GR Symphony Unveils 2019-20 Season With Itzhak Perlman, Queens Of Soul, and More!

Nearly 90 years ago, on the final Saturday in 1929, a group of 51 men and women took the stage at Central High School and gave Grand Rapids the best Christmas present of all, the gift of music.

Karl Wecker, who taught music at Grand Rapids Junior College, gave the downbeat to Franz von Suppé's Poet and Peasant Overture, and the Grand Rapids Symphony was born.

Now under the leadership of Music Director Marcelo Lehninger, West Michigan's biggest performing arts organization celebrates its 90th anniversary season with several special events, six concerts with solo piano, and several full-length movies plus live music from the Grand Rapids Pops.

Great soloists, favorite selections, important guest conductors, and music never before performed by the Symphony are all part of the Grand Rapids Symphony's 2019-20 season.

One of the greatest violinists of our time, Itzhak Perlman has performed for the inauguration of President Barack Obama, for a State Dinner at the White House honoring Queen Elizabeth II, and twice for St. Cecilia Music Center's Great Artist Series including its inaugural concert in 1987. But the Israeli-American violinist has never performed with the Grand Rapids Symphony. The violinist and conductor will make his DeVos Hall debut in November in a special, one-night only event.

"We're celebrating the Grand Rapids Symphony and its artistic accomplishments," Lehninger said. "We wanted to make sure every program is really exciting and really special. That's the real idea behind the season."

The 2019-20 season begins in September with violinist Augustin Hadelich, possibly the most frequent guest soloist in Grand Rapids Symphony history, returning for his sixth appearance with the orchestra to play Beethoven's Violin Concerto. The year 2020 is the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth in 1770, so the music of the German composer will be featured prominently.

A grand celebration of the piano is part of the Grand Rapids Symphony's season with six world-class pianists, three men and three women, playing 11 different piano concertos in seven programs.

Russian pianist Olga Kern, who in 2001 became the first woman in more than 30 years to win the Gold Medal at the 11th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, will make her Grand Rapids Symphony debut as soloist in Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 3 in October.

Pianist Ingrid Fliter, the 2006 Gilmore Artist of the Irving S. Gilmore Keyboard Festival, will return to Grand Rapids in conjunction with the Gilmore Keyboard Festival to play two piano concertos, one by Mozart and one by Schumann, on the same program in April 2020.

Pianist Kirill Gerstein will Take That one step further. The 2010 Gilmore Artist will perform all five of Beethoven's Concertos for Piano with Lehninger and the orchestra over two nights in March 2020 as part of the 10-concert Richard and Helen DeVos Classical series.

Five also is the number of movies plus live music coming to DeVos Performance Hall. Cinematic special events at the Grand Rapids Pops include not one but two films in the Harry Potter Film Concert Series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in October plus Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in February 2020.

More movies with live musical accompaniment include the 1984 hit film Ghostbusters starring Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd in October; the 2009 Disney/Pixar film Up in January 2020; and by popular demand, an encore performance of Home Alone with Macaulay Culkin in November.

The Fox Motors Pops series led by Principal Pops Conductor Bob Bernhardt features the best of Broadway musicals, hit songs from Hollywood films, and much more. The twin goals of the series are to entertain the audience and to make the Grand Rapids Symphony the stars of the show.

"We're sure everyone will like one show," Bernhardt said. "But we hope you'll like them all."

The six-concert Fox Motors Pops opens in September with songs made famous by Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, Whitney Houston, Adele and others in a show titled Queens of Soul.

Music of the Fab Four returns to DeVos Hall in Revolution: The Beatles Symphonic Experience with live music transcribed from The Beatles' original Abbey Road Studio master recordings plus projected video, animation and hundreds of rare and previously unseen photos from the archives of The Beatles' official fan magazine, The Beatles Book Monthly.

Sisters Liz Callaway and Ann Hampton Callaway, who starred in the hit New York City cabaret revue Sibling Revelry, join the orchestra for musical theater showstoppers from West Side Story to Wicked in November. Hollywood Hits with music and film clips from such movies as Gone with the Wind, The Magnificent Seven, Rocky and The Pink Panther will warm up the winter in January.

Lehninger, who will enter his fourth season at the helm of the Grand Rapids Symphony, will lead the orchestra in Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique" Symphony No. 6, Schubert's "Great" Symphony No. 9, Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, and Bela Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra among masterworks by Brahms, Wagner, Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich.

Celebrated soloists include Grammy Award-winning violinist Augustin Hadelich who will make a record sixth appearance to open the Grand Rapids Symphony's 2019-20 season in September to play Beethoven's Violin Concerto.

Pianist Jeffrey Kahane, a favorite accompanist of Yo-Yo Ma, Dawn Upshaw and Joshua Bell and a conductor who presided over the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra for 20 years, returns to Grand Rapids to play Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 22 in January 2020.

Guest conductors include Peter Oundjian, who recently stepped down as music director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and JoAnn Falletta, music director of the Buffalo Symphony Orchestra, both of whom have conducted the Grand Rapids Symphony in the past.

Grand Rapids Symphony's own will be featured during the 90th anniversary season. Principal cellist Alicia Eppinga will be soloist in Haydn's Concerto for Cello No. 1 in C major. Principal bassoonist Victoria Olson, who was appointed to the chair in 2017, will make her solo debut with the orchestra to perform Mozart's Concerto for Bassoon in B-flat Major.

The Grand Rapids Symphony Chorus, directed by Pearl Shangkuan, will join the orchestra for a performance of Stravinsky's "Symphony of Psalms" in October and for Mahler's "Resurrection" Symphony No. 2 in May 2020.

The Grand Rapids Symphony's PwC Great Eras series and Porter Hills Coffee Classics series in St. Cecilia Music Center will welcome marimbist Jisu Jung, winner of the Houston Symphony's 2018 Ima Hogg Competition, as soloist in a contemporary Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra in October.

Grand Rapids Bach Festival Artistic Director Julian Wachner, who will be in West Michigan next month for the 12th biennial Grand Rapids Bach Festival happening March 17-24, will return next season for a concert of Baroque music including J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 and G.F. Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks in January 2020.

Along with Ghostbusters, which will be conducted by Peter Bernstein, son of its film composer Elmer Bernstein, The Gerber SymphonicBoom Series will welcome back Cirque de la Symphonie for the 11th time and its 10th consecutive performance of Cirque de Noël, sponsored by Old National Bank.

Season tickets are on sale now with select concerts including the special events with Itzhak Perlman and Ingrid Fliter on sale to subscribers at a substantial discount.

Subscriptions are available at discounts of up to 27 percent off Classical Series tickets and 17 percent off Pops Series tickets for new subscribers. Current subscribers have until April 11 to renew their subscriptions, also at substantial discounts. Single tickets go on sale beginning July 29.

Tickets are available at the GRS ticket office, weekdays 9 am-5 pm, at 300 Ottawa Ave. NW, Suite 100, (located across from the Calder Plaza), or by calling 616.454.9451 x 4. (Phone orders will be charged a $4 per ticket service fee, with a $12 maximum.)

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