• Ticket Price
    $15-70
    Students Half Price
  • Duration
    2hrs 10min
    One intermission
April in Paris

April in Paris

Franco-Belgian sensation Camille Thomas joins the Des Moines Symphony for a sparkling evocation of the City of Lights.

Franco-Belgian sensation Camille Thomas, the first cellist signed in 40 years by the prestigious Deutsche Grammophon label, joins the Des Moines Symphony direct from the City of Lights for an all-French program. You’ll hear Berlioz’s bright and dashing Roman Carnival Overture, then experience Saint-Saëns’s Cello Concerto No. 1 played with brilliance and passion by Ms. Thomas. French composer Lili Boulanger was born in 1893 and wrote more than 50 compositions; the playful D’un matin de printemps (‘On a Spring Morning’) was her final piece, written a year before her death at the age of 24. This symphonic celebration of springtime in Paris concludes with the colorful can-can from Offenbach’s Gaite Parisienne.

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Guest Artist Sponsor

Program

  • BERLIOZ Roman Carnival Overture Listen
  • SAINT-SAENS Cello Concerto No. 1 Listen
  • L. BOULANGER D’un matin de printemps (On a Spring Morning) Listen
  • OFFENBACH/Arr. Rosenthal Music from Gaite Parisienne Listen

Performers

  • Joseph Giunta Conductor Bio
  • Camille Thomas Cello Bio

Tickets

Single tickets are $15-$70 and are available through Des Moines Performing Arts. Ticket prices are subject to a $5 increase on the day of the concert, excluding student rush tickets.

Student tickets are $7.50-$35 and are available through the Civic Center Ticket Office. Student rush tickets, subject to availability, are $5 for junior high and high school students and $10 for all other students the day of the concert through the Civic Center Ticket Office. One ticket sold per valid Student ID.

Learn More

Join us 45 minutes before the concert in the Prairie Meadows (East) Lobby for a free Concert Prelude Talk. Led by Dr. Eric McIntyre of Grinnell College, these discussions are complimentary to ticket holders and offer engaging and topical commentary on the featured program. 

Joseph Giunta

Joseph Giunta Conductor

One of America’s most distinguished, versatile and dynamic conductors, Joseph Giunta is a musician of international acclaim. He is recognized as an important American conductor for his innovative programming and for his compelling interpretations of traditional and new music. His musical depth combined with his boundless energy and contagious enthusiasm makes him one of the most respected and successful orchestra leaders in the United States.

Learn More About Maestro Giunta

Camille Thomas

Camille Thomas Cello

Optimism, vitality and joyful exuberance are elements of Camille Thomas’s rich and compelling personality. The young Franco-Belgian cellist, who signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon in April 2017, understands art’s power to bring people together, to unite individuals from diverse cultures, countries and backgrounds. Her charismatic artistry is driven by a passion for life and a desire to inspire others to open their hearts to the wonder and emotion of classical music. “I strongly believe that music has the power to enlarge the heart, to make you feel everything with more intensity,” she says. “Music gives hope for the beauty and greatness of the human soul.”

Voice of Hope, her second DG album, was set for international release on June 6, 2020. At its heart is the world premiere recording of Fazil Say’s Concerto for Cello and Orchestra ‘Never Give Up’, the composer’s response to terrorist attacks on Paris and Istanbul, written expressly for Thomas, who gave its world premiere performance in Paris in April 2018. It is the first classical album recorded in partnership with UNICEF, reflecting the cellist’s desire to help others through her music.

Camille Thomas was born in 1988 in Paris. She began playing cello at the age of four and made such rapid progress that she was soon taking lessons with Marcel Bardon. She moved to Berlin in 2006 to study with Stephan Forck and Frans Helmerson at the Hanns Eisler Hochschule für Musik, and continued her training in the form of postgraduate lessons with Wolfgang-Emanuel Schmidt at the Franz Liszt Hochschule für Musik in Weimar.

Camille is conquering the world stage at a staggering pace. She has already worked with such conductors as Paavo Järvi, Mikko Franck, Marc Soustrot, Darrell Ang, Kent Nagano, Stéphane Denève and with orchestras such as the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Academia Santa Cecilia, the Sinfonia Varsovia, Staatsorchester Hamburg in the Elbphilharmonie, the Lucerne Festival Strings in the Herkulessaal in Munich, the Orchestre National de Bordeaux, and Brussels Philharmonic.

Camille Thomas plays the famous ‘Feuermann’ Stradivarius 1730 as a loan from the Nippon Music Foundation.