PREVIEW: Finding Their Ground: ESYO Opens a Season of Stories
Beginning 10/25 @ Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, Troy
Photos provided by ESYO
“The stories we inherit help make us who we are.”
ESYO opens its 2026–2027 season this Sunday, October 25, with Grounded in Story, a program that moves from the ominous pull of destiny to the slippery nature of memory and the irresistible magic of a well told tale. Performed by ESYO’s Symphony Orchestra under Music Director and Conductor Etienne Abelin, the concert brings together Giuseppe Verdi, contemporary Iranian composer Aida Shirazi and Nikolai Rimsky Korsakov at Troy Savings Bank Music Hall.
The concert also launches Take Root, the latest chapter in ESYO’s ongoing artistic journey through the elements. After exploring air through Breathe, water through Flow and fire through last season’s Rise, the orchestra turns to earth, with its associations of belonging, connection, foundation and growth.
“Take Root is about finding our ground, discovering where we belong, and seeing what can grow from there,” Abelin says. “This opening program takes us into three very different musical worlds, fate, memory, and storytelling, and invites us to listen for the forces that shape us.”
First comes Verdi’s La Forza del Destino Overture, a dramatic introduction to an opera full of love, revenge and tragic misunderstandings. Three ominous brass chords announce the presence of destiny, and the music takes off from there, shifting between restless energy and sweeping lyricism. It is an opening statement that suggests fate does not exactly knock politely before entering.
Shirazi’s The Distorted Reminiscences of a Guardian shifts the focus from the forces that seem to control our lives to the memories that shape how we understand them. Drawing on a Persian folk song, Shirazi does not simply reproduce its melody. She fragments and transforms it, letting recognizable musical ideas surface, recede and return in unexpected forms.
As Shirazi brings her own cultural perspective to music connected to the Persian world, Rimsky Korsakov’s Scheherazade reflects the romanticized vision of the East that informed much of 19th century Russian art. Heard together, the works invite audiences to consider not only the stories music tells, but who tells them and how perspective changes the telling. It is an opportunity to hear a young musician take on a major solo role while working alongside fellow students to create the score’s kaleidoscopic sound world.
That sense of shared discovery lies at the heart of Take Root. Finding your footing does not mean staying in one place. It means building a foundation strong enough to take risks, listen closely and reach beyond familiar territory. For young musicians, that growth happens through the discipline of rehearsal as much as the excitement of performance. For audiences, it offers a reminder that orchestral music is not a museum piece. It is a living conversation between composers, performers and listeners.
The season will continue that conversation with a later program featuring Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, a work rooted in ritual, nature and the physical power of the earth, alongside Brahms’s Academic Festival Overture and the winner of ESYO’s Concerto Competition. The orchestra will also continue its Musical Postcards community project, inviting people to share music that holds personal meaning.
Grounded in Story takes place Sunday, October 25, at Troy Savings Bank Music Hall. Visit www.esyo.org for more details.
