Columbus Indiana Philharmonic Music Director Isaac Selya speaks to the Salute! concert crowd last month at Columbus Municipal Airport.
Coming off a just-completed season that saw tickets edge up slightly over the previous season, the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic has announced its 2024-’25 season, “Encore.” The 38th-year schedule under music director Isaac Selya has been trimmed by one concert compared to seasons of past years.
Well, technically, anyway. The orchestra is collaborating with Dancers Studio Inc. during the holidays with another performance of “The Nutcracker” that is not included as a part of the regular season.
Plus, Donnie Robinette, the orchestra’s executive director, points out one other concert fact for perspective.
“There’s almost no other orchestra our size doing as many concerts as we do,” he said.
Plus, who knows how many orchestras are wise enough to follow a season that included video game music (and a strong young audience response) with a little more of the same, plus following a sellout ballet with another one at season’s end?
Selya honestly acknowledged that he’s still getting to know audiences’ tastes here.
“Much of the time, you don’t exactly know how a concert is going to feel until you show up,” he said.
Here is the lineup for the upcoming CIP season:
- 7:30 p.m. Sept. 28: Spellcraft — From movie soundtrack tunes to video game music, the program will include the following: John Williams’ “Hedwig’s Theme from Harry Potter”; Yasunori Mitsuda’s “Secret of the Forest from Chrono Trigger”; Carl Maria von Weber’s “Overture to Oberon”; and Felix Mendelssohn’s incidental music to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
- 7:30 p.m. Oct. 19: Unseen Beauty — The program will include Ludwig von Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s excerpts from “Iolanta.” Beethoven composed his Symphony No. 7 as his deafness grew more profound. Tchaikovsky’s final opera, “Iolanta,” premiered in 1892 as a double bill with “The Nutcracker.” It focuses on a blind princess who does not know she is blind, until a lost knight wanders into her garden and asks her for a red rose, prompting her to ask “what does red mean?” The title role will be sung by blind soprano Cristina Jones.
- 3 p.m. Dec. 7: Holiday Pops — The orchestra’s holiday tradition continues with the Columbus Indiana Children’s Choir and Philharmonic Chorus performing transcendent anthems, classical holiday favorites and sing-along carols. Sprinkle in an appearance by you-know-who and maybe some snow, and you almost can feel the season’s warmth.
- 7:30 p.m. March 8: Coffee House — This program includes a semi-staged cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach about a young girl who is addicted to coffee. And Bach’s “The Brandenburg Concerto” will give solo opportunities to a few Philharmonic players, and the program will also feature our harpsichord.
- 7:30 p.m. March 29: Beethoven in Japan — A follow-up to last year’s well-received collaboration with Landmark Columbus Foundation again focuses on architecture, this time in Japan, including Tokyo and Miyoshi, Columbus’ sister city. The program opens with a dramatic choral piece by Japanese composer Nobuo Uematsu from the famous Final Fantasy VII video game.
- 7 p.m. May 10: Swan Lake: Following up on last year’s collaborative sellout of “The Nutcracker” with Dancers Studio Inc., here comes a presentation of Tchaikovsky’s classic tale of forbidden love. It debuted in 1877, and was initially considered an artistic failure.
For more information and season tickets, with reduced pricing until June 30, visit thecip.org.
