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.

DSO concerts symphony

Theater News

Dallas' Second Thought Theatre gets collaborative for 2026 season

Amphibian Stage presents Bull in a China Shop

Photo by Evan Michael Woods

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The 2026 season for Second Thought Theatre in Dallas will be relatively small - only three productions are scheduled - but it will be full of collaborations designed to build on relationships with theater companies from across Dallas-Fort Worth.

Second Thought will open their season with a production that just started at Amphibian Stage in Fort Worth, Bull in a China Shop by Bryna Turner.

Inspired by the real letters between Mary Woolley and Jeannette Marks spanning from 1899 to 1937, the story asks: what is revolution? What does it mean to be at odds with the world? How do we fulfill our potential? And how the hell do we grow old together? It’s a sharp, joyful play about chosen family and the way love becomes action.

The production, running at Amphibian Stage through March 1, will regroup for a month before starting its run at Second Thought, April 1-18.

“All of us at Second Thought have been fans of Amphibian Stage for years,” said Artistic Director Carson McCain in a statement. “Not only does our content align in mission and quality, but we align in the values of hospitality and artistry. Bull in a China Shop celebrates the queer joy that holds hands with the fight for the equality of women and the LGBTQ community.”

The second scheduled show, running September 16-October 3, will be Dance Nation by Clare Barron, on which Second Thought will collaborate with The University of Texas at Arlington.

A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2019, the play follows an adolescent dance troupe somewhere in middle America which is fighting for what will be the most important achievement of their entire lives - a national dance title.

A coming-of-age story centered around perfectionism, performance, and perception of self, the play is for anyone who’s wondered if they would have excelled on Dance Moms or buckled under the pressure to be on top of the pyramid.

The third and final show of season has not yet been announced, but it will involve a collaboration between Second Thought Theatre and Dallas’ Watering Hole Collective. It will run December 2-19.

The two companies say they have a shared belief in Dallas artists and Dallas audiences - and what’s possible when they build together.

“Both of our companies aren’t afraid of taking creative risks," said Co-Executive Directors Laura Salvie and Jenny Dang in a statement. "This collaboration is about pushing each other artistically and creating theatre that invites audiences in; not just to watch, but to think and feel together.”

In addition to the three productions, Second Thought is continuing their writers-in-development program, Thought Process. Celebrating its third year, it will welcome eight new playwrights, who will work together throughout the year to create innovative new works.

Season tickets, which are $75 for all three shows, are available online now at secondthoughttheatre.com. Individual tickets will go on sale at a later date.

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