Music News

Dallas Symphony Orchestra unveils 2024-25 season with 3 world premieres

DSO has released its 2024-2025 season.

Photo courtesy of Dallas Symphony Orchestra

Dallas Symphony Orchestra will become the first U.S. orchestra in recent history to perform Wagner’s Complete Ring Cycle in concert, as part of its newly unveiled 2024-25 concert season. The season also includes three world premieres, two co-commissions, and 14 DSO premieres.

In a statement, President & CEO of the Dallas Symphony Kim Noltemy says they've "packed the season with well-loved classics, a fantastic lineup of guest artists and conductors, dynamic new works from composers never-before-heard in Dallas and so much more.”

The 2024/25 season marks the fifth for Music Director Fabio Luisi, who will lead the orchestra in 10 concerts as part of the Texas Instruments Classical Series.

Subscriptions are on sale February 23, and single tickets will be available later this spring.

World premieres

Continuing a tradition of championing contemporary composers, the DSO has commissioned and will present three world premieres this season:

February 6-9, 2025: Native American Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Raven Chacon on a new orchestral work
March 6-9, 2025: World premiere from DSO composer-in-residence Sophia Jani
April 17-19, 2025: World premiere from Sean Shepherd

April 10-12, 2025, the orchestra will present the US premiere of Andrew Norman’s Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra featuring celebrated trombonist Jörgen van Rijen.

November 1-3, 2024, will feature the Dallas premieres of Estonian composer Allison Kruusmaa’s Five Arabesques for Chamber Orchestra and Amy Beach’s Piano Concerto in a program highlighting female musicians leading into the DSO’s sixth annual Women in Classical Music Symposium

October 5, October 8, 2024: Following the DSO’s performances of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre in the spring of the 2023/24 season, the orchestra will present an opera-in-concert version of Wagner’s epic Der Ring des Nibelungen (the Ring cycle) in its entirety, becoming the first American orchestra in recent history to do so. Luisi and the DSO will perform Siegfried on October 5, 2024, and Götterdämmerung on October 8, 2024, followed by the week-long presentation of the full Ring cycle beginning on Sunday, October 13, 2024.

This enormous endeavor is the culmination of many years of planning by DSO artistic staff and leadership and features a massive orchestra of over 100 players and a cast of more than 30 vocalists on stage at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center. The star-studded cast list includes Lise Lindstrom (soprano, Brünnhilde), Sara Jakubiak (soprano, Sieglinde), Deniz Uzun (mezzo-soprano, Fricka), Daniel Johanssohn (tenor, Siegfried), Mark Delavan (bass-baritone, Wotan), and Tomas Tomasson (baritone, Alberich). The production will be led by staging director Alberto Triola, who also produced the DSO’s opera-in-concert performances of R. Strauss’ Salome in 2020 and Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin in 2022.

Featured artists and conductors

The DSO will welcome back in-demand performers including Jean-Yves Thibaudet (piano), Augustin Hadelich (violin), Jamie Barton (mezzo-soprano), Hélène Grimaud (piano) and Leonidas Kavakos (violin). Additionally, Anne-Marie McDermott, acclaimed pianist and Artistic Director of Bravo! Vail, which hosts the DSO in residency each summer, will perform Amy Beach’s Piano Concerto with the orchestra in November.

Artists who will grace the Meyerson stage for the first time include Francesca Dego (violin), Charles Yang (violin), Norman Garrett (baritone), Nelson Goerner (piano), Benjamin Grovesnor (piano), Sofia Fomina (soprano) and Catriona Morison (mezzo-soprano).

The 2024/25 season will also see the return of several celebrated conductors, including former DSO Music Director Jaap van Zweden, who will lead the orchestra in concerts featuring Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 (May 1 – 3, 2025), in his first appearances in Dallas since 2018.

Other notable returns to the podium include Juanjo Mena, Matthew Halls, and John Storgårds, along with Edward Gardner, Anu Tali, Markus Poschner, Mortiz Gnann, Giedrė Šlekytė, Aziz Shokhakimov, Jonathon Heyward and Ilan Volkov in their DSO debuts.

