British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was one of the more popular composers in England and the United States during the turn of the 20th century. His lively Novelette No. 4 opens this program with tremendous energy.
William Grant Still was the first African-American to have a symphony performed by a major U.S. orchestra. His Serenade is an evocative tone poem in which the harp adds great style to the strings and woodwinds.
Mozart’s final symphony, a masterpiece of style and counterpoint, is the cornerstone of these concerts. Mozart biographer Georg von Nissen wrote about this symphony, “In no work of this kind does the divine spark of genius shine more brightly and beautifully.”
DSO Principal Trumpet Wes Skidgel is featured in a beautiful trumpet concerto by Johann Hummel, a friend and pupil of Mozart’s.