Shostakovich Symphony No. 5 at The Meyerhoff
An ASO Special Debut Performance
Monday, June 1, 2026
8:00 PM at Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall
Tickets for this performance will be available on the Meyerhoff ticketing site. Please click here to purchase tickets.
MUSIC PROGRAM
Annapolis Symphony Academy Orion Youth Orchestra
Nancy Galbraith “Midnight Stirring”, conducted by ASA Assistant Conductor Claire Lewis
Work To Be Announced, conducted by ASO Artistic Director and ASA Director of Orchestral Activities, Maestro José-Luis Novo
Annapolis Symphony Orchestra
Shostakovich – Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op.47, conducted by ASO Artistic Director, Maestro José-Luis Novo
Reynaldo Moya – Polo Romanesco, conducted by ASO Artistic Director, Maestro José-Luis Novo
The Annapolis Symphony Orchestra makes its debut at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall during the League of American Orchestras Annual Conference. The concert is also open to the public.
Annapolis Symphony Academy
Nancy Galbraith, Midnight Stirring
The evening begins with Nancy Galbraith’s Midnight Stirring, performed side -by -side by the Annapolis Symphony Academy’s Orion Youth Orchestra and their ASO musician-mentors—a powerful symbol of music’s ability to inspire across generations.
Midnight Stirring was commissioned by the Columbia Flute Choir for their 2015 concert appearance at the 43rd Annual National Flute Convention in Washington DC. The work was rescored by the composer at the request of Maestro Culbertson for the Society of Musical Arts Orchestra in Maplewood, NJ. Midnight Stirring begins with a solo violin melody followed by low chords, reflecting a slightly ominous atmosphere. The opening unfolds into a livelier ostinato, over which a melody, harmonized with rich 7th chords, is stated. Although primarily melodic, the music incorporates the use of many lively rhythmic grooves and textures.
Nancy Galbraith has been composing music since the late 1970’s, creating instrumental and vocal sound praised for its rich harmonic texture, rhythmic vitality, emotional and spiritual depth, and wide range of expression. With major contributions to the repertoires of symphony orchestras, concert choirs, wind ensembles, chamber ensembles, and soloists, Galbraith plays a leading role in defining the sound of American contemporary classical music. Galbraith resides in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where she is Professor and Chair of Composition at the Carnegie Mellon University School of Music, and holds the Vira I Heinz Endowed Chair at CMU’s College of Fine Arts. Subito Music is Galbraith’s publisher. SOMA performed her A Festive Violet Pulse in 2011.
About Annapolis Symphony Academy
The Annapolis Symphony Academy is changing lives by providing accessible high-level musical education to students of all cultural and economic backgrounds while addressing the under-representation of minority musicians in the classical music field. Half of the Annapolis Symphony Academy student body is composed of minorities under-represented in contemporary orchestras of the United States. The ASA employs a model that emphasizes interaction and mutual respect. This model provides a diverse student body: it merges two overlapping, non-identical concepts of equality into one program. Students are selected for the program strictly based on merit and their drive to learn and become better musicians. Regardless of a student’s cultural background and through the incredible generosity of our donors, the Academy awards up to fifty percent of its annual tuition revenue in need-based scholarships.
Annapolis Symphony Academy’s Orion Youth Orchestra is a high-level, tuition-free youth orchestra for advanced students looking to play symphonic repertoire, learn from ASO musicians, and most importantly, study under ASO music director Maestro José-Luis Novo. Students in Orion have achieved a high level of study and performance dedication that distinguishes them from other young musicians.
“Patrons in the audience will be blown away by the caliber of the music from these young people,” says José-Luis Novo, Director of Orchestral Activities and Conductor of the Orion Youth Orchestra. “When the ASO musicians join the ensemble, the students rise to the occasion in a breathtaking way.”
The Orion Youth Orchestra is grateful for the financial support of Bill Seale and Marguerite Pelissier. The Academy thanks founding donors Peter Chambliss and Jane Campbell-Chambliss for their generous contributions.
Annapolis Symphony Orchestra
Shostakovich Symphony No. 5
The program culminates with Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5, as the ASO alone takes the audience on a journey from its hauntingly somber opening to a triumphant finale—a timeless testament to resilience and the endurance of the human spirit. a work of gripping intensity and symphonic power. Written at a time of political turmoil, Shostkovich’s Symphony No. 5 has sparked debate over whether it expresses defiant resilience or state-mandated celebration. Either way, its sheer force and complexity make it one of the most compelling symphonies of the 20th century.
Reynaldo Moya, Polo Romanesco
The Romanesca is a melodic-harmonic formula popular from the mid–16th to early–17th centuries that was used as an aria formula for singing poetry and as a subject for instrumental variation. The formula was not to be viewed as a fixed tune, but as a framework over which elaborate ornamentation can occur. Documentation of the term is seen for the first time in Alonso Mudarra’s Tres libros de musico en cifra para vihuela (Romanesca, o Guárdame las vacas) (“O let us put the cows to pasture” or, “look after the cows for me”) in 1546 and in Carminum pro testudines liber IV by Pierre Phalèse.
This Romanesca must have made its way to the shores of the New World where after several centuries, it became the basis for one of the most popular songs from Western Venezuela. The Polo Margariteño is a folk song of unknown authorship that became widely known in the latter part of the twentieth century.
Moya’s Polo Romanesco is a kind of postmodern send up of the Romanesca progression as it weaves its way through bits and piece of the Polo Margariteño. The piece is full of surprises and juxtapositions and is an attempt to go on a similar journey from that one that these humble chords went on many centuries ago across unthinkable distances. It is a piece that attempts to bridge the gap between European and Venezuelan music and in turns it points to a way forward in which music can be both old and new.
TICKETING
Tickets for this performance must be purchased through the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall website. Please visit this link to purchase tickets.