2022–23 Compose Your Own Series

The powerful and expressive Egmont Overture distills all of Beethoven’s musical hallmarks—storminess, heroism, triumph—into eight minutes. In 1956, this stirring piece helped inspire a nationwide uprising against the Marxist-Leninist government of the Hungarian People’s Republic.

American classical pianist Richard Goode is recognized worldwide for the special touch and insight he brings to Mozart. Hear his effortless artistry in this most regal of Mozart’s concertos.

Former New Jersey Symphony Music Director Hugh Wolff returns to a work he premiered with the Symphony back in 1992. Kernis wrote this symphony to express his complex views on the just-beginning Persian Gulf War.

La Valse is one Ravel’s most intense and colorful works; originally composed as a series of waltzes for the piano, it is now most often heard as an orchestral piece. The work encapsulates in music the horrifying destruction faced by turn-of-the-century Europe on the eve of World War I.

Grammy Award-winning pianist Daniil Trifonov brings his technique, style, poetry and power to one of the most monumental piano concertos ever written. Brahms’ grand Second Piano Concerto has left audiences in awe ever since its premiere in 1881.

This swashbuckling tone poem would become the first masterpiece of famed composer Richard Strauss, who burst on the scene in 1889 at the age of 25. Full of adventure, longing, love, defiance and humor, it’s a work that will charm and thrill you, just like its namesake hero.

Strauss’ comedic opera was so popular following its 1911 Dresden premiere that “Rosenkavalier” trains were arranged for audiences to make the 90-mile trek from Berlin. Full of sumptuous melodies, beguiling waltzes and heartbreaking nostalgia, it’s no wonder that Strauss reworked some of the highlights into this glittering orchestral suite.

Coleridge-Taylor was a great, yet historically overlooked composer. This early work for orchestra showcases aching melodies and rhythmic drive. Don't miss Xian and your New Jersey Symphony bringing this gem of the romantic era to life.

Grammy Award-winning violinist Hilary Hahn, who last graced our stages in 2014, accentuates all the brilliant colors and shades of melancholy in Sibelius’ only violin concerto.

Lively and powerful, the Fifth Symphony was influenced by Prokofiev’s own admiration for the splendor of the human spirt and a hopefulness for a brighter future towards the end of World War II.

Written during the horrors World War I, Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin is a bright reflection on lives lost during the war, with each movement dedicated to a friend who passed. The composer draws on the woodwind section—particularly the oboe—to tell these stories.

George Walker—a longtime Montclair resident—was among the greatest composers to call the Garden State home, and in 1996, he became the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize in Music. It was this passionate work for soprano and orchestra that garnered him that grand distinction.

This divine choral-orchestral masterpiece focuses Fauré’s view on the acceptance of a peaceful death. French conductor Lionel Bringuier joins the Symphony to lead this exquisite work.

Sarah Gibson drew inspiration from artist Miriam Schapiro and the art of weaving for her melodic and colorful warp & weft, a true celebration of the creative process and art created by women.

Pianist George Li wowed Symphony audiences with his stunning performance of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and returns to do the same with the dazzling keyboard pyrotechnics in Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.

Former Associate Conductor Gemma New returns to New Jersey stages to conduct Berlioz’s extraordinary Symphonie fantastique, a fantastic tale of thwarted love, dreams and witchcraft.

Pathbreaking composer Chen Yi was the first woman to receive a Master of Arts degree in music composition from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. She brings her signature blend of Chinese traditional themes and Western orchestral forms to this new commission.

Everything old is new again! Stravinsky takes baroque-era music and spikes it with his inimitable sense of harmony and rhythm.

Violinist Randall Goosby pulls out all the melodic and soulful stops of Tchaikovsky’s only violin concerto, one of the most beloved of the Romantic era.