We open our season with the Overture to Beethoven’s heroic Opera Fidelio, followed by the charming Joyous Youth Suite by Eric Coates and the mystic Poem of Ecstasy by Russian composer Alexander Scriabin. Leonardo Zhou will be the soloist in Camille Saint-Saëns’ virtuosic 2nd Piano Concerto.

The Cascade Symphony Orchestra, in its 63rd year as Snohomish county’s oldest community orchestra, is partnering with the Edmonds Waterfront Center to present a new chamber music series starting this Fall. The performance will take place in the large room at the Waterfront Center overlooking beautiful Puget Sound. The concert will include music by Mozart, Beethoven, Dvorak and a bit of holiday music, for wind octet, piano quintet, brass and mixed trios and percussion ensemble.

The Holiday Concert is sure to be a blast! Along with your favorite Christmas carols you’ll hear delights from Johann Strauss to John Williams. You might raise your eyebrows hearing Minor Alterations by David Lovrien, who called his medley “Christmas Through the Looking Glass.” Our concertmaster, Christina Wu, will indulge you with the gorgeous Meditation from the Opera Thais by Jules Massenet and stormy Winter from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

An exciting evening with Bela Bartók’s fiery Romanian Dances, energizing Rustle of Spring by Christian Sinding, Ernst Chausson’s majestic Symphony bookend this concert, with cellist, Nathan Chan, performing the sensational Cello Concerto by Friedrich Gulda between this musical sandwich.

At the Children’s Concert our younger audience will be introduced to the Cascade Symphony Brass Quintet, as well as a new Rising Star. David Dolacky will narrate the story of Peter and the Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev. (This is our only daytime concert of the season).

Rossini’s thrilling Overture to The Italian Girl in Algiers opens this concert, which concludes with Antonin Dvorak’s 4th Symphony. In between is music by 20th century British composer, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s The Bamboula, and clarinet soloist, Anders Peterson, performing Crusell’s remarkable Clarinet Concerto No. 2.

During Cascade Symphony Orchestra Chamber Music concerts, small ensembles of strings, winds and percussion perform music from three centuries, in an acoustically perfect setting, once in the Fall and once in the Spring. These more intimate concerts give audience members an opportunity to hear their favorite Cascade Symphony instrumentalists in a chamber music context.

Tchaikovsky’s magnificent Italian Capriccio crowns our season, in a program that also includes a unique work: Concerto for Birds and Orchestra Cantus Arcticus by Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara, and Tokuji Miyasaka performing Italian virtuoso Niccolo Paganini’s breathtaking Violin Concerto No. 1.