Additionally, the orchestra will perform the world premiere of Sean Shepherd’s Concerto for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet and Bassoon featuring DSO Principal Winds David Buck (Principal Flute, Joy & Ronald Mankoff Chair), Erin Hannigan, Gregory Raden (Principal Clarinet, Mr. & Mrs. C. Thomas May, Jr. Chair) and Ted Soluri (Principal Bassoon, Irene H. Wadel & Robert I. Atha, Jr. Chair), for which the DSO is the lead commissioner.

2024 Dallas Symphony Orchestra Gala

The DSO, led by Music Director Fabio Luisi, will welcome superstar pianist, Lang Lang in a one-night-only performance of Rachmaninoff’s expressively virtuosic Second Piano Concerto on Saturday, September 28, 2024. This once-a-season fundraising event will benefit the DSO’s education and outreach programs. The DSO will soon announce the 2025 gala chairs and leadership team, along with ticketing options for the full gala experience as well as the concert and after party.

Other Highlights

November 14-17, 2024: Bartók The Wooden Prince: Dallas audiences will hear the Hungarian composer’s massive, bombastic ballet score for the first time.

April 3-6, 2025: Sibelius Symphony No. 3: Finnish conductor and violinist John Storgårds returns to the Meyerson stage as both performer and conductor in a unique program. Storgårds will perform the solo violin part from the podium in the DSO premiere of jazz composer Keith Jarrett’s Elegy for Violin and String Orchestra. He will also lead the orchestra in Henriette Renié’s Concerto for Harp and Orchestra (DSO debut) with soloist Emily Levin and Sibelius’ Third Symphony.Mahler Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection:”

May 30-June 2, 2025: Fabio Luisi leads the DSO and Dallas Symphony Chorus in performances of Mahler’s transcendent Second Symphony, which holds special significance for Dallas symphony-goers as the first subscription concert ever performed at the newly opened Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in 1989 under former Music Director Eduardo Mata.

Cherished Classics

Popular symphonic works spanning the entire season include:

Elgar’s Enigma Variations (November 1 – 3, 2024)
Mozart Symphony No. 41, “Jupiter” (November 22 – 24, 2024)
Dvořák Symphony No. 9, “From the New World” (November 29 – December 1, 2024)
Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique (January 23 – 26, 2025)
Beethoven Symphonies No. 5 (February 6 – 9, 2025)
Beethoven Symphones No. 3, “Eroica” (May 22 – 24, 2025)
Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring (April 10 -12, 2025)
Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3, “Scottish” (April 17 – 19, 2025)

Recordings

The DSO will record several performances this season for future commercial release on its in-house label DSO Live, including Brahms Symphony No. 4, the final installment in the orchestra’s initiative with Fabio Luisi to record all four of the Romantic composer’s symphonies. The orchestra will also record Sophia Jani’s new work, Arlene Sierra’s Kiskadee and Julia Perry’s Stabat Mater.

Pops Series

Principal Pops Conductor Jeff Tyzik will lead the DSO in three concerts within the Pops Series Presented by Capital One.

September 20-22, 2024: Twist and Shout: The Music of The Beatles
February 21-23, 2025: Let's Groove Tonight: Motown & the Philly Sound
May 9-11, 2025: A Night of Latin Music,featuring an all-star lineup of artists including Grammy Award-winning Argentine bandoneón player Héctor Del Curto, singer/songwriter/guitarist Edna Vázquez and Argentine master dancers Celina Rotundo and Hugo Patyn.

November 8-10, 2024: Chart-topping piano artist Lara Downes joins the DSO to perform A Lovesome Thing: Billy Strayhorn Suite, a work co-commissioned by the DSO and premiered by her in 2022 with the Boston Pops.

Movies-in-concert

August 29-September 1, 2024: Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire
December 20-22, 2024: Holiday classic Elf
April 25-27, 2025: The Princess Bride

Supported, in part, by funds from the Office of Arts & Culture, City of Dallas, Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents more than 150 orchestra concerts annually at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, and also offers more than 200 concerts in neighborhoods throughout Dallas.

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Theater Critic Picks

Here are the 12 must-see shows in Dallas-Fort Worth theater for November

Undermain Theatre presents Exit the King

Photo by Paul Semrad

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Grocery and department stores might want us to believe it's already the holidays, but at least local theater companies are (mostly) holding off until around Thanksgiving.

