The Fresno State Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Dr. Thomas Loewenheim, will open its 2026-27 season with a concert featuring works by Johannes Brahms and Edward Elgar, highlighting the members of the orchestra in a challenging and exciting program.

The Academic Festival Overture by Johannes Brahms is playful, featuring a dozen popular tunes including many college songs such as “Gaudeamus igitur” and parts of the Rakoczi March. It was dedicated to the University of Breslau in gratitude for an honorary doctorate awarded Brahms by that institution in 1879. Edward Elgar's Symphony No. 1 was described as “the greatest symphony of modern times” by the conductor Hans Richter, who also premiered the symphony in 1908. A grand work that depicts “a wide experience of human life with a great charity (love) and a massive hope in the future,” the work enjoyed wildly enthusiastic responses from audiences and received over 100 performances during the year after its premiere. The symphony has four movements that are all connected with a broad and dignified melody that seems to proceed with ceremonial confidence and nobility, which turns at the end of the work into a victorious triumph and a final affirmation of dignity, compassion, of Elgar’s “massive hope.”

Date: Saturday, Oct. 3
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Location: School of Music Concert Hall

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