Courtney Lewis, Music Director of the Jacksonville Symphony Ralph Vaughan Williams occupies a unique spot in music history. He lived a long life from 1872 to 1958, straddling the Romantic and Modern periods, and with Edward Elgar, who was 20 years his senior, led a renaissance of English music with his nine symphonies, operas, concertos and countless songs. He loved … Read More
Courtney Lewis, Music Director of the Jacksonville Symphony On April 12 and 14, the Jacksonville Symphony will stage our biggest production of the season, our “symphonically-staged” opera, which this year is Georges Bizet’s beloved and ever-relevant Carmen. For those of you who haven’t attended one of these operas before, Jacoby Symphony Hall is transformed into an opera house with a … Read More
We begin the new year with a program celebrating the 100th birthday of George Gershwin’s revolutionary Rhapsody in Blue. This extraordinary piece, part symphony, part concerto, part big band swing session has an amusing genesis. In January 1924, Gershwin had the unsettling experience of reading in the New York Tribune that he was already at work on a “jazz concerto” … Read More
Courtney Lewis, Music Director of the Jacksonville Symphony Fall is upon us, and at the Jacksonville Symphony, we’re gearing up for our first classical concert of the new season on September 29 and 30. The program opens with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Overture to Leonore No. 2, one of the first examples of a tone poem in music in which Beethoven … Read More
Courtney Lewis, Music Director of the Jacksonville Symphony The summer months are some of my favorites of the year. Ironically, time away from the Symphony gives me the opportunity to learn new music and absorb all the scores for the coming season. What the audience hears at a concert is like the tip of the iceberg: most of the preparation … Read More
Courtney Lewis, Music Director of the Jacksonville Symphony This weekend, I head to France to spend six weeks conducting a very exciting new ballet with music by the English composer, Thomas Adès, for the Opéra national de Paris at the famous Palais Garnier. Inspired by Dante Alighieri’s 14th century epic poem, “The Divine Comedy,” “The Dante Project” is a rarity … Read More
Courtney Lewis, Music Director of the Jacksonville Symphony In a few weeks the Jacksonville Symphony will present our largest production of the season, The Magic Flute, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s perennially popular opera. It’s my favorite Mozart opera, a fairy tale of good versus evil, enlightenment versus ignorance and the journey of finding your own way in the world. After the … Read More
Courtney Lewis, Music Director of the Jacksonville Symphony, Haskell Endowed Chair Last season, the Jacksonville Symphony began a series of new commissions from today’s brightest composers. Building on the legacy of our Composer in Residence program in 2018, this series is very close to my heart. I think of the tradition of classical music as continuous and unbroken from the … Read More
Courtney Lewis, Music Director of the Jacksonville Symphony, Haskell Endowed Chair On April 28 and 30, the Jacksonville Symphony will present one of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s most beloved and famous operas, “The Magic Flute.” The two performances will be the culmination of several years of planning and preparation, and the Symphony’s largest production of the season. This is the story … Read More
Courtney Lewis, Music Director of the Jacksonville Symphony The holiday season is almost upon us, a time when we can enjoy being together with family and friends, eat and drink too much and reflect on the year that has passed. I’m looking forward to traveling to London and Belfast to be Uncle Courtney for a few weeks. It’s a time … Read More
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