Door County classical music festival announces its 73rd season

The music festival’s 2025 Symphony Series includes an appearances by a two-time Grammy Award winning percussion soloist in its nine-concert season.

Appearances by a two-time Grammy Award winner (and on an intriguing instrument for a classical music soloist), a Grammy nominee and a couple of rising young stars in the world of classical cello are among the highlights of the recently announced 73rd Symphony Series for Door County’s Peninsula Music Festival.

The three-week, nine-concert season from Aug. 5 to 23 at Door Community Auditorium in Fish Creek brings together musicians from all over the world together to form the fully professional PMF Orchestra under the baton of Rune Bergmann, the native of Norway now in his third full season as PMF music director.

“There is a special energy at the Peninsula Music Festival. You can feel it in every rehearsal, every note, every audience member,” Bergmann said in a press release. “This season is a celebration of powerful stories told through music, and I am thrilled to be a part of it.”

Perhaps one of the most interesting concerts on the schedule offers percussion as a featured solo instrument, with the orchestra joined by guest artist Dame Evelyn Glennie, a Grammy winner in 1989 (for Best Chamber Music Performance) and 2014 (Classical Instrumental Solo) who’s considered one of the most preeminent percussionists in the world. The native of Scotland will be featured on Vincent Ho’s “The Shaman” Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra, a piece written specifically for her, during the Aug. 19 program, “Percussion Party.”

The opening two concerts, “American Dream” on Aug. 5 and “Scandinavian Evening” Aug. 7, features pianist Joyce Yang as guest soloist. Yang was a Grammy nominee in 2017 and a silver medalist in the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2005, at age 19. She will perform Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini,” Op. 43, for the Aug. 5 concert (which also has works by American composers Aaron Copland, George Gershwin and John Philip Sousa) and Grieg’s Concerto for Piano, Op. 16 for the Aug. 7 program.

Young guest cellists coming to PMF this year are Luka Coetzee, winner of first prize in the 2022 Pablo Casals International Awards, as soloist on Robert Schumann’s Concerto for Cello, Op. 129 in the Aug. 9 concert, “The Drama of Brahms and Schumann”; and Sterling Elliott, a 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, playing Anton Dvorak’s Concerto for Cello for the Aug. 21 program, “The New World,” which also includes Dvorak’s “From the New World” Symphony (Symphony No. 9 in E minor).

The Apollo Chorus of Chicago returns to PMF to join the orchestra and guest vocal soloists Jacquelyn Wagner (soprano) and Abigail Nims (mezzo-soprano) for the Aug. 23 program, a performance of Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony (Symphony No. 2).

PMF annually features recipients of its Karen Smuda Emerging Conductor Scholarship leading the orchestra during the season, and the Aug. 12 program, “Startles and Sonatas,” and Aug. 14 pops concert, “A Night at the Movies: Heroes,” has Emerging Conductors Stefano Boccacci and Ezra Calvino taking the baton.

Violinist Dennis Kim, who’s been a featured soloist with orchestras across the U.S. and around the world and guest concertmaster for the BBC Symphony Orchestra and London Philharmonic Orchestra among others, joins PMF principal violist Joan DerHovsepian as featured soloists on Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat major, K. 364 during the Aug. 16 program, “A Night in Vienna.” The program also offers Mozart’s “Eine kleine Nachtmusic” and a Beethoven symphony.

Peninsula Music Festival concerts start at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at Door Community Auditorium, 3926 State 42, Fish Creek. Tickets are $39 to $83 for adults, $10 students and children, and subscription packages are available; available tickets also will be sold at DCA starting at 6:30 p.m. before each concert. For tickets or more information, visit the PMF office, 10431 N. Water St. (State 42), Ephraim; call 920-854-4060; or visit musicfestival.com.

The 2025 PMF season:

• Aug. 5: “American Dream” with Grammy Award-nominated pianist Joyce Yang as guest soloist on Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini,” Op. 43; also on the program are Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” and “Quiet City,” Gershwin’s “Cuban Overture” and “An American in Paris,” and Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever.”
• Aug. 7: “Scandinavian Evening” with Yang as soloist on Grieg’s Concerto for Piano, Op. 16; also Carl Nielsen’s Overture to “Maskarade” and Sibelius’s Symphony No. 5.
• Aug. 9: “The Drama of Brahms and Schumann” with Luka Coetzee as soloist on Robert Schumann’s Concerto for Cello, Op. 129; also Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s Overture in C and Brahms’ Symphony No. 4, Op. 98.
• Aug. 12: “Startles and Sonatas” with Karen Smuda Emerging Conductor Scholarship winners Stefano Boccacci and Ezra Calvino taking the baton to lead Haydn’s Overture in D and Symphony No. 94 (“Surprise”) and Schubert’s Overture to “Rosamunde” and Symphony No. 5.
• Aug. 14: “A Night at the Movies: Heroes” with Bergmann and guest conductors Boccacci and Calvino taking turns leading the orchestra in playing music from “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Star Wars,” “Schindler’s List” “Chaplin” and more.
• Aug. 16: “A Night in Vienna” with guest violinist Dennis Kim and PMF principal violist Joan DerHovsepian as featured soloists on Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat major, K. 364; also Mozart’s “Eine kleine Nachtmusic” and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1, Op. 21.
• Aug. 19: “Percussion Party” with two-time Grammy winner Dame Evelyn Glennie as guest solo percussionist on Vincent Ho’s “The Shaman” Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra; also Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10.
• Aug. 21: “The New World” with rising classical music star Sterling Elliott as guest soloist on Dvorak’s Concerto for Cello; also Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 in E minor (“From the New World”).
• Aug. 23: Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (“Resurrection”) with the PMF Orchestra joined by the Apollo Chorus of Chicago and guest vocal soloists Jacquelyn Wagner (soprano) and Abigail Nims (mezzo-soprano).

Contact Christopher Clough at 920-562-8900 or cclough@gannett.com.

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