New music director Geoffrey Robson will be on the podium for five of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra's six 2023-24 Masterworks concerts at Little Rock's Robinson Center Performance Hall:
Sept. 30-Oct. 1: Violinist Jennifer Frautschi solos in "Poeme" by Ernest Chausson and Florence Price's single-movement Violin Concerto No. 2. The program will also include the Overture to "The Thieving Magpie" by Giocchino Rossini and "The Pines of Rome" by Ottorino Respighi.
Jan. 27-28: Carolyn Brown, the orchestra's principal flutist, will solo in the Flute Concerto in d minor by C.P.E. Bach. The program will also include the "Organ Symphony" (Symphony No. 3) by Camille Saint-Saens with an organist to be named and "Tangazo" by Astor Piazzolla.
Feb. 24-25: Kerson Leong plays the Violin Concerto by Ludwig van Beethoven. Also on the program: "The Wind and Petit Jean" by Christopher Theofanidis and "Halcyon Sun" by Jonathan Bailey Holland.
April 6-7: Gustav Holst's massive "The Planets," timed just ahead of the total solar eclipse the following Monday, with all of Arkansas in the path of totality. The program also includes "Night Ferry" by Anna Clyne.
May 4-5: Michelle Cann solos in the Piano Concerto in a minor by Clara Schumann. The Prelude to Richard Wagner's opera "Tristan und Isolde" opens the program; the Symphony No. 4 by Johannes Brahms closes out the concert and the season.
On Nov. 11-12, the orchestra will have one guest conductor, Atlanta-based Tamara Dworetz, with pianist Conrad Tao as soloist in the Piano Concerto No. 3 by Sergei Rachmaninoff. The remainder of the program: the chamber orchestra version of "Duo Ye" by Chen Yi and the full orchestra version of Aaron Copland's "Appalachian Spring" Suite.
-- Eric E. Harrison