“Robert Spano delivers a real firework of precisely crafted passages without any uncertainty, a true wonder of a symbiosis of a conductor and his orchestra.”
EarRelevant

Conductor, pianist, composer and teacher Robert Spano is known worldwide for the intensity of his artistry and distinctive communicative abilities among musicians and audiences. He is also known as a champion of contemporary music and living composers, which is evident in the upcoming season. 

In Spano’s second season as Music Director of the Fort Worth Symphony, he has planned a characteristically varied and exhilarating program of concerts, including a brand-new work from Kevin Day and collaborations with both dancers and puppets. He conducts four more world premieres this season: new works by Steven Mackey and James Ra, with the Curtis orchestra; and premieres by Adam Schoenberg and Jonathan Leshnoff with the Atlanta Symphony orchestra, where he returns for a two-week residency as Music Director Laureate (after a 20-year terms of Music Director). As a guest conductor, he opens the season with the New Jersey Symphony with a program that includes music by Valerie Coleman and Duke Ellington and features jazz pianist Aaron Diehl. Spano also appears as guest conductor with the Rhode Island Philharmonic, where he conducts Brian Raphael Nabors’ From the Motherland: Of Earth and Sky, which he premiered in Fort Worth last season.  

2023-2024 Season Highlights

Sep 8-10, 2023
FORT WORTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA - OPENING NIGHT
Van Cliburn Winner Yunchan Lim, Piano
To open the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra’s new season, Music Director Robert Spano welcomes the youngest-ever winner of the Van Cliburn gold medal, Yunchan Lim, to deliver Schumann’s rapturous Piano Concerto. Spano also conducts Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 as well as the composer’s Academic Festival Overture.
BRAHMS Academic Festival Overture
SCHUMANN Piano Concerto
BRAHMS Symphony No. 1
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Sept. 23, 2023
RHODE ISLAND PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA
ROBERT SPANO, GUEST CONDUCTOR 
Karen Gomyo, violin
Robert Spano brings Brian Raphael Nabors’ four-movement work, From the Motherland: Of Earth and Sky, to Rhode Island.  The work was commissioned by the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, and Spano premiered it in Forth Worth in April 2023. It takes the listener into the depths of the African continent through three distinct legends and a celebratory finale. The program continues with one of the most popular violin concertos, Bruch’s first violin concerto, and concludes with Shostakovich’s fifth symphony. 
NABORS From the Motherland: Of Earth and Sky
BRUCH Violin Concerto No.1
SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No.5
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Oct 14 & 15, 2023
NEW JERSEY SYMPHONY – OPENING NIGHT
ROBERT SPANO, GUEST CONDUCTOR -- RARE NYC-AREA APPEARANCE
Aaron Diehl piano | Aaron Diehl Trio
Robert Spano makes a rare visit to the New York City area to conduct the New Jersey Symphony on opening night of the 2023-2024 season.  The program offers uplifting compositions by African American composers, alongside Dvořák’s classic ode to America, his New World Symphony.  The orchestra is joined by jazz pianist Aaron Diehl and his trio. Coleman’s joyous Umoja (Swahili for “unity”) evokes the power and sweetness of coming together. Still’s “Out of the Silence” is a gentle and ethereal hymn written in the depths of the Great Depression, originally part of a set of mystical piano pieces and later recast for orchestra. Ellington’s piece is a lush musical portrait of a new world without war and greed, “where love was unconditional.”
VALERIE COLEMAN Umoja
WILLIAM GRANT STILL Out of the Silence
DUKE ELLINGTON New World A-Comin’
ANTONIN DVOŘÁK Symphony No. 9, “From the New World”
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Oct 20-22, 2023
FORT WORTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Peter and the Wolf with Old Trout Puppet Workshop
The Canadian touring group Old Trout Puppet Workshop brings Prokofiev’s colorful Peter and the Wolf to life with large-scale puppetry while the orchestra performs the score. Spano will lead the orchestra in another magical children’s tale: the second act of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker ballet.
TCHAIKOVSKY Nutcracker Act II
PROKOFIEV Peter and the Wolf
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Jan 5-7, 2024 
FORT WORTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Dallas Black Dance Theater, Sean Smith, Choreographer
Music Director Robert Spano welcomes the  Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Dallas’ longest-running professional contemporary dance company, for a special performance of Stravinsky’s Petrushka Suite. Sean Smith’s choreography is a balletic take on the famous story of Punch and Judy, with its whirling, folk-inspired melodies and high-stepping harmonies. Also on the program are a pair of beloved gems by Mozart. 
MOZART Overture to The Magic Flute
MOZART Symphony No.41 (Jupiter)
STRAVINSKY Petrushka
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Feb 17, 2024
FORT WORTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Gala Concert
Soprano Renée Fleming and Baritone Rod Gilfry
