Des Moines Symphony News

Program Notes: Jacques Offenbach Music from Gaite Parisienne 04/17/2023 In Symphony News

The frivolity and tunefulness of the Parisian music hall of Jacques Offenbach is revived in Manuel Rosenthal’s arrangement of his music for the 1938 ballet Gaîté Parisienne.

Read More
Discover the World of Music during our 2023-2024 Season! 04/16/2023 In Symphony News

Discover the World of Music during the Symphony's 2023-2024 season! Subscribers at all price levels receive the absolute best discounts available. Lock in your favorite seats for the Masterworks Series, the Pops Series...or both! Click here to learn more.

Read More
Program Notes: Lili Boulanger D’un matin de printemps 04/14/2023 In Symphony News

D’un Matin de Printemps of the short-lived Lili Boulanger, gifted younger sister of legendary composition teacher Nadia, is imbued with the aura and sonorities of French Impressionism.

Read More
Program Notes: Camille Saint-Saens Cello Concert No. 1 04/10/2023 In Symphony News

Camille Saint-Saëns’ Cello Concerto No. 1 is among his compositions that adapt the traditional Classical genres of symphony, concerto and quartet to the sensibilities of Second Empire Paris.

Read More
Program Notes: Berlioz's Roman Carnival Overture, Op. 9 04/06/2023 In Symphony News

Hector Berlioz was a pioneer in developing the orchestra of the late 18th century into the virtuoso ensemble of the Romantic age in such works as the glittering Roman Carnival Overture.

Read More
Program Notes: Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 74, “Pathétique” 03/06/2023 In Symphony News

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky conducted the premiere of his “Pathétique” Symphony in St. Petersburg on October 28, 1893, just a week before he died. Despite that chronology and the tragic nature of much of the Symphony, Tchaikovsky did not anticipate his own death in this music, but meant it to mirror the residual melancholy of his later years.

Read More
Des Moines Symphony Youth Concerts impact nearly 5,000 school children 03/06/2023 In Symphony News

A core part of our mission is to "create outstanding educational opportunities." Each spring, we invite fourth graders from all over Central Iowa to hear the Orchestra perform at the Civic Center in four special performances over the course of two days.

Read More
Program Notes: Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 26 03/03/2023 In Symphony News

Max Bruch was among the most respected German composers, conductors and teachers of his generation, and it was the masterful G Minor Violin Concerto of 1866 that established his reputation. “It is not easy to write as beautifully as Max Bruch,” assessed English musicologist Sir Donald Tovey.

Read More
Inaugural Fred & Charlotte Hubbell Visiting Artist In Residence program Impacts Students 02/09/2023 In Symphony News

The Des Moines Symphony's inaugural Fred & Charlotte Hubbell Visiting Artist in Residence Program took place in early February 2023. This new initiative aims to bring outstanding national and international musicians to Des Moines to work directly with area students year after year.

Read More
Program Notes: Tchaikovksy's Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35 01/27/2023 In Symphony News

Though the Violin Concerto of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky is today one of the most frequently performed in the orchestral repertory, it took the composer three years to find a soloist willing to play it. Neither the orchestra or the audience cared much for the piece when it was finally premiered in Vienna in December 1881, but Adolf Brodsky, the soloist at that performance, continued to champion it until other violinists came to recognize that a new masterwork had been added to their repertory.

Read More

Meet The Maestro

Support The Symphony

Des Moines Symphony News

Meet The Maestro

Support The Symphony

Your support of music in our community is more important now than ever!