Juanjo Mena, conductor
Carlos Ágreda, Rita E. Hauser Conducting Fellow
ADAMS Short Ride in a Fast Machine
STRAUSS Don Quixote
BERLIOZ Symphonie fantastique
The Curtis Symphony Orchestra shines under the “world-class conducting” (Washington Post) of Juanjo Mena, chief conductor of the BBC Philharmonic, in a feast of Romantic storytelling. By turns whimsical and noble, Strauss’s take on the Cervantes novel Don Quixote gives way to the heady narrative of the Symphonie fantastique by Berlioz. A whirlwind tone poem by John Adams, Short Ride in a Fast Machine, sets it all in motion.