String and wind ensemble classics plus a cool, contemporary twist
Jackson, Mississippi — Mississippi Symphony Orchestra puts an exclamation point on this season’s Chamber Series in a cozy concert combining classical music standouts and a jazzy, funk-influenced surprise, Saturday, May 2, at Galloway Memorial United Methodist Church.
Lively percussion, jazzy guitar, captivating clarinet and more distinguish Trevor Weston’s 2019 Dig It. A winner of the first Emerging Black Composers Project award, Weston creates entrancing works embraced in the classical realm, tapping African American musical traditions for a refreshingly current resonance. Detroit Free Press dubbed his work as “a gently syncopated marriage of intellect and feeling.”
Dig It opens the evening, followed by Antonin Dvořák’s famous Serenade for Wind Instruments, Cello and Bass (1875). Claude Debussy’s brilliant String Quartet (1893), featuring the Mississippi Symphony String Quartet, commands the concert’s second half.
“Dig It is going to be the fun one,” MSO Conductor Crafton Beck said, “but at the same time, we’ve got one of the great string quartets of all time and one of the greatest wind ensemble pieces ever written. So, it’s tremendous repertoire — winds and strings and the small jazz piece — perfectly suited for this performance space.”
MSO’s Chamber Series is presented by Keesler Federal Credit Union. General admission tickets are $28 for adults, and $5 for students kindergarten through college age (with valid ID). Purchase advance tickets online at msoerchestra.com or contact Patron Services (601-414-6005 or patronservices@msorchestra.com).
The box office will open at 6:30 p.m. on the evening of the concert and tickets will be available at the door. MSO is supported in part by the Mississippi Arts Commission, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.
Mississippi Broadcasting is recording this concert for future airing on MPB’s radio network.
Who: Mississippi Symphony Orchestra
What: Dvořák to Debussy, Chamber Series concert
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 2, 2026
Where: Galloway Memorial United Methodist Church, 305 N. Congress St., Jackson, MS
Website: msorchestra.com
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