signs of future stardom at an early age, playing mandolin on stage with bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe at 6 and appearing on TV with Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs at 7. He emerged as a professional bluegrass musician in 1971, when he and his friend Keith Whitley were invited to join the legendary Ralph Stanley’s band the Clinch Mountain Boys.

Skaggs then went on to record and perform with progressive bluegrass acts like the Country Gentlemen and J.D. Crowe & the New South, whose self-titled 1975 Rounder Records debut album was instantly recognized as a landmark bluegrass achievement. He then led Boone Creek, which also featured Dobro ace and fellow New South alumnus Jerry Douglas. But Skaggs turned to the more mainstream country music genre in the late ‘70s when he joined Emmylou Harris’s Hot Band, replacing Rodney Crowell. He became a recording artist in his own right in 1981 when his Epic label debut album Waitin’ for the Sun to Shine topped the country charts and yielded a pair of #1 hits. Overall, his productive stay at Epic Records would result in a total of 12 #1 hits. Additionally, he garnered eight Country Music Association Awards–including the coveted Entertainer of the Year trophy in 1985.

Skaggs, of course, fit right in with young “new-traditionalist” ‘80s artists like Randy Travis, and helped rejuvenate the country music genre after the worn-out “Urban Cowboy” period. But, Skaggs put his own stamp on the country format by infusing his bluegrass and traditional country music roots into the contemporary Nashville sound.

Skaggs’ 1997 album Bluegrass Rules!, released on his newly-formed Skaggs Family Records label, marked a triumphant return to bluegrass—which he’s solidified ever since with a series of GRAMMY® Award winning albums, recorded with his amazing bluegrass band, Kentucky Thunder (8-time winners of the IBMA ‘Instrumental Group of the Year’). Skaggs’ label has also served as a home for similar bluegrass and roots music-oriented artists including The Whites.

In the past decade, he has been honored with inductions into the Gospel Music Association’s Gospel Music Hall of Fame and the Musicians Hall of Fame. In 2018, a landmark year, Skaggs was also awarded membership into the National Fiddler Hall of Fame, the IBMA Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and country music’s greatest honor, the Country Music Hall of Fame. Most recently, he was awarded the prestigious National Medal of Arts in 2020 for his contributions to the American music industry. Ricky struck his first chords on a mandolin over 60 years ago, and he continues to do his part to lead the recent roots revival in music. Clearly his passion for it puts him in the position to bring his lively, distinctively American form of music out of isolation and into the ears and hearts of audiences across the country and around the world. Ricky Skaggs is always forging ahead with cross-cultural, genre-bending musical ideas and inspirations.

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On Sale Days/Times:

Academy Member Presale begins Monday, November 13, 2023. Remaining tickets will be released to the public on Friday, November 17, 2023. All sales begin at 10 AM EST.

Academy Members Level 5+ Pre-Sale: Monday, November 13, 2023 Academy Members Level 4+ Pre-Sale: Tuesday, November 14, 2023 Academy Members Level 3+ Pre-Sale: Wednesday, November 15, 2023 Academy Members Level 1+ Pre-Sale: Thursday, November 16, 2023 General Public On-Sale: Friday, November 17, 2023

Standard Seat: $54.00* Premium Seat: $68.00* Value Seat: $39.00* Obstructed Seat: $24.00* Box Seat: $88.00* Pit Seat: $78.00*

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$472 Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder Tickets For 4/19/2024

See Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder at Cactus Theater in Lubbock, TX on Apr 19, 2024. Buy $472 Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder tickets before they sell out! Interactive seat maps and ticket filtering options available to better identify the tickets you desire. Expedia event tickets are backed by a 150% money-back guarantee.

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Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder

February 09, 2024.

Member Pre-Sale: Tuesday, September 5 | 10 AM Public On-Sale: Monday, September 11 | 10 AM

Tickets start at $29*

Fifteen-time GRAMMY® Award-winner Ricky Skaggs ’ career is easily

among the most significant in recent country music history. If Skaggs’

burgeoning trophy case full of awards wasn’t already enough evidence of

that fact, consider that legendary guitarist Chet Atkins once credited

Skaggs with “single-handedly saving country music.” His life’s path has

taken him to various musical genres, from where it all began in bluegrass

music, to striking out on new musical journeys, while still leaving his

musical roots intact.

Born July 18, 1954 in Cordell, Kentucky, Skaggs showed signs of future stardom at an early age, playing mandolin on stage with bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe at 6 and appearing on TV with Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs at 7. He emerged as a professional bluegrass musician in 1971, when he and his friend Keith Whitley were invited to join the legendary Ralph Stanley’s band the Clinch Mountain Boys. Skaggs then went on to record and perform with progressive bluegrass acts like the Country Gentlemen and J.D. Crowe & the New South, whose self-titled 1975 Rounder Records debut album was instantly recognized as a landmark bluegrass achievement. He then led Boone Creek, which also featured Dobro ace and fellow New South alumnus Jerry Douglas.

But Skaggs turned to the more mainstream country music genre in the late ‘70s when he joined Emmylou Harris’s Hot Band, replacing Rodney Crowell. He became a recording artist in his own right in 1981 when his Epic label debut album Waitin’ for the Sun to Shine topped the country charts and yielded a pair of #1 hits. Overall, his productive stay at Epic Records would result in a total of 12 #1 hits. Additionally, he garnered eight Country Music Association Awards–including the coveted Entertainer of the Year trophy in 1985. Skaggs, of course, fit right in with young “new-traditionalist” ‘80s artists like Randy Travis, and helped rejuvenate the country music genre after the worn-out “Urban Cowboy” period. But, Skaggs put his own stamp on the country format by infusing his bluegrass and traditional country music roots into the contemporary Nashville sound. Skaggs’ 1997 album Bluegrass Rules!, released on his newly-formed Skaggs Family Records label, marked a triumphant return to bluegrass—which he’s solidified ever since with a series of GRAMMY® Award winning albums, recorded with his amazing bluegrass band, Kentucky Thunder (8-time winners of the IBMA ‘Instrumental Group of the Year’). Skaggs’ label has also served as a home for similar bluegrass and roots music-oriented artists including The Whites.

In the past decade, he has been honored with inductions into the Gospel Music Association’s Gospel Music Hall of Fame and the Musicians Hall of Fame. In 2018, a landmark year, Skaggs was also awarded membership into the National Fiddler Hall of Fame, the IBMA Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and country music’s greatest honor, the Country Music Hall of Fame. Most recently, he was awarded the prestigious National Medal of Arts in 2020 for his contributions to the American music industry. Ricky struck his first chords on a mandolin over 60 years ago, and he continues to do his part to lead the recent roots revival in music. Clearly his passion for it puts him in the position to bring his lively, distinctively American form of music out of isolation and into the ears and hearts of audiences across the country and around the world. Ricky Skaggs is always forging ahead with cross-cultural, genre-bending musical ideas and inspirations.

“This group of guys meets my approval every night,” Ricky says. “Each and every one of the pickers in Kentucky Thunder totally amazes me in every show…and that, to me, outweighs any award we could ever win.” The all-star lineup of Kentucky Thunder includes Russ Carson (banjo), Jake Workman (lead guitar), Dennis Parker (baritone vocals, guitar), Gavin Kelso (bass), Mike Rogers (tenor vocals, rhythm guitar) and Billy Contreras (fiddle).

