Minnesota Orchestra Musicians Around Town
When Minnesota Orchestra musicians aren’t at Orchestra Hall, you can find many of them around the Twin Cities and beyond in other types of performances such as solo recitals and chamber music concerts, concerto appearances with other orchestras and more. Some of our musicians are skilled composers, arrangers, conductors and recording artists, to name just a few talents. Taking on outside projects gives them chances to flex musical muscles that aren’t engaged as often in typical Orchestra settings—while expanding musicians’ tool kits in ways that often come in handy at Orchestra performances.
Here you’ll find details about Orchestra musicians’ local performances beyond the confines of Orchestra Hall. Meanwhile, another opportunity to get to know the musicians takes place at post-concert onstage gatherings following selected Minnesota Orchestra concerts at Orchestra Hall. The next gathering follows the Orchestra’s Søndergård and Tchaikovsky performance on Saturday, June 13, 2026.
Musicians Around Town
On Sunday, March 8, 2026, at 2 p.m. at Lake of the Isles Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, the Isles Ensemble, including Minnesota Orchestra violinist Emily Switzer and violist Sarah Switzer, presents a unique concert experience blending chamber music and the spoken word. Exploring themes of love, memory and the echo of forgotten voices, the program features compositions by piano virtuoso Clara Schumann and her husband, Robert, as well as the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů and his lover, fellow Czech composer and conductor Vítězslava Kaprálová. Robert Schumann's Piano Quintet anchors the second half of the program; other works include Martinů's Madrigals for Violin and Viola, a Kaprálová string quartet, and a beautiful Romance for violin and piano by Clara Schumann. Readings from the couples' correspondence will be shared by composer David Evan Thomas. More information and tickets are available at the Isles Ensemble's website (children and students attend free).
On Sunday, May 3, 2026, at 2 p.m. at Lake of the Isles Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, the Isles Ensemble, including Minnesota Orchestra violinist Emily Switzer and violist Sarah Switzer, presents a season finale concert celebrating the contributions of women composers to the classical canon over the last three centuries. Works by Fanny Mendelssohn and Amy Beach are interspersed with newly rediscovered gems, including a 1932 suite for solo viola by Imogen Holst, and a charming string quartet by 19th-century Swedish composer Laura Valborg Aulin. The centerpiece of the program is Minnesota composer Libby Larsen's Sorrow Song Jubilee for string quartet, a work based on African American spiritual melodies and influenced by Dvořák's iconic American String Quartet. More information and tickets are available at the Isles Ensemble's website (children and students attend free).
On Saturday, May 30, 2026, at 3 p.m. at Sundin Music Hall at Hamline University, the Minnesota Bach Ensemble, including Minnesota Orchestra violinist Cecilia Belcher, who serves as the Minnesota Bach Ensemble’s concertmaster, performs a program on music by Vivaldi, Caldara and Monteverdi, among other composers, including Vivaldi’s Trio Sonata in D minor, La Follia. Tickets are available via the Minnesota Bach Ensemble’s website and at the door, and a reception with musicians follows the performance. Belcher was a soloist in Beethoven’s Romances at Minnesota Orchestra performances in July 2025; of her solo performance, Pioneer Press critic Sheila Regan noted that “[h]er playing was poised and expressive throughout, favoring subtlety over drama and marked by graceful nuance.”
On Sunday, June 7, 2026, at 3 p.m. at Westminster Presbyterian Church in downtown Minneapolis, The Michael Steinberg & Jorja Fleezanis Fund will present the premiere of a new chamber work by Ivette Herryman Rodriguez along with Brahms’ Piano Trio in B major, with performers including Minnesota Orchestra musicians Alan Snow, Anthony Ross, Kathryn Nettleman, Marni J. Hougham, Erich Rieppel and Susie Park, as well as narrator Stephen Yoakam and pianist Evren Ozel. The Michael Steinberg & Jorja Fleezanis Fund was established by the late former Minnesota Orchestra Concertmaster Jorja Fleezanis as as a memorial to her husband, the eminent musicologist Michael Steinberg who passed away in 2009, and has continued in tribute to them both since Fleezanis’ passing in 2022. The Fund annually commissions an emerging composer who will bring together music and the written word. Also available at the premiere will be a new collection of Steinberg’s writings, Defending the Music: Michael Steinberg at the Boston Globe, 1964-1976, published by Oxford University Press in collaboration with the Michael Steinberg & Jorja Fleezanis Fund. Tickets are available through the Minnesota Orchestra's website.
