The Southeast Missouri Symphony Orchestra, in residence at Southeast Missouri State University, provides the Southeast Missouri region with five to six orchestral concerts per year. The symphony performs the standard symphonic orchestra repertoire from the Baroque era to the music of today, and has presented a number of regional, national, and world premieres. Additional free concerts, tours, and educational events are presented by the symphony orchestra each season. Its artistic director is Dr. Sara Edgerton of the Department of Music at Southeast.
Now in the fifteenth year of its highly successful subscription series, the Southeast Missouri Symphony Orchestra has collaborated with nationally and internationally-acclaimed guest artists, such as Mark O’Connor, Grammy Award Winning Violinist; Allen Vizzutti, Trumpet Virtuoso; Valentina Igoshina and Jack Gibbons, internationally-acclaimed concert pianists; David Halen, Concertmaster of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra; Mark Sparks, Principal Flutist of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra; Viviana Guzman, international flute virtuoso; and Neal E. Boyd, 2008 winner of America’s Got Talent. The Southeast Missouri Symphony Orchestra has also commissioned and presented a number of world premieres, including several premieres by award-winning composer Robert Fruehwald (River: 2009: concerts in Missouri and in China plus a newly-commissioned overture to be performed in 2016) and Two Brothers by Jim Stephenson (2013: concerts in Missouri and Illinois).
The Southeast Missouri Symphony Orchestra has toured nationally and internationally, including a concert tour of the East Coast (May 2013), with concerts in Midtown Manhattan (at St. Peter’s Church), and at the Hylton Performing Arts Center, Manassas, Virginia (just outside of Washington, DC). The orchestra has also given concerts in China under the auspices of the American Celebration of Music, performing in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou, as well as on the Great Wall of China.
The upcoming 2015—2016 concert season will include such masterpieces as Dvorak’s New World Symphony and Brahms’ Double Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Orchestra with guest artists Brandon Christensen and Valentina Takhova. We welcome back to our stage the charismatic young violinist, Liesl Schoenberger, and her husband, virtuoso string bass player, Karl Doty, in the engaging Double Concerto by Bottesini. Choral works such as Handel’s Messiah from the Baroque era and Morten Lauridsen’s contemporary Lux Aeterna will also be presented. Tickets for the 2015—2016 season are now on sale and can be purchased online, by phone, or in person at the River Campus Box Office, Cape Girardeau, MO.
The Southeast Missouri Symphony sponsors two competitive young artist competitions each year: a pre-collegiate Rising Star Concerto Competition (now in its sixth year) and the collegiate Concerto and Aria Competition (now in its twenty-fourth year). The Concerto and Aria Competition is open to all music majors and minors who are currently enrolled at Southeast Missouri State University. The Rising Star Competition is open to all pre-college string players who wish to compete for the opportunity to perform as a soloist with the Southeast Missouri Symphony Orchestra. Winners of these competitions perform as soloists with the orchestra during one of the symphony’s subscription series concerts each season at the River Campus.