Thomas Søndergård Conducts Two Weeks of Concerts Featuring Rising Star Violinist Randall Goosby and Mozart’s Epic Requiem

November 14-15 concerts feature Sphinx Concerto Competition winner Randall Goosby in the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, plus Søndergård leading Unsuk Chin’s Frontispiece and an orchestration of Brahms’ Piano Quartet No. 1

Søndergård also conducts a “Symphony in 60” program featuring Brahms, November 16

November 22-23 concerts showcase a trio of reflective works: Messiaen’s Les Offrandes Oubliées, Ortiz’s Tzam and Mozart’s Requiem with the Minnesota Chorale

Minnesota Orchestra Music Director Thomas Søndergård returns to the Orchestra Hall podium for two November concert weeks spotlighting new talent, new music and tour de force works by Brahms and Mozart.

The first concert week introduces Randall Goosby—described by The Strad as “a violinist whose star is very much in the ascendant”—in Felix Mendelssohn’s lyrical Violin Concerto, while Søndergård also leads a kaleidoscopic time lapse of music history in Unsuk Chin’s Frontispiece and a vivid orchestration of Johannes Brahms’ Piano Quartet No. 1 by Arnold Schoenberg. Performed at Orchestra Hall, the concerts will be on Thursday, November 14, at 11 a.m. and Friday, November 15, at 8 p.m. On Saturday, November 16, at 7 p.m., Søndergård leads a one-hour Symphony in 60 concert that features the Brahms work, followed by an onstage reception with musicians. 

In the second concert week, Søndergård conducts works exploring loss and our common humanity, including Olivier Messiaen’s Les Offrandes Oubliées, Gabriela Ortiz’s Tzam and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Requiem. Mozart’s magnificent, unfinished choral epic—his last work—will feature soprano Andrea Carroll, mezzo Taylor Raven, tenor Jack Swanson, bass-baritone Dashon Burton and the Minnesota Chorale. Performed at Orchestra Hall, the concerts will be on Friday, November 22, at 8 p.m., and Saturday, November 23, at 7 p.m.

Søndergård Conducts Mendelssohn and Brahms with Randall Goosby (November 14-15, 2024)

Randall Goosby began violin lessons at 7, and a spark was lit. When he was in his early teens, he flew to New York every month with his mother so he could take lessons at the Juilliard School with Itzhak Perlman. (“Perlman was always there to say, ‘You’ve got to play in tune, but it’s not all about that.’ It’s about how you hear the harmonies and how they affect you, what they make you feel.”) At age 13, he became the youngest ever winner of the prestigious concerto competition sponsored by the Sphinx Organization, the nonprofit that encourages Black and Latin participation in classical music. In 2020, he was signed to a multi-record deal by Decca Records, with his debut recording, Roots, exploring the evolution of African-American music from spirituals to present-day compositions. His most recent release features the violin concertos of Max Bruch and Florence Price with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Making his Minnesota Orchestra debut with the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, Goosby taps into lessons from his mentor Perlman to find the emotional heart of the work. The Mendelssohn has “moments of joy and exuberance and also deeply felt melancholy-nostalgic, complicated emotions,” he said in a recent interview. “I never want to play it twice the same way. I can be influenced by what I’m feeling in the moment. Maybe a particular note in a particular phrase will stand out in the string section, and I can switch it up and be spontaneous with it.”

Søndergård opens the concert with a work by South Korean composer Unsuk Chin that premiered in 2019. Inspired to “present a time lapse of the history of music,” Chin condenses musical allusions from the Baroque to avant-garde into a propulsive eight-minute work called Frontispiece. When composer Arnold Schoenberg was approached in the 1930s to orchestrate a Brahms chamber piece for full orchestra, he chose the G-minor Piano Quartet and vowed “to remain strictly in the style of Brahms.” The resulting work—the Quartet No. 1 in G minor for Piano and Strings—retains Brahms’ trademark lush melodies while harnessing the power of the full orchestra.

Symphony in 60: Romantic Brahms (November 16) 

“Symphony in 60” concerts present an hour of music bookended by social events, including a pre-concert $6 Happy Hour and a post-concert reception onstage with musicians. This concert marks the first Symphony in 60 concert Thomas Søndergård has conducted since becoming music director; he’ll lead the Schoenberg orchestration of the Brahms Piano Quartet No. 1.

Søndergård Conducts Mozart’s Requiem (November 22-23, 2024)

The story of Mozart’s Requiem is among the more foreboding in Western classical music. Mozart received a lucrative commission in the summer of 1791 to write a Requiem and in the fall turned his attention to the project. He fell sick in November as he was feverishly working on the funeral mass, with a Salzberg newspaper reporting him as saying, “I fear that I am writing a Requiem for myself.” On the afternoon of December 4th he gathered a choir of friends around his sickbed to sing the movements he had just completed. The next day, he died at age 35. Though unfinished, the Requiem is a work of overwhelming power, its dramatic and deeply personal music still resonating with audiences today. Søndergård will lead the Minnesota Orchestra’s first performances of the Requiem in 23 years; he will conduct an edition completed by musicologist and Mozart expert Robert Levin, who based his 1991 completion on previously unknown sketches for the Requiem that were discovered in a collection of Mozart’s papers in the 1960s.

