Glens Falls Symphony Announces "Rev Up" 2026-27 Season

‍ NEWS CONTACT:

Jennifer Brink, Executive Director

Phone: (518) 793-1348

E-mail: exdir@gfso.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

September 2, 2026

Glens Falls Symphony 2026-27 43rd  Concert Season “REV UP”

The Glens Falls Symphony is thrilled to announce our 2026-27 season, which will commence on October 4, 2026, at 4 pm. The first performance will lead with a sweeping showcase that brings music old and new from films over the ages. In celebration of America’s contributions to film and film music, the symphony will delight your ears and tickle your memories with music from “Gone with the Wind” to “Taxi Driver”; your mind’s eye will see Gable and De Niro; Caron and Wayne as your ears soak in the most sophisticated of film music.

Fall brings the season to life on Sunday, November 8, 2026, as Music Director Charles Peltz brings works that revolutionized cultures and the arts. There is Beethoven’s Eroica, written in the passions of post-Revolution Europe, along with Mozart and his Figaro, the opera that challenged the aristocracy, featuring opera singer and Seagle Festival Alumni Xander McRae. The symphony will shake the strings as they oscillate between notes in John Adams ‘ Shaker Loops, along with the music that revolutionized American Ballet – Copland’s Appalachian Spring.

The annual Holiday concert will be held on Sunday, December 6, 2026. This beloved holiday tradition will bring students from Hudson Falls and Corinth high school choruses to join in the festivities! The symphony welcomes award-winning jazz singer Dominique Eade, who will charm and delight with her vocal brilliance. Winter welcomes the zing of strings on Sunday, March 7, 2027, as the orchestra brings the bounding American energy of David Diamond and his Rounds for Strings, and the majestic Vaughan Williams Variations on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, with musicians enveloping you with sonic emotion as they resurrect Charlie Parker’s Bird with Strings. This concert will feature special guest Jazz Saxophonist Allan Chase.

The Symphony goes to the ends of the galaxy for the season finale on Sunday, May 2, 2027, as the Symphony performs, for the first time in Glens Falls, Gustav Holst’s monumental “The Planets”.

This season, the symphony will offer additional events to its regular concert season schedule, starting on October 24, at 1 pm, at the Wood Theater, in Glens Falls, with its 3rd annual Halloween Family Concert.

On Saturday, February 13, 2027, the symphony returns to the Strand Theatre in Hudson Falls for its 2nd annual Valentine’s Day Family Concert.

Music Director Charles Peltz shares, “What a season! Every concert a unique event made just for you. “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue” say friends of the bride to ensure good luck in the marriage. Good advice to describe your ‘26-’27 season: “REV UP!”

We open the season with music old and new from films over the ages. Grab your popcorn and join us! In November we celebrate “Revolutions”, music that revolutionized cultures and the arts. We get jazzy “blue” for the holiday with award-winning jazz singer Dominique Eade. We will again have those captivating voices of the young as we “borrow” two exceptional high school choirs to join the symphony for music that catches the youthful spirit of the season.

March brings the zing of strings as we get up close in the gracious coziness of Christ Church Methodist of Glens Falls for a “wedding” of jazz and orchestra strings. We go to the ends of the galaxy in May as we perform, for the first time in Glens Falls, Gustav Holst’s monumental “The Planets”. This universe of sounds refers to both the celestial bodies and the Roman gods after whom they are named. We will “wed” those two ideas as we project some astronomical visuals as well as reading of selected odes to each of the gods. As the stars fall on Glens Falls – be there to catch them with us!”

Visit www.theglensfallssymphony.org for more information

The full concert program can be found here:

Concert 1, 2026 October 4, 2026 Music at the Movies!

