The Minnesota Orchestra, conducted by Dinis Sousa with mezzo Sasha Cooke, pairs Elgar's 'Sea Pictures' with Dvořák's Symphony No. 8.
The Minnesota Orchestra is at Orchestra Hall on Thursday, November 19, with conductor Dinis Sousa and mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke. The program pairs Elgar's Sea Pictures with Dvořák's Symphony No. 8, with Kaija Saariaho's Ciel d'hiver opening the night.
Sea Pictures is the one that brings Cooke to the stage. She describes the piece as stepping into a J.M.W. Turner painting: "They are very dark and murky, but beautiful with radiant, shimmering light." It's a song cycle for mezzo-soprano and orchestra, so you'll hear her voice carry through the first half of the evening. The second half belongs to Dvořák's Symphony No. 8, a nature-infused work that Johannes Brahms—one of the composer's biggest fans—said had a head "full of ideas."
Sousa is music director of the Royal Northern Sinfonia and founder of Orquestra XXI. Cooke is a two-time Grammy winner who has sung at the Metropolitan Opera and with more than 80 symphony orchestras worldwide. They're both guests for this one, leading the Minnesota Orchestra through a program that moves from Saariaho's modernism to Elgar's vocal cycle and Dvořák's late Romanticism.
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The Minnesota Orchestra is now in its second century and ranks among America's top symphonic ensembles. Danish conductor Thomas Søndergård began his third season as music director in September 2025, and this concert is part of that ongoing season. The performance runs about two hours including intermission, and doors open 90 minutes before the start. It's at Orchestra Hall, 1111 Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis.