Opening the program are two additional works that grapple with themes of loss and redemption. 20th century French composer Olivier Messiaen, a devout Catholic, wrote Les Offrandes Oubliées (The Forgotten Offerings) in 1930, inspired by a vision of Jesus on the cross. Mexico City native Gabriela Ortiz, who serves as Carnegie Hall’s composer in residence this season, wrote Tzam in 2021, commemorating the death of her father and two close musical mentors. Ortiz begins and ends the work with a fanfare, in order to emphasize that “everything is a cycle—from life there is death, and from death there is life.”   

About Thomas Søndergård

Danish conductor Thomas Søndergård began his tenure as the 11th music director of the Minnesota Orchestra in the 2023-24 season. A highly regarded conductor in both the orchestral and opera spheres, he has earned a reputation for incisive interpretations of works by composers from his native Denmark, a great versatility in a broad range of standard and modern repertoire, and a collaborative approach with the musicians he leads. Since 2018 Søndergård has been music director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and prior to that post he served as principal conductor and musical advisor to the Norwegian Radio Orchestra and then as principal conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. His upcoming season engagements include leading the Aarhus Symphony (works by Grieg and Nielsen) and the Deutsche Oper Berlin (Strauss’ Elektra). In Minneapolis, he next conducts a two-week Nordic Soundscapes festival in January. More: minnesotaorchestra.org.

About the Minnesota Orchestra

Founded in 1903, the Grammy Award-winning Minnesota Orchestra is known for acclaimed performances in its home state and around the world; award-winning educational programs; and a commitment to building the orchestral repertoire of tomorrow, all based on the belief that music is for everyone. Each year, Minnesota Orchestra concerts and recordings are seen and heard by more than three million people via television, radio, digital streaming, and on-demand platforms. Led by Music Director Thomas Søndergård, the Orchestra makes its home in the heart of downtown Minneapolis at Orchestra Hall, a venue renowned for its brilliant acoustics and modern design.

Minnesota Orchestra Classical Concerts
SØNDERGÅRD CONDUCTS MENDELSSOHN AND BRAHMS 

Thursday, November 14, 2024, 11 a.m. / Orchestra Hall
Friday, November 15, 2024, 8 p.m. / Orchestra Hall 

Minnesota Orchestra
Thomas Søndergård, conductor
Randall Goosby, violin 

CHIN                                              Frontispiece
MENDELSSOHN                        Violin Concerto
BRAHMS/Schoenberg              Piano Quartet No. 1 (orchestration) 

Tickets: $15-$111 (Free tickets available for young listeners age 6-18 with Hall Pass).

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Symphony in 60
ROMANTIC BRAHMS

Saturday, November 16, 2024, 7 p.m. / Orchestra Hall 

Minnesota Orchestra
Thomas Søndergård, conductor 

BRAHMS/Schoenberg              Piano Quartet No. 1 (orchestration) 

Tickets: $15-$48 (Free tickets available for young listeners age 6-18 with Hall Pass).

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Minnesota Orchestra Classical Concerts
SØNDERGÅRD CONDUCTS MOZART’S REQUIEM 

Friday, November 22, 2024, 8 p.m. / Orchestra Hall
Saturday, November 23, 2024, 7 p.m. / Orchestra Hall 

Minnesota Orchestra
Thomas Søndergård, conductor
Andrea Carroll, soprano
Taylor Raven, mezzo
Jack Swanson, tenor
Dashon Burton, bass-baritone
Minnesota Chorale, Kathy Saltzman Romey, artistic director

MESSIAEN                   Les Offrandes Oubliées (The Forgotten Offerings)
ORTIZ                              Tzam
MOZART/Levin            Requiem             

Tickets: $15-$121

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TICKET PURCHASING INFORMATION

Tickets and subscription packages can be purchased now at minnesotaorchestra.org or by calling 612-371-5656. For groups of 10 or more, call 612-371-5662.

The 2024-2025 Classical Season is presented by Ameriprise Financial.

The Hall Pass program makes free tickets available for young listeners ages 6 to18 for select Classical and Symphony in 60 concerts, and all kids under 18 for Family concerts. The program is sponsored by Cynthia and Jay Ihlenfeld.

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

The November 14-15 concerts are generously sponsored by Abigail Rose and Michael J. Blum.

All programs, artists, dates, times and prices subject to change.

PRESS CONTACTS 

Gwen Pappas, Vice President of Communications and Public Relations
gpappas@mnorch.org

Alexandra Robinson, Content and Communications Manager
arobinson@mnorch.org