Season Opener: A Hero’s Life

Music Director Ken-David Masur opens his phenomenal final season with a festive fanfare by Andrea Tarrodi. The celebration continues as the MSO raises a ruckus with R. Strauss’s tone poem Ein Heldenleben (“A Hero’s Life”), rife with, in the composer’s words, “lots of horns, horns being quite the thing to express heroism.” Ravel was determined not to make his Piano Concerto for the Left Hand feel like a thin parlor trick; its music is robust, demanding, and full of dramatic illusion. The MSO welcomes “one of the best pianists of his generation” (Philadelphia Inquirer), Stewart Goodyear, to perform this impressive concerto.