Kick off our season of American icons with music from New York, by New Yorkers! We’re featuring music by George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, and Aaron Copland, all New Yorkers who created some of the most quintessentially American music of the 20th century. From their apartments in The Big Apple, they captured the sounds not just of New York but the American West and beyond. And in a tribute to the world beyond New York, we will perform Kansas-based composer Alyssa Morris’s Tlapali, Tlahuilli, a dazzling orchestral re-telling of the Aztec myth depicting how the world received its color and light, featuring the principal woodwinds of the SSO.

Hop in the car for the great American road trip! We’ll hear music depicting the most iconic sights across the nation—from the Mighty Mississippi to the Grand Tetons and the Grand Canyon, we’ll cruise across Route 66 and beyond to hear both new and old pieces celebrating the great American landscape. And we’re very excited to bring Xavier Foley to Springfield for an unusual and truly exceptional treat—a jazzy, soul-inspired concerto for bass and orchestra!

Come get into the spirit of the holiday season with music from the most iconic Christmas movies that Hollywood has brought to the screen. We’ll play music from classics like the jazzy tunes from It’s Christmas Charlie Brown and Irving Berlin’s White Christmas to modern favorites like the Elf soundtrack and even a medley from Disney’s seasonal smash hit Frozen. And we’ll wrap it all up with our annual sing-a-long, one of our favorite holiday traditions here at the symphony.

We bring French composer Maurice Ravel and his contemporaries Claude Debussy and George Gershwin to life onstage in this comic and poignant theatrical concert created by Alice Wiley Pickett for actors, singers, and orchestra. We will enter the deeply emotional and intensely creative world of Ravel, who lived during the rich explosion of arts and sciences in Paris in the first part of the 20th century, and see the travails and triumphs of this iconoclastic artist in his rise to fame as one of France’s most important composers. Through Ravel’s own writings and the words of both his most beloved friends and his harshest critics, and through his revolutionary and wildly, beautifully inventive music, we will paint an impressionistic picture—at times whimsical and at other times tragic—of this enigmatic genius.

An American Hymn brings sacred music to our concert hall in an evening of religious works by great American composers that invite us to reflect on the sacred and holy. We will present American composer Leonard Bernstein’s moving setting of psalms in his choral masterwork Chichester Psalms. Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring features the delicate beauty of the Shaker hymn Simple Gifts as its central theme in a uniquely American sacred song, and contemporary American composer Jessie Montgomery’s Starburst gives us a sparkling fanfare reflecting the great cosmos to round out our evening of contemplative and spiritual song.

Czech composer Antonin Dvorak came to the United States to head the new National Conservatory of Music in New York and to discover “American Music.” He urged American composers to take inspiration from African American music, and his most popular symphony, From the New World, does just that. Taking inspiration from Dvorak’s call to put spirituals in the concert hall, we will perform Adolphus Hailstork’s 3 Spirituals for Orchestra, and we will also feature our Hellam Competition Winner.

What better way to celebrate American musical icons than a night of the best American standards made famous by the Great American Crooners? Join singing sensation Steve Lippia, who has mastered the songbook of America’s favorite classic singers—from Frank Sinatra to Bobby Darrin to Tony Bennet. Join us for an unforgettable night of the best of American crooners and the songs that they made famous.

We are excited to continue our collaboration between the Springfield Symphony and the Saint Louis Ballet under the artistic direction of Gen Horiuchi for a return performance of Tchaikovsky’s beloved Swan Lake. We are excited to feature this celebrated ballet company in Horiuchi’s gorgeous staging of this audience-favorite love story about Prince Siegfried and the beautiful Swan Queen.