School of Music’s Season Features Renowned Guest Conductors Yan Pascal Tortelier, Carl Topilow and Paul Polivnick

Carnegie Mellon University School of Music’s 2015-2016 orchestra season will feature several internationally recognized guest conductors and soloists. The repertoire includes many standards and hallmarks from American composers.

Maestro Andrés Cárdenes is music director of Orchestral Studies for the School of Music.

Here are some highlights:

• The season begins at 8 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 16, with the Philharmonic’s concert at Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland under the direction of Maestro Andrés Cárdenes, music director of Orchestral Studies for the School of Music. Featuring music from Russia, the Philharmonic will perform “Russian Easter Overture Op. 36” by Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky’s “Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33,” which will feature undergraduate concerto competition-winning cellist Evan Kahn; and “The Rite of Spring” by Stravinsky.
  
  
• Led by guest conductor Paul Polivnick, the Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic will perform at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 18. This concert at Carnegie Music Hall will include Haydn’s “Symphony No. 95 in C Minor, Hop I:95,” Kraft’s “Vintage Renaissance” and Tchaikovsky’s “Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, Op. 64.”
  
  
• The combined forces of Carnegie Mellon’s Philharmonic and Chorus will perform a wide variety of festive music at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 9, at the Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland. This seasonal concert conducted by Andrés Cárdenes, Daniel Nesta Curtis, and Thomas W. Douglas will feature Poulenc’s “Gloria” and include music by Gershwin, Debussy, and Ravel. The concert will also feature the world premiere of a holiday choral and orchestral work by composer Mike Garson.
  
  
• The Philharmonic will return to Carnegie Music Hall at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 24. Under the direction of guest conductor Carl Topilow, they will perform Copland’s American classic “Appalachian Spring,” Cárdenes will be featured as a soloist on Chausson’s “Poème Op. 25” for violin and orchestra, and the concert will close with Elgar’s “Enigma Variations.”
  
  
• Internationally renowned conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier will lead the Philharmonic and Chorus at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 21, at Carnegie Music Hall. The evening will consist of Stravinksy’s “Symphony of Psalms” and Berlioz’s “Symphonie fantastique.”
  
  
• The Philharmonic returns to the Carnegie Music Hall at 8 p.m. Wednesday, March 2, for the Student Composers’ Concert featuring original works composed for orchestra by School of Music students.
  
  
• The Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic season finale will take place at 8 p.m., Thursday, April 28, at Carnegie Music Hall. Under the direction of Cárdenes, the Philharmonic will perform an all-German program featuring six Hungarian Dances by Brahms, Alban Berg’s “Violin Concerto” with last year’s concerto graduate competition winner Greta Mutlu on violin, and the season will end with Strauss’ tone poem “Ein Heldenleben, Op. 40.”

Find out complete details on the 2015-16 season.