Jessica Mallow Gulley, the executive director of the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra, joins Cara Lieurance to talk about the summer season of the KSO — and pick some highlights of the new fall/winter season.
At 4 pm on Thursday, Jul 26, clarinetist Gyorgy Borisov, flutist Jiyun Yi, and oboist Orion Rapp will play a program of their choosing in an outdoor space at the new Portage Zhang Senior Center. Gulley says the concert is free but registration is recommended.
The following evening, Friday Jul 27 at 7:30 pm in a ballroom at the Radisson Plaza Hotel, the KSO’s longstanding Burdick-Thorne Quartet will perform a program of pop, classical, and Jazz Age selections in the ambience of candlelight. Gulley explains that they will be battery-powered lights rather than flame, but the effect is just as magical.
The Symphony’s new season starts on Sep 23, with guest artist Awadajin Pratt performing a new piano concerto by Jessie Montgomery, and featuring a new suite of Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake, arranged and conducted by the KSO’s music director Julian Kuerti. Gulley also touches on special events, favorite series, a side-by-side collaboration with the Kalamazoo Junior Symphony, a live performance of John Williams’ score to the film Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and more.
Full details are at the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra website.