by Jarrett Hoffman
Akron Symphony music director Christopher Wilkins has long had an interest in theater. “I’ve kept my eye out for theater-related projects for years and years and years,” he said during an interview.
One of those projects was Mendelssohn’s incidental music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream interleaved with a significant chunk of Shakespeare’s play, a production ClevelandClassical.com reviewed in 2014. “I’ve also done The Tempest with the complete incidental music by Sibelius,” Wilkins said. “But these next two pieces are knockouts.”
Those would be Shostakovich’s Hamlet Film Suite and William Walton’s Henry V: A Shakespeare Scenario, which make up two-thirds of “Symphonic Shakespeare,” the Orchestra’s program this Saturday, October 19 at 8:00 pm at E.J. Thomas Hall.