Princeton Symphony Orchestra Season Opens With Violinist Aubree Oliverson
Performances are set for the weekend of October 25-26.
Audience favorite Aubree Oliverson will return to open the Princeton Symphony Orchestra's (PSO's) 2025-26 Season at concerts the weekend of October 25-26. She will perform Antonín Dvořák's Violin Concerto in A Minor, Op. 53. Also on the program are Dobrinka Tabakova's Orpheus' Comet and Arnold Schoenberg's 1937 orchestration of Johannes Brahms' Piano Quartet in G Minor, Op. 25.
The Saturday performance begins at 7:30pm, an earlier start time for this season, and Sunday's 4pm performance includes a 3pm pre-concert talk. Edward T. Cone Music Director Rossen Milanov conducts both performances and hosts Sunday's talk with Ms. Oliverson at Richardson Auditorium, on the campus of Richardson Auditorium.
Maestro Milanov says, “I'm pleased to be bringing Aubree back to open our season as the audience immediately connected with her at our opening concert last year. It's thrilling to feel such a palpable electricity in the concert hall between artist, orchestra, and our patrons. It can only be experienced live.”
Aubree Oliverson is proving to be one of most compelling artists of her generation. Her 2025-26 season features debut performances with the Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, and Florida Orchestra, as well as return engagements with the Princeton Symphony Orchestra and Pacific Symphony Orchestra. Past and recent performances include season openings at the Chamber Orchestra of New York at Carnegie Hall, Utah Symphony at Abravanel Hall, and Ridgefield Symphony. Other highlights include performances with Columbus, North Carolina, Pacific, and New Haven Symphonies, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Orquesta Sinfónica de Navarra, Excelentia Madrid, Moldavian Philharmonic, Slovak Sinfonietta, Rousse Phliharmonic Orchestra, Puerto Rico Symphony, and the Kontrapunktus Baroque Ensemble. Among her prizes and awards are the Special Prize of Merit for violin at Verbier Festival Academy, a National YoungArts Foundation award, United States Presidential Scholar in the Arts, and the 2023 Francis Rosen Prize at the Colburn Conservatory. She plays a Giovanni Battista Guadagnini violin with a Jean “Grand” Adam bow.
Dvořák's Violin Concerto is a significant work in the violin repertoire, including demanding virtuosic passages with Czech folk character and a spirited finale. Bulgarian composer Dobrinka Tabakova's energizing Orpheus' Comet draws sound inspiration from the bees, which are mentioned in Virgil's version of the Orpheus legend.
Maestro Milanov has programmed Arnold Schoenberg's lush orchestration of Brahms' Piano Quartet No. 1, which will be also performed as a string quartet on the PSO's Chamber Series at Trinity in the same week. Audience members attending both the chamber concert and one of the weekend's performances will have the unique opportunity to compare both versions.
Later in 2025-26, exciting pianists Maxim Lando and 2025 GRAMMY winner Michelle Cann, noted harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani, and Serbian-French cellist Maja Bogdanović will each be appearing with the PSO for the first time at Richardson Auditorium, and violinist Bella Hristova marks her return to the PSO stage this season. Additional highlights include the world premiere of a new work for harpsichord and small orchestra by Princeton-based composer Julian Grant, the New Jersey premiere of Ciprés, a Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation Commission by Andreia Pinto Correia, and compositions by Jessie Montgomery and Viet Cuong. Among masterworks to be presented are symphonies by Felix Mendelssohn, Dmitri Shostakovich, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Sergei Prokofiev, and the complete version of Igor Stravinsky's Pulcinella with Aubry Ballarò, soprano, Nicholas Nestorak, tenor, and Hunter Enoch, bass.
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