As a rousing conclusion to the season, we perform music of the British Isles - including Scotland, Ireland, and Wales,

Featuring world-renowned flutist and composer Chris Norman and his modern-day tone poem about Scotland, “Out of Orkney,” and original arrangements for orchestra by Maestro Blachly of Irish folk songs, all culminating with the majestic masterpiece by English composer Gustav Holst, The Planets, including images from the Hubble Telescope.

THIS PROGRAM HAS BEEN CANCELED BECAUSE OF COVID-19

Handel: Zadok the Priest

Beethoven: Calm Sea and Prosperous Journey

Vaughan Williams: Toward the Unknown Region

Sibelius: Symphony No. 2

On the first half of this program, we take three separate choral journeys. First, one of the most exultant pieces ever written, Handel’s Zadok the Priest, followed by Beethoven’s evocation of Goethe's poetry in Calm Sea and Prosperous Journey. Finally, we explore Vaughan Williams's rich and soaring work Toward the Unknown Region, set to the evocative words of American poet Walt Whitman. On the second half we continue to explore the mystery and majesty of sound in Sibelius's second symphony, a piece that traverses the full human experience, including the joyful triumph of the fourth movement.

THIS PROGRAM HAS BEEN CANCELED BECAUSE OF COVID-19

For the first time in Maestro Blachly’s tenure, we dedicate an entire subscription concert to the Johnstown Symphony Chorus, under the direction of Jeffrey Webb, and Inclined to Sing - the Johnstown Symphony’s Children’s Chorus - under the direction of Kim Rauch.

With special guests to be announced, this concert will lift your spirits and celebrate American music and Johnstown’s choral tradition.

THIS PROGRAM HAS BEEN CANCELED BECAUSE OF COVID-19

This lush and romantic concert traces the musical expression of passion and beauty across cultures and time, with music of Mozart, Chopin, American composer Jessie Montgomery, and Jean Sibelius’s majestic Symphony No. 2. This evening will bring cultures together and celebrate a sense of freedom in sound.

THIS PROGRAM HAS BEEN CANCELED BECAUSE OF COVID-19

Featuring performances of music from Slap Shot and All the Right Moves, and guest appearances with local legends and rising stars. Come celebrate this once-in-a-lifetime chance to hear friends and local bands play with your own professional orchestra.

Williamsburg Community Chapel

Dame Ethel Smyth Chorale Prelude
Samuel Barber Knoxville: Summer of 1915
Kathryn Mueller, soprano
Dvořák Symphony No. 8

Featuring the full Johnstown Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Inclined to Sing and the Johnstown Symphony Christmas Brass, this concert will be a heartwarming celebration of Christmas, Hanukkah, and the joys of the holiday season.

Our beloved Christmas POPS concert is back, and to accommodate increased demand and years of sold-out performances, we have added a matinee performance - perfect for audiences of all ages.

Bulgarian Virtuosity with EXO
Friday November 15th at 8pm at Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn: Our highly anticipated return to Roulette on Friday, November 15th called Bulgarian Virtuosity, featured EXO's superlative strings and Bulgarika, a virtuosic traditional ensemble on tour from Bulgaria.

Tickets available here.

Roulette Intermedium is located at 509 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217

The JSO Performs Brahms and Italian Opera

Featuring the masterful Symphony No. 1 of Brahms and selections from Italian operas by Rossini, Verdi, and Puccini.

The rich sumptuous music of Johannes Brahms is what inspired Maestro Blachly and many others to become professional musicians, and his symphonies are widely regarded as the most beloved in the repertoire. Italian operas formed the heart of JSO’s Opera Festivals for more than 20 years, and these stellar selections will be both familiar and beloved.

Slavic Season Opener with Dvorak and the Tamburitzans.

Our season leaps off to a dynamic beginning with the virtuosic folk dance troupe, the Tamburitzans, as they perform authentic choreography to great Eastern European music for orchestra, including Brahms’s Hungarian Dance No. 5, Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances, and Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsody No. 1. The concert begins with Dvorak’s Symphony No. 8 in G Major, the last symphony he composed before coming to America.

Dvorak in Surround Sound at Lincoln Center!
Thursday, September 26th at 7:30pm at Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse, 165 West 65th Street: This marks our third collaboration with Young Patrons of Lincoln Center, and once again will feature a fully-immersive experience for the audience, this time with Dvorak’s gorgeous and embracing 8th Symphony.

Tickets available here.

Saturday September 21st: The JSO performs the music of Queen at JWF Industries with Jeans N Classics, as a working industrial mill becomes transformed into a rock venue for a once-in-a-lifetime concert.

On Thursday, July 25th at 7:30pm, Saturday July 27th at 7:30pm and Sunday July 28th at 3pm at the Smith Opera House, Geneva, New York

With this production of Mozart’s Nozze di Figaro, James rounded out his performances of the Mozart-Da Ponte trilogy with GLO.

Returning to recently-renovated Cochran Auditorium, the JSO performs Gustav Mahler's inspiring Symphony No. 2 "Resurrection" in honor of the 130th anniversary of the Johnstown Flood, and as a rousing call for new life for the great city of Johnstown!

Featuring the JSO Chorus and internationally-acclaimed soloists Sarah Brailey and Sara Murphy.

Brahms's friendship with Joseph Joachim was one of the most collaborative and productive in the history of music, and Maestro Blachly's long-standing musical friendship with Saint Lawrence String Quartet violinist Owen Dalby goes back many years.  To round out this concert featuring musical friendships, the JSO performs Elgar's Enigma Variations, a piece of music composed as a "portrait"of his closest friends.

Program includes:

Brahms Violin Concerto
Elgar Enigma Variations

The Orchestral Music of Black Composers.

The music of black composers is too rarely heard in our concert halls, but thanks in part to a new wave of scholarship, more and more is available for performance.  Maestro James Blachly has carefully curated this concert of music featuring a "highlight reel" of music from this beautiful, under-performed repertoire.

Music from composers:
Jessie Montgomery
Margaret Bonds
William Grant Still
Florence Price

Hollywood comes to Johnstown as the JSO features scores from some of your favorite movie composers such as James Horner (Titanic), Michael Giacchino (UP), Henry Mancini (Breakfast at Tiffany's) and Howard Shore (The Lord of the Rings).

The JSO takes you on a symphonic journey with Mendelssohn's famous exploration of Scotland, American composer John Luther Adams's visionary musical painting of water, Dark Waves, and the ultimate dream-voyage in Strauss's Don Quixote, featuring cellist Andrew Yee.

Mendelssohn Hebrides Overture
John Luther Adams Dark Waves
Strauss Don Quixote

Having served as concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony for 22 years, Andrés Cárdenes is a world-renowned solist and conductor and brings his signature tradition of excellence to Johnstown, performing Tchaikovsky's beloved Violin Concerto.  We are honored and delighted to welcome him back!

Montgomery Starburst
Brahms Academic Festival Overtsure
Tchaikovsky Serenade for Strings
Tchaikovsky Violin concerto in D Major

In partnership with The Outrage, EXO presents short excerpts from Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Prison as a part of the Phillips Collection’s renowned Phillips after 5.

In our most exciting fundraising performance yet, we feature the music of the BEATLES and the dynamic foursome of Classical Mystery Tour!

Imagine the Beatles playing in concert with a symphony orchestra.  What would that have sounded like?  Find out yourself when Classical Mystery Tour performs live with the Johnstown Symphony!

Symphonic Pictures

For our season finale, we present a game of artistic telephone.  In this unique approach, you will be invited to hear not only the Ravel orchestration of Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, but also the original piano work performed by Ilya Yakushev.  We will be inviting artists to create original works in response to the Ravel orchestration, in collaboration with the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art.  

The second half of the program will feature Adam Schoenberg's "Picture Studies," a series of imaginative movements based on nine influential works of modern art.

TOTAL EMBRACE: Leonard Bernstein at 100
A CONCERTS AT ONE FESTIVAL CELEBRATING BERNSTEIN AT 100

St. Paul’s Chapel – Free

Bernstein – La Bonne Cuisine and I Hate Music
Foss – Time Cycle and For Toru
Mahler – Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (arr. Schoenberg)
NOVUS NY with Joanna Mongiardo, soprano

Back by popular demand, Young Patrons of Lincoln Center presents EXO in a dynamic, all-embracing introduction to all of Beethoven's symphonies in one night. Get up close and personal with the sound of Beethoven as the orchestra plays in surround sound, and experience the dynamic progression of the great composer's style. Hosted by EXO Music Director James Blachly and featuring the superb musicians of Experiential Orchestra. Tickets will be available through YPLC and will go on sale early 2018. Mark your calendars now!

April 7, 2018 at 7:30pm at the Pasquerilla Performing Arts Center, Johnstown, Pennsylvania

North American Premiere: Dame Ethel Smyth's The Prison

Dame Ethel Smyth is one of the most important female composers of the modern era, and her final large-scale composition, The Prison, for soloists, chorus and orchestra, has never been performed in North America with full orchestra. James is proud to bring this first performance to Johnstown.

After a two-year process, James is grateful to have been named the editor of the new performance edition by Novello/Schirmer, undertaken through a grant from the Women's Philharmonic Advocacy and with support from the board of the Experiential Orchestra. This first orchestral performance in Johnstown features Dashon Burton and Marlissa Hudson as the voice of the Prisoner and his Soul.  

In a remarkable and unusual collaboration, James has been working closely with the Cecilia Chorus of New York, Mark Shapiro, conductor, who will perform the piece on May 11, 2018 in the Carnegie Hall Premiere, in what the organizations are calling a "co-premiere," joining the two performances by sharing singers and press. For more about that performance and about this collegial partnership, please view here.

The April 7 performance will be broadcast on WQED/WQEJ on Friday, April 27 at 8pm. More information about that broadcast available shortly.

Featuring music from West Side Story, Porgy and Bess, South Pacific, and much more!

James will be guest conducting Messiah with the Danbury Symphony Orchestra, Danbury Symphony Chorus, and soloists Meagan Brus, Robin Bier, Matthew Hensrud, and Joseph Beutel

Link here

Johnstown Symphony Christmas
Choral Spectacular

A Choral Christmas Spectacular, featuring the Johnstown Symphony Orchestra Chorus and a collaboration with several area choruses. This concert will feature a combination of Christmas carols and anthems that will warm the heart and celebrate the spirit of the season.