That’s not all, folks

The Spokane Symphony’s newly announced 2006-07 season features a mixture of new faces and old friends – from Gunther Schuller to Bugs Bunny. Next season will see the return of such familiar soloists as trumpeter-conductor Doc Severinsen, who opens the SuperPops series on Sept. 30 with the music of Duke Ellington; the Brazilian pianist Arnaldo Cohen, in his fourth Spokane appearance (Oