2019–20 Season Compose Your Own Series

Hear the majesty and magic of Mozart’s final opera—a fantastical tale of mystery, adventure and love—distilled into this glowing overture.

This is the diamond in the crown of violin concertos, with sparkling melodies and quicksilver beauty in every bar. Simone Porter, only in her early 20s, has been hailed by the Los Angeles Times for playing that is “lovingly lyrical, occasionally frisky. She is clearly on the cusp of a major career.”

Bruckner was a church organist by day, but when he took up his composing pen at night, he opened a whole new world of orchestral splendor. His Sixth Symphony begins with violins playing so softly you may miss them; then, a mysterious horn call sounds, and suddenly the whole orchestra sweeps you away.

A daring 20th-century masterpiece! Revel in the sounds of the NJSO strings, accentuated by keyboard and percussion—writing so evocative that Stanley Kubrick famously used it in The Shining.

Critics of Tchaikovsky’s day crushed this new symphony (“a horde of demons struggling in a torrent of brandy,” wrote one), and even the composer said, “It is a failure.” But its hypnotic melodies and triumphant mood turned the Fifth into an audience favorite.

Brahms reimagined an old German hymn tune in eight different ways, then wove these variations together into one breathtaking showpiece.

With Nicholas McGegan at the harpsichord, NJSO Assistant Concertmaster Adriana Rosin pairs up with 2018 Sphinx Competition winner Rubén Rengel for dazzling Vivaldi.

2015 Sphinx Competition winner Eduardo Rios partners with newly named NJSO Assistant Principal Cello Na-Young Baek for Baroque fireworks in this virtuosic showpiece.

Both Sphinx winners and Rosin perform together in the give and take of Vivaldi’s brilliant melodies as if in sparkling conversation.

The program concludes with the sunniest of an often-stormy composer’s symphonies.