French favorites meet new wonders, led by guest conductor Sunny Xia! While all three French works were written within a decade in the late 19th century, only two—Debussy’s Petite Suite and Fauré’s Pélleas et Mélisande—entered the repertoire. It took more than another century for the music of Augusta Holmès to be discovered, including the lush La nuit et l’amour, an interlude from her larger work inspired by the work of French painter Puvis de Chavannes. Jessie Montgomery’s Starburst, commissioned by the Sphinx Organization for its Virtuosi, sparkles like the formation of the astronomical phenomenon itself.
Tan Dun’s Concerto for Guzheng and Strings features the TSO debut of local guzheng virtuoso Jing Xia, performing on the traditional Chinese plucked zither.
