The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) kicks off May with The Blue Danube on Thursday, May 5, at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, May 7, at 8 p.m. in Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre. Music Director Andreas Delfs leads a program about beginnings and endings, featuring the World Premiere of acclaimed composer and recent Latin Grammy-winner Roberto Sierra’s Violin Concerto, a la memoria de una niña valiente, performed by Concertmaster Juliana Athayde (The Caroline W. Gannett & Cayla Ward Chair).
The concert opens with Felix Mendelssohn’s rarely performed overture to The Fair Melusine (The Little Mermaid). Also on the program is one of the most recorded pieces of classical music, Schubert’s Symphony No. 8, “Unfinished,” which Maestro Delfs calls the composer’s “absolute best work.” Closing out each evening is the world’s most famous waltz, Johann Strauss, Jr.’s An der schönen blauen Donau (By the Beautiful Blue Danube), op. 314, conjuring up grand images that foreshadowed the fall of Vienna.
In between those two performances, guest conductor Enrico Lopez-Yañez leads RPO + Eastman Present: Ben Folds with the RPO on Friday, May 6, at 8 p.m. in Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre. Widely regarded as a major music influencer, rock sensation Ben Folds joins the RPO for an evening of genre-bending music, performing hit songs like “The Luckiest,” “Capable of Anything,” and “Landed.” The multi-platinum selling artist, who was a judge for five seasons on NBC’s critically acclaimed a capella show The Sing Off, has recorded numerous solo and collaboration records, including music for film and TV and a classical piano concerto that topped the Billboard charts.
Kids and their families can enjoy a Symphony in Space at 2 p.m. on May 15, at Hochstein Performance Hall. Lopez-Yañez returns to conduct his original OrKIDStra program, taking audiences aboard the Sonic Spaceship for an intergalactic musical adventure. The villainous Lieutenant Tritone is stealing the three legendary Orb Crystals that maintain peace and order among the star systems. Join Captain Enrico and the autonomous bot A440 in a cosmic race to thwart Tritone. Each child will also receive a take-home activity packet. Tickets are $10 for children 17 and under, $20 for adults.
Principal Pops Conductor Jeff Tyzik leads Symphonic Cinema on Friday and Saturday, May 20 and 21, at 8 p.m. in Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre. Legendary composers Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Max Steiner, Franz Waxman, and more are featured in this tribute to the Golden Age of Hollywood, including music from Casablanca, Psycho, Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and many others. This concert is presented in collaboration with The George Eastman Museum, which will show the 4K restoration of Close Encounters of the Third Kind on Friday, May 13, at 7:30 p.m. in Dryden Theatre.
Grammy Award-winning guest conductor Jeannette Sorrell joins the RPO on Sunday, May 22, at 2 p.m. for the final Sunday Matinée of the 2021-22 Season, Baroque and Beyond II, at Nazareth College’s Beston Hall at Glazer Music Performance Center. Opening with selections from Telemann’s Don Quixote Suite, the program continues with J.S. Bach’s Concerto for Violin & Oboe in C minor. Next, selections from Suite No. 1 in F major from Handel’s three Water Music suites, which he composed for a royal pleasure trip up the Thames in 1717. The afternoon concert closes with the conductor’s own arrangement of Vivaldi’s La Folia. The folia is an ancient Portuguese dance where young girls engaged in a wild dance of abandon, becoming faster and wilder as the piece goes on.
Closing out May is 2020’s rescheduled Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire™ in Concert on Friday and Saturday, May 27 and 28, at 7 p.m. in Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre. The Triwizard Tournament comes to Hogwarts™ in this live-music-to-film event. Audiences will relive the magic of Harry Potter™ soaring across the big screen in high-definition and experience the RPO performing Patrick Doyle’s score.
Tickets start at $30 for adults and are available online anytime at rpo.org, by phone at 585-454-2100 (Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.), and in-person 60 minutes prior to curtain at the Eastman Theatre Box Office (433 East Main Street), Hochstein Performance Hall (50 North Plymouth Avenue), or Beston Hall (4245 East Avenue). Tickets for children ages 3-17 start at $18 and are available by phone only.
Current COVID protocols are under active evaluation for this spring, and updates will be announced prior to May concerts.
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