Orchestra Kentucky begins its season-long world tour right here in America. The concert opens with Bernstein’s Three Dance Episodes from the musical On the Town. The tour continues with the world-premiere of Charles W. Smith’s The Morningstar Photos, a series of musical vignettes written to accompany Kentuckian Robert Evans Morningstar’s photos of great Americans, like Enrico Caruso, Babe Ruth, and William Howard Taft. The first half concludes with the Kentucky premiere of Neil Sedaka’s Manhattan Intermezzo, performed by pianist, Jeffrey Biegel. (Note: Neil and Leba Sedaka are scheduled to attend this premiere.) On the second half, Frank Sinatra comes to life on stage with all the hits, including The Lady is a Tramp, I’ve Got You Under My Skin, and New York, New York, courtesy of crooner Steve Lippia.

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Orchestra Kentucky and Kentucky Opera join forces in a concert version of French composer Georges Bizet’s immortal classic, Carmen. Set in Seville, Spain, Carmen, a beautiful gypsy with a fiery temper, woos Corporal Don José, an inexperienced soldier. Carmen rejects Don José, who mutinies and joins a gang of smugglers. When Carmen turns her love to the bullfighter Escamillo, Don José kills her in a jealous rage.

In a tribute to Germany and Italy’s contribution to the season, The University of Louisville Collegiate Chorale and guest soloists join Orchestra Kentucky for a performance of the nativity portion of German composer George Frideric Handel’s masterpiece, Messiah. The evening concludes with Italian-American Henry Mancini’s settings of favorite Christmas music, including The Christmas Song, Frosty the Snowman, The Little Drummer Boy, White Christmas and traditional Christmas hymns.

Cowbells, the Alps, lederhosen….Austria comes to life through Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 in D major (The Titan). After intermission, the orchestra performs Johann Strauss senior’s Radetzky March and Johann Strauss junior’s Vienna Blood Waltz. Soprano Jennifer Brennan-Hondorp sings hits from Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic musical, The Sound of Music.

Orchestra Kentucky celebrates the land of the Tsars with a Russian Circus! Cirque de la Symphonie, a company of acrobats, jugglers, dancers, and contortionists, perform suspended over the stage, while the orchestra plays classics like the finale to Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5, Khachaturian’s Sabre Dance from Gayne, and selections from Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol. Orchestra Kentucky’s musical acrobat, co-concertmaster J. Patrick Rafferty, performs the first movement of Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto.

Orchestra Kentucky ends its whirlwind world tour with a concert version of Lerner & Loewe’s classic, Camelot. The Orchestra Kentucky Chorale and a cast of vocalists sing Camelot, The Simple Joys of Maidenhood, Then You May Take Me to The Fair, Follow Me, C’est Moi, If Ever I Would Leave You, What Do Simple Folks Do?, Guenevere, Lusty Month of May, How to Handle a Woman, I Wonder What the King is Doing Tonight, and I Loved You Once in Silence.