*Plus applicable fees. Pricing subject to change

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Ricky Skaggs

Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder

Saturday Feb 3, 2024 7:30 PM

Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder Winston-Salem Symphony Michelle Merrill Conductor

Join the Winston-Salem Symphony for a special one-night-only performance with country and bluegrass legend Ricky Skaggs. The 15-time GRAMMY® winner is joined by the incomparable pickers of Kentucky Thunder and the Winston-Salem Symphony for an unforgettable evening of music.

Single tickets to this event go on sale August 1, but you can save your seat with a subscription!

Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder SOLD OUT

Saturday Feb 3 7:30 PM

Reynolds Auditorium 301 N. Hawthorne Rd. Winston-Salem, NC 27104

Rideshare and Dining

What will my view be like?

While Reynolds Auditorium’s sightlines and sound are best enjoyed in the Mezzanine, Orchestra-level seating also offers superb viewing and sound, especially in rows F through O. Please bear in mind that Reynolds Auditorium is a historic venue; there is no elevator, thus the Mezzanine and Balcony levels are only accessed via stairs. Accessible seating is available on the Orchestra level at the rear of the house and along the outside left and right.

About the Performers

A life full of music. That’s the story of Ricky Skaggs. By age 21, he was already considered a “recognized master” of one of America’s most demanding art forms, but his career took him in other directions, catapulting him to popularity and success in the mainstream of country music. His life’s path has taken him to various musical genres, from where it all began in bluegrass music, to striking out on new musical journeys, while still leaving his musical roots intact.

Kentucky Thunder

“This group of guys meets my approval every night,” Ricky says.  “Each and every one of the pickers in Kentucky Thunder totally amazes me in every show…and that, to me, outweighs any award we could ever win.”  The all-star lineup of Kentucky Thunder includes Russ Carson (banjo), Jake Workman (lead guitar), Dennis Parker (baritone vocals, guitar), Gavin Kelso (bass), Mike Rogers (tenor vocals, rhythm guitar) and Billy Contreras (fiddle).

In 2003, PBS Great Performances filmed The Three Pickers at Reynolds Auditorium right here in Winston-Salem. The one-night-only bluegrass experience featured legends Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, and Ricky Skaggs with special guest Alison Krauss.

It’s a dream come true. Michelle Merrill talks about her first experience with the music of Ricky Skaggs … then finds out that she gets to conduct a Ricky Skaggs concert on her debut season with the Winston-Salem Symphony!

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The Music of FLEETWOOD MAC

The WSS, guest vocalists, and the fan-favorite Jeans ‘n Classics band come together to celebrate the supergroup’s decades of hits.

Saturday, Feb 3, 2024 // 7:30 pm – 10:00 pm

Reynolds auditorium, event navigation.

• « Enchanted Waters
• Edgar Meyer + The New World »

Antonín Dvořák: Symphony No. 9, “From the New World”

The Czech master Antonin Dvořák was born in Nelahozeves, near Kralupy, on September 8, 1841; and died in Prague, May 1, 1904 . His “New World” Symphony remains his most popular work. Composed during his residency in the United States in 1892-3, the work received its premiere on December16, 1893 in New York’s Carnegie Hall. It is scored for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns,  trumpet, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, and strings. The most recent Winston-Salem Symphony performance of this work is January 2017, under the direction of Robert Moody.

In early 1991, a three-story brick row house at 327 East 17th Street in Manhattan was declared a national landmark.  A plaque above the first story declares that this was the New York home from 1892 to 1895 for the famous Czech composer Antonin Dvořák, who composed his Symphony no. 9 (“From the New World”) during a period from January to May 1893. Unfortunately, the brownstone was taken down to make room for the expansion of a nearby hospital and the corner near where it stood was renamed Dvořák Place. The composer moved to New York after Jeannette Thurber invited him to assume the directorate of the National Conservatory of Music.  Shortly after taking up residence there, Dvorák communicated the following to a friend in Prague:

“We [the composer, his wife, and two children] live four minutes from my school in a very pleasant house.  Mr. Steinway sent me a piano, free, so we have one good piece of furniture in the parlor.  The rent is $80 a month, a lot for us, but a normal price here.”

Ever since it received its first performance in New York City on December 16, 1893 with Anton Seidl conducting the New York Philharmonic, Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony has remained an extremely popular orchestral work.  The Czech master wrote two major works, as well as some smaller ones, during his extended visit to the United States, which included a short summer vacation spent with a colony of Czech immigrants in Spillville, Iowa.  One of these compositions was the String Quartet, op. 96 (“American”), the other was this, his last symphony.  Had Mrs. Thurber had her way, Dvořák also would have composed an opera based on Longfellow’s story of the Native Americans Minnehaha and Hiawatha, as she hoped that Dvořák would become the founder of a new American “school” of composition.  As we shall see, at least some of Mrs. Thurber’s hopes found expression in his “New World” Symphony.

Folk music had always played a vital role in Dvořák’s music, and his “American” efforts serve to remind us that many folk musics have elements in common.  The “New World” Symphony speaks its “American” with a distinctly Slavic accent.  The title for the work, “From the New World” is the composer’s own, and he explained that it was inspired by “impressions and greetings” from his host country.  Among these impressions must be counted the music of African-Americans, whose melodies he learned from one of his students at the Conservatory, Henry Thacker Burleigh.  It is difficult to determine just how well-versed Dvořák was in the authentic musical idiom of Native Americans, but the famous Largo movement of the “New World” Symphony, was inspired, according to the composer, by a passage from Longfellow’s “The Song of Hiawatha.”  The famous English horn theme of this Largo is still known by many people as a “spiritual” with the words “Goin’ Home.”  The Symphony is filled with many such appealing folk-like themes.

Another important element in the “New World” Symphony is its cyclic construction, in which a motto theme, first heard near the beginning of the first movement, is brought back at strategic moments in the subsequent movements.  A careful listener will discern that this motto itself is the progenitor of other themes, thereby strengthening the thematic unity of the entire work.  Dvořák also provides many masterful moments of orchestration and harmony, none, perhaps, more beautiful than the succession of brass chords at the beginning and end of the Largo .

While the composer was still in America, he sent the manuscript for this symphony to his German publisher Simrock, who in turn showed them to Dvořák’s friend and advisor, Johannes Brahms.  Brahms saw fit to make certain corrections, and even some wholesale changes—especially in the finale—where he altered some of Dvořák’s tempos.

Notes by David B. Levy © 2005/2016

Edgar Meyer: Concerto No. 1 for Double Bass

Bassist and composer Edgar Meyer was born on November 24, 1960 in Oak Ridge, TN. His extraordinary talent as a soloist, composer, and collaborator has brought him together with a  vast array of musical artists, including Joshua Bell , Hilary Hahn , Yo-Yo Ma , Jerry Douglas , Béla Fleck , Zakir Hussain , Sam Bush , James Taylor , Chris Thile , Mike Marshall , Mark O’Connor , Alison Krauss , Mary Chapin Carpenter , Guy Clark , and the trio Nickel Creek . His earliest studies on the bass were with his father, Edgar Meyer, Sr., starting when he was five years old. In 2000, he won the Avery Fisher Prize and in 2002 he was named a MacArthur Fellow . Meyer’s collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma and Mark O’Connor on the widely acclaimed Sony Classical disc Appalachia Waltz brought him a wider audience and greater acclaim than one usually associates with a virtuoso on his instrument. The impressive variety of artists with whom Meyer works gives ample evidence of the breadth of his musical interests and accomplishments. Meyer is also Adjunct Associate Professor of Double Bass at Vanderbilt University ‘s Blair School of Music , as well as at the Curtis Institute of Music. He is also an artist-faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival and School . Meyer is the author of three concertos for his instrument. The Concerto no. 1 in D Major was composed in 1993.

