Three things to know ...

Our friends from the West coast return to Southam Hall for a can't-miss performance featuring superstar pianist Stewart Goodyear. Rachmaninoff's final concerto for piano and orchestra is so difficult, the pianist for whom it was written never dared to perform it! A search for hope in a time of oppression, Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony is a testament to the strength of the human spirit.

Making music became a matter of life and death for Soviet composers when Joseph Stalin's Great Terror campaign began a lethal crackdown on artistic dissent. Despite being denounced by the authorities and fearing for his life, Dmitri Shostakovich penned his Fifth Symphony — a work of artistic heroism in which the composer reacts to the violence, oppression, and cruelty of his time.

Sergei Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto is adored by music lovers — and feared by pianists — for its marriage of technical fireworks and passionate melodies. From the tolling of distant bells that haunts the opening to the spirited dances of its finale, this rollercoaster ride for solo piano and orchestra is brought to life by Canadian pianist Stewart Goodyear, whose performances of Rachmaninoff's music "would surely have won the composer's approval" (Gramophone).

And to commemorate the life of composer Jocelyn Morlock, the VSO's composer-in-residence before her untimely death in 2023, Otto Tausk and the orchestra open the program with Night, Herself — a moody and mysterious work inspired by Morlock's love of birdsong and nature.