Classical music season looks promising despite financial woes

The Spokane Symphony informally launched the local classical music season with a Labor Day weekend performance at Liberty Lake – but not its traditional concert at Comstock Park, canceled for budget reasons.

Still, despite budget pressures affecting all arts organizations, area audiences can look forward to plenty of classical music this fall.

The symphony’s season officially starts with an all-Russian concert Sept. 25 and 26 at the Martin Woldson Theater at The Fox. Soloist Philippe Quint will perform Glazunov’s Violin Concerto in a program that will also feature works by Rimsky-Korsakov and Shostakovich.

Classics concerts next month include an all-orchestral program of Bach, Prokofiev and Stravinksy pieces (Oct. 9-10) and the return of pianist Vladimir Feltsman playing Brahms’ Concerto No. 2 (Oct. 23-24).

Budget cutbacks caused the replacement of guest cello soloist Ralph Kirshbaum with symphony clarinetist Chip Phillips on the Nov. 20-21 classics program, and the cancellation of a SuperPops concert with Frank Sinatra Jr.

But the remaining concerts in the SuperPops series are still in place, opening with a Big Band Salute to the 1940s (Nov. 13) followed by the Holiday Pops concerts (Dec. 11-12) led by Resident Conductor Morihiko Nakahara.

The orchestra’s Casual Classics series is built around the television crime drama “CSI.” The series opens with a concert of music by composers who died in unusual ways (Nov. 5).

Cartoons are the inspiration for a special concert, “Bugs Bunny at the Symphony” (Oct. 30-31), with vintage animation screened to live accompaniment by the orchestra.

Two other special events conclude the first half of the symphony season: four performances of Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker” with Ballet Memphis (Dec. 17-19) and a New Year’s Eve performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.