Sat 5/9 @ 7:30PM
The Akron Symphony wraps up its 2025-26 season with eclat — the same vigorous burst of sound that used to wake me up in the morning when I was in grade school. (My room abutted the kitchen where my dad’s radio alarm blasted out local classical music station.) Ah, Carmina Burana! German composer Carl Orff based his 1937 cantata on secular medieval songs addressing the joys and pitfalls of life. “O Fortuna,” which introduces the opening and closing sections, is familiar even to those who don’t listen to classical music, one of those pieces that’s been extracted to use in many other contexts.
When the Akron Symphony performs the piece to conclude its upcoming concert at E.J. Thomas Hall it will be joined by a 100-voice chorus and soloists including soprano Sonya Headlam, tenor Chris Albanese and baritone Brian Johnson. The program also includes another piece widely reused in pop music contexts: Maurice Ravel’s 1928 Bolero. In between it will perform Cleveland composer Margaret Brouwer’s 2009 Rhapsody Concerto for Orchestra
Go here for tickets.