The following program notes were written by John Henken for the Los Angeles Philharmonic:

“Most of the music I’ve become interested in is hybrid in its origins,” Meyer says. “Classical music, of course, is unbelievably hybrid. Jazz is an obvious amalgam. Bluegrass comes from 18th-century Scottish and Irish folk music that made contact with the blues. By exploring music, you’re exploring everything.” Meyer’s Bass Concerto No. 1 was composed in 1993 (he has since written another solo concerto and a Double Concerto for Cello and Bass) at the instigation of Peter Lloyd, principal bass of the Minnesota Orchestra, the ensemble with which Meyer played the premiere, conducted by Edo de Waart. The opening solo lick, a bluesy upward swagger with an emphatic punctuation, sets the stylistically protean tone for the piece. The orchestra suggests something more ominous, eventually luring the soloist up into chill and glossy heights. The sense of barely stilled worry ends with the understated return of the opening lick. The middle movement is in the three-part song form typical of classical concertos. In the first section the bass soars lyrically over a pizzicato accompaniment, sounding like a thoroughly acculturated Satie gymnopédie , although Meyer says that he picked up the idea from Haydn’s C-major Violin Concerto. The contrasting central section is agitated and driven, bustling urgently before slipping back into a state of lyric grace, this time with oboe joining the bass in tandem lines. The finale explodes with fiddling fury, given only more energy by its rooted weight in the bass register, though this too slips its moorings and spins off into instrumental thin air. “I got the idea for this type of tune and the way of playing it from hearing Sam Bush play the violin and mandolin,” the composer says. (Bush was a partner in several projects with Meyer, going back to the 1980s and the newgrass band Strength in Numbers.) Celtic modality, blues engines, suggestions of John Adams in the scoring, and strenuous virtuosity all combine in this movement, also in a three-part form, with a free-floating middle and cadenza.

Program Note by David B. Levy/John Henken (2012), © 2016/2023

Giovanni Bottesini: Concerto No. 2 in b minor 

String bass virtuoso, composer, and conductor, Giovanni Bottesini was born in Crema, Lombardy on December 22, 1821 and died in Parma on July 7, 1889. His activities as a conductor were important, but he is best remembered for advancing the technique of the string or double bass in the Romantic era. His extraordinary skill as a performer resulted in a significant number of his own compositions for this instrument, including two concertos, chamber works, variations on themes from opera, and a host of assorted works for bass and piano. His Concerto for Contrabass and Orchestra no. 2 is considered one of his finest compositions.

One rarely thinks of the string (double) bass as the featured instrument for a concerto, yet the extraordinarily gifted Giovanni Bottesini has left two such works for posterity. The son of a musician, Bottesini started out as a violinist. His father, recognizing his son’s talent, decided to send him to the Milan Conservatory to further develop his skills, but the family did not have sufficient funds to pay tuition and expenses. As fate would have it, there were scholarships available for bass and bassoon. Amazingly, the young musician was able, after only a few weeks’ practice, to demonstrate enough skill and promise on the bass to gain admittance. A sign of his success was the awarding of a prize of 300 francs, which Bottesini used to purchase a fine instrument made in 1716 by Carlo Giuseppe Testore (the instrument is now in the possession of a private investor in Japan). Thus was launched the career of the “Paganini of the Double Bass.”

Bottesini’s virtuosity as a bassist, however, was not his only calling card. After an extended period of touring as a soloist that took him from Milan to America, Cuba, and England, he became a noted opera conductor in Paris, London, and Italy. His good friend Giuseppe Verdi was sufficiently impressed with Bottesini’s skill as a conductor to have him direct the premiere of his Aida in Cairo on December 27, 1871. Not surprisingly, Bottesini also was the composer of several operas—works that are seldom performed, despite the fact that some of them were well received at their premieres.

While the modern string bass has four strings, in the nineteenth century many performers, including Bottesini used only three, which Bottesini tuned a step higher than normal. This configuration makes the music of his works for the instrument all the more demanding. He also preferred the so-called “French” grip of the bow (overhand grip, as used by the cello, viola, and violin) over the underhand “German” grip. His Concerto no. 2 remains one of the instrument’s most demanding challenges, whose three movements explore the full range of its capability, from rapid passagework to full-throated operatic lyricism. Dramatic fire—as found in the music of his friend Verdi—also are hallmarks of this unusual composition.

Program Note by David B. Levy, 2015/2023

Jessie Montgomery: Strum

Born in New York City in 1981, African American composer, musician, and educator, Jessie Montgomery is one of the most vital voices of her generation. Her studies began at Manhattan’s Third Street Music School Settlement. She later went on to receive a degree in violin performance at Juilliard and a master’s degree in Composition for Film and Multimedia at New York University (2012). She has been actively involved with the Detroit-based Sphinx Organization in supporting and encouraging young African American and Latinx string instrumentalists. Her works have been performed by many significant arts institutions (Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, to name but a few). She also has worked collaboratively with numerous colleagues in both music and dance. Strum began its life as a string quintet in 2006. She later made a string quartet version (2008), reaching its final version in 2012 in celebration of the 15 th annual Sphinx Competition.

In her own program notes for Strum , Jessie Montgomery wrote:

Originally conceived for the formation of a cello quintet, the voicing is often spread wide over the ensemble, giving the music an expansive quality of sound. Within Strum I utilized texture motives, layers of rhythmic or harmonic ostinati that string together to form a bed of sound for melodies to weave in and out. The strumming pizzicato serves as a texture motive and the primary driving rhythmic underpinning of the piece. Drawing on American folk idioms and the spirit of dance and movement, the piece has a kind of narrative that begins with fleeting nostalgia and transforms into ecstatic celebration.

Living up to its title, the work uses extensive pizzicato (plucking) effects, evoking the idea of a banjo, over which evocative musical fragments are played (arco) with the bow. In kaleidoscope fashion, the music shifts from idea to idea, keeping the listeners on their toes from start to finish. The work, in its string quartet version, has been recorded by the Catalyst Quartet as part of the album Strum: Music for Strings (2015) on the Azica label.

Program note by David B. Levy/Jessie Montgomery, © 2021/2015

Maurice Ravel: La valse

Maurice Ravel was born March 7, 1875 of parents of Swiss and Basque descent in Ciboure, Basses-Pyrénées. He died December 28, 1937 in Paris. La valse had its first performance in Paris with Camille Chevillard conducting the Lamoureux Orchestra on December 12, 1920. It is orchestrated for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, glockenspiel, 2 harps, and strings. The work was last performed by the Winston-Salem Symphony on January 7, 8, and 10, 1995 with Peter Perret conducting.

Symphonic poem or ballet? Virtuoso work for piano or orchestral show piece? Sentimental reminiscence of Imperial Vienna or frenetic dance of death? La valse has at one time or another represented all of these things, and more. Ravel himself was not entirely certain. The work we know as La valse (The Waltz), choreographic poem for orchestra, completed in 1920, underwent many changes since its initial conception in 1906 under the provisional title (by 1914) of Wien (Vienna), “an apotheosis of the Viennese waltz, linked in my mind with the impression of a fantastic whirl of destiny” and homage to Johann Strauss. Aside from its purely musical evolution, one also ought to take into account the impact of two tragedies–one personal and the other global–the death of the composer’s mother, and the First World War.

