SoNA Announces 2024-25 MainStage Season
Season Begins Sept. 21 at Walton Arts Center Center Featuring Pianist Lara Downes, Trombonist Cory Mixdorf, and Pianist Stewart Goodyear
The Symphony of Northwest Arkansas (SoNA) is thrilled to announce its 2024-25 MainStage Season concert lineup at Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville. Single tickets, full season subscriptions and sampler subscriptions are now on sale.
SoNA’s new 2024-25 Season will kick off Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024, and continue through Saturday, April 19, 2025. Performing under the baton of Music Director Paul Haas, the area’s beloved professional symphony will present seven concert performances. All MainStage performances take place in Baum Walker Hall at Walton Arts Center, 495 W. Dickson St., Fayetteville.
“I am looking forward to this season with great anticipation,” says SoNA Executive Director Ben Harris. “We’ll take a journey through time and place to explore the evolution of the orchestral art form. From Western Europe, we’ll trace the beginnings of the modern orchestra through the classic work of Bach and Mozart; we’ll examine the connection between Europe and America through the prism of Dvorák and Gershwin; and we’ll present brand-new music by Cuban composer/pianist Aldo López-Gavilán. Along the way, we’ll also celebrate the holiday season together, and explore the outer reaches of the universe with a sci-fi inspired pops program. And we’ll finish the season right back where we started – here at home in Arkansas, with native composer Florence Price.”
The season’s featured guest artists include pianist Lara Downes and pianist Stewart Goodyear, as well as SoNA principal trombonist Cory Mixdorf.
The new season launches on Sept. 21 with Oceans of Time: Orchestral Evolutions, an engrossing westward journey from classical music’s European birthplace all the way to the multicultural mecca of the Americas. The evening’s program includes Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, one of the most beloved pieces in the entire orchestral repertoire, followed by the magnificent world premiere of Aldo Lopez-Gavilan’s Oceans to Cross, featuring pianist Lara Downes. After intermission, SoNA performs Antonin Dvorak’s ever-popular Symphony No. 8. The Czech composer lived in the U.S. for three years (1892-95) and is in many ways responsible for discovering and labeling many of the folk music elements that eventually combined to become the “American Style.”
Then on Nov. 9, SoNA takes audiences “where no one has gone before” with Futuristic Fantasia: SoNA Goes Sci-Fi! – a pops concert featuring classic pieces from iconic sci-fi movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars, Star Trek, E.T. and Everything Everywhere All at Once.
In December, a pair of audience-favorites return! SoNA celebrates the magic and beauty of the holidays with two performances (matinee and evening) of A Very SoNA Christmas on Dec. 7 – a pops concert showcasing holiday classics, featuring the SoNA Singers and special guest soloists. And on Dec. 8, SoNA and Walton Arts Center present The Snowman: A Family Concert, featuring a special screening of the runaway hit film complete with live orchestral soundtrack.
The season continues in 2025 with Jupiter Rising, a special Sunday matinee performance on Feb. 16. For this delightful concert program, SoNA pairs one of the most famous pieces ever written — Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 in C Major (Jupiter) — with some of the greatest music you may have never heard! The first half of this performance is an exploration of relatively unknown pieces from three different continents (Australia, Europe, and South America), one featuring SoNA’s principal trombonist Cory Mixdorf, after which we return to Germany for Mozart’s Jupiter.
And on April 19, the season wraps with American Voices: Rhapsody in Blue. Inside of eight short years during the 1920s and ‘30s, American composers produced three masterpieces – all of them in completely different styles and each written with distinctive voices. This concert celebrates this great American explosion by combining all three of them into one special evening of music: George Gershwin’s iconic Rhapsody in Blue, played by one of the great pianists of our generation, Stewart Goodyear; William Grant Still’s Afro-American Symphony No. 1, and Florence Price’s Symphony No. 1 in E Minor.
Single tickets and season subscriptions are now on sale!
Full season subscription package prices range from $158 to $264, based on seating preferences, and include all five MainStage concerts (The Snowman: A Family Concert not included) – representing a savings of more than 10% per ticket, per concert. Student subscriptions start at $84 with valid I.D.
For subscribers who need flexibility and can’t make it to all five shows, SoNA is again offering a Sampler Subscription! Like a mini-subscription package, patrons can choose three or four of the five MainStage concerts, allowing flexibility while retaining some of the key perks of full-season subscriptions. Sampler subscriptions start at $99.
Single ticket prices range from $37 to $62 (excluding The Snowman), based on seating preferences. Discount student tickets are available with a student photo I.D. Children under 18 are free with the purchase of an adult ticket (limited quantities). All tickets to The Snowman are $10.
