Lancaster Symphony Orchestra opens a big, bold season Friday and Saturday

The Lancaster Symphony Orchestra’s  new season features big, bold music, from Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana” to Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.”

Great composers will be featured throughout the season’s six concerts: Mozart, Beethoven, Saint Saens, Shostakovich and Haydn among them.

The season begins with Saint Saens’ third symphony, known as the  “thundering” organ symphony.

The concert will be held Friday and Saturday at First  Presbyterian Church, 140 E. Orange St., which has a magnificent Aeolian-Skinner organ.

Organist  Zachary Hemenway will perform. He spent 10 years at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Philadelphia’s Chestnut Hill neighborhood. He recently moved to Seattle, Washington, where he is  music director at  Episcopal Church of the Epiphany.

Also on the program are R. Strauss’s “Don Juan” and Haydn’s organ concerto in C Major.

On Nov. 10, the orchestra, under the direction of Steven Gunzenhauser, will join forces with the Lancaster Symphony Chorus, led by William Wright, to present the stirring and passionate “Carmina Burana.”

The concert, being held at 3 and 8 p.m. at McCaskey East High School, 1051 Lehigh Ave., also features Navarro’s “Paconchita Overture” and Harbison’s “Remembering Gatsby.”

The double bass takes center stage at the Fulton on Jan. 12.

Brent Edmondson will be the soloist for Koussevitzky’s Concerto for Double Bass, which is an example of lush Russian romanticism.

Also on the bill are Beethoven’s seventh symphony and Ravel’s  Introduction and Allegro for Harp, Flute, Clarinet and Strings.

March 2 is a big concert at the Fulton, featuring  two Wagner pieces, “Overture to Rienzi” and “Ride of the the Valkyries,” with Asiya Koreepanova on piano and  Luis Engelke on trumpet.

Also scheduled that night is Shostakovich’s  Concerto in C Minor for Piano, Trumpet and String Orchestra, and the annual Composer’s Award will be given out..

The Cultural Center at Willow Valley Communities, 900 Willow  Valley Lakes Drive, Willow Street,  will be the site of the the concert on April 5 and 6.

Pianist Yevgeny Yontov will  be the soloist for Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2, which he wrote when he was only 20.

Also on the bill are Mozart’s rousing overture to “Don Giovanni” and Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3, known as the Scottish Symphony because it was influenced by a trip Mendelssohn had taken to ancient ruins in Scotland .

Concert times are Friday at 8 p.m. and Saturday at 3 and 8 p.m.

The final concert of the season will be held  May 18 at the Winter Center  on the campus of Millersville University.

Two triumphant works will be performed.

Russell Peck’s “The Glory and the Grandeur!” features 110 percussion instruments, which will fill the stage. Shostakovich’s fifth symphony premiered in November 1937, after the composer had a run-in with Stalin.

To round out the concert is “Waltz,” from Masquerade Suite, by Khachaturian.

Several ticket options are available.

Single tickets are $25.50, $55.50 and $60.50.

Subscriptions are offered at $127.50, $277.50 and  $303.00. Call  717-291-4420 for information and to purchase your 2018-19 season subscription.