BEETHOVEN Prometheus Overture

BACH Toccata and Fugue in D minor

POULENC Concerto for Organ, Timpani and Strings

featuring Nathaniel Gumbs, Organ

CONSTANT Concerto for Barrel Organ

featuring Jonathan Mathis, Barrel Organ

Riverside Symphony began life as “The New Philharmonia of Riverside” at Riverside Church in 1981 until making its Alice Tully Hall debut in April 1987. Back to the place where it all started, we open this special season featuring two unique instruments: Riverside Church’s world-renowned pipe organ alongside the humble barrel organ, a smaller, mechanically operated instrument here transformed into a vehicle of uncanny poignance and expressive power in Marius Constant’s visionary, one-of-a-kind concerto. Our honored soloists are French Barrel Organist Jonathan Mathis as well as Riverside Church’s Nathaniel Gumbs, who will perform a towering solo Bach masterpiece and Poulenc’s  endearing concerto. Indeed, Bach's historical preeminence provides the program’s underlying theme since Constant extensively repurposes BWV 565’s main motif while Poulenc directly quotes another famous Bach solo organ work. In this spiritual sense, our soloists are joined by a third organist, Bach himself. 

MUSSORGSKY Pictures at an Exhibition

The return of Riverside Family Concerts in its second season spotlights one of classical music’s most widely beloved works. The enduring legacy of Mussorgsky’s masterpiece may be appreciated by the many times it has been orchestrated since its original incarnation as a work for the solo piano, in this case a brilliant version for chamber orchestra by the prizewinning young American composer, James Ra. A Riverside-commissioned video animation on the composer and his times will also be featured in this unique presentation. 

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PROKOFIEV Piano Concerto No. 3

featuring Evren Ozel, Piano

SIBELIUS Symphony No. 3

KORF Symphony No. 4 World Premiere

Returning to Alice Tully Hall for the first time since 2023, a colorful, highly explosive new symphony by Riverside’s Composer-in-Residence, Anthony Korf, a Guggenheim Fellow and two-time honoree of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Completing the program and Sibelius’ note-perfect, inexplicably lesser-known Neoclassical stunner, joins Prokofiev’s exquisite show piece for solo piano, here featuring 2023 Avery Fisher Grant winner Evren Ozel in his New York concerto debut.