George Gershwin, American in Paris (1928)

Aaron Copland, Grover’s Corners from Our Town (1940)

Intermission: 15 Minutes

Elmer Bernstein, Music from To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

John Williams, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Max Steiner, Gone with the Wind “Tara’s Theme” (1939)

Howard Shore, The Lord of the Rings (2001)

Bernard Hermann, North by Northwest (1959) & Taxi Driver (1976)

Concert #2 November 8, 2026 Revolutions Old & New featuring opera singer and Seagle Music Festival Alumni Xander McRae, baritone

Ludwig van Beethoven, Eroica Mvt. 1 (1803)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Overture & 2 Arias from Marriage of Figaro (1786)

Intermission

John Adams, Shaker Loops 4. Final Shaking (1982)

Aaron Copland, Appalachian Spring (1943)

Concert #3 December 6, 2026 Holiday Pops/Jazzy Holidays featuring Jazz Singer Dominique Eade

Program:

Leroy Anderson  Christmas Festival  1950

Edward Pola & George Wyle  It's the most wonderful time of the year

Arr. McKenzie (1963)

Martin Hugh & Ralph Blaine

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas  Arr. McKenzie (1943)

Leslie Bricusse & Anthony Newley Feeling Good   Arr. McKenzie (1964)

Josh Rodriguez     New York Kind of Christmas

Sammy Cahn & Julie Styne Christmas Waltz arr.Brubaker (1957)

Frank Loesser What are you doing New Year's Eve arr. Malina (1947)

Sammy Cahn & Julie Styne "Let it snow" arr. Campbell (1945)

Intermission

Korsakov Rimsky "Christmas Eve" (1903)

Dan Goeller "Joy to the World" & "O' Come all Ye Faithful" (1848)

-Featuring Corinth High School Choir, Directed by Andrew Holcomb

Bill Holcombe Festive Sounds of Hanukkah (1924)

Leroy Anderson Sleigh Ride (1950)

Johann Sebastian Bach & Eugene Ormandy Jesu Joy (1941)

Gabriel Faure Cantique  De Jean Racine (1866)

-Featuring Hudson Falls High School Choir, Directed by Alec Feiss

Franz Xaver Gruber & Joseph Mohr Silent Night (1818)

Jose Feliciano & Paul Hemmer Feliz Navidad (1970)

Arthur Walley & Galante We Wish You a Merry Christmas (1961)

Sunday, February 13, 2027 Valentine’s Day Family Concert  

Repertoire Pending

Concert #4 March 7, 2027 Zing! Zing! Strings!

David Diamond, Rounds for String Orchestra (1944)

Charlie Parker, With Strings (1948)

Intermission

Vaughan Williams, Theme of Thomas Tallis (1910)

Concert#5 May 2, 2027 Celestial Sights and Sounds: Gustav Holst’s The Planets

Guest Reader: Eleanor Peltz

Gustav Holst: The Planets (1918)

No Intermission at the Performance

The Glens Falls Symphony performances are made possible in part by the New York State Council of the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.

A special Thank You to our season sponsor Arrow Bank

About Xander McRae:

Xander McRae is a rising bass-baritone and singing actor from the Dallas, TX region. Xander is finishing his Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance and a Bachelor of Music Education at the University of Oklahoma. Xander has experience on both the concert and operatic stage. He has participated in several of OU Opera Theatre’s productions along with participating in the Seagle Music Festival’s 2023 and 2024 seasons with the principal roles of Count Capulet in Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette and Leporello in Don Giovanni. Xander has solidified himself as a strong baritone voice in the Oklahoma City area along with making his debut with Painted Sky Opera This Fall.

About Dominique Eade:

Dominique Eade has been a featured vocalist and composer in the Boston Globe Jazz Festival, the Jazz in Toulon Festival in France, the Molde International Jazz Festival in Norway, the What Is Jazz? Festival in New York, and the Iowa City Jazz Festival, and an artist-in-residence, clinician, and performer at the Wichita and Litchfield jazz festivals. Eade performs regularly in the U.S. and Europe.

Her debut CD on RCA Victor, When the Wind Was Cool, appeared in 1998 Top Ten lists in The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, The Boston Phoenix, and in Jazz Times and Jazziz magazines.

Her second RCA Victor CD, The Long Way Home, was released in 1999, with contributions by Dave Holland, Victor Lewis, Mick Goodrick, and Bruce Barth. Her earlier CD, My Resistance Is Low, was voted one of the top ten jazz CDs of 1995 by Billboard.

