Brahms & Elgar

Grammy-winning German conductor Christian Reif leads the Sarasota Orchestra through a Masterworks program anchored by the soaring, pastoral melodies of Johannes Brahms’s Symphony No. 2. The concert also features cellist Sterling Elliott tackling the technical and emotional demands of Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto, a haunting, post-World War I masterpiece that serves as the composer's final full-scale orchestral work. The evening opens with Julia Adolphe’s Underneath the Sheen, a contemporary orchestral homage to the California redwood forests. The performance requires the ensemble to pivot seamlessly from modern, atmospheric textures to the dense, romantic orchestration of the European classical canon.