The season begins with a symphonic souvenir: “I think I have found there the beginning of my ‘Scottish’ Symphony,” Mendelssohn wrote in 1829 after visiting the ruins of Edinburgh’s Holyrood Chapel. At once dramatic and lighthearted, the resulting musical postcard is a vibrant journey from the mist to a sunny, lively finale.  North State Symphony principal musicians Michelle Keem and James Pytko will be featured in the Duet Concertino by Richard Strauss, his last purely instrumental work with a lean, retrospective voice.  The concert opens with Rossini’s Overture to Italian in Algiers, the comedic opera filled with an effervescent energy that thrust the 21-year-old into operatic stardom.

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