Eade has recorded with Bruce Barth, Stanley Cowell, Alan Dawson, Benny Golson, Fred Hersch, Dave Holland, George Mraz, Lewis Nash, and Steve Nelson, and has performed with Anthony Braxton, Bill Frisell, Mark Helias, Gene Bertoncini, Peter Leitch, Donald Brown, Butch Morris, Mick Goodrick, Ran Blake, and several contemporary ensembles. Recordings on RCA Victor, Accurate.

About Allan Chase

Allan Chase is a jazz saxophonist, composer, and college educator. He has performed jazz and improvised music since 1974 with his own groups and as a member of the Lewis Nash-Allan Chase Duo (1979-80), Your Neighborhood Saxophone Quartet (1981-2018), Prima Materia with Rashied Ali (1992-2000), the Steve Lantner Trio and Quartet with Joe Morris and Luther Gray, the Ayn Inserto Jazz Orchestra, the Bruno Råberg Quartet and Tentet, Ra Kalam Bob Moses, and many other groups. He appears as a soloist on over sixty jazz and improvised music recordings, a few rock and classical recordings, and several movie scores. He has released two CDs as a leader, Dark Clouds with Silver Linings (with Ron Horton, Tony Scherr, and Matt Wilson) and Phoenix (with Ron Horton, Adam Kolker, David Finck, and Lewis Nash).

From 2008 to 2021, Chase chaired the Ear Training department at Berklee College of Music, where he continued to teach ear training, harmony, jazz composition, and jazz history and analysis until retiring in May 2026. He has taught a wide range of college courses, ensembles, and lessons in jazz and improvised music since 1981. He continues to teach occasional graduate jazz courses at New England Conservatory.

He taught at Berklee’s Valencia (Spain) Summer Performance Program in July of 2014-18, and was director of the Interlochen Summer Jazz program in 2019. He was involved with the Berklee Global Jazz Institute and its master’s degree program from the planning stages through Fall 2022. He has given clinics and masterclasses at about twenty-five schools in ten countries.

Allan Chase was born in Willimantic, Connecticut in 1956, grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, and has lived in the Boston area since 1980, except for six years spent in Brooklyn, NY (1990-96).

He studied music theory and composition at Arizona State University (BM 1978) and ethnomusicology at Tufts University (MA 1992), where he wrote a book-length thesis on the music of Sun Ra. He also did graduate study in music theory and jazz at New England Conservatory (1980-81) and studied new music improvisation in two summer programs at the Creative Music Studio with Roscoe Mitchell, Karl Berger, George Lewis, Anthony Braxton, Jerome Cooper, Leo Smith, and others (1978 and ‘79).

He began his teaching career at Berklee in 1981, and has also taught at Tufts University (1993-7) and New England Conservatory (1994- 2012, 2023-present), where he served as chair of jazz studies, chair of contemporary improvisation, and dean of faculty.

For more about Allan Chase, visit: https://www.allanchase.com/

About the Glens Falls Symphony:

Since Maestro Charles Peltz’s arrival in 2000, the fully professional Glens Falls Symphony has performed a dynamic repertoire, regularly including musical premieres and world-renowned guest artists while expanding musical offerings to include family concerts, summer pops programs and more. The orchestra is comprised of musicians who come from all over the Northeast to perform. The Glens Falls Symphony is proud to be among the important arts and cultural organizations in the greater Glens Falls area, the smallest city in America to support a fully professional symphony orchestra.

Glens Falls Symphony 2026-27 Season

All regular season concerts Sunday, 4 pm

Halloween and Valentine’s Concerts on Saturday at 1 pm

Please check our website for venue information

Free Pre-Concert Talk at 3 pm before all regular season concerts (Excl. Holiday Pops)

TICKETS: Click here to purchase

Season and Single Tickets are priced in three tiers:

Adult $45/$39/$29

Student $12

Season Tickets: $195/$170/$135 (Best Value). Click here to purchase

Student Season Ticket $65

Family 5 Concert Package $295

Family 7 Concert Package $330

For information regarding ticket pricing and seating for the upcoming season, visit www.theglensfallssymphony.org, call the Symphony office at (518) 793-1348 or stop by the office, upstairs in the LARAC Gallery building: 7 Lapham Place in Glens Falls. Office hours are Monday – Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

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