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Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the Ode to Joy, is an ecstatic tribute to the great loves surrounding us, both on earth and in Heaven. Family love, the love found in the brotherhood of man, and a loving Father above us are celebrated in the beautiful and emotional text of this symphony which has become an anthem used around the world in commemorations, anniversaries, and remembrances. We are thrilled to bring the UMKC choral program and the Topeka Festival Singers to perform with us in this monumental work.

Beethoven — Symphony No. 9

With the UMKC Conservatory Choirs
and Topeka Festival Singers

Jennifer Forni, Soprano
Kristee Haney, Mezzo-Soprano
Jared Rogers, Tenor
Richard Todd Payne, Baritone

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This concert explores nostalgia and grief over lost loved ones in Jennifer Higdon’s beautiful elegy to her late brother, and the melancholy memory of being in love, always present in the music of Johannes Brahms. We also welcome back superstar violinist Rachel Lee Priday for Barber’s romantic Violin Concerto

Higdon — Blue Cathedral 

Barber — Violin Concerto
With Rachel Lee Priday, Violin

Brahms — Symphony No. 4

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Capitol Federal^®
Holiday Concert

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In Love at Christmas.

Whether it’s being with your loved ones at home for the holidays, or taking your special someone for a walk in a winter wonderland, the Christmas season is brimming with love.

We’ll be playing everyone’s favorite holiday tunes that capture the spirit of love and romance of Christmastime.

Holiday Favorites
With UMKC Conservatory Choirs

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The Topeka Symphony is delighted to offer Chen Yi’s beautiful Romance and Dance, featuring our Concertmaster Zsolt Eder and Assistant Concertmaster Kenya Patzer. We will also present our Young Artist Competition Winner, and we’ll play Sibelius’s Second Symphony, which Sibelius described as “a confession of the soul.” The symphony is grandiose, profound, and ecstatic, and its love themes range from love of country to a meditation on Don Juan, the notorious Italian lover.

Chen Yi — Romance and Dance

Young Artist Competition Winner

Sibelius — Symphony No. 2

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Sometimes love is complicated. There is the kind of love that only a Norse God could fathom—a love so deep (and possibly misguided) that it drives a father to put his Walkyrie daughter in a time-out circle made of fire until a hero comes to rescue her with his love, which we’ll hear in Wotan’s Farewell from Die Walkyrie. And there is the love that strikes when a young messenger, tasked with delivering a silver rose as a signal of intended courtship from the local baron to a beautiful young lady, instead falls in love with her himself, but first he has to disentangle himself from the older woman he’s been having an affair with, as in Der Rosenkavalier. And the affairs and intrigues are almost too complicated to recount in The School for Scandal, but the local gossips certainly try to keep up with it all.

Barber — School for Scandal Overture

Wagner — Wotan’s Farewell and Magic Fire Music 
With Ben Wager, Bass-Baritone

Puccini — Manon Lescaut: Intermezzo from Act. III 

Strauss — Rosenkavalier Suite

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The marriage of composer Robert Schumann and pianist Clara Schumann was filled with musical innovation and intellectual engagement, but it was also marked by tragedy. The arrival of young rising star Johannes Brahms brought joy to their household, and the deep bond that developed between Clara and Johannes has long been the subject of question and conjecture. The Topeka Symphony will present a unique evening of symphonic, chamber, and solo works by both Schumanns and Brahms, while actors illuminate the human story behind these towering figures of western music.

Music and words by
Clara and Robert Schumann
and Brahms

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We are thrilled to present Rogers and Hammerstein’s classic American musical Oklahoma! in conjunction with Topeka Civic Theatre. In this inventive concert performance of the full show, the music and story take center stage as the Topeka Symphony performs the rich orchestral score while actors and singers bring to life the words, songs, and history of one of Broadway’s most beloved musicals about love and romance on the Great Plains

Rodgers and Hammerstein — Oklahoma! in Concert
Collaboration with Topeka Civic Theatre

Performance at the
Topeka Performing Arts Center

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