Name: Saint-Saens' First Cello Concerto and Strauss
Start: 2026-03-13T20:00:00-05:00
End: 2026-03-13T22:00:00-05:00
Location: Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts

Saint-Saens' First Cello Concerto and Strauss

Samuel Lee, guest conductor
Santiago Cañón-Valencia, cello

KAIJA SAARIAHO Du cristal (From Crystal)
CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS Cello Concerto No. 1
RICHARD STRAUSS Also sprach Zarathustra

Embark on an epic journey with Richard Strauss’s tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra, featuring one of the best-known openings in all of classical music thanks to its use at the beginning of the film “2001: A Space Odyssey.” This iconic piece, based on Friedrich Nietzsche’s novel, charts the philosophical journey of the title character and progresses through longing, joy and passion, with songs of the grave, the dance and the night along the way. This program also highlights French composer Camille Saint-Saëns’s First Cello Concerto, a masterwork of orchestration where the solo cello always shines through.