The death of Marie Delouart Ravel on January 5, 1917 came as a devastating blow from which the composer would in some respects never recover. Letters from the end of 1919, when Ravel was finishing La valse , bear witness to his continuing grief. As for the war (Ravel served in the French army as a truck driver), it seems entirely plausible that this experience caused the composer to see the Viennese waltz in a different light. Interestingly, Ravel refused to join his colleagues in endorsing an official French ban on modern German and Austrian music during the war, asserting, according to Arbie Orenstein, that “the best way to defend French music would be for French composers to write good music” (Ravel: Man and Musician, New York, 1975). Ravel’s refusal to accept the Legion of Honor in 1920 is further evidence of his single-minded independent spirit. Yet, as Erik Satie observed: “Ravel refuses the Legion of Honor, but all of his music accepts it.” Unfortunately, the impresario, Sergei Diaghilev, with whom Ravel and so many other important composers (including Stravinsky) had worked, refused to accept La valse as a ballet, calling it a “masterpiece,” but more a “portrait of a ballet” than a scenario for a ballet proper. This rejection precipitated a permanent break between Ravel and Diaghilev. La valse received a concert performance with Camille Chevillard conducting the Lamoureux Orchestra on December 12, 1920 to considerable critical acclaim. Ida Rubinstein, for whom Ravel composed his Boléro, staged La valse as a ballet in Paris on May 23, 1929, but the piece is still more commonly heard on concert programs. Versions of La valse also exist for solo piano and for two pianos, although it is not entirely clear as to whether these preceded or followed the orchestral version.

La valse begins with low-pitched instruments, setting a sinister tone as the pulse of the triple-meter dance is established. The pulse is further colored by fragments of melodies and washes of orchestral sound. Carl E. Schorske gives an impressive characterization of the piece, viewing it as a metaphor for the “violent death of the nineteenth-century world”:

Although Ravel celebrates the destruction of the world of the waltz, he does not initially present that world as unified. The work opens rather with an adumbration of the individual parts, which will compose the whole: fragments of waltz themes, scattered over a brooding stillness. Gradually the parts find each other–the martial fanfare, the vigorous trot, the sweet obligato, the sweeping major melody. Each element is drawn, its own momentum magnetized, into the wider whole. Each unfolds its individuality as it joins its partners in the dance. The pace accelerates; almost imperceptibly the sweeping rhythm passes over into the compulsive, then into the frenzied. The concentric elements become eccentric, disengaged from the whole, thus transforming harmony into cacophony. The driving pace continues to build when suddenly caesuras appear in the rhythm; the auditor virtually stops to stare in horror at the void created when a major element for a moment falls silent, ceases to act. Partial paralysis of each element weakens the movement, and yet the whole is moving, relentlessly driving as only compulsive three-quarter time can. Through to the very end, when the waltz crashes in a cataclysm of sound, each theme continues to breathe its individuality, eccentric and distorted now, in the chaos of totality. (Fin-de-siècle Vienna, New York, 1979)

The ultimate destruction of the waltz is symbolized in the last measures by a quadruplet–a four-beat pattern that occupies the same space of time as three beats.

Program Note by David B. Levy, © 1994/2013

Douglas Cuomo: a raft, the sky, the wild sea

American composer Douglas J. Cuomo was born in Tuscon, AZ on February 13, 1958. He was raised in the San Francisco Bay area and Amherst, MA. Starting out his musical education at an early age on trumpet, he switched to guitar, and was fortunate to start learning from two jazz greats: drummer Max Roach and saxophonist Archie Shepp both of whom taught at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. His studies continued at Wesleyan University and the University of Miami-Coral Gables with degrees in Jazz Studies. He later got involved in music for the theater and television, composing themes and music for shows such as “Sex and the City” (HBO) and “Now with Bill Moyers” (PBS). He has also written music in a wide variety of popular and classical idioms for numerous notable performers and ensembles, as well as winning many honors and grants. His Saxophone Concerto, a raft, the sky, the wild sea , was co-commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, and the Winston-Salem Symphony. Its world premiere took place on October 14, 2022 in Fort Worth’s Bass Performance Hall with soloist Joe Lovano and the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra led by conductor Robert Spano. It is scored for solo tenor saxophone, 3 flutes (piccolo, alto flute), 3 oboes (English horn), 3 clarinets (bass clarinet), 3 bassoons (contrabassoon), 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, piano, harp, and strings.

Composer Douglas J. Cuomo wrote the following notes for the European premiere of a raft, the sky, the wild sea :

While composing this piece I was imagining an inner voyage, one that is sometimes calm and reassuring, sometimes startling and turbulent. You’re being taken somewhere, but you’re unsure where you’re going or how you’ll get there. This uncertainty about the big picture puts the focus on what’s happening right now, in this instant. And then in the next instant, and the next, and the next. This is all of us, each on our own metaphysical raft under the open sky, trying to cross the wild sea. But for millions of people throughout the world this is not a metaphor. For those who are forced to flee their homeland to seek safety and a better life, it’s a description of a harrowing physical reality. This piece also recognizes these children, women and men, for whom the raft, the sky and the sea are indescribably dangerous, and for whom the journey is real. Written for the world-renowned jazz saxophonist Joe Lovano, a raft, the sky, the wild sea draws on my background in both the jazz and classical worlds. Its musical language references the vocabularies of both contemporary classical music (building a large-scale three-movement musical structure, Lutosławski-influenced strategies of pitch organization and harmonic language, etc.) and jazz (traditional ballad playing, modal improvisation, the blues, etc.). As in a traditional concerto, a dialogue is set up between soloist and orchestra, however in this case much of the soloist’s part is improvised. The score prescribes very clearly exactly when the saxophone plays, but during the improvised sections, what is played is largely left to them. Rhythmic and harmonic guidelines are indicated, as well as the occasional description of mood or feel. Generally however, I am relying on the music of the orchestra itself to provide the inspiration for the improvising, knowing that each particular mood in the orchestra has the possibility of inspiring myriad improvised musical responses from the saxophone. This is a musical exploration through the unknown, with each performance unique, acknowledging that every journey we take is one of high stakes, but also infinite possibility. To leave so much up to the soloist requires a deep musical compatibility and trust — a special relationship between composer and performer. Joe’s tremendous artistry and wide-open musical mind was a guiding light during the writing of this piece, allowing me to compose with freedom, and with the confidence that he would bring exceptional beauty, raw power, sensitivity, and heightened emotion to his part.

Program Note by Douglas J. Cuomo (2022) and David B. Levy (2023)

(Achille-)Claude Debussy was born August 22, 1862 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye (near Paris) and died in Paris on March 25, 1918. His magnificent seascape, La mer , was composed between 1903-05. Its first performance took place in Paris at the Concerts Lamoureux on October 15, 1905 under the direction of Camille Chevillard. The work is scored for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (cymbals and tam-tam), 2 harps, and strings.

As is the case with his Nocturnes (1893-99), La mer (“The Sea,” 1903-05) is a triptych. Unlike the former work, however, La mer’s three movements must be performed together in order retain their unity (Nuages, Fêtes, and Sirènes, the movements that comprise Nocturnes, could be–and often are–performed separately). La mer represents Debussy at his symphonic best, a fact that garnered criticism from both his friends and enemies. Debussy’s supporters sensed that he was moving too far from the abstract qualities of symbolism, such as is found in his Prelude to “The Afternoon of a faun” of 1894, in favor of a too “traditional” approach to composition. His detractors, on the other hand, argued that he did not go far enough, wishing La mer to be a full-fledged symphony. While some of the criticism toward La mer may have been driven by animosities deriving from scandals surrounding Debussy’s personal life (he had left his wife, Lily, for Emma Bardac, the wife of a prominent Parisian banker), the work obviously has triumphed over the objections of its earliest critics.

