ASU Orchestras announces 2022–23 season of imagination, inclusion, collaboration

The 2022–23 ASU Orchestras season shows what a contemporary symphony orchestra can include within its programming aesthetic, said Jeffery Meyer, director of orchestras and associate professor in the School of Music, Dance and Theatre.

“Our season is full of breadth, imagination, inclusion and collaboration with our guest artists,” Meyer said.

The ASU Orchestras include the Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia, Chamber Orchestra and Studio Orchestra.

Meyer said each season’s guest artists are chosen on a variety of levels, from highlighting the school’s music faculty to upcoming and well-known guest artists and composers.

Highlights of this season include an October collaboration with the Symphony Orchestra and ASU piano faculty Cathal Breslin performing the epic Rachmaninoff "Piano Concerto No. 2" and Stravinsky’s “The Rites of Spring.” Later in the month, the symphony will perform “The Rites of Spring” in a concert with composer and MacArthur “Genius” Fellow Vijay Iyer as soloist on his own piano piece called “Radhe Radhe.”

Meyer said that “Radhe Radhe,” which was called “a surprising burst of visual and aural color — a romantically wrapped love letter to a people and their traditions” by Downbeat Magazine, is a stunning companion for “The Rites of Spring” and features the interplay of live music and film documenting the Hindu ritual of Holi. Themes of rebirth and celebration, of love and life, emerge in both concerts commemorating "The Rites of Spring."

In November, the symphony will collaborate with the Sun Devil Marching Band, the ASU Gospel Choir and ASU Gammage in a show featuring Gus Farwell, the former ASU quarterback-turned-tenor who received international recognition for singing from the balcony of his home in Barcelona while the world battled a global pandemic.

Next is a collaboration between the ASU Symphony Orchestra and ASU Philharmonia performing works by Bernstein and Brahms and featuring two world premieres by emerging young composers.

Following is a concert with the Chamber Orchestra highlighting graduate student emerging artists Tzu-I Yang on bass and Leon Jin on bassoon and three DMA conducting students.

In spring, a Black History Month collaboration with the Chamber Orchestra and Associate Professor and composer Daniel Bernard Roumain’s DBR lab features music alumna and popular music faculty Yophi Adia Bost along with theater and dance students.

In the first large-scale collaboration with the Visiting String Quartet Residency Program, the symphony performs with this year’s resident artists Brooklyn Rider for a concert centered around musical selections exploring major issues facing a global, interconnected society on a warming planet. As featured soloists, Brooklyn Rider will perform a powerful piece called “Contested Eden,” about the recent and historic forest fires in California.

The season closes with the ASU Choirs and music voice faculty performing one of the masterpieces of Western art music, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, and a new commissioned piece, “Fate Now Conquers,” by composer Carlos Simon, which was written as a companion piece for the Beethoven symphony. Simon, past winner of the ASU Gammage and former ASU School of Music Composition Competition, is a frequent commissioned composer for previous concerts, including “Towards a More Perfect Union” and “Graffiti.”

The ASU Philharmonia’s eclectic concert season, conducted by music director Julie Desbordes, aims to expand its audience with its diverse and exciting repertoire. It opens with honoring the string sections of the orchestra and a collaboration with the Tempe High School String Ensemble, with pieces from classical standards to those inspired by folk and even heavy metal. Next is a collaboration between the Philharmonia and the ASU Symphony Orchestra followed by a collaboration with the ASU Maroon and Gold Band. The final concert features the Phoenix Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, 2021–22 ASU composition competition winner Deanna Rusnock and ASU piano faculty and Professor Andrew Campbell.

“This season, Philharmonia students and community members will grow a depth of knowledge about a wide range of repertoire and musical inspirations while celebrating teamwork and collaborative efforts,” Desbordes said.

“My goal with the orchestras is to always reach our fingers into as many different pools of repertoire and composers as possible and also keep reinvigorating the canonical works and put them in new contexts and new lights,” Meyer said.

2022–23 Orchestras Season

ASU Philharmonia
"Stringtastic!"
7 p.m., Sept. 30
Tempe High School

ASU Symphony Orchestra
Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 and Stravinsky’s "Rites of Spring"
3 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 2
Mesa Arts Center, Ikeda Theatre       
Tickets: $12 and $20. Purchase tickets.   

ASU Symphony Orchestra with Vijay Iyer
"Radhe Radhe" and Stravinsky’s "Rites of Spring"
7:30 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 15
ASU Gammage
Tickets $12. Purchase tickets.       

ASU Studio Orchestra
Mozart Symphony No. 40 and other masterworks
7:30 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 26
Katzin Concert Hall 
Free admission

Gridiron to ASU Gammage: A Musical Celebration of the Sun Devil Spirit featuring Gus Farwell
7:30 p.m., Friday, Nov. 4
ASU Gammage 
Free admission. Reserve tickets.

ASU Symphony Orchestra and ASU Philharmonia
"The Power of Youth"
7:30 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 10
ASU Gammage
Tickets: $12. Purchase tickets.

ASU Chamber Orchestra
Concerto Competition Prize Winners
7:30 p.m., Thursday, Dec. 1
ASU Gammage
Tickets $12. Purchase tickets.

ASU Symphony Orchestra
Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Boulanger
3 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 12
Yavapai College Performing Arts Center
7:30 p.m., Monday, Feb. 13
ASU Gammage. Purchase tickets.
Tickets $12 

ASU Maroon & Gold Band and Philharmonia
7:30 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 14
ASU Gammage
Tickets: $12. Purchase tickets.

ASU Chamber Orchestra Strings
"Reflections of Hope and Home” in collaboration with DBR Lab
7:30 p.m., Monday, Feb. 27
Organ Hall
Free admission

ASU Symphony Orchestra and Brooklyn Rider
7:30 p.m., Wednesday, April 5
ASU Gammage 
Tickets $12. Purchase tickets

ASU Studio Orchestra
Petrushka and Pagliacci
7:30 p.m., Thursday, April 20
Katzin Concert Hall
Free admission        

ASU Philharmonia: "Blossom"
7:30 p.m., Monday, April 24
ASU Gammage
Tickets: $12. Purchase tickets.

ASU Symphony Orchestra and ASU Choirs
Beethoven Symphony No. 9
7:30 p.m., Friday, April 28
ASU Gammage
Tickets: $12. Purchase tickets.

For ASU Gammage ticketed events, tickets are available for $12 at the ASU Gammage Box Office or can be purchased online at Ticketmaster (fees apply). All students with ASU, college or school ID receive one complimentary ticket and all HIDA faculty and staff receive two complimentary tickets. Complimentary tickets can be picked up at the box office prior to the event and during all normal business hours.

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