SoundWaves with The Florida Orchestra

This Masterworks program celebrates Baroque and beyond with music by Handel, Haydn and Mozart. Handel’s Water Music — commissioned for King George’s 1717 Thames celebration — sparkles with regal pomp, innovative use of horns and vibrant dance movements. Mozart takes audiences on an irrepressible romp in the Overture to The Marriage of Figaro, which perfectly captures the opera’s comic energy. It's a different feel from his elegant Ballet Music from Idomeneo, a French-style suite that closes a tragic opera with festive dances, rich orchestration and the first use of clarinets in a Mozart opera. Music from Haydn's Uninhabited Island shows his symphonic genius, creating dramatic tension between calm and storm.

This episode includes music excerpts to illustrate each work.

Masterworks 4 of the 25/26 Season
Performances November 22 & 23, 2025

Experience two monumental works that bridge centuries. Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, a dazzling precursor to his Ode to Joy, blends virtuosic piano, orchestra and chorus in a joyful, triumphant finale that echoes through his Ninth Symphony. Written for a legendary concert and featuring Beethoven himself at the piano, this piece captures the raw energy of genius in motion. In contrast, Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No. 3 “Kaddish” confronts God in a deeply personal and political reckoning. With searing text by Holocaust survivor Samuel Pisar, this emotional tour de force for narrator, soprano, chorus and orchestra explores faith, hope and humanity’s struggle for meaning in a fractured world.

This episode includes music excerpts to illustrate each work.

Masterworks 3 of the 25/26 Season
Performances November 7 & 8, 2025

Experience the emotional sweep of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, a fiery showcase of virtuosity and lyricism once panned by critics but now cherished as one of the greatest violin concertos ever written. From its bold opening to the folk-inspired finale, this 34-minute masterpiece brims with Russian flair and heart-racing brilliance. Then, dive into the sonic whirlwind of John Adams’ Harmonielehre, a modern American classic that fuses Minimalist drive with lush Romanticism. Inspired by vivid dream imagery — including a supertanker blasting into the sky — this 40-minute symphonic journey delivers pulsing rhythms, glowing orchestration and an unforgettable, full-throttle finale.

This episode includes music excerpts to illustrate each work.

Masterworks 2 of the 25/26 Season
Performances October 18 & 19, 2025

Explore three lush, evocative works that celebrate nature and the power of storytelling through music. Start with a day-long mountain hike in Richard Strauss’ An Alpine Symphony, a grand tone poem with a massive orchestra — including wind machine and thunder sheet — to portray everything from sunrise to a thunderstorm. Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending offers a serene contrast: a pastoral 13-minute piece where the solo violin soars like a lark in flight, reflecting a deep love of the English countryside. The program closes with Ottorino Respighi’s Pines of Rome, a colorful and cinematic four-movement tone poem that evokes Roman landscapes, from playful gardens to moonlit hills. It ends with a powerful march of ancient soldiers on the Appian Way — a thunderous finale with the orchestra at full tilt.

This podcast includes music excerpts to illustrate each piece. 

Masterworks 1 of the 25/26 Season
Performances October 3 & 5, 2025

Art comes to life. The great orchestra showpiece Pictures at an Exhibition started out as an extended piano suite in 10 movements by Mussorgsky. That is until a half-century later, when Maurice Ravel had the good sense to see its true potential for a full orchestra. His orchestration has been a showstopper ever since. With a heady, cinematic feel, Korngold’s Violin Concerto pulls from his career as a staff composer for Warner Brothers, where he wrote music for 22 films and won two Oscars. Rounding out the program is Paul Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler, inspired by 16th-century artist Matthias Grünewald.

These audio program notes include music excerpts.

Masterworks 12 of the 24/25 Season
Performances April 26 & 27, 2025

Is it possible to find someone who cannot hum a bit of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons -- arguably one of the most enduring works of all time? Vivaldi presents a musical travelogueof spring, summer, autumn and winter, complete with bird songs, shimmering creeks, a thunderstorm, peasant’s dance and a freezing ice storm. It’s exuberant and captivating every time. Another masterpiece on the program is Mozart’s Symphony No. 39, one of three symphonies that he completed in just six weeks in the summer of 1788. The opening has been described as “so majestic that it so surprised even the coldest, most insensitive listener.” 

These audio program notes include music excerpts.

Masterworks 11 of the 24/25 Season
Performances April 4 & 5, 2025

This program spotlights an unusual instrument for a classical program: the saxophone. For Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, the tenor saxophone makes a rare appearance in a symphony orchestra with the theme representing Juliet. Of Prokofiev’s nine ballet scores, this is his finest – even though he originally wrote a happy ending to Shakespeare’s tragedy. An “altered” version was performed, however. The saxophone is front and center for A Kind of Trane Saxophone Concerto, written as an homage to the great jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. The concert begins with John Adams’ Short Ride in a Fast Machine, a four-minute jaunt inspired by a terrifying ride in a Ferrari. 

These audio program notes include music excerpts.

Masterworks 10 of the 24/25 Season
Performance Mar 30, 2025

Beethoven composed his Violin Concerto in 1806, when he was deaf. From the onset, the music unfolds with a sense of spaciousness, its character more graceful than frenetic. This work is not about power and bravura but poise and spirituality. At nearly 45 minutes, it also requires a lot of stamina for the soloist. Also on the program are Šárka and Die Moldau from Smetana’s Ma Vlast, a set of six tone poems depicting life and nature in Bohemia. Die Moldau is Smetana’s most-performed work, as it so perfectly captures the flow of a great Bohemian river. The concert ends with Janáček’s Taras Bulba, which relies on contrasting sonorities, and his use of dissonance embraces rather than repels – no small feat.

These audio program notes include music excerpts.

Masterworks 9 of the 24/25 Season
Performances March 14, 15 & 16, 2025

For some listeners, Tchaikovsky’s evergreen Piano Concerto No. 1 is overplayed and overwrought. For others, it never fails to thrill with its embraceable tunes and striking rhythmic flourish. No, Tchaikovsky wasn’t subtle, and this piece is supercharged with pulsating sentiment. Meanwhile, the music of English composer William Walton is seldom heard in American concert halls, so a performance of his Belshazzar’s Feast is a treat. This brilliant cantata for orchestra, chorus and baritone soloist is based on the Book of Daniel and Psalm 137 that results in an epic, dramatic showstopper.

These audio program notes include music excerpts.

Masterworks 8 of the 24/25 Season
Performances Feb 22 & 23, 2025

A concert immersed in the sea. It opens with Garth Neustadter’s Seaborne, a film with stunning images of the sea set to music, performed by the Percussion Collective. The work explores water from the air, surface and underwater vantage points. Then the concert flows to Sibelius’ The Oceanides, which has been described as “the finest evocation of the sea that has ever been produced in music.” In Debussy’s La Mer, he pays tribute to the sea in a lavish three-movement masterpiece that doesn’t depict it in a literal sense, but through an interplay of light, shadow and sheer orchestral force.

These audio program notes include music excerpts.

Masterworks 7 of the 24/25 Season
Performances Feb 7 & 8, 2025