Debussy’s love of the sea was deeply felt, and in a letter to his publisher Jacques Durand, he reveals that under other circumstances he might have pursued a maritime career. In another letter he identifies the sea as “the thing in nature which best puts you in your place.” The original title for the first and third sketches were, respectively, “Mer belle aux iles sanguinaires” and “Le vent fait danser la mer” (“The Beautiful Sea with Happy Islands” and “The Wind Makes the Sea Dance”). The second sketch, “Jeux des vagues” (“Games of the Waves”) retained its original title in the final draft of the piece.

I. De l’aube à midi sur la mer (From Dawn to Noon on the Sea). The immense power of the sea, yet to be unleashed, is portrayed in a slow introduction. The first important theme is played by English horn and trumpet. As dawn rises, the movement of the sea becomes more active, as one feels (and sees in the bow movements of the violins) an undulating, rocking motion. Divided cellos announce the fully wakened forces of nature at work. The end of the sketch is marked by a majestic theme in the horns–the “chorale of the depths.”

II. Jeux des vagues (Games of the Waves). Debussy’s superb skills as an orchestrator come to the fore in this scherzo filled with brilliant effects and delicacy. The “games” range from the teasing to the powerfully rough and tumble variety.

III. Dialogue du vent et de la mer (Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea). At first it seems as though the winds adumbrate an approaching storm. A transformation of a figure from the first movement, a short note followed by a longer one, takes on a plaintive air described by some as akin to a siren’s song. This figure dominates the mood of the entire movement. Cellos and bassoons give an animated statement of the first theme from the opening sketch, which now grows more vehement. This yields eventually to a subtle invocation of the “chorale,” but the plaintive wail of the siren’s song returns in colorful guise, framed by a wonderful high note (harmonic) in the violins. A majestic sounding of the “chorale” in the full brass denotes the powerful coda–a peroration in praise of the sea, which, as Debussy says, has shown us “all her moods.”

Notes by David B. Levy © 2006/2022

George Frideric Handel: Messiah, HWV 56

George Frideric Handel was born on February 23, 1685, in Halle (Germany), and died on April 14, 1759, in London. He was buried in Westminster Abbey’s Poet’s Corner, an honor rarely afforded one who was not born in Britain. His English oratorio, Messiah , is far and away his best known and most beloved work. It takes its place among Handel’s works with several other oratorios, sacred and secular choral works, operas in Italian and English, and a large repertory of instrumental works that include solo keyboard music, chamber works, concertos for organ, concerti grossi, and orchestral suites. The best known of the latter category are the three suites that comprise the Water Music of 1717. Messiah, whose text was assembled from Charles Jennens’ excerpts from the Old and New Testament, was first performed in Dublin on April 13, 1742, as a charity concert. Its London debut took place in March of 1743. It is scored for vocal soloists, chorus, and an orchestra comprising two oboes, bassoon, two trumpets, timpani, strings, and basso continuo instruments (harpsichord and organ).

The history of Western music has produced a few monuments that tower above all other works in the imaginations of audiences. Among these we may count the finale of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (his setting of Schiller’s Ode to Joy), Bach’s Mass in B minor (less frequently performed on this side of the Atlantic than it deserves), and Handel’s Messiah . Messiah is universally recognized as a sacred music treasure and encompasses carefully selected and arranged passages from the Old Testament prophets (especially Isaiah) and the New Testament, which lays out a carefully crafted narrative that describes the advent of Jesus Christ, ending with his entry into Jerusalem (Part I), his rejection, death, resurrection, ascension, triumphant spread of the Gospel (Part II, culminating in the famous “Hallelujah” chorus), and ending with the promise of resurrection and eternal life to those who follow him (Part III)

Performances of Messiah during the Advent and Christmas seasons have become the norm, even though only Part I is applicable to that season (without the “Hallelujah” chorus). Handel’s decision to compose Messiah (and, indeed, all his other oratorios) was linked to the Lenten season, when opera houses were forced to shut their doors. Handel, ever the entrepreneur, realized that the application of operatic techniques to sacred topics would prove commercially viable during Lent. Because the performance of oratorios does not entail the cost of staging, sets, and costumes, they were considerably less expensive to produce than opera.

Messiah stands outside the norm for oratorios in three respects: Firstly, it comprises musical settings of direct citations from the 1611 Authorized Version of the English Bible, as well as passages derived from the Book of Common Prayer instead of taking its text from an opera-like libretto. Secondly, its theme of Christ’s role as the Messiah foretold in Hebrew prophecy deviates from the telling of stories about the Exodus from Egypt or heroes found in the Old Testament and other writings. But what truly distinguishes Messiah from all other oratorios is the sustained high level of its music.

Handel, through his melodic genius and experience as the composer of operas, was a master of expressive dramatic composition. Virtually every aria and duet in Messiah is a masterpiece unto itself. But what attracts audiences to Messiah even more, is the mastery displayed in the expression and humanity poured into every note of Handel’s magnificent choruses. Less densely imitative in texture than the choral works of Bach, Handel’s choruses are sufficiently approachable by amateur choirs to make them favorites of choral groups around the world. By the time he composed Messiah , Handel had fully mastered setting English words to music. And what splendid and inspiring settings they are! No wonder an English performance of the work in 1859 featured a chorus of 2,765 voices!

It was once believed that Handel composed all of Messiah in a blaze of creative fire in merely 24 days. While we now know that there are many sections of Messiah that were “borrowed” from previously composed works (material for the choruses, “His yoke is easy” and “And He shall purify,” for example, were arranged from a 1741 Italian chamber duet, “Quel fior che all’ alba ride”) does not detract one bit from the dramatic impact of this skillfully constructed masterpiece. Neither should Handel’s practical revisions of the original Dublin version for performance in London diminish our enjoyment at all. As Handel himself wrote upon completing the “Hallelujah” chorus on September 6, 1741, “I did think I did see all Heaven before me and the great God himself.” Audiences clearly still agree.

Program Note by David B. Levy, © 2007

Sergei Rachmaninoff: Concerto no. 2 in C Minor for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 18

Sergei Vassilevich Rachmaninoff was born in Oneg, Novgorod on March 20/April 1, 1873 and died in Beverly Hills, CA on March 28, 1943*. Famed as both pianist and composer, Rachmaninoff left Russia after the Revolution of 1917, eventually taking up residence in the United States. His Piano Concerto no. 2 was composed in 1900-01, and received the first performance of its last two movements in Moscow on December 2/15, 1900 in Moscow. The first performance of the entire piece took place on October 27/November 9, 1901*. On both occasions the composer himself was the soloist, with Alexander Siloti conducting the Moscow Philharmonic. The Winston-Salem Symphony’s most recent performance of this concerto was in November 2019 with pianist Alexander Kobrin, Martin West conducting. The Concerto no. 2 is scored for solo piano, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, and strings.

*NB: The variation of dates reflects the difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars.

The Russian-born pianist and composer Rachmaninoff falls into the tradition of the great performer-composers of the Romantic style that included figures such as Niccolò Paganini and Franz Liszt. Like his great predecessors at their best, his music avoids the self-indulgent kind of virtuosity-for-its-own-sake practiced by less gifted musicians. His music often is quite sentimental, but his melodic gifts were more than sufficient to prevent it from becoming maudlin. Although Rachmaninoff composed a wide variety of music, he is best known for his works for the piano, and his Concerto no. 2 is by far the most frequently performed of the four that he composed. His Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini is also a popular favorite.

