To open the season, Shao-Chia Lü has chosen three works that splendidly show off the orchestra he has guided over the past ten years. First comes a composition that millions of people around the world first came to know through Walt Disney’s animated feature film Fantasia, in which Mickey Mouse assumes the title role in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

French composer Paul Dukas wrote the music to this ancient fable, brilliantly utilizing the orchestra to evoke every detail of the storyline. Another early-twentieth-century Frenchman, Maurice Ravel, set the ancient Greek fable of Daphnis and Chloe as an hour-long ballet score that simply bursts with ravishing, evocative moments and ends with a veritable orgy of sound.

Camille Saint-Saëns’ Third Violin Concerto is one of the mainstays of the romantic violin repertory, music of great lyrical beauty as well as of pyrotechnical displays.