Quad City Symphony Announces 111th Season
Two classic piano concertos, two world premieres by female composers and a Quad Cities premiere of a new saxophone concerto are among highlights of the Quad City Symphony Orchestra (QCSO) 111th season, announced Saturday, April 5.
The 2025-2026 lineup will feature featuring six dynamic Masterworks, four intimate Up Close chamber concerts, Quad City Bank & Trust Riverfront Pops, two QCSO at the Movies presentations (“Jurassic Park” and the last Harry Potter film), and several special events.
“The 2025-26 season continues to uplift our vision—QCSO, Where Access Meets Inspiration—and we look forward to engaging the entire Quad Cities community with another incredibly diverse and compelling lineup,” said QCSO music director and conductor Mark Russell Smith. “Experience two magnificent piano concertos: one featuring the return of brilliant pianist Wei Luo to the Quad Cities stage and another performed by world-renowned virtuoso Yefim Bronfman.
“We are thrilled to introduce captivating new works, including Billy Childs’ powerful Diaspora brought to life by the extraordinary saxophonist Steven Banks. Our very own QCSO principal cellist Hannah Holman will premiere Rebecca Burkhardt’s exquisite new Cello Concerto. In February, shake off the winter chill with Stravinsky’s electrifying Rite of Spring, a groundbreaking masterpiece that continues to captivate audiences with its primal energy and revolutionary sound.
Mark Russell Smith has been music director and conductor of the Quad City Symphony for 17 years.
“The season culminates with the profoundly moving Violins of Hope concert, where our orchestra will perform on historic instruments once owned by Jewish musicians before and during World War II, symbolizing resilience, remembrance, and the ultimate triumph of humanity over evil and hatred,” Smith said.
“We’re thrilled to continue bringing generations together through unforgettable live symphonic experiences,” said QCSO executive director Brian Baxter. “This year’s QCSO at the Movies series features cinematic favorites—Jurassic Park with John Williams’ legendary score and the epic conclusion of the Harry Potter saga with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 in Concert.
“Our beloved Quad City Bank & Trust Riverfront Pops returns with a dynamic celebration of iconic ’70s horn bands, including the timeless hits of Chicago, Earth, Wind & Fire, and Blood, Sweat & Tears,” he added. “It’s a season designed to energize, inspire, and unite audiences of all ages.”
The cover of the new QCSO 2025-26 season brochure.
QCSO Masterworks performances are held on Saturday evenings at the Adler Theatre, 136 E. 3rd St., Davenport, and Sunday afternoons at Centennial Hall, Augustana College, 3703 7th Ave., Rock Island, unless otherwise noted. The following works are scheduled for the 2025-2026 Season:
Masterworks I: Grieg Piano Concerto
October 4, 2025 | 7:30 pm | Adler Theatre
October 5, 2025 | 2:00 pm | Centennial Hall
Wei Luo, piano
PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY Polonaise from Eugene Onegin
EDVARD GRIEG Piano Concerto
JOHANNES BRAHMS Symphony No. 2
Masterworks II: Diaspora
November 8, 2025 | 7:30 pm | Adler Theatre
November 9, 2025 | 2:00 pm | Centennial Hall
Steven Banks, saxophone
RICHARD STRAUSS Don Juan, Op. 20
BILLY CHILDS Diaspora, a concerto for saxophone and orchestra QC Premiere (the work had its world premiere in February 2024 by the Minnesota Orchestra)
MAURICE RAVEL Daphnis et Chloé, Suite No. 2
Masterworks III: Schumann Piano Concerto
December 6, 2025 | 7:30 pm | Adler Theatre
December 7, 2025 | 2:00 pm | Bartlett Performing Arts Center
Yefim Bronfman, piano
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Orchestral Suite No. 3
ROBERT SCHUMANN Piano Concerto
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART Symphony No. 41, “Jupiter”
Masterworks IV: The Rite of Spring
February 7, 2026 | 7:30 pm | Adler Theatre
February 8, 2026 | 2:00 pm | Centennial Hall
MODEST MUSSORGSKY Dawn on the Moskva River
ANGEL LAM World Premiere of a Toulmin Foundation Commission
IGOR STRAVINSKY The Rite of Spring
Angel Lam’s new work was commissioned by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation Orchestral Commissions Program, an initiative of the League of American Orchestras in partnership with the American Composers Orchestra. Her piece “Please let there be a paradise…” was scheduled for this weekend’s QCSO concerts, and commissioned through the same program.
Masterworks V: Beethoven Second Symphony
March 7, 2026 | 7:30 pm | Adler Theatre
March 8, 2026 | 2:00 pm | Centennial Hall
Hannah Holman, cello
Hannah Holman is principal cellist of the Quad City Symphony.