After the failure of his First Symphony in St. Petersburg, Rachmaninoff recorded in his Recollections that he lost all hope for any future success. In 1900 he sought psychiatric assistance from Dr. Nikolai Dahl, who, according to the composer, hypnotically persuaded him to continue work on a new piano concerto. Dr. Dahl’s positive approach seems to have worked and he became the recipient of the dedication of the Piano Concerto no. 2. The work received its first performance in 1901 in Moscow, and it was greeted with both critical and popular acclaim.

The concerto is in three broad movements. The first of these, Allegro moderato, begins quietly with chords solemnly played by the unaccompanied soloist. These grow in intensity, ushering in the lush first theme in the strings. A lyrical second theme emerges from the soloist, followed by a proper development section and a stirring recapitulation in martial style. The Adagio sostenuto is a movement of great beauty and tunefulness, whose serenity is only briefly interrupted by an animated middle section that calls for considerable dexterity. The last movement is marked Allegro scherzando and plays dramatically between the major and minor mode. As was the case in the first movement, the finale’s second subject is highly lyrical. Following the lead of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto no. 1, which may have served as a model for this piece, Rachmaninoff demarcates the climax of the movement with a tutti statement of the lyrical theme which lends a triumphant and stirring conclusion to this late romantic masterpiece.

Program Note by David B. Levy © 2013/2019/2022

Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5, Op. 57

Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was born in Saint Petersburg on September 12, 1906. He died in Moscow on August 9, 1975. He was one of the Soviet Union’s greatest composers. Although he composed in a wide variety of genres, including film scores, but is best known for his fifteen symphonies, which are among the finest examples of its kind from the mid-twentieth century. His Fifth Symphony was first performed in Leningrad (now, once again, St. Petersburg) on November 21, 1937. Its success was unequivocal and it remains of the landmark compositions of this century. It is scored for 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, E-flat clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (triangle, snare drum, cymbals, bass drum, tam-tam, bells, xylophone), 2 harps, piano, celesta, and strings. The work was last performed by the Winston-Salem Symphony in the 2016/2017 season under the baton of Maestro Robert Moody.

Of Shostakovich’s fifteen symphonies, the Fifth Symphony is his most popular and frequently performed work. A pejorative overtone creeps in, however, when one tries to define the word “popular” by seeking its opposite, such as when “popular” music (e.g., Rock, Hip-hop, or Traditional) is contrasted with “art” music (Symphonies, chamber music, Opera).   How many of us, for example, have at some time or other characterized some “popular” music as “coarse, primitive, [or] vulgar”? These, however, are the precise words that appeared in a January 1936 article in Pravda entitled “Muddle Instead of Music,” an article (possibly authored by Joseph Stalin himself) that denounced Shostakovich’s opera, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District and ballet, The Limpid Stream . Thus began one of the saddest episodes in twentieth-century music history—the official exile of one of the Soviet Union’s most gifted talents. Those who dared to stand by Shostakovich, either personally or artistically, did so at grave risk to their own career, or even life.  

The irony, however, was yet to come. Shostakovich sought to deal with Stalin’s rebuke through continued work on new compositions. His immense Fourth Symphony was written over the course of the subsequent months of 1936, but the work was withdrawn under suspicious circumstances shortly before its scheduled premiere in April.   The Fifth Symphony, composed during the next year, enjoyed a much happier fate. One journalist dubbed the new symphony as “a Soviet artist’s practical, creative reply to just criticism,” a subtitle that was used for the first time at the Moscow premiere in 1938. Shostakovich, typically, neither endorsed nor renounced the title.

But did the Fifth Symphony truly represent the rehabilitative effort of a man who had fallen from the good graces of a repressive regime? Evidence that has recently surfaced in two books—Solomon Volkov’s Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich (London, 1979) and Elizabeth Wilson’s Shostakovich: A Life Remembered (Princeton, 1994)—paints a rather different portrait. Here we discover a composer who at first believed that his career lay in ruins. His strategy became the maintenance in public of humility and submission. In private, by contrast, Shostakovich set himself on a course of defiant resistance to Stalinist repression by encoding private warnings and references into his scores. Purely instrumental music, after all, has one advantage over works for the stage; censors, who for the most part are musical illiterates, have a harder time applying their political standards. One may recall here how, one hundred years earlier, the crafty Robert Schumann had slipped the forbidden “Marseilles” past the Viennese censors in his Faschingsschwank aus Wien .

Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony owes, as is the case with much of his other music, a debt of gratitude to the color and sardonic wit found in the music of Gustav Mahler.   The powerful opening Moderato begins with a jagged figure treated imitatively in the strings. This paves the way for music of a haunting lyricism. After the first climax, a broad song emerges over a throbbing accompanying figure in dactyls. The gentle pulsation turns outright threatening with the introduction of the percussive sound of the piano and a quickening of speed. The music becomes increasingly frenetic, reaching shattering climaxes before returning to its majestic opening speed and demeanor. It ends shrouded in mystery as the celesta plays its haunting chromatic scales.

The second movement, Allegretto , is a saucy scherzo that dresses itself as a kind of sardonic waltz. Its cheeky character is highlighted by the color of the soprano clarinet and solo violin. The high spirit of this movement yields to the dramatic poignancy of the ensuing Largo . This movement begins soulfully in the divided strings. The highest violins soon introduce a new theme based upon a repeated-note figure. An ethereal duet for flutes over an undulating harp ostinato accompaniment follows. Later, the solo oboe introduces yet another haunting tune. A climax of terrific intensity is achieved based upon the high violin theme, but the tension finally breaks. The movement ends with the oboe theme, now played by celesta and harp (in bell-like harmonics), melting into a more optimistic major chord in the hushed strings.

The finale, Allegro non troppo , is famous for its rousing opening theme, played by trumpets, trombones, and tuba over the pounding kettledrums. This theme may have pleased Shostakovich’s socialist-realist critics, but they would have been less enthusiastic if they knew that its opening notes were derived from the first song, “Rebirth,” from the composer’s Four Pushkin Romances . Even more telling is a later theme in the movement bearing material that Shostakovich had set to the following words: “Thus delusions fall off/ My tormented soul/ And it reveals to me visions/ Of my former pure days.”   A tumult of new themes follows, some of which are evocative of themes heard earlier in the symphony. A slowly oscillating ostinato in the violins takes over, leading to one of the real strokes of genius in the movement—the slow, soft reintroduction of the opening martial theme. The movement ends in a dignified blaze of glory as this theme arrives at its apotheosis in the resplendent brass. Perhaps this is what Shostakovich had in mind when he spoke of his Fifth Symphony as “the stabilization of a personality.” Few works can match these concluding pages for depicting the sheer triumph of the human spirit over adversity.

Program Note by David B. Levy, © 2004/2016

Jared Miller: Luster

Jared Miller was born in Los Angeles in 1988. Shortly thereafter his family moved to Burnaby, British Columbia. He pursued his undergraduate studies at the University of British Columbia. He later pursued a Master of Arts and Doctorate at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, where he studied musical composition with Samuel Adler and John Corigliano. In 2014 he became the composer-in-residence at the Victoria (BC) Symphony, a position he held for three years. He taught composition and music theory at Dalhousie University in Halifax before taking an appointment at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in 2022. According to his website, Miller has won numerous awards for composition that include a 2012 ASCAP Morton Gould Award, the 2011/12 Juilliard Orchestra Competition, three SOCAN awards for young composers (2011, 2015 and 2019) and SOCAN’s Jan V. Matejcek Award for Excellence in New Classical Composition in 2020. His Luster is the result of a commission for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the ensemble that gave the work its world premiere on June 15, 2018 with the DSO under the direction of Robert Spano.

