The Meridian Symphony’s opening night performance has connections – French connections. World-renowned French bassist François Rabbath performs a fantasy on themes from French composer Georges Bizet’s immortal opera Carmen. The orchestra performs Bizet’s youthful Symphony No. 1 and Jacques Offenbach’s overture to Orpheus in the Underworld. In keeping with the Spanish flavor of Carmen, the Meridian Symphony will be showcased in Rimsky-Korsakov’s brilliant Capriccio espagnole.

At 18 years old, Armenian clarinetist Narek Arutyunian won First Prize in the 2010 Young Concert Artists International Auditions. Arutyunian’s additional awards include First Prize in the International Young Musicians Competition in Prague at age 16 and Musical Youth of the Planet Competition in Moscow at age 15. In a salute to Arutyunian, the Meridian Symphony performs colorful ballet music by Armenian composer Arman Khachaturian. Rounding out the program will be the ever popular Bolero by Maurice Ravel and Arutyunian performing the ferociously demanding Clarinet Concerto by Jean Françaix.

The Meridian Symphony’s popular holiday concert returns with a Celtic twist. In addition to the Meridian Symphony Chorus and Cambiata Children’s Chorus, the Celtic group Mithril will join the orchestra this year. Mithril is fast becoming one of the most sought-after Celtic/World music groups on the concert series scene. Mithril has been featured by arts and concert series and festivals throughout the Southeast and beyond, including the Mobile Symphony and orchestras in Michigan, Mississippi, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, California and Pennsylvania.

There's also a NEW concert this season for music lovers of all ages that utilizes the educational material from the Carnegie Hall Link Up curriculum. The Meridian Symphony Orchestra performs Link Up for area 4th-grade students each spring. This concert is an opportunity for students to see and hear what they have been experiencing, while learning the basics of music. This year’s concert, titled The Orchestra Moves, illustrates how music is constructed by creating moods and expression.

In remembrance of the September 11th tragedy, Richard Einhorn offers, in his words, “not music of consolation - for there can be nothing that adequately consoles those who lost loved ones or who were harmed in the attacks - but a work, however small and ineffectual, that uses the words fanatics would use to destroy us in a way to shame them.” The texts that comprise Einhorn’s The Spires, The Cities, The Field were selected from the central religious documents of the aptly named People of the Book: the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Qur’an and the Hadith. In contrast with Einhorn’s somber composition, the Meridian Symphony Chorus, Millsaps College Singers and the Meridian Symphony will perform Ludwig van Beethoven’s monumental Symphony No. 9, which incorporates Friedrich Schiller’s Ode to Joy with its message of “the brotherhood of all mankind.”