LEONARD BERNSTEIN Three Dance Episodes from On the Town
REBECCA BURKHARDT Ballet for Cello and Orchestra world premiere
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 2
Masterworks VI: Violins of Hope
April 11, 2026 | 7:30 pm | Adler Theatre
April 12, 2026 | 2:00 pm | Centennial Hall
Naha Greenholtz & TBA, violins
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Concerto for Two Violins
GUSTAV MAHLER Symphony No. 6
Quad City Bank & Trust Riverfront Pops: A Symphonic Celebration of Chicago & More
August 16, 2025 | 7:30 pm | LeClaire Park
Hisham Bravo Groover, conductor
Jeans ‘N Classics
Join the QCSO along the banks of the Mississippi for the Party of the Summer! Rock out they celebrate the unforgettable hits of the iconic ’70s horn bands featuring show-stopping classics like “Spinning Wheel,” “Boogie Wonderland,” and “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” This spectacular event closes with traditional renditions of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture and Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever set to a brilliant fireworks display.
Jurassic Park in Concert
October 25, 2025 | 7:30 pm | Adler Theatre
Hisham Bravo Groover, conductor
The action-packed adventure pits man against prehistoric predators in the ultimate battle for survival. Featuring visually stunning imagery and groundbreaking special effects, this epic 1993 film is sheer movie magic 65 million years in the making.
Now audiences can experience “Jurassic Park” as never before: projected in HD with the Quad City Symphony Orchestra performing John Williams’ iconic score live to picture.
Hisham Bravo Groover, QCSO assistant conductor and head of the QCSO Youth Ensembles, leading the QC Youth Symphony Orchestra.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 in Concert
November 22, 2025 | 2:00 pm | Adler Theatre
November 22, 2025 | 7:30 pm | Alder Theatre
Hisham Bravo Groover, conductor
After seven films, it all comes down to this: “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2” (2011) will grace the screen once more—this time in concert! The characters you love are back, battling villains and protecting Hogwarts from Voldemort himself. Hear the QCSO bring Alexandre Desplat’s music to life and experience all the action as the film is projected onto a giant screen with this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
At a reception Saturday announcing the new season (at Davenport’s Mississippi River Distilling Downtown Lounge), Smith said he got to hear the “Diaspora” premiere in Minneapolis, since he lives there and his wife has played in the Minnesota Orchestra 34 years.
“I’m not a big fan of saxophone, but when I heard this guy play this piece with the Minnesota Orchestra, I was just dumbfounded,” he said of Steven Banks, who will perform it here. “This is a master of this instrument…He will take your breath away.”
Billy Childs will have his 2024 concerto for saxophone and orchestra performed here Nov. 8-9, 2025.
The composer Billy Childs has been nominated for 17 Grammy Awards and won six.
Smith said the Israeli-American pianist Yefim Bronfman approached the QCSO about playing here, which he will do in December for the popular Schumann Piano Concerto. “We are thrilled – he is a world-class artist who has played everywhere,” the QCSO conductor said.
A recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize, one of the highest honors given to American instrumentalists, Bronfman received the Jean Gimbel Lane prize in piano performance from Northwestern University in 2010 and an honorary doctorate in 2015 from the Manhattan School of Music.
Composer Angel Lam will write a new full-length work to have its world premiere by the QCSO in February 2026.
Smith is also excited to premiere a new Angel Lam work (yet to be written), on the same program (February 2026) as the iconic “Rite of Spring” (1913) by Igor Stravinsky.
Baxter said Saturday the QCSO was chosen among three orchestras nationwide to have a full-length piece commissioned by Lam, with two other composers. “That was awesome,” he said, noting she attended the concerts this weekend. “We’re pretty excited about it.”
Lam’s new work will be about 25 minutes in length. The piece QCSO is doing this weekend was not the world premiere, but the fifth of six orchestras to do it. “It’s really beautiful,” Baxter said. “It’s about her father; he died during the COVID lockdown. He was in Hong Kong and she was in New York. She still to this day, it’s a mystery what he died from. Part of writing this piece was to try to and find some closure.”
“Another cool thing about the new commission is they provide for us to have a reading session,” Baxter said of Lam working with the orchestra next fall. “She’ll be here twice next year, so she can workshop the piece with the orchestra.”
“That’s pretty unusual to have that level of opportunity,” he said.
Another premiere will be next March by Rebecca Burkhardt, former longtime conductor at University of Northern Iowa, who wrote a cello concerto for QCSO principal cellist Hannah Holman. It’s called “Ballet for Cello and Orchestra,” in part since Holman plays for the New York City Ballet Orchestra.
For tickets and more information, visit qcso.org.
