2025 CONCERTS
The Whiting Park Festival Orchestra, conducted by Music Director Robert Vodnoy, is pleased to perform its 2025 Summer Season in Whiting Park. This is the orchestra’s 26th season in the park, a magnificent location with a beautiful pavilion, spectacular views of Lake Michigan, and great amenities which make the concert a truly first-class experience.
SATURDAY July 19 | 7:30 PM
CELEBRATING ART & MUSIC
The WPFO opens its 26th season with this spectacular concert celebrating Art and Music. Headlining the program will be Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition,” orchestrated by Maurice Ravel. This orchestral tour-de-force is a musical journey through a memorial exhibit of artwork by Mussorgsky’s friend Viktor Hartmann. In the hands of master composer Maurice Ravel, the original piano suite is a hallmark of an orchestra and conductor’s skill and musicality. The program includes popular selections at the interface of Art and Music, such as Ray Evans and Jay Livingston’s immortal “Mona Lisa,” Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida,” and Don MacLean’s “Vincent,” and much more.
SATURDAY August 2 | 7:30 PM
Dance to the music
Dance the night away with this evening of toe-tapping, hip-swaying music. The program features music for the dance including Johann Strauss’s Voices of Spring Waltzes, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, Rossini’s The Fantastic Toyshop, Rock-a-bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody, Bacchanale from Samson and Delilah, Gliding Girl Tango, A Tribute to Elvis, and more.
SATURDAY August 16 | 7:30 PM
A night on broadway
Thrill to the genius of Broadway as soprano Anne Fuchs and baritone Daniel Narducci join forces with the Whiting Park Festival Orchestra for “A Night on Broadway”. The program includes songs and duets from such shows as Man of La Mancha, My Fair Lady, Carousel, Show Boat, and more.
Baritone Daniel Narducci is a multi-faceted artist whose talents have been captured through live stage presentations, recording, and television productions. Since his professional debut with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra unter the direction of Erich Kunzel, he has appeard with many of the world’s most presteigious orchestras, inchuding the Cleveland Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Pops, Detroit Symphony, and Indianapolis Symphony. An active recording artist, Daniel Narducci sang the role fo Captain Hook on the world premier recording of Leonard Bernstein’s Peter Pan. This compete version of the musical co-stars Linda Eder. It is featured on Deutche Grammophon’s Bernsteing: Complete Works. Narducci’s other recordings include Timeless Broadway, Christmas Once More, and Our Broadway Romance.
Soprano Anne Fuchs is an internationally recognized performer and passionate promoter of the vocal arts. She made her professional European debut in 2012 as an understudy for Papagena in Mozart’s The Magic Flute. She spent the next years singing with the Oldenburgishes Staatstheater, Lyric Opera Studio of Weimar, and Palazzo Ricci. Anne also sang with Donald Nally’s grammy-award winning contemporary ensemble, The Crossing, and collaborating with ensembles such as the International Contemporary Ensemble, Piffaro, Network for New Music, Tempesta di Mare, and Lyric Fest. She has been granted awards by the American Prize Competition, Philadelphia Lieder Society, The Jenny Lind Competition, Classical Singer, the National Federation of Music Clubs, and the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.
SUNDAY August 31 | 7:30 PM
Genius of American Music
Don’t miss the season finale—our annual Labor Day Weekend celebration, with great American music and a spectacular fireworks display over Lake Michigan accompanied by live music by full symphony orchestra. This year’s concert features music by Jimi Hendrix, Duke Ellington, Aaron Copland, George Chadwick, Victoria Bond, Carlos Simon, and Ferde Grofé. The program ends with Tchaikovsky’s famous 1812 Overture and John Philip Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever as fireworks explode over Lake Michigan.