October 4, 2025 | 8:00 pm
University Symphony Orchestra
Free - no tickets required
Hill Auditorium
The University Symphony Orchestra, led by its GRAMMY-nominated music director Kenneth Kiesler, invites you to a concert of brilliant, powerful, and expressive music – some new and exciting, some known and beloved – for large symphony orchestra. The program opens with the world premiere of Toccata by the brilliant and accomplished Ann Arbor composer Braxton Blake. Winner of the 2025 SMTD Concerto Competition, Cheryl Pandora (MM ’26, piano) takes center stage to perform Sergei Prokofiev’s colorful and dramatic Piano Concerto No. 3, and the evening concludes with the beloved Symphony No. 8 of Dvořák with its folk-inspired songs, dances, and marches, as well its warm nostalgia, pastoral imagery, and dramatic storytelling. Kenneth Kiesler, conductor.