Symphonic Metamorphosis

On Sale July 1

Masterworks

Symphonic Metamorphosis

Oct 5

Sunday

3 PM

Century II Concert Hall

featuring Alexi Kenney, Violin

Our season opener kicks off with Verdi’s electrifying La Forza del Destino Overture, a masterwork of operatic tension and sweeping emotion, where the power of fate is announced with bold brass and lyrical fervor. Soloist Alexi Kenney then takes the stage with Korngold’s Violin Concerto, a fusion of Romantic concert tradition with the shimmering warmth of Hollywood film music, featuring sweeping melodies, dazzling virtuosity, and heartfelt emotion.

Musical transcendence follows with a mesmerizing fusion of medieval chant and modern orchestral color inspired by the mystical idea of spiritual transformation in Christopher Theofanidis’s Rainbow Body. The evening’s transformation concludes with Paul Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis, a vibrant and witty orchestral showcase that reimagines themes by Carl Maria von Weber through a kaleidoscope of bold rhythms, brilliant textures, and modern verve.

GIUSEPPE VERDI La Forza del Destino Overture
ERICH WOLFGANG KORNGOLD Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35
featuring Alexi Kenney, violin
CHRISTOPHER THEOFANIDIS Rainbow Body
PAUL HINDEMITH Symphonic Metamorphosis

About Alexi Kenney

Violinist Alexi Kenney is forging a career that defies categorization, following his interests, intuition, and heart. He is equally at home creating experimental programs and commissioning new works, soloing with major orchestras around the world, and collaborating with some of the most celebrated musicians of our time. Alexi is the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award.

Alexi is a graduate of the New England Conservatory in Boston, where he studied with Donald Weilerstein and Miriam Fried. Previous mentors in the Bay Area include Wei He, Jenny Rudin, and Natasha Fong. He plays a violin made in London by Stefan-Peter Greiner in 2009 and a bow by Charles Espey made in Port Townsend, Washington in 2024.

Arrive Early for Concert Talks

If you’d like to learn more about the music in our concert programs, Concert Talks are just what you need! Before every Masterworks Concert, the Wichita Symphony Orchestra will present pre-concert talks which help prepare you and deepen your understanding of the music to be performed in the program. Sometimes our guest soloists even join Maestro Hege for a discussion of their concerto collaboration! Free to all ticket holders, Concert Talks take place in the Concert Hall one hour prior to each Masterworks performance.