Ear Candy: Symphony Orchestra with Wind Ensemble & Julia Wolfe

Name: Ear Candy: Symphony Orchestra with Wind Ensemble & Julia Wolfe
Start: 2026-02-21T19:30:00-05:00
End: 2026-02-21T19:30:00-05:00
Location: Armstrong Concert Hall

Saturday, February 21 @ 7:30 pm

Armstrong Concert Hall

$18

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Emanuele Andrizzi, Artistic Director & Conductor

Ear Candy New Music Festival

Symphony Orchestra with Wind Ensemble & Julia Wolfe

Presented as part of Shenandoah Conservatory’s Ear Candy New Music Festival, the Symphony Orchestra and special guests present a program that bridges Romantic imagination with contemporary innovation.

The Symphony Orchestra (Emanuele Andrizzi, conductor) opens the concert with Symphonie fantastique, H. 48 by Hector Berlioz, a revolutionary Romantic masterpiece renowned for its vivid orchestration and dramatic storytelling.

Shifting to contemporary innovation, the program celebrates the bold imagination and sonic brilliance of 2025/26 distinguished composer-in-residence and Pulitzer Prize winner Julia Wolfe with two of her large-ensemble works. The Wind Ensemble (Timothy J. Robblee, conductor) takes the stage to perform Zigzag, a recently commissioned piece by a consortium that included Shenandoah Conservatory that is a high-energy, rhythmically charged work pulsing with drive and daring.

Bringing the evening to an electrifying close, Wolfe’s Flower Power unleashes a genre-defying surge of rhythmic vitality and countercultural spirit, featuring the Symphony Orchestra with special guest soloists Garrick Zoeter (clarinet), Colin Davin (electric guitar), Karlyn Viña (drums), Eoín Fleming ’20, ’22 (electric organ), Christian Hartman ’26 (cello) and Donovan Stokes (double bass).

Part of a weekend celebrating the visionary voices shaping today’s musical landscape — while honoring the masters who paved the way — this performance showcases two of Wolfe’s newest large-ensemble works and promises to surprise, challenge and inspire.

Meet the Guest Composer

Julia Wolfe’s music is distinguished by an intense physicality and a relentless power that pushes performers to extremes and demands attention from the audience. She draws inspiration from folk, classical and rock genres, bringing a modern sensibility to each while simultaneously tearing down the walls between them.

In addition to receiving the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Music, Wolfe was a 2016 MacArthur Fellow. She received the 2015 Herb Alpert Award in Music and was named Musical America’s 2019 Composer of the Year. Wolfe is co-founder/co-artistic director of New York’s legendary music collective Bang on a Can, and she is Artistic Director of NYU Steinhardt Music Composition.

Her music is published by Red Poppy Music and G. Ricordi & Co., New York (ASCAP) and is distributed worldwide by the Universal Music Publishing Group.

Digital Program

Shenandoah Conservatory uses digital programs for all performances. In addition to their engaging and accessible design, digital programs are cost effective, environmentally friendly and enable us to create and update our programs more efficiently, which means we can focus our resources on the performances you love! View our digital programs by clicking the button above, scanning the QR code in our venue or texting PROGRAM to (540) 307-2336 at the performance. [Note: Digital programs are best viewed on your mobile or tablet device.]

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