Jared Miller kindly provided the following comments about Luster :

“When I received this commission to write for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, I immediately knew that I wanted to pay homage to the city’s vibrant musical past. After all, in addition to the DSO’s world-class music making under Leonard Slatkin over the past decade, Detroit is known for its invention and/or cultivation of many popular music genres including Motown, rap, and rock music. Upon reading more on the musical history of Detroit, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that one of my favorite musical genres – techno music – was also invented in Detroit. The sound-world of  Luster  is inspired by the thumping bass, instrumental colors, reverberation effects and multi-layered rhythmic texture that is found in techno, house and EDM music from the past 35 years.”

The piece begins with an aura shimmer for two flutes, producing a kind of echo effect, backed by high-pitched harmonics in the strings and wonderful colors emanating from the percussion. The shimmer grows in intensity as it spreads throughout the orchestra. As it reaches its climax, the tempo increases as new ideas are introduced, punctuated by complex rhythmic patterns. The dynamic level drops as the shimmer continues to take on new aspects. The reverberation effects in the flutes returns, along with the string harmonics, rounding out this highly engaging short showpiece for orchestra.

Program Note by David B. Levy/Jared Miller, © 2023

Leonard Bernstein: Symphonic Dances from West Side Story

Leonard Bernstein was born in Lawrence, MA on August 25, 1918 and died in New York City on October 14, 1990. His career centered on musical composition and conducting, but he was also a gifted pianist. He preferred to call himself simply “musician.” Bernstein was, as his biography in the  New Grove Dictionary puts it, “the most famous and successful native-born figure in the history of classical music in the USA”. His influence on a generation of musicians was immeasurable. Furthermore, his body of work successfully spanned and connected the sometimes disparate worlds of the concert music and musical theater. His legacy continues through his music, recordings, videos, and many books. His  Symphonic Dances from West Side Story  is the work of Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal, who in 1961 excerpted and orchestrated music from the popular Broadway musical under the guidance of the composer. The  Symphonic Dances  enjoyed its first performance on February 13, 1961, with Lukas Foss conducting the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall, in a pension fund gala concert entitled “A Valentine for Leonard Bernstein.” The work is scored  for  3 flutes (one doubling piccolo), 2 oboes and English horn, 2 clarinets plus E-flat clarinet and bass clarinet, alto saxophone, 2 bassoons and contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, large percussion section, harp, piano, celesta, and strings. The last performance of  Symphonic Dances from West Side Story  by the Winston-Salem Symphony took place on the “Romeo and Juliet” concert during the 2005-06 season.

Leonard Bernstein’s enduring musical,  West Side Story,  opened at New York’s Winter Garden Theater on September 26, 1957.  The text by Stephen Sondheim (after A. Laurents) is based on Shakespeare’s  Romeo and Juliet , with the feuding Capulets and Montagues now represented by two rival gangs, the Sharks and the Jets, and the scenario removed from Verona to the streets of Manhattan.  Among the popular tunes from  West Side Story  are “Maria,” “One Hand, One Heart,” “America,” “Tonight,” “I Feel Pretty,” and “Somewhere A Place for Us.”  The show successfully combines jazz, lyricism, Latin-American rhythms, and ballet.

Bernstein had the good fortune to work with the superb choreographer, Jerome Robbins, for  West Side Story .  The two artists had previously worked together in 1944 on  Fancy Free  and again in 1946 on  Facsimile .   On the Town  (1944) and  Wonderful Town  (1952) were earlier musicals by Bernstein that used dancing as a central feature of their style.  The  Symphonic   Dances  from  West Side Story  were excerpted and orchestrated under the composer’s direction in 1961 by Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal (who orchestrated the film version of the show), and have since become a regular part of the repertoire of symphony orchestras. Audiences will recognize several musical themes and moments from  West Side Story  in the  Symphonic Dances , including “Somewhere” and a Cha-Cha version of “Maria.” The orchestra gets to shout out the word “Mambo” during one of the dance sequences, and also gets to snap their fingers.

Program Note by David B. Levy, © 2005/2014

Johannes Brahms: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D Major, Op. 77

Johannes Brahms was born on May 7, 1833 in Hamburg and died in Vienna on April 3, 1897. One of the dominant composers of the late nineteenth century, Brahms greatly enriched the repertory for piano, organ, chamber music, chorus, and orchestra. His only Concerto for Violin and Orchestra was composed in the summer and early fall of 1878 in one of his favorite locales, Pörtschach am Wörthersee in Carinthia (Austria). Brahms effected minor revisions after its premiere on January 1, 1879 in Leipzig with the composer conducting the Gewandhaus Orchestra with Joseph Joachim as soloist. It is scored for solo violin, 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings.

Few would deny that the violin concertos of Beethoven and Brahms stand at the pinnacle of the genre. It is also true that Beethoven’s work served as a model for Brahms, resulting in many clear points of contact between the works. Both concertos, for example, use the orchestra extensively, lending a symphonic quality to them. Each work not only explores the virtuosic capabilities of the violin, but also its lyrical side. The first movement of both works follows the classical principle of tutti-solo alternation (a carryover from the Baroque ritornello form) in conjunction with the dialectic of sonata form. Yet, even while clinging to classical forms, both concertos ultimately transcend them. They are not just great violin concertos; they are superb musical compositions. As such, therefore, they tax their performers in both technical prowess and musicality.

Brahms’s Concerto emerged from the master’s highly productive summer of 1878, a period that also produced the Symphony no. 2, the First Sonata for Violin and Piano, and early work on the Second Piano Concerto. The genesis and growth of Brahms’s Violin Concerto owes to the composer’s continuing friendship and professional affiliation with the great violinist, Joseph Joachim. This virtuoso musician, who also was a composer of no small ability, offered much more than merely technical advice to the composer. The Brahms-Joachim correspondence reveals much valuable insight into the concerto’s compositional genesis. One document, for example, shows Joachim dissuading Brahms from his plan to extend the work into a four-movement composition through the addition of a scherzo (Those familiar with Brahms’s Piano Concerto no. 2 will be aware that the composer successfully added such a movement in that work). But Joachim surely was right in his instincts regarding the Violin Concerto. The three-movement design was perfect as it stood.

The magical moments in Brahms’s Violin Concerto are almost too numerous to count, but a few are worth noting. The first comes very near the start of the opening Allegro non troppo, when after a purely diatonic D-major opening paragraph, an unexpected surprise comes in the form of a shudder—a counterstatement that starts in the foreign key of C Major. The first entrance of the solo instrument takes place in a highly charged and dramatic D Minor. Also worthy of mention is the gentle and lyrical reentry of the orchestra after the first movement’s cadenza—one of several instances of the influence of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto (a work that was also performed, at Joachim’s insistence, at the premiere). Joachim composed and performed his own cadenza (still used by many violinists) for the first performance of the Brahms. Both the cadenza and Joachim’s superb playing of it, according to a letter from Brahms to a friend, trampled over this poignant moment with immediate applause from the audience.

Speaking of lyricism, it is difficult to imagine a more sublime melody than the F-Major oboe solo that inaugurates the Adagio second movement. Indeed, the scoring for woodwinds throughout this movement is incomparable. This writer, for one, lives for the end of the movement’s introduction, when in an astonishing sequence, the solo flute drops from an F natural in a high register to a low F sharp, followed by a rest before resolving sweetly to a G. The next two measures land the music gently in its final cadence in the home key. This sequence is repeated later in the movement by the solo violin.

