The Youngstown Symphony Orchestra 2020-21 season includes "Broadway in Love: Symphonic Valentine" set for Feb. 13, 2021, and featuring musical theater favorites sung by Morgan James.

Youngstown Symphony Orchestra will play four platinum classic and three pops concerts for its 94th season at the DeYor Performing Arts Center.

Led by Conductor and Music Director Randall Craig Fleischer, the orchestra will open its 2020-21 classic season on Sept. 26 with “First and Foremost,” a program of firsts by composers Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven and Johann Stamitz.

The program will feature Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 1, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 and Stamitz’s Viola Concerto with YSO’s principal violist Michael Strauss as soloist.

Oct. 17 will be a salute to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with the orchestra performing the overture to “Don Giovanni,” his Symphony No. 29 and his Clarinet Concerto, performed by Nicholas Thompson, the orchestra’s principal clarinetist.

“Voices of Liberty” on Nov. 14 is a concert inspired by the American Bill of Rights. Beethoven’s Egmont Overture and Incidental Music will serve as the musical backdrop for a narrative written by Fleischer and delivered by Jennifer Brindisi of WFMJ-TV. Other selections include Claude Debussy’s “Danse Sacre and Profane” and Johannes Brahm’s Symphony No. 4 featuring YSO harpist Juan Riveros.

The final classic concert on April 24, 2021, will remember Marian Anderson and her 1939 concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial with soprano Kishna Davis-Fowler joining the orchestra.

The pops series opens Dec. 5 with the FLY Dance Company joining the orchestra for Duke Ellington’s arrangement of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker.” The all-male dance ensemble also will do workshops at East and Chaney high schools during its time in Youngstown.

Broadway in Love: Symphonic Valentine on Feb. 13, 2021, will feature musical theater favorites sung by Morgan James (“Motown: The Musical,” Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox) and Ben Davis (“Les Miserables,” “Thoroughly Modern Millie”).

The final pops concert on March 13, 2021, will have the orchestra providing live musical accompaniment for two silent classics, Buster Keaton’s “Sherlock Jr.” and Charlie Chapin’s “The Pawn Shop.”

The orchestra also will play seven free concerts as part of its Stained Glass series, informal events at area houses of worship and community centers.

Stained Glass dates include: St. Jude Church, Columbiana, at 6 p.m. Sept. 27; Blessed Sacrament, Warren, 3 p.m. Oct. 18; Zion Lutheran Church, Youngstown, 2 p.m. Nov. 15; St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, Youngstown, 4 p.m. Dec. 6; Trinity United Methodist Church, Youngstown, 3 p.m. Feb. 14, 2021; St. Elizabeth Hospital, Youngstown, 4 p.m. March 14, 2021; and Temple El Emeth, Liberty, 2 p.m. April 25, 2021.

Season ticket information will be available once the DeYor Performing Arts Center box office reopens following the state’s stay-at-home order by calling 330-744-0264.

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