About the Event

The Scottsdale Symphonic Orchestra was founded in 2023 to provide highly skilled musicians the opportunity to perform high-caliber live concert events that uplift, inspire, and culturally enrich its members and the community. 

The nonprofit organization was founded on the values of musical excellence, kindness, and respect. Its musicians live in the community and come from all walks of life—professionally trained musicians, business owners, military officers, teachers, doctors, engineers, homemakers, and even pilots—yet they all share the same love of music that has brought us all here today. 

The orchestra is in the midst of a worldwide search for a music director. During the 2023–24 season, the final candidates for the permanent position will be leading the orchestra as guest conductors. John Massaro, principal conductor for the Phoenix Opera, will be the guest conductor for this performance. 

John Massaro is an award-winning composer who recently completed his second opera, The Seven Sisters, intended for university opera programs. He served as an assistant to Leonard Bernstein during the creation of A Quiet Place and to Zubin Mehta for the Israel Philharmonic’s production of Madama Butterfly in Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem. He worked extensively with the great German soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, with whom he coached both opera and art song repertoire. Massaro made his Carnegie Hall debut conducting Mozart’s Requiem, which led to a distinguished European tour to Budapest, Krakow, Prague, Salzburg, and Vienna, where he conducted several additional Mozart masterpieces in a 250th anniversary celebration of the composer’s birth. He debuted with the Phoenix Symphony in 2002, conducting a 9/11 memorial concert, which included his own arrangement of the National Anthem. He has also served as musical director for the Phoenix Theater and the Black Theatre Troupe (BTT), where he received an ariZoni Award for BTT’s production of Blues in the Night. As the first music director for Arizona Broadway Theatre, Massaro conducted numerous stage productions, winning awards for his work there. 

Program 

Aaron Copland: Fanfare for the Common Man 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Overture to The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte), K. 620  

Edward Elgar: Enigma Variations, op. 36, IX. “Nimrod” 

Edvard Grieg: Peer Gynt Suite no. 1
I. “Morning Mood”
II. “The Death of Åse”
III. “Anitra’s Dance”
IV. “In the Hall of the Mountain King” 

~Intermission~ 

Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 in F Major, op. 68 Pastoral
I. “Awakening of Cheerful Feelings upon Arrival in the Countryside”
II. “Scene by the Brook”
III. “Merry Gathering of Country Folk”
IV. “Thunderstorm”
V. “Shepherd’s Song. Cheerful and Thankful Feelings after the Storm”