The finale is a gypsy-inspired Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo vivace, filled with technical challenges aplenty, as well as metrical subtleties, but never exceeding Brahms’s customary decorum. The movement is rounded out by a piquant and exciting coda, Poco più presto.

Program Note by David B. Levy © 2014

Antonín Dvořák: Carnival Overture, Op. 92

The Czech master Antonin Dvořák was born in Nelahozeves, near Kralupy, on September 8, 1841; and died in Prague, May 1, 1904. His Carnival Overture (originally entitled “Life”), composed In 1891 is one of his liveliest and most popular short works for orchestra. The work was first performed in Prague on April 28, 1892, just before the composer departed for the United States. It is scored for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, and strings.

Dvořák’s symphonies, particularly nos. Seven, Eight, and Nine (“From the New World”), the Cello Concerto, and the orchestrated version of his Slavonic Dances are his most frequently performed symphonic works. To this list may be added the one exception among his five symphonic poems, the Carnival Overture. This work, written in 1891, takes its place in the middle of a trilogy of concert overtures collectively labeled Nature, Life, and Love.

The overture’s title refers to the pre-Lenten season that is celebrated so colorfully in various parts of the world, culminating in Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras). The composer indicated that the Carnival Overture expresses the sentiments of “a lonely, contemplative wanderer reaching at twilight a city where a carnival is in full sway. On every side is heard the clangor of instruments mingled with the shouts of joy and unrestrained hilarity of people giving vent to their feelings in songs and dance tunes.” The lively opening and closing sections flank a more subdued middle part that may be indicative of the “wanderer” and his feelings. But it is the general exuberance of the outer sections, with their brilliant splashes of orchestral color that has endeared this work to audiences.

Note by David B. Levy © July 2005

Moscow Metro Underground Small-Group Tour - With Reviews & Ratings

Moscow metro underground small-group tour.

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Tour Information

Key Details

• Mobile Voucher Accepted
• Free Cancellation
• Duration: 3 Hrs
• Language: English
• Departure Time : 10:00 AM
• Departure Details : Karl Marks Monument on Revolution Square, metro stop: Square of Revolution
• Return Details : Metro Smolenskaya
• If you cancel at least 4 day(s) in advance of the scheduled departure, there is no cancellation fee.
• If you cancel within 3 day(s) of the scheduled departure, there is a 100 percent cancellation fee.
• Tours booked using discount coupon codes will be non refundable.

Go beneath the streets on this tour of the spectacular, mind-bending Moscow Metro! Be awed by architecture and spot the Propaganda , then hear soviet stories from a local in the know. Finish it all up above ground, looking up to Stalins skyscrapers, and get the inside scoop on whats gone on behind those walls.

Know More about this tour

We begin our Moscow tour beneath the city, exploring the underground palace of the Moscow Metro. From the Square of Revolution station, famous for its huge statues of soviet people (an armed soldier, a farmer with a rooster, a warrior, and more), we’ll move onto some of the most significant stations, where impressive mosaics, columns, and chandeliers will boggle your eyes! Moreover, these stations reveal a big part of soviet reality — the walls depict plenty of Propaganda , with party leaders looking down from images on the walls. Your local guide will share personal stories of his/her family from USSR times, giving you insight into Russia’s complicated past and present. Then we’re coming back up to street level, where we’ll take a break and refuel with some Russian fast food: traditional pancakes, called bliny. And then, stomachs satiated, we are ready to move forward! We’ll take the eco-friendly electric trolleybus, with a route along the Moscow Garden Ring. Used mainly by Russian babushkas(grannies) during the day, the trolleybus hits peak hours in the mornings and evenings, when many locals use it going to and from their days. Our first stop will be the Aviator’s House, one of Stalin’s Seven Sisters, followed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs — and you’ll hear the legends of what has gone on inside the walls. Throughout your Moscow tour, you’ll learn curious facts from soviet history while seeing how Russia exists now, 25 years after the USSR.

Local English-speaking guide

Pancake snack and drink

Additional food and drinks

Tickets for public transport

Souvenirs and items of a personal nature

Tips and gratuities for the guide

Additional Info

Confirmation will be received at time of booking

Dress standard: Please wear comfortable shoes for walking. For your Urban Adventure you will be in a small group of a maximum of 12 people

Traveler Reviews

This tour exceeded our expectations. Nikolai (Nick), our tour guide, was very knowledgeable, thorough, and has a great personality. He didn't take shortcuts and really covered everything that was on the agenda in great detail. We saw beautiful metro stations and learned the history behind them, including many of the murals and designs.

We did the tour with Anna her knowledge and understanding of the History surrounding the metro brought the tour alive. Well done Anna!

This tour was amazing!

Anna was a great tour guide. She gave us heaps of interesting information, was very friendly, and very kindly showed us how to get to our next tour.

Amazing beauty and history.

An excellent tour helped by an absolutely amazing guide. Anna gave a great insight into the history of the metro helped by additional material she had prepared.

great tour and guide - thanks again

great will do it again, Miriam ke was very good as a guide she has lived here all here life so knew every interesting detail.a good day

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Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder Christmas with Special Guests 2023 Tour Dates!

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Sep 28, 2023

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Moscow Metro 2019

Will it be easy to find my way in the Moscow Metro? It is a question many visitors ask themselves before hitting the streets of the Russian capital. As metro is the main means of transport in Moscow – fast, reliable and safe – having some skills in using it will help make your visit more successful and smooth. On top of this, it is the most beautiful metro in the world !

. There are over 220 stations and 15 lines in the Moscow Metro. It is open from 6 am to 1 am. Trains come very frequently: during the rush hour you won't wait for more than 90 seconds! Distances between stations are quite long – 1,5 to 2 or even 3 kilometers. Metro runs inside the city borders only. To get to the airport you will need to take an onground train - Aeroexpress.

RATES AND TICKETS

Paper ticket A fee is fixed and does not depend on how far you go. There are tickets for a number of trips: 1, 2 or 60 trips; or for a number of days: 1, 3 days or a month. Your trips are recorded on a paper ticket. Ifyou buy a ticket for several trips you can share it with your traveling partner passing it from one to the other at the turnstile.

On every station there is cashier and machines (you can switch it to English). Cards and cash are accepted. 1 trip - 55 RUB 2 trips - 110 RUB

Tickets for 60 trips and day passes are available only at the cashier's.

60 rides - 1900 RUB

1 day - 230 RUB 3 days - 438 RUB 30 days - 2170 RUB.

The cheapest way to travel is buying Troyka card . It is a plastic card you can top up for any amount at the machine or at the ticket office. With it every trip costs 38 RUB in the metro and 21 RUB in a bus. You can get the card in any ticket office. Be prepared to leave a deposit of 50 RUB. You can get it back returning the card to the cashier.

SamsungPay, ApplePay and PayPass cards.

One turnstile at every station accept PayPass and payments with phones. It has a sticker with the logos and located next to the security's cabin.

GETTING ORIENTED

At the platfrom you will see one of these signs.

It indicates the line you are at now (line 6), shows the direction train run and the final stations. Numbers below there are of those lines you can change from this line.

In trains, stations are announced in Russian and English. In newer trains there are also visual indication of there you are on the line.

To change lines look for these signs. This one shows the way to line 2.

There are also signs on the platfrom. They will help you to havigate yourself. (To the lines 3 and 5 in this case).