“Recreating the very first concert of the Allentown Symphony is a wonderful way to pay tribute to our history,” says Diane Wittry, Allentown Symphony Orchestra (ASO) Music Director and Conductor.

The Allentown Symphony Orchestra opens its 2025-26 classical music season with “The 75th Season Celebration: An American in Paris & More,” 7:30 p.m. Oct. 11; 2 p.m. Oct. 12, Miller Symphony Hall, Allentown.

“Seventy-five years ago in October 1951, the ASO, conducted by Donald Voorhees, presented their first concert in the Lyric Theatre, now known as Miller Symphony Hall,” Wittry says.

Voorhees went to high school in Allentown [then Allentown High School] and at that time was the conductor of the ‘Bell Telephone Radio Hour,’ a national radio broadcast that was recorded weekly in New York,” says Wittry.

The concert opens with Voorhees’ beautiful orchestral arrangement of the choral prelude on “Wir glauben all’ an einen Gott,” BWV 740 (circa 1730) by Johann Ludwig Krebs and attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach.

“Vltava” (“The Moldau”) follows the course of the Moldau River from the Bohemian forest to Prague and is one of six independent symphonic poems in Bedrich Smetana’s 1879 work, “Ma Vlast” (“My Country”), a musical depiction of the Bohemian landscape.

Says Wittry, “I’m very excited to be showcasing the extremely talented young violinist Mio Imai. She is only 15-years-old, but has already won many international awards and competitions. She is an amazing musician.”

Imai accompanies the ASO in Felix Mendelssohn’s lyrical and emotional “Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64” (1864). The first movement opens with a brief haunting melody, incorporates a virtuosic cadenza which builds to a climax and ultimate resolution, leading into a tender, lyrical theme of the second movement. The third movement is reminiscent of the enchantment of Mendelssohn’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which demonstrates the soloist’s technical and artistic skills.

After intermission, the concert continues with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Waltz” from “The Sleeping Beauty, Op. 66” (1889); George Gershwin’s “An American in Paris” (1928), and the Bernard Morgan arrangement of Claude Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” from “Suite Bergamasque” (1905).

Camille Saint-Saens’ “Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 18” showcases the virtuosity of Imai and the ASO. Although the work opens with a melancholic and tranquil introduction, it transitions into a lively and brilliant Rondo Capriccioso where the soloist performs rapid arpeggios, chromatic scales and 30-second note passages.

The concert closes with Richard Wagner’s “Dance of the Apprentices and Procession of the Mastersingers” from “Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg” (1867), an opera whose central issue is musical innovation versus conservative tradition.

Imai studies violin with Kimberly Fisher, Principal Second Violin, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and is coached by Grammy-nominated pianist Mark Livshits. Beginning at age nine, Imai has performed as soloist with numerous orchestras in the United States and internationally. She performs chamber and orchestral music in the Center for Gifted Young Musicians Program at Temple University.

“This concert has something for everyone and takes us from the music of J.S. Bach, to Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Wagner and George Gershwin,” say Wittry. “Such a wide variety of music makes it fun for everyone as we recreate history.”

Allentown Symphony Orchestra, “The 75th Season Celebration: An American in Paris & More,” 7:30 p.m. Oct. 11, 2 p.m. Oct. 12,, Miller Symphony Hall, 23 N. Sixth St., Allentown. Free tickets for those 21 and under. Tickets: box office; 610-432-6715; https://millersymphonyhall.org/

“As guest conductor for the Pennsylvania Sinfonia Orchestra (PSO), I am very happy that this concert allows me to go back to the repertoire which I feel was the foundation of my musical education,” says Theodore Kuchar, Director of the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine, Kyiv; Principal Conductor of the Lviv National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine, and Artist-in-Residence and Conductor of the Moravian University Symphony Orchestra.

The Pennsylvania Sinfonia Orchestra presents “The Mannheim School: Legacy of Innovation,” 7:30 p.m. Oct. 18, Foy Hall, Moravian University, Bethlehem.

The Mannheim School was a group of composers in mid-18th century Germany centered around the Mannheim Court Orchestra. They significantly developed the symphony and classical music.

Founded by Johann Stamitz (1717-1757), The Mannheim School, including his son, Karl Stamitz (1745-1801), introduced innovations such as dynamic contrasts. Wind instruments gained increased importance as soloists, which pointedly influenced works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Joseph Haydn.

The concert opens with Karl Stamitz’s three-movement “Sinfonia Concertante in D major for Violin and Viola,” featuring soloists Paul Chou, violin, and Kuchar, viola, in a fascinating dialogue with chamber orchestra accompaniment.

Next is Mozart’s 1779 “Serenade No. 9 in D major, K.320, Posthorn.” Says Kuchar, “This seven-movement work is flanked by the first, fifth and seventh movements while the inner movements represent the greatest soloistic writing for the orchestra’s woodwind family. The sixth movement features the ‘posthorn,’ which was a distant relative of today’s modern trumpet.”

The finale is Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 2, Op. 36,” composed 1801-1802. “I always found this symphony to be the most fun to play as a viola player. It has the most intricate, detailed and interesting writing for the inner voices and it’s written in the key of a string player’s closest desires, D major,” Kuchar says.

“This is the music I grew up on and which I try to program several times a year whether it be in Australia, Helsinki [Finland] or Cape Town [South Africa]. So I’m very happy that I can bring these works to the PSO, an orchestra with which I am only beginning to develop a relationship,” says Kuchar.

Kuchar has been Principal Conductor of the Orquesta Sinfonica of Venezuela, Queensland Philharmonic Orchestra, Brisbane, Australia, and the Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra, formerly the Czech Radio Orchestra.

He has collaborated with James Gallway, Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Sarah Chang, Mstislav Rostropovich, Joshua Bell and Frederica von Stade. He has received BBC Record of the Year, Chamber Music America Record of the Year and a Latin Grammy nomination for Best Instrumental Music.

Pennsylvania Sinfonia Orchestra, “The Mannheim School: Legacy of Innovation,” 7:30 p.m. Oct. 18, Moravian University Foy Concert Hall, 342 Main St., Bethlehem. Tickets: PSO office, 1524 W. Linden St., Allentown; 610-434-7811; https://www.pasinfonia.org/

“Classical View” is a column about classical music concerts, conductors and performers. To request coverage, email: Paul Willistein, Focus editor, pwillistein@tnonline.com