Tucson Symphony Orchestra has a couple of busy weeks ahead as it eyeballs the end of its 2023-24 season.
There’s showcase concerts with students from the Young Composers Project, a special sold-out concert with the legendary cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the blockbuster “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” cineconcert.
Here’s what’s in store:
Young Composers Project
Each year, members of the orchestra work with Tucson youths ages 8 to 18 to compose new works from full-ensemble symphonies to smaller chamber works.
The youths meet with mentors and instructors weekly from September through May, when the orchestra test-drives some of those works before a live audience.
In the program’s 32 years, participants have produced more than 445 new works, and several alums have gone on to become composers or pursue professional music careers.
This year’s hat-tipping to the budding composers kicks off at 2 p.m. Saturday, May 4, with the full orchestra, under the baton of Music Director José Luis Gomez, playing several works from the advanced class. That performance is at Leo Rich Theater, 260 S. Church Ave.
The TSO String Quintet and Wind Quintet will perform string and winds compositions at 7 p.m. Friday, May 10, at the Tucson Symphony Center, 2175 N. Sixth Ave.
String and brass competitions take the spotlight at 2 p.m. Saturday, May 11, featuring the TSO string and brass quintets at Symphony Center.
Admission to all three events is free.
Yo-Yo Ma returns
To say that cellist Yo-Yo Ma is iconic or legendary only glosses over his legacy in American music.
Nineteen Grammys in the categories of chamber, classical, folk, world music and classical crossover.
Seven honorary doctorate degrees from Harvard, Princeton, Oxford, Columbia, Dartmouth, Stony Brook University and Mount Holyoke College.
Nearly two dozen of the most prestigious prizes, from the Avery Fisher Prize to the Glenn Gould Prize, Kennedy Center Honor and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
His discography is dizzying — 120 albums and counting, including his latest, “Beethoven for Three: Symphony No. 4 and Op. 97 ‘Archduke,’” with pianist Emanuel Ax and violinist Leonidas Kavakos.
Ma joins the Tucson Symphony to perform Saint-Saëns’ Cello Concerto No. 1 on a program that includes the world premiere of Peter Boyer’s “Horizons,” co-commissioned by the TSO, and works by Bizet and Gounod.
Tickets to the May 9 concert, Ma’s third in Tucson since his first in 2009, sold out soon after going on sale last November.
‘Harry Potter’ live
Tucson Symphony Orchestra closes its 2023-24 season with “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” cineconcert on May 17-18.
The TSO closes its 2023-24 season with the family-friendly, hugely popular “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” In Concert.
While the movie streams on a giant screen above the stage, the orchestra will play the soundtrack live.
Cineconcerts are great gateways to non-symphony audiences, exposing them to the nuances of a live orchestra experience without the hangups some might feel about attending an orchestra concert.
The orchestra will perform the concert at 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 17, and 2 p.m. Saturday, May 18, at Centennial Hall, 1020 E. University, on the University of Arizona campus. Tickets are $54-$180 through the Centennial Hall box office, centhall.org or by calling 520-621-3341.
Keitaro Harada rehearses with the Tucson Symphony as guest conductor for “Ravel and Dvorak” on Nov. 10 and 12. It was his TSO Classic series debut.