November starts with absurdism, moves along to a movie-turned-Broadway musical, and even throws a creepy thriller in the mix before it's time for Grinches, Scrooges, and Charlie Brown's sad Christmas tree.

In order of start date, here are 12 local shows to watch this month:

Exit the King
Undermain Theatre, through November 24
Eugène Ionesco’s absurdist comedy is set in the crumbling throne room of the palace in an unnamed country, where King Berenger the First has only the duration of the play to live. Once, it seemed he ruled over an immense empire and commanded great armies; now his kingdom has shrunk to the confines of his garden wall. Refusing to accept his end, he is attended by his present and former Queens, who must help him face the final inevitable truth of life.

Patti & Theo
Ochre House Theatre, November 2-23
The dark comedy with music that's written and directed by artistic director Matthew Posey returns. Patti and Theo are struggling artists in Brooklyn, New York. They are big boozers, and time will tell if the Drinking Religion outlives them. Song, music, and shadow play highlight this story of two lovers who hold each other passionately at arm’s length.

Mrs. Doubtfire
Broadway at the Bass, November 5-10
Everyone’s favorite Scottish nanny comes to Fort Worth in the musical based on the beloved film, which tells the hysterical and heartfelt story of an out-of-work actor who will do anything for his kids.

The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe
WaterTower Theatre, November 6-17
Jane Wagner’s ever-timely one-woman show examines American society, art, and human connectivity, and explores the feminist movement. As one actor transforms into a series of other archetypal characters, they become the play’s guiding conscience for the audience. Under the guidance of the narrator, a role originated by Lily Tomlin, the audience is treated to a mischievously clever observer of the society around her.

A Tuna Christmas
Casa Mañana, November 9-17
It's 24 hours before Christmas and all comic hell is about to break loose. Tuna’s delightfully eccentric characters attempt to cope with seasonal traumas, like a disaster-prone production of A Christmas Carol and a yard-decorating contest that’s being sabotaged by a mysterious Christmas phantom.

Sleuth
Theatre Three, November 14-December 15
A cunning mystery writer, Andrew Wyke, invites his wife's lover, Milo Tindle, to his secluded English manor, setting off a deadly game of manipulation and deceit. As the tension rises, surprising twists keep the audience guessing the dramatic end. Presented in the Theatre Too space.

Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical
Performing Arts Fort Worth, November 19-24
Max the Dog narrates as the mean and scheming Grinch, whose heart is "two sizes too small," decides to steal Christmas away from the holiday-loving Whos.

A Charlie Brown Christmas
Dallas Children's Theater, November 23-December 22
Discover the meaning of Christmas — or experience the nostalgia of childhood — while sharing laughs with the Peanuts Gang along the way. As a live combo fills hearts with music, merriment, and warmth, the story based on the Charles Schulz classic special is here just in time for the holidays.

Forever Plaid: Plaid Tidings
Lyric Stage, November 29-December 22
The holiday classic by Stewart Ross opens Lyric Stage's 31st season. At first, Francis, Jinx, Smudge, and Sparky aren't sure why they've returned to Earth for another posthumous performance, but a phone call from the heavenly Rosemary Clooney lets them know that they're needed to put a little harmony into a discordant world.

The Play That Goes Wrong
Stage West, November 29-December 22
At opening night of The Murder at Haversham Manor, things are quickly going from bad to horrible. With an unconscious leading lady, a corpse that can’t play dead, and actors who trip over everything (including their lines), the whole evening is a disastrous smash.

A Christmas Carol
Dallas Theater Center, November 29-December 28
Three spirits have come to visit the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge and take him on a fantastic journey through Christmases past, present, and future. Brimming with joyful songs, magical spirits, and holiday cheer, this holiday classic embodies a story of joy, redemption, and the spirit of Christmas.

Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812
Theatre Three, November 29-December 29
The vibrant musical spectacle set in 19th-century Russia, and based on a 70-page segment of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, lets romance and intrigue unfold amid glittering ballrooms and tumultuous relationships. Its score features a unique blend of electro-pop and Russian folk-inspired music.

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