Music Director Robert Lehmann will conduct works by Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, and Hindemith as the North Shore Philharmonic Orchestra begins its 76th season on Sunday, Nov. 17, at Swampscott High School auditorium.
Tickets are available at the door or can be purchased in advance at nspo.org for $30, or $25 for seniors and students. Children 12 and under are admitted free.
Lehmann is looking forward to the program, which features Felix Mendelssohn’s Reformation Symphony, Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme with Boston Symphony Orchestra cellist Mickey Katz, and Paul Hindemith’s powerful Mathis der Maler Symphony.
“Significant moments in Protestant history are rendered through music in our fall concert,” Lehmann said. “Mendelssohn’s Reformation Symphony, his fifth, quotes the famous ‘Dresden Amen’ and commemorates the 300th anniversary of the Augsburg Confession, a foundational document of the Protestant faith established during the Lutheran Reformation.”
Lehmann added that Hindemith composed Mathis der Maler, inspired by artist Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece, to illustrate the Catholic and Protestant conflicts that divided Germany in the 1500s, while also reflecting the rise of National Socialism in Germany in the 1930s.
Soloist Mickey Katz will perform Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme. Now in his 20th year as a cellist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Katz is a native of Israel and has distinguished himself as a soloist, chamber musician, and contemporary music specialist. He has received the Presser Music Award in Boston, the Karl Zeise Prize as a Tanglewood Music Center Fellow, and first prizes at the Hudson Valley Philharmonic Competition and the Rubin Academy Competition in Tel Aviv. A recipient of America Israel Cultural Foundation scholarships since 1988, Katz has performed as a soloist with multiple Israeli orchestras, as well as with the Boston Civic Symphony, Symphony Pro Musica, and the Hudson Valley Philharmonic.
