Minnesota Orchestra, Pops Concert

The Minnesota Orchestra is recognized for distinguished performances in its home state and around the world, award-winning recordings and broadcasts, educational engagement programs, and commitment to building the orchestral repertoire of the future. In September 2023, the ensemble welcomed Danish conductor Thomas Søndergård as its eleventh music director.

Founded in 1903, the ensemble has a long history of touring, including landmark tours to Cuba and South Africa in the past decade. Touring activities, which were paused due to the pandemic, resumed with a May 2023 residency week in Austin, Minnesota. The Orchestra’s recordings and broadcasts have drawn acclaim since the 1920s, including the 2014 Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance. Its current ongoing recording project is a series of Gustav Mahler’s symphonies; all ten have been recorded and eight albums have been released, with the final two symphonies to come in subsequent seasons.

Further extending its reach beyond the concert hall, the Orchestra offers This Is Minnesota Orchestra, a series of television and online broadcasts that has earned two Upper Midwest Emmy Award nominations. In July and August the Orchestra offers Summer at Orchestra Hall, a festival guided by pianist and Creative Partner Jon Kimura Parker.

American conductor Norman Huynh has attracted significant acclaim not just for his natural musicality and technical command, but for his dynamic presence, creative programming, and highly sought-after abilities in connecting with new audiences. The music director of Montana’s Bozeman Symphony Orchestra since 2020, he appears regularly with distinguished orchestras and ensembles across North America, Europe, and Asia. His past and future guest appearances include engagements with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, San Diego Symphony, Orchestra Sinfónica del Vallés in Spain, and Princess Galyani Vadhana Youth Orchestra of Thailand. Huynh’s prowess as an insightful collaborator includes concerts conducting not only renowned, award-winning stars throughout the world of classical music, but also throughout the genres of R&B, hip-hop, and pop.

His passion for engaging new audiences includes creating the Portland (Maine) Symphony Orchestra’s popular evenings of “Symphony and Spirits” as well as implementing the Orchestra’s award-winning PSO Explorers program. In 2012, Huynh co-founded and served as the first music director of the Occasional Symphony, a chamber orchestra that creates experiences of live music curated for non-traditional spaces. He previously served as the associate conductor of the Oregon Symphony and assistant conductor of the Portland Symphony Orchestra. He was one of only six conductors to receive a coveted invitation to conduct the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra as part of the 2022 Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview, hosted by the League of American Orchestras.