Four Concerts, Four Musical Questions.
- Joe Duffy
- 19 hours ago
- 4 min read
August 25, 2026
And a look ahead to 2027
A few weeks ago, we promised to take you into Respighi's Rome before the first note of our 2027 Season is ever played. So let's start there — and then let's go further. Each of the four programs in Echoes of the Human Spirit is built around a question, and once you know the question, the music tends to answer it in ways you don't expect.
We've also put together a full page for the season, with details on every piece and every soloist:
Eternal Rome:
Love, Memory & Empire - January 30
QUESTION #1:
How can an orchestra portray a city?
Respighi answers it almost literally. In Pines of Rome, he wanted birdsong drifting through the Villa Borghese to sound real — so real that in 1924 he did something no orchestral composer had done before: he wrote a phonograph recording of an actual nightingale directly into the score, to be played over the orchestra during a live performance. It's one of the earliest known uses of recorded sound as an instrument. Around that nightingale, Respighi builds children at play, a catacomb's silence, and an ancient army advancing along the Appian Way — a city built entirely out of orchestral color. Puccini's Capriccio sinfonico, written while he was still a student, opens the program with the same melodic voice that would soon make him the most famous opera composer alive, years before La Bohème.
Meet the soloist: Zach Cheong, piano.
A First Prize winner of the International Chopin Piano Competition in Asia, Zach trained at the Curtis Institute of Music and is currently completing his studies at The Juilliard School. He made his orchestral debut with the Macao Orchestra at age nine and has since performed as a concerto soloist from Hong Kong to Paris to Mexico City. Zach will be performing Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11.
What else is Respighi hiding in this score? Which nightingale did he actually use?
Romantic Spirits:
Fate, Fear & Transcendence - February 20
QUESTION #2:
Why does Brahms's warmest symphony sound like it's hiding something?
Before the premiere of his Second Symphony, Brahms wrote to a friend warning him the new piece was "so melancholy that you will not be able to bear it" — he'd "never written anything so sad." It was a joke, and a good one: the symphony that followed is one of the sunniest, most pastoral works he ever composed. But Brahms wasn't entirely kidding. Underneath the warmth, there are shadows he never fully resolves. Weber's Der Freischütz Overture supplies the actual darkness — forests, fate, and the supernatural — before Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto turns toward transcendence.
Meet our soloist: Kate Anderson, violin.
Kate is the winner in the Music Foundation of Greater Naples' 2026 Scholarship Competition, and joins NCO to perform the first movement of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64 — continuing NCO's tradition of showcasing exceptional young talent from right here in our own community.
What was Brahms actually afraid of?
Dreams, Fairy Tales & Faith - March 20
QUESTION #3:
Can an orchestra make you believe in something you can't see?
Ravel thought so — and he had strong opinions about how. When a young George Gershwin asked to study with him in 1928, Ravel reportedly turned him down, telling him there was no reason to become "a second-rate Ravel when you could be a first-rate Gershwin." That same instinct for finding a composer's own voice runs through the Piano Concerto in G. Humperdinck's dream pantomime from Hänsel und Gretel and Mendelssohn's Reformation Symphony close the program by asking the same question two very different ways — one through fairy tale, one through faith.
Meet our soloist: Anthony Ratinov, piano.
Anthony began playing piano at age four, taught by his grandmother, a longtime faculty member at Moscow's Gnessin Music School. He's since won prizes at the Busoni, Montréal, and National Chopin competitions, and is completing an Artist Diploma at The Juilliard School — an unusual path for someone who first graduated from Yale with a degree in chemical engineering.
What did Ravel actually say to Gershwin — and did he mean it?
American Soul - April 17
QUESTION #4:
What makes music sound American?
Gershwin had a literal answer: taxi horns. While writing An American in Paris, he bought a set of actual Parisian cab horns and brought them home to New York so the orchestra could play the exact pitches he'd heard in traffic. Copland took a different approach — his Fanfare for the Common Man was commissioned in the middle of World War II, inspired by a speech about ordinary people carrying extraordinary weight. Barber answers the question yet again, with concentrated intensity, in his Violin Concerto.
Meet our soloist: Risa Hokamura, violin.
Risa began violin at age three and, by seventeen, had already won the Silver Medal at the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis — performing the Tchaikovsky Concerto with the Indianapolis Symphony under Leonard Slatkin — along with First Prize at the Young Concert Artists International Auditions the same year.
What did Ravel actually say to Gershwin — and did he mean it?
Join us for the Season
Support NCO by purchasing a Gold ($1,000), Silver ($750), or Bronze ($500) Season Pass.
Gold, Silver and Bronze Season Passes include two seats to all four concerts, along with special recognition and opportunities to connect with the orchestra. More than a season pass, they offer a meaningful way to enjoy the music while providing additional support for NCO. A portion of your ticket price is eligible for a tax-deductible.
You may also purchase a single Season Pass only for $160.
Coming Next
We'll be back soon to take you behind the curtain and introduce more of the people — musicians, volunteers, and students — who make NCO's community possible.
Naples Community Orchestra connects the community through the power of music.
Naples Community Orchestra, Inc.
PO Box 3542
Naples, FL 34101
(239) 944-7311
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