classical

Nearly 100 players from the region, spanning grades 6-12, are participating in the new Ad Astra Chamber Orchestra of Kansas City. “I try to get away from stuffy concerts,” says the group co-founder Russ Pieken.

After 19 seasons, outgoing Kansas City Symphony music director Michael Stern conducted his final concert over the weekend. Plus: One Kansas City opera company is bringing the show to residents of local retirement communities.

The Bach Aria Soloists, now in their 25th season, celebrate the music of the 17th and 18th centuries through concerts and collaborations across genres.

Alana Washington knows how much trauma her middle school students in southeast Kansas City students can go through on a daily basis. She started the Save a Life Mentorship program to give students the tools they need to get through it. Plus: The Medical Arts Symphony of Kansas City community orchestra has helped Kansas City doctors and nurses reduce stress for more than 60 years.

The Medical Arts Symphony of Kansas City community orchestra has given amateur musicians in the health care profession a place to perform since 1959. For the doctors, nurses, dentists, medical students, and more who take part, the music can be therapeutic.

Park University graduate student Victor Diaz was named one of 11 senior semifinalists in this month's Sphinx Competition, hosted annually in Detroit. The top award is $50,000, but Diaz has another prize in mind: Inspiring more Hispanic kids to discover classical music.

Opera sensation Joyce DiDonato joined Classical KC to share reflections on the past year and her excitement on returning home to Kansas City to perform with Michael Stern and the Kansas City Symphony. We'll hear Joyce sing works by Charles Ives, Gustav Mahler, Jake Heggie and more.

Join co-hosts Michael Stern and Dan Margolies for a program of fun and dramatic orchestral works. We'll hear Richard Wagner's Overture to "The Flying Dutchman," Max Bruch's "Scottish Fantasy" featuring violinist Stefan Jackiw, Walter Piston's Suite from "The Incredible Flutist" and Antonín Dvořák's sunny Symphony No. 8.

While the exact date of Ludwig van Beethoven's birth in December of 1770 is debated by scholars, what is inarguable was his musical genius. We'll hear the Kansas City Symphony perform his "Coriolan" Overture, Violin Concerto featuring Pinchas Zukerman, and his "Eroica" Symphony No. 3.

It turns out that Ludwig van Beethoven was having a bit of fun during and following the harried premiere of his third piano concerto. Co-hosts Dan Margolies and Michael Stern recount that story and sing the praises of soloist Emanuel Ax. We'll also hear Felix Mendelssohn's puffin-inspired "Hebrides Overture," Frederick Delius' beautiful and foreboding "Walk to the Paradise Garden" and the inner struggle of Peter Tchaikovsky's "Symphony No. 4."

Led by violinist Véronique Mathieu, Navo has been presenting diverse chamber music performances in Kansas City for nine seasons. Brooke Knoll speaks with Mathieu about Navo's current season alongside music by Grażyna Bacewicz, Alice Ping Yee Ho, Ingrid Stölzel and more.

The premiere of Aaron Copland's piano concerto was his mother's proudest moment and — as she said — "made all those music lessons worthwhile!" We'll hear that work, plus Copland's "Three Latin-American Sketches," a "Chacony" by Henry Purcell (as arranged by Benjamin Britten), Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's suite from his ballet "Hiawatha" and Stravinsky's timeline altering "Rite of Spring."