Four Sessions: Tuesdays at 11 am
October 3: The Soloist as Sorcerer
October 10: The Haunted Concert Hall
October 24: Operatic Occult
October 31: Six of the Scariest

Cost per lecture: $24 Members, $29 Non-members
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Cost for the series: $90 Members, $100 Non-members
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What do Dukas’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre, Orff’s Carmina Burana, and Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique have in common? All are deliciously spooky excursions into the musical supernatural, eternally popular with classical audiences eager to experience a good scare within the relative safety of respectable art music.

The febrile world of enchantment and witchery has always appealed to composers, and the range of works featuring spectral creatures, ghost ships, demonic valets, trolls, devils, and necromancers is vast. In the perfect run up to Halloween, popular speaker and concert pianist Dr. Rachel Franklin leads a hair-raising tour of some of the best-loved classical music haunts, showcasing works by Mozart, Mussorgsky, Berlioz, Dukas, Liszt, Schubert, Wagner, Ravel, Humperdinck, Offenbach, Saint-Saëns and many others.

One of the Smithsonian Associates’ most popular lecturers, Rachel has been a featured speaker for such organizations as the Library of Congress and NPR. Her topics explore the intersections between classical and jazz music, film scores, and the fine arts, bringing her back repeatedly to enthusiastic audiences across the region.

October 10: The Haunted Concert Hall
Who needs creepy movies when symphonic music can frighten the life out of us? From the bizarre to the bloodcurdling, composers have relished the opportunity to conjure witchcraft and magic with the symphony orchestra. Other-worldly works by Berlioz, Mahler, Dukas, Dvořák, and Rachmaninoff will materialize.