Season announcement

Dallas Symphony rings in 2023-24 season with world premieres and epic musical events

Fabio Luisi, Dallas Symphony Orchestra music director

Fabio Luisi and the DSO will take on Wagner's "Ring Cycle" in 2024.

Photo by Barbara Luisi Photography

Time flies when you're having fun on the podium. The 2023-24 concert season will mark Fabio Luisi's fourth as music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Together, he and the orchestra have stacked the new season with five world premieres, 11 DSO first-timers, movies-in-concert, jazz and blues, holiday hits, and - oh yes - the teeny tiny commitment of a Wagner Ring Cycle.

“We are thrilled to share this upcoming season of programming with our subscribers and patrons,” says DSO president & CEO Kim Noltemy in a release. “These programs represent a stunning range of genres and combine beloved favorites, unique repertoire and bold new voices. We know that there is something for everyone, and we look forward to welcoming you to the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center.”

According to the release, the Texas Instruments Classical Series will see the return of some of the top artists working today, including Emanuel Ax, Eric Owens, Rudolf Buchbinder, Matthias Goerne, Karen Slack, Jan Lisiecki, Kelley O’Connor and Maxim Vengerov.

Other soloists will make their big DSO debuts, including Jeremy Denk (piano), Maximilian Hornung (cello), Alexi Kenney (violin), Isabel Leonard (soprano), Anthony McGill (clarinet), Golda Schultz (soprano), Inbal Segev (cello) and Tine Thing Helseth (trumpet).

Concerts to bookmark on the calendar include:

Saint-Saëns’s “Organ” Symphony, which will be performed with resident organist Bradley Hunter Welch and recorded on February 22-25, 2024.
For the Dallas Symphony Orchestra Gala on September 30, 2023, Luisi and the DSO will welcome guests Emanuel Ax, piano; Isabel Leonard, mezzo-soprano and the Dallas Symphony Children’s Chorus for an evening of Carmen, Chopin, and Ravel’s La Valse.
The DSO (along with solo singers, chorus, organ) will perform Franz Schmidt’s monumental oratorio The Book with Seven Seals on March 1-3, 2024.
The DSO will perform works by two Ukrainian women composers, Anna Korsun and Victoria Vita Polevá, under the direction of Ukrainian conductor Kirill Karabits, November 9-12, 2023.
Adolphus Hailstork’s JFK: The Last Speech is a DSO co-commission making its Dallas debut October 6-8, 2023, one month before the 60^th anniversary of the death of John F. Kennedy. The work features text from Kennedy’s speech at Amherst College in October 1963, which praises American poet Robert Frost, who had just passed away.

Ring Cycle
Luisi and the DSO will present an opera-in-concert version of Richard Wagner’s complete Der Ring des Nibelungen with internationally renowned singers. It will begin on May 1, 2024 with Das Rheingold and Die Walküre premiering on consecutive nights. The cycle will continue in the fall; Luisi and the DSO will perform Siegfried on October 5, 2024, and Götterdämmerung on October 8, 2024, followed by a week-long presentation of the full Ring cycle beginning on October 13, 2024.

“The Ring Cycle is one of the deepest and most complex musical works that has ever been written. It is all of humanity brought to the stage – family, love, sex, loss, consequences and the quest for power,” Luisi says. “Across the entirety of the story, with beautiful music and beautiful text guiding you, you are transformed at the end.”

Pops series
There will be nine pops concerts, three of which will be conducted by principal pops conductor Jeff Tyzik.

Pianist, vocalist and composer Ben Folds will make his long-awaited return with the DSO after canceling performances in fall 2021 due to the rate of COVID-19 infections in the city. He'll have a two-night stand, October 20 and 21, 2023.

Grammy Award-winning singer Lila Downs and singer-songwriter Amos Lee both will make their debuts with DSO, on September 15-16, 2023 and March 22, 2024, respectively.

Movie fans will be intrigued by award-winning film composer Danny Elfman joining the DSO on the stage for Danny Elfman’s Music from the Films of Tim Burton; and three films screened in the Meyerson with scores performed live by the DSO: Amadeus,Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban, and The Polar Express.

For more information on the new season, subscriptions, and tickets, visit the DSO website.

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Season Announcement

Kitchen Dog Theater unleashes immersive 2025 season in new Dallas space

Kitchen Dog Theater presents Safe at Home

Photo by Jordan Fraker

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Seven years after announcing it had purchased a building in the Design District, Kitchen Dog Theater is finally ready to move into its new home.

The third and final production of its 2025 season — the theater company's 34th — will take place all around the new "Doghouse." The other two productions will follow the immersive format at non-traditional performance spaces that was established last season.

With three fully produced events that each run the gambit from captivating and gutsy to heartfelt and hilarious, the monthly New Works Festival Staged Readings Series returns, as does the 23rd annual PUP Fest, nurturing high school talent from all over DFW.

First up is the area premiere of Will Eno's Wakey, Wakey, directed by KDT's artistic director Tina Parker and starring KDT co-artistic director Christopher Carlos.

"Is it now? I thought I had more time." These first words in Will Eno's play are spoken by Guy, a man who knows, like all of us on some level, that he is about to die. The play questions why we are here and the journeys that everyone takes to eventually get to the same place. Performances will take place at Expo Park, 840 Exposition Avenue, and run February 7-23, 2025.

Production No. 2 is full of mystery: The title and performance location will be announced soon and run in March/April 2025.

The Happiness Gymby Ken Weitzman closes out the season in August 2025 (exact dates TBA).

This regional premiere is a joyous, experiential event based on the science of well-being. Participants take part in a curated theatrical experience meant to boost their sense of happiness, joy, and feelings of connection. This one-of-a-kind project will be the soft opening to Kitchen Dog’s new theater and will take place all over the entire facility, giving patrons unparalleled access to KDT’s new home.

From March to July 2025, the 26th annual 2025 New Works Festival will showcase four-to-five staged readings of the newest and most exciting local and regional playwrights working in contemporary theater today. Each reading will feature some of DFW's most accomplished actors and directors and will take place at different venues across DFW.

For its 23rd annual event, PUP Fest will feature six staged readings of jury-selected plays written by DFW high school students, featuring student actors directed by area professional directors. PUP Fest is the culminating event of Dallas Playwriting Arts Collective (D-PAC), a partnership with Dallas ISD and Junior Players. Performance location is TBA, but the event will happen June 7, 2025.

For more information, visit kitchendogtheater.org or call 214-953-1055.

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