![Minnesota Orchestra Music Director Osmo V‰nsk‰ conducted the orchestra performing "Adagio," from Symphony No. 7 by Anton Bruckner. Long associated with Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, he first heard Bruckner's Symphony No. 7 coming from a window as a young boy and it moved him so deeply he fainted. The flag of Skrowaczewski's native Poland was onstage at rear. ] JEFF WHEELER ï jeff.wheeler@startribune.com The Minnesota Orchestra memorialized their Conductor Laureate, Stanislaw Skrowa](https://arc.stimg.co/startribunemedia/VVZ2PL6L7IOBRUC2HAVOBQMLEA.jpg?&w=1080)
At the heart of the Minnesota Orchestra's 2018-19 season is an explosion of American music.
No fewer than 24 U.S. composers are featured — including 11 living ones — for a total of 33 American compositions to be played during the orchestra's mainstream classical concerts. Announced Friday, the season boasts a flagship "American Expressions Festival" (Dec. 31, 2018-Jan. 18, 2019) with four concerts conducted by Music Director Osmo Vänskä. Audiences can expect to hear everything from "Remembering Gatsby" by John Harbison (a featured composer for the 2018-19 season) and "American Nomad" by Twin Cities composer Steve Heitzeg as well as Copland, Gershwin and the late St. Paul composer Stephen Paulus.
Symphonies by Samuel Barber and Howard Hanson also feature in the festival (both can be heard Jan. 10-11). The jewel in the crown, though, is the rare opportunity to hear a symphony by Florence Price, a composer who became the first African-American woman to have her music performed by a major symphony orchestra in 1933 (Jan. 12-13, 2019).
Vänskä's embrace of American music extends far beyond the American Expressions Festival. At the season-opening concerts (Sept. 21-22) he will conduct Joan Tower's "Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman No. 1" followed by Copland's "Appalachian Spring," a quintessential piece of American classical music. In all, Vänskä will lead 21 pieces of American music in the new season, an impressive total for a conductor not previously known for his commitment to American music. Needless to say, the inclusion of so many U.S. composers in the 2018-19 season is hugely encouraging and a major step from the relatively conservative repertoire choices that characterized recent Minnesota Orchestra seasons.
Vänskä also continues his exploration of Mahler's symphonies, all of which are being recorded by the Swedish record label BIS. Minnesota Orchestra recordings of two symphonies — Nos. 5 and 6 — have already been issued, with the 2018-19 season bringing live performances of the inventive Seventh (Nov. 2-3) and the death-haunted Tenth — a symphony left unfinished by Mahler but completed by musicologist Deryck Cooke (June 13-15, 2109). Vänskä's Mahler style is bracingly direct and unsentimental, making both concerts unmissable season highlights.
It's also refreshing to see deliberate efforts on programming women composers for the 2018-19 season, at a time when arts organizations are rightly under pressure to improve gender equity. Works by eight female composers feature in the orchestra's classical concerts — not revolutionary, perhaps, but undoubtedly a step in the right direction. Of particular note is the opportunity to hear the "Gaelic" Symphony by Amy Beach, a pioneering composer (April 13, 2019). Beach blazed a lonely trail in 19th-century America. Today, her music is less widely heard than it should be.
Evidence of gender balance is harder to find in the list of guest conductors appearing with the orchestra. Just two of the season's 14 guests are women: English conductor Jane Glover (Jan. 31-Feb. 1, 2019) and South Korean Han-Na Chang (April 4-6, 2019). Greater efforts should be made to attract highly talented women such as Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla (music director at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in England) and Susanna Mälkki (chief conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic).
The situation is little better when it comes to guest soloists. Of the 16 guest instrumentalists, four are women.
