Warm Up with Midwinter Masterworks: Join your MSO for Can’t-miss Classics this January and February

Your Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s 2025-26 Classics series returns in the new year with another captivating lineup that delivers the concert going experience you love: the thrill of sharing the very best in orchestral music with your hometown orchestra live at the Bradley Symphony Center.

The midwinter marathon of performances begins with an electrifying tribute to Beethoven & Haydn (Jan. 23-24) led by Bernard Labadie, a celebrated specialist of 18th-century musical style, and starring Kerson Leong, “one of the greatest violinists, period” (Toronto Star). Listeners will delight in Haydn’s elegantly playful “Drumroll” symphony, written to impress his admiring audiences in London, and Beethoven’s legendary violin concerto, one of his most lyrical and timelessly popular works.

Jean-Marie Zeitouni returns to conduct Mozart (Jan. 31-Feb. 1) in a vibrant program that features some of the composer’s most charming music alongside two vivid adaptations of the folk tradition. Kodály’s crowd-pleasing Dances of Galánta spins the songs of the Hungarian countryside into a breathtaking display of symphonic color, while Ligeti’s “Romanian Concerto” transforms the sounds of a village band into an exhilarating showpiece for a virtuoso orchestra.

Grammy-winning organist Paul Jacobs makes his Milwaukee debut (Feb. 6-7) in concerts devoted to his instrument’s sonic majesty. Following the high-octane overture to Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio, American composer Samuel Barber’s Toccata Festiva revels in the modern organ’s widely varied powers of expression — though hearing Saint-Saëns’s triumphant “Organ” symphony thunder throughout the concert hall will be an event all on its own.

Rounding out the stellar succession of concerts is the globe-trotting cello superstar Johannes Moser, who brings his inimitable artistry to Anna Thorvaldsottir’s “volcanic new concerto” (The Times), Before we fall, under the baton of guest conductor Alpesh Chauhan, who leads the orchestra in sumptuous selections from Tchaikovsky’s heartfelt, instantly recognizable score for the iconic ballet The Sleeping Beauty (Feb. 20-21).

Join us in making musical memories that last a lifetime: secure your seats today at mso.org or by contacting the MSO Box Office at 414-291-7605 or tickets@mso.org. Office hours are Monday – Friday 10:00 am – 4:00 pm, Saturday 12:00 pm – 5:00 pm, and 90 minutes before all MSO performances.

Beethoven & Haydn
Friday, January 23 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, January 24 at 7:30 pm

Zeitouni Conducts Mozart
Saturday, January 31 at 7:30 pm
Sunday, February 1 at 2:30 pm

Saint-Saëns “Organ” Symphony
Friday, February 6 at 11:15 am
Saturday, February 7 at 7:30 pm

Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty
Friday, February 20 at 11:15 am
Saturday, February 21 at 7:30 pm