Joshua Bell with the Austin Symphony Orchestra

Joshua Bell returns to the Austin Symphony Orchestra on Friday, February 19, at Long Center's Dell Hall, with a second performance on Saturday, February 20. Both shows start at 8 PM. It's a program that pulls from three different eras of classical music, and Bell takes the lead on the main event.

The evening opens with the overture to Giuseppe Verdi's La forza del destino, a high-drama piece that sets a bold tone right out of the gate. From there, the orchestra moves into Witold Lutosławski's Concerto for Orchestra, a mid-century work that puts the full ensemble in the spotlight. The program then shifts to the centerpiece: Ludwig van Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61, performed by Bell. It's one of the most famous concertos in the repertoire, and it's the piece the whole night is built around.

Bell's return to the ASO stage is described as a program that brings together precision, scale, and expressive power. The Beethoven concerto sits at the center of that, and the description puts the focus on how Bell approaches it—with clarity and focus, letting the balance of lyricism and structure come through. It's a work that asks a lot of the soloist, and Bell is the one taking it on.

Conducting the orchestra is Peter Bay, who'll be leading the ASO through all three pieces. Between Verdi's operatic energy, Lutosławski's orchestral scale, and Beethoven's violin concerto, the program covers a fair amount of ground in one sitting. If you're planning to go, you've got two nights to choose from: Friday, February 19, and Saturday, February 20, both starting at 8 PM at Dell Hall.