Concert 1
September 9, 7:30pm
Rodef Shalom
Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 20 (First Movement)
Mozart - Symphony No 41 "Jupiter"
Steinway Society Competition Winner
Matthew Wardell, Guest Conductor
Concert 2
October 7, 7:30pm
Calvary United Methodist Church
October 8, 3pm
Antonian Hall, Carlow College
Debussy - Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun
Trevor Weston - Messages
Schostakovich - Chamber Symphony Op. 73a
Edward Leonard, Conductor
Concert 3
December 9, 7:30pm
Rodef Shalom
December 10, 3pm
Sixth Presbyterian Church
Holiday pops selections
Anna Singer, Host
Edward Leonard, Conductor
Concert 4
February 10, 7:30pm
Rodef Shalom
February 11, 3pm
Calvary United Methodist Church
Britten - Serenade for Tenor, Horns, and Strings
Jessie Montgomery - Strum
Bartok - Divertimento for Strings
Timothy Stoddard, Tenor
Edward Leonard, Conductor
Concert 5
April 20, 7:30pm
Rodef Shalom
Vasks - Cantabile
Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 23 K.488
Beethoven - Symphony No. 7
Awadagin Pratt, Soloist and Conductor
Concert 6
June 1, 7:30pm
Rodef Shalom
June 2, 3pm
Sixth Prebyterian Church
Strauss - Four Last Songs
Honegger - Pastorale d'ete
Copland - Appalachain Spring Suite
Zuly Inirio, Soprano
Edward Leonard, Conductor
Subscription tickets can be used at either performance if concert is repeated on Sunday.
Continuing its pattern of artistic growth, The Chamber Orchestra of Pittsburgh (COP) will present six programs in nine performances for its 2023-24 season. COP will once again host a series of nationally recognized guest artists, and the coming repertoire spans familiar favorites, rarely performed masterpieces, and works receiving their Pittsburgh premiere.
COP is delighted to welcome Matthew Wardell as guest conductor to open the 23-24 season on September 9, 2023 at Levy Hall of Rodef Shalom. The program will feature a special partnership with the Steinway Society of Western Pennsylvania to conduct a youth piano concerto competition, and the winner, a rising local virtuoso, will perform the first movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20.
In October, COP will hold two performances of a program that will include Claude Debussy’s landmark work Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, “Messages” by contemporary composer Trevor Weston, and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony, Op. 73a. The first performance will be October 7, 2023 at Levy Hall, and the second performance will be October 8, 2023 at the Antonian Theatre of Carlow University.
COP celebrates the holiday season with two performances in December. The programming will feature seasonal favorites with special guest host Anna Singer, who will be on hand to lead an audience singalong. The first performance will be December 9, 2023 at Levy Hall, and the second performance will be December 10, 2023 at Sixth Presbyterian Church in Squirrel Hill.
COP is proud to host tenor Timothy Stoddard, who will join the orchestra to perform the rarely heard masterpiece, Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings by Benjamin Britten. Stoddard is an award-winning vocal musician and actor who focuses his time and interests in new music, works for the stage, and oratorio. The program will also include Bela Bartok’s Divertimento for Strings and Jessie Montgomery’s “Strum.” This concert will have two performances, February 10, 2024 at Levy Hall and February 11, 2024 at Calvary Methodist Church on Pittsburgh’s historic North Side.
April brings the return of one of the most popular guest artists every hosted by COP, Awadagin Pratt. Pratt returns to Pittsburgh to perform with the orchestra as piano soloist and guest conductor on April 20,2024 at Levy Hall. Pratt will perform Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major, K. 488, and will conduct the orchestra in a performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 and “Cantabile” by Peteris Vasks.
The 2023-24 season concludes with one more unique program and a special guest artist, soprano Zuly Inirio. Afro-Latina soprano Zuly Inirio hails from the Dominican Republic and has appeared as a soloist throughout the United States and Europe, and she will join the orchestra to perform Richard Strauss’s cycle Four Last Songs. The program and season rounds out with the enormously popular Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland. This program will have two performances, on June 1, 2024 at Levy Hall and June 2, 2024 at Sixth Presbyterian Church.
“Each year brings new possibilities to the orchestra, and we have the privilege of performing works that you can hear nowhere else in the city,” says Artistic Director and Conductor Edward Leonard. “The roster of guest artists – Wardell, Stoddard, Pratt, and Inirio – have so much to offer, and we are looking forward to bringing them to Pittsburgh audiences.”