3 Highlights to Listen for at “Teddy Leads Adams & Beethoven” on Oct. 11
On Sunday, October 11, Curtis Symphony Orchestra launches its 2026–27 series with “Teddy Leads Adams and Beethoven,” featuring Beethoven’s playful Symphony No. 8, John Adams’ Harmonielehre, and Tania León’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Stride. To help you get the most out of your concert-going experience, we’ve highlighted three key moments to listen for—including surprise wrong notes and dream-inspired chords.
The note that crashes the party
Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8
Listeners are in for an unexpected jolt in the opening of the symphony’s final movement. Less than a minute into the finale, a blaring C-sharp interrupts the strings’ whispered opening theme, initiating a joyful forte unison from the ensemble. Toward the end of the piece, it reappears, persisting several times until resolving in the coda.
This “wrong,” disruptive note embodies the piece’s essence: Beethoven once described his eighth symphony as reflective of his “unbuttoned” spirit—both playful and mischievous.
The rocket-launching oil tanker
Adams’ Harmonielehre
One night, after experiencing a particularly vivid dream—about an oil tanker launching itself out of San Francisco Bay like a rocket—Adams awoke, sat at his piano, and pounded out a series of E minor chords. Audiences can hear these chords at the very beginning of Harmonielehre, Adams’ breakthrough score that is his self-described “nod to tonal harmony.”
Harmonielehre was also a personal revolution: Adams’ burst of inspiration ended an 18-month morass of writer’s block, propelling him into a creative process that paved the way for Nixon in China, his first opera.
León’s unstoppable stride
Tania León’s Stride
Written as a tribute to suffragist Susan B. Anthony, León says Stride embodies Anthony’s refusal to stop—she was always “pushing and pushing and moving forward, walking with firm steps.” Listeners can hear this momentum in the work’s underlying tread: Double basses and sand blocks keep the pulse moving while strings and percussion constantly shift direction. The tread continues, León suggests, as does our journey toward civil rights—and both remain works in progress.
Tickets for “Teddy Leads Adams & Beethoven” at Marian Anderson Hall start at $24 and are available through curtis.edu.
Curtis’ flexible Choose Your Own subscription option offers 25% off single ticket prices when purchasing tickets to two or more performances. To order a subscription, visit curtis.edu/subscribe, call (215) 893-7902, or email tickets@curtis.edu.
