The Colorado Symphony Orchestra will kick off its 2013-14 season with two big names Sept. 20: trumpeter Branford Marsalis and the ‘s own new star, conductor .
The season, announced Friday, will be the first that Litton has guided as the orchestra’s artistic adviser, and he has programmed it for variety, spreading his choice of composers across classical music’s standard time zones. All the big names have a place, though none in especially huge quantities: Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and Mahler.
Like the current season, the orchestra will present 16 of its main Masterworks concerts, each three times on Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons. Litton will be on the podium for six of them.
His concerts, though, are appealing: an entire night of Ravel beginning Nov. 22, Mahler’s Symphony No 7 on May 2, 2014, and his own arrangement of Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess,” which closes out the season on the weekend of May 16, 2014.
Other audience favorites are likely to be Ravel’s “La Valse,” with former music director conducting Jan. 17 and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 2, conducted by Rossen Milanov on Oct. 18.
One intriguing program: Music from the 2007 film “There Will Be Blood,” composed by Jonny Greenwood of the rock band , paired with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 on Feb. 28.
The Masterworks season is absent of premieres and low on stars. Some names: violinist Midori, pianists Natasha Paremski and Jan Lisiecki and cellist Paul Watkins.
Pianist/composer Stephen Hough comes to town March 28, 2014, to perform his “Missa Mirabilis” a piece he premiered with the Indianapolis Orchestra last year. That’s paired, interestingly, with Vaughan Williams “Dana Nobis Pacem” and the Colorado Symphony Chorus joins in.
Other popular performers will perform as part of the Spotlight Series, including violinists and Joshua Bell, and pop trumpeter Chris Botti. Orchestras tend to announce off-series collaborations with famous performers as the season progress; more will probably come.
The pops series has just a little more flash, with appearances from jazz singer , Broadway stars Brian Stokes Mitchell and Louise Pitre, cabaret darling Hilary Kole and pop veteran Sandy Patti, plus , who sang the good and bad witches of “Wicked” on the musical’s Denver stop.
The musicians will provide live accompaniment for a few film presentations, including “Fantasia” on May 10, 2014.
On a whole other note, the CSO is going deep into classic rock with three concerts at The Paramount Theatre downtown. With the traveling ensemble Jeans ‘n Classics, the musicians will play The Who’s “Tommy” Oct. 11, pay tribute to The Beatles Jan. 24, 2014, and spend “A Night at Woodstock” May 23, 2014.
Nearly everything else takes place at Boettcher Concert Hall in the Denver Performing Arts Complex.
Subscriptions come in multiple sizes. Some good news for CSO regulars: The orchestra is promising that “subscribers will receive greater savings on every concert in their subscription,” this season, plus a 20 percent discount on other concerts.
Single tickets will be available in August.
, or from the box office at 303-623-7876. The box office is in the lobby of Boettcher Concert Hall and open 10 a.m.- 6 p.m. Monday to Friday, noon- 6p.m. Saturday.
Ray Mark Rinaldi: 303-954-1540, rrinaldi@denverpost.com or twitter.com/rayrinaldi
