Last year I spoke about my Pride in Jacksonville as a progressive city. Although we haven’t changed since then, today it seems almost impossible to feel optimistic about anything political in the wake of the election, and the seemingly endless assaults on the personal liberty of anyone who is not a native-born, rich, white Anglo-Saxon cis heterosexual male. Amidst this depressing political landscape, at the Jacksonville Symphony we launched our most ambitious season ever in celebration of our 75th anniversary. Without stretching musical metaphors too far, we pulled out all the stops and presented a series of concerts, each of which would have been the highlight of any other season. Mahler’s Second Symphony, Mozart’s Requiem, Strauss’s massive tone poem Ein Heldenleben and Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto sat

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This weekend, I head to France to spend six weeks conducting a very exciting new ballet with music by the English composer, Thomas Adès, for the Opéra national de Paris at the famous Palais Garnier. Inspired by Dante Alighieri’s 14th century epic poem, “The Divine Comedy,” “The Dante Project” is a rarity in new music: a piece that lasts the whole evening. Clocking in at 90 minutes, “Dante” is a ballet in three acts, each depicting a locale of the afterlife: Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory) and Paradiso (Heaven). With choreography by Wayne McGregor, the acclaimed British choreographer, the ballet made its debut at the Royal Ballet in Covent Garden, London, last year and now enters the repertoire of the Paris Opera Ballet with performances throughout May.

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