WCFSO
The WCFSO is a professional orchestra based at the Gallagher-Bluedorn Performing Arts Center in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Visit our website and follow our current work in the wcfso category of my blog. Highlights are linked below [click on season titles to view interactive brochures] and a chronological list of our performances since 2005 is here.
2010-11 season
Discovering Dvořák’s music and travels
Defying genre with refined folk rock and virtuosic mandolin
Ballet across the centuries
Exploring the four most famous notes ever written
Showcasing the musical talent of Iowa’s Cedar Valley
2009-10 season
A multimedia celebration of African-American music
Traversing North and South America through music
Philip Wharton’s storytelling music and new symphony
On location in Waterloo
More Mahler, up close and personal
2008-09 season
Mozart’s operas in 18th-century arrangements for winds
The life and music of Leonard Bernstein
Journeying through the Americas with Calle Sur
Birthday surprises with Samuel Adler
Essential American music by Marsalis, Ives and Adams
Bartók explained and experienced
2007-08 season
Chamber music touched by the Holocaust
A powerful new visual accompaniment to Holst’s Planets by artist Gary Kelley
Matt Haimovitz plays Barber
First performances of Passing Season by 2007-08 composer-in-residence Philip Wharton
Celebrating 25 years of the Iowa Composer’s Forum
Revisiting Dvořák’s stay in northern Iowa with elementary school students
2006-07 season
Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg plays Tchaikovsky and Peter Schickele returns as P.D.Q. Bach
Mahler exploration reaches the Fourth Symphony
Unforgettable Shostakovich
A sold-out afternoon of dance and music for families
2005-06 season
Mozart’s 250th birthday, featuring the Gran Partita, choral works and the Two Piano Concerto
David Shifrin performing Copland with the WCFSO
A weekend of Latin jazz with Orquesta Alto Maiz
2004-05 season
Performing Dvořák with Yo-Yo Ma
Music Alive grant supporting residencies in January and March with Peter Schickele
Mahler’s Second Symphony broadcast on Iowa Public Television
New partnership with the Northern Iowa Youth Orchestra
$1M raised for the orchestra’s endowment fund
2003-04 season
Introducing music by a living American composer on each concert
World premiere of Souvenir by Philip Rothman
Local commission pairing Alan Schmitz with budding elementary school composers
A new annual chamber music program with colleagues from the orchestra and around the state
Kicking off a multi-year cycle of Mahler with the First Symphony
Photos by Noah Henscheid
