Photo provided The Columbus Symphony Orchestra will begin its 103rd season Sunday at The Commons with an international tour of music in a concert titled “Folk Traditions.”
The Columbus Symphony Orchestra will begin its 103rd season with an international tour of music in a concert titled “Folk Traditions.” Audience members will find themselves whisked away to England, Russia, Sweden and more.
The concert will be held at 3:30 p.m. Sunday at The Commons. Tickets cost $15 for adults and $10 for students and seniors 65 and older. Children under 12 have free admission. Tickets can be purchased at csoindiana.org/folk-traditions or at the door.
Pieces chosen for this upcoming concert include Vaughan Williams’ English Folk Suite, selections from Bruch’s Swedish Dances and Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances Op. 46, No. 1 and No. 8., Chabrier’s España Rhapsody for Orchestra and Liadov’s Eight Russian Folk Songs. The concert will conclude with a Sousa march titled “Hands Across the Sea.”
“It just felt like a great way to talk about or expose music from all over the world or at least parts of the world and then sort of sum it up with the idea that as different as we are, we have lots more commonalities than uncommonalities…” said CSO music director Christopher Bade.
The pieces range in tone from joyful to mournful, and some like the España Rhapsody or the Sousa march may invoke imagery of flamenco dancers or marches, Bade said. He described the music selected as attractive and audience pleasing, but they also offer challenges for the orchestra performers.
“Now many of these people are not from our culture, but the idea is, ‘hey, we are a nation a people from all over the world’ and what we want to build in Columbus, at least musically, is the idea that we want to serve our community and create some unity through community,” Bade said.
The 2025-2026 season will continue with “A Family Christmas” on Dec. 14, featuring well known Christmas classics such as “Sleigh Ride” and selections from The Nutcracker. The next performance will then be “Love is in the Air” on Feb. 15, followed by “Spring is in the Air” on April 26. The final concert of the season, “All in the Family,” will be performed on May 31.
“… and then at the end of the season, we want to do a really family-oriented one where we’re going to play some music that people are going to be familiar with from cartoons or movie themes in addition to having some concert pieces that fit sort of that spring time or late spring time portrait,” Bade said.
This season will be Bade’s first full season as the orchestra’s music director since coming on board this spring. CSO board of directors president Steve Roskowski said the orchestra was very happy Bade accepted the role, saying that he has brought with him a blend of music, not just classical, to their concerts.
“I think that he’s got a more appealing blend of music for audiences,” Roskowski said. “I think every concert there should be something for everybody, I think that makes it a little more user-friendly or enjoyable, you get a bigger spectrum and then people find out on the fringe that, ‘hey, I like that too but didn’t realize it.’”
Bade said he wanted to focus on community and family for this season. While each program is a little different, they are all based on a fundamental aspect that they are a community group, made up of people in the community, for people in the community.
