Peter and the Wolf

The Minnesota Orchestra brings back Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf to Orchestra Hall on Thursday, October 29, at 11:35 AM. It's a symphonic tale that works as a story for kids and a crash course in the orchestra at the same time.

The plot is a classic: a young boy named Peter, with a bird, a duck, and a cat for company, manages to catch a wolf and march him off to the zoo. The clever part is how the music tells the story. Each character is assigned a specific instrument, so you can hear who's who as the plot unfolds: the bird is a flute, the duck an oboe, the cat a clarinet, the grandfather a bassoon, and the wolf the French horns. By the time the story wraps, you've had a guided tour of the orchestra's instrument families without even realizing it.

Lady Midnight narrates the performance. She's a Twin Cities vocalist and performance artist whose 2020 debut album, Death Before Mourning, was named Best Album of 2020 by The City Pages. Conducting is Molly Turner, who took up a one-year appointment as associate conductor in September 2026. The Minnesota Orchestra itself is now in its second century and ranks among America's top symphonic ensembles; music director Thomas Søndergård began his third season in September 2025.

There's more on the program than just the title piece. Violinist Lorelei Schoenhard performs the finale of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto as part of the concert. The whole thing runs about an hour with no intermission, so it's a single, continuous stretch of music. The performance is at Orchestra Hall, 1111 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis, MN 55403, on Thursday, October 29, starting at 11:35 AM.