Individual tickets: $35. Joslyn members may receive a 20% discount for Symphony Joslyn series or single tickets by calling Ticket Omaha at (402) 345-0606 or showing a Joslyn membership card if purchasing tickets at the door the day of the concert. Strauss Performing Arts Center is located at 6305 University Drive North between the Criss Library and the Milo Bail Student Center parallel to Dodge Street. See the full series schedule at omahasymphony.org.

Ancient Airs & Dances
The Omaha Symphony leans into looking back, with masterclasses in neo- classical writing by Respighi, Prokofiev, and Brahms, while Principal Timpani Jack Rago steps forward for his Omaha Symphony solo debut.

RESPIGHI: Ancient Airs and Dances, Suite No. 3

PROKOFIEV: Symphony No. 1, “Classical”
BRAHMS: Variations on a Theme by Joseph Haydn

Karin Campbell, Phil Willson Curator of Contemporary Art, examines Philip Pearlstein's (American, 1924–2022), Kiddie Car-Plane, Airplane and Models (1990).

Variations on earlier themes run the risk of being viewed as odd or too experimental. When Sergei Prokofiev composed his 1917 reinterpretation of the work of Franz Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, he worried his critics would complain he was “contaminating the pure classical pearls with horrible Prokofievish dissonances.” Although reminiscent of Haydn’s Classical forms and techniques, the score of Johannes Brahms’s 1873 variation raised a few eyebrows, as some of its sections contained counterpoints rarely heard in Romantic music. When Ottorino Respighi altered the internal tempos of his Renaissance and Baroque sources in Ancient Airs and Dances, Suite No. 3, many judged his orchestral suite strange and unconventional. Philip Pearlstein’s 1990 painting Kiddie Car-Plane, Airplane and Models is no different. While Pearlstein cites known arthistorical sources, his aggressive cropping of two nude figures as well as his situation of them in an improbable, contemporary environment makes for a bizarre and jarring picture. Pearlstein relies on familiar themes and motives, but his variation on them challenges viewers’ visual expectations.

Symphony Joslyn is a Joslyn Around Town program.

Shown Above: Philip Pearlstein (American, 1924–2022), Kiddie Car-Plane, Airplane and Models, 1990, oil on canvas, 60 x 72 in., Gift of Mr. R. Crosby Kemper, Jr., 1999.51