After 11-going-on-12 years as The Florida Orchestra’s music director and principal conductor, Michael Francis gets a kick out of confounding expectations.
Francis has curated the organization’s 59th season, starting in October, with a combination of familiar classical favorites, newer works by American composers (it’s that 250th anniversary thing, you know) from Bernstein to Zappa, and music that crosses genres in wildly interesting ways.
“It’s always my desire to give you the things that you love,” he said, “but at the same time to introduce you to things I know you’ll love – you just don’t know it yet.”
Season tickets went on sale Friday. Single tickets go on sale Aug. 11.
Understandably, Beethoven always turns up, in every TFO season. And as the 200th anniversary of the great composer’s death is approaching, Francis put this thinking cap on. Here’s what he came up with: Three Beethoven pieces that The Florida Orchestra has never in its long history performed.
In the season’s very first Masterworks concert, Oct. 2 and 4, “Here we’ve got Wellington’s Victory, which is the French against the English. On the one side you’ve got a French marching band, on the other an English marching band. And that’s paired with Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. So it’s probably the most bombastic opening to a season we’ve ever done.”
“Fidelio (March 20 and 21, with the Master Chorale of Tampa Bay) is this masterpiece of an opera, and actually works very, very well in concert. It doesn’t require complex staging. So we’ll just do it simple, almost like an oratorio, singing it.
“And we’ve also got Egmont; Beethoven wrote the incidental music to a play (by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe). So we’re going to put that together with narration, and that’ll be fun to see.”
Guest artists for Season 59 include conductor Leonard Slatkin, classical/jazz pianist Makoto Ozone, violinist Noah Bendix-Balgley (first concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic), classical and bluegrass violinist Tessa Lark, pianist Joyce Yang, violinist Charles Yang and conductor JoAnn Falletta.
Masterworks series
Oct. 2 and 4. Rossini: Overture to William Tell; Christopher Theofanidis: The Gift; Beethoven: Wellington’s Victory; Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture.
Oct. 16 and 17. Karen LeFrak: American Promise; Florence Price: Piano Concerto in One Movement; Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade.
Nov. 6-8. Gabriela Ortiz: Teenek; Alberto Ginastera: Harp Concerto; Falla: The Three-Cornered Hat (full ballet music).
Nov. 20 and 21. Constanze Geiger: Ferdinandus Waltz; Friedrich Gulda: Cello Concerto; Johann Strauss, Jr.: The Blue Danube; R. Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier Opera: Suite.
“The wildest piece on this program is the Friedrich Gulda Cello Concerto,” Francis enthused. “It starts like the soundtrack to Shaft – it’s funky, then it turns into a crazy waltz, then a drinking song. It has a middle movement that sounds like Jimi Hendrix on one of his wilder nights, shall we say.”
Gulda, a 20th century Viennese composer, was also a jazz artist. Gulda described the concerto as “jazz, a minuet, rock, a smidgen of polka, a march, and a cadenza with two spots where the star cellist must improvise.”
Jan. 16 and 17: Wagner: Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde; Joan Tower: Piano Concerto (Homage to Beethoven) with pianist Joyce Yang; Florent Schmitt: Antoine et Cléopâtre, Suite No. 1; Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy.
Jan. 29 and 31. John Williams: The Cowboys: Overture; Kris Bowers: For a Younger Self (with violinist Charles Yang); Richard Strauss: Symphonia Domestica.
Feb. 19-21. Mozart: Overture to The Abduction from the Seraglio; Noah Bendix-Balgley: Fidl-Fantazye: A Klezmer Concerto; Mahler: Symphony No. 1, “Titan.”
“I did the Klezmer Concerto in California,” Francis said. “People went crazy for it.”
Feb. 26-28. Beethoven: Egmont: Music for Goethe’s Tragedy; Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2 (with pianist Tzimon Barto).
March 20 and 21. Beethoven’s Fidelio with The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay.
April 2 and 3. Conducted by Leonard Slatkin. Ron Nelson: Savannah River Holiday; Leonard Bernstein: The Age of Anxiety; Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5.
April 16-18. Michael Torke: Sky Violin Concerto (with violinist Tessa Lark); Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2.
May 1 and 2. Stravinsky: Petrushka (1947 version); Frank Zappa: Three selections from The Yellow Shark – Dog Breath Variations, Outrage at Valdez, G-Spot Tornado; Gershwin (orch. Grofe): Rhapsody in Blue (with pianist Makoto Ozone). “He’s a consummate jazz performer,” Francis said. “So he will do this in a way that no one’s ever heard it. With huge improvisations in the middle of it. This will be Rhapsody in Blue as you’ve never heard it before.”
May 14-16. Maria Theresia von Paradis: Overture to The School Candidate; Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 5, “Turkish”; George Walker: Lyric for Strings.
May 28 and 30. Verdi: Requiem with the Master Chorale of Tampa Bay.
“If anybody’s seen Mad Max, it’s the soundtrack to that,” Francis explained. “It’s the most operatic, thunderous interpretation of a requiem mass ever done. It’s one of the greatest masterpieces of all time.”
Pops series
Revolution: The Music of The Beatles (Oct. 9 and 10). With guest vocalists.
John Williams at 95 (Oct. 30 and Nov. 1). Saluting the legendary film composer.
Holiday Pops (Dec. 10-13). Six performances.
Soul Sisters (Jan. 8 and 9): Music made famous by Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston and R&B vocalists.
The Wonderful Music of Oz (Jan. 22 and 24): Music from The Wizard of Oz, Wicked and The Wiz.
Come Swing with Me (Feb. 12 and 13): Tunes from Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin and the Rat Pack era.
Dreams of Bollywood (May 21 and 22, 2027): With the Veils of Bollywood dancers, vocalists and tabla virtuoso Shawn Mativetsky.
Said Francis: “Daniel Black, who was our resident conductor, has been putting this show together. It’s something we’ve really been looking to do for quite a number of years.”
The 2026-2027 also includes six “Morning Matinee” concerts; additional performances will be announced. Concerts take place in the Mahaffey Theater (St. Petersburg), the Straz Center (Tampa), Ruth Eckerd Hall (Clearwater) and other locations.
Find more information, and season tickets, at the Florida Orchestra website.
