Juneau Symphony to open year with worldwide-renowned guest pianist
- Ellie Ruel
- 6 hours ago
- 3 min read
‘Resurgence and Rediscovery‘ aims to give audience musical boost this winter, conductor says
By Ellie Ruel
Juneau Independent
The Juneau Symphony is set to open 2026 with a musical celebration of longer days and the world coming back to life with a concert series Saturday and Sunday.
"Resurgence and Rediscovery" will feature internationally acclaimed pianist Alexander Tutunov and free artists talks an hour before each show.
Conductor and music director Brad Hogarth said the talks are to give the audience deeper insights into the pieces and the guest musician, for both seasoned symphony goers and musical novices.
“I like to give a little bit of behind the scenes, what was happening when these pieces were written, a little bit of insight into what you'll hear and then also just have a chance to get to know Alexander as a piano soloist. He's wonderful. He's witty. He's just an incredible performer,” he said.
Tutunov has been a regular guest of the symphony for more than a decade, playing at solo recitals and working with younger students in the community. He’s currently a Professor of Piano and Artist in Residence at Southern Oregon University, and has had previous work featured in the Emmy-winning soundtrack for the History Channel documentary, “Russia: Land of Tsars,” with a multitude of other international performances and recordings.
Local elementary school students got an early preview of the show Friday.
“They sang along with the Alaska flag song and played recorders to ‘Ode to Joy,’ and it was wonderful,” Hogarth said.
The performance will kick off with Louise Farrenc’s "Overture No. 2 in E Minor." Farrenc was one of the only longstanding female professors at the Paris Conservatory in the 19th century, composing what Hogarth called “wonderful, elegant, fun, beautiful music.”
"Piano Concerto in A Minor" by Edvard Grieg will follow the overture, starring Tutunov’s piano solo.
“He's going to be our soloist on the Grieg piano concerto. which is sort of an iconic Norwegian piano concerto. It's lovely, it's dynamic, it's just sort of an audience favorite,” Hogarth said.
After intermission, the show will wrap up with "Brahms-Symphony No. 1 in C Minor." Hogarth noted this piece fits with the season theme of “Bold Symphonic Horizons” because of the composer’s career trajectory.
“We've based each concert around like a big orchestral pillar in the repertoire. And a lot of the themes of this season are sort of like resilience and hope and courage and revival and things like this. It kind of permeates to the entire season,” he said. “The way that that fits in here with Brahms' first symphony is that he was sort of living in the shadow of Beethoven. Writing symphonies at the time was a really important art form and Beethoven had sort of been the pinnacle event. So Brahms was really intimidated to write his first symphony, but so he did it very late in his career.”
Hogarth said he’s wanted to program that piece at this point in the year for a while, since it mimics natural patterns with a dark and stormy start, transitioning to a hymn coral-type sound by the fourth movement.
“I just thought that this time of year, especially with everything that's happened, these are really important themes and I think themes that can connect with a lot of the audiences,” he said. “So I hope everybody comes out this weekend and sort of gives themselves a musical boost of morale and energy and things like that. It's going to be a wonderfully uplifting concert this weekend.”
The concert series will open Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and conclude with a 3 p.m. Sunday matinee. Free artist talks will be an hour before each performance, and tickets are available on the Juneau Symphony website.
• Contact Ellie Ruel at ellie.ruel@juneauindependent.com.