Superstar Renée Fleming returns to Fort Worth to perform with the inimitable Rod Gilfry in a one-night-only performance of some of Broadway’s greatest hits. Robert Spano leads the orchestra in this celebration of the American Songbook. 
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Feb 24, 2024
DENVER PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA
The Maestro and his Maestro
Lawrence Golan, conductor | Robert Spano, guest conductor
DPO International Conducting Workshop participants
Peter Eom, cello
HIGDON blue cathedral
ELGAR Cello Concerto
SCHUMANN Symphony No. 1 “Spring”
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March 9, 2024
CURTIS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, Philadelphia
WORLD PREMIERES BY JAMES RA AND STEVEN MACKEY
JIJI, Guitar
Conductor Robert Spano leads the Curtis Symphony Orchestra for two exhilarating world premieres: a new Curtis commission from alumnus James Ra, who the Philadelphia Inquirer called “a composer to watch.” Ra’s compositions have been described as “coursing with adrenaline-pumping energy.”  The program continues with GRAMMY Award-winning Curtis composition faculty member Steven Mackey’s Concerto for Electric Guitar, featuring the jaw-dropping virtuosity of guitarist JIJI (pronounced GEE-gee), whom The Washington Post named one of "21 composers/performers who sound like tomorrow.” The program concludes with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 (“Pathétique”). 
JAMES RA  World Premiere Commission
STEVEN MACKEY World Premiere of Concerto for Electric Guitar
TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 64 "Pathétique"
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April 5 & 6 2024
NAPLES PHILHARMONIC
James Ehnes, violin
Violinist James Ehnes joins the orchestra, under the baton of guest conductor Robert Spano, for Saint-Saëns’ spellbinding Violin Concerto No. 3. The concert opens with Debussy’s ethereal Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, and concludes with Tchaikovsky’s monumental “Pathétique” Symphony.
DEBUSSY Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun
SAINT-SAËNS Violin Concerto No. 3
TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 6, “Pathétique”
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Apr 19-21, 2024 
FORT WORTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Karita Mattila, soprano | Brandon Jovanovich, tenor | Raymond Aceto, bass
Robert Spano leads the orchestra and three star vocalists in a special concert version of the first act of Die Walküre, the second of Wagner’s four-opera Ring cycle. The program opens with Sibelius’ Symphony No. 6. 
SIBELIUS Symphony No. 6
WAGNER Die Walküre Act 1
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May 3-5, 2024
FORT WORTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Steven Waarts, Violin
Anchoring this concert is Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5, which was premiered to great fanfare in Leningrad in 1937, and has remained a favorite of audiences and critics alike. The concert opens with Beethoven’s Egmont Overture, and violinist Stephen Waarts joins Robert Spano and the orchestra for Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. 
BEETHOVEN Egmont Overture
BEETHOVEN Violin Concerto
SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 5
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May 9 & 11, 2024
ATLANTA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Garrick Ohlsson, Piano
ASO Music Director Laureate Robert Spano returns to Atlanta for a two-week residency. For this program, the longtime leader of the ASO brings with him an old friend of the Orchestra, Emmy Award-winning composer Adam Schoenberg, for the world premiere of his Concerto for Orchestra. And he welcomes one of today’s most esteemed pianists, Garrick Ohlsson, to perform the feat of artistry and virtuosity that is Rachmaninov’s Concerto for Piano No. 3. 
ADAM SCHOENBERG Concerto for Orchestra – World Premiere
RACHMANINOV Concerto for Piano No. 3
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May 16 & 18, 2024
ATLANTA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
John Tessier, Tenor | Cody Bowers, Countertenor | Joseph Lattanzi, Baritone
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus
For the second program of his two-week residency with ASO, Music Director Laureate Robert Spano conducts the world premiere of American composer Jonathan Leshnoff’s oratorio Sacrifice of Isaac. Sharing the program is the famously disruptive masterpiece, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. 
JONATHAN LESHNOFF Sacrifice of Isaac WORLD PREMIERE
STRAVINSKY The Rite of Spring
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May 31, June 1-2, 2024
FORT WORTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Season Finale: Jennifer Higdon, Kevin Day, and Mahler 5
In partnership with the International Trombone Festival and Texas Christian University, the orchestra’s season finale goes out with a blast, spotlighting the brass section. Robert Spano leads the ensemble in a brand-new double concerto for trombone and piano by Texas Christian University alumnus Kevin Day as well as Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Jennifer Higdon’s river sings a song to trees. Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 closes out the concert – and the 2023-2024 FSWO season. 
DAY: Double Concerto for Trombone and Piano
HIGDON: river sings a song to Trees
MAHLER: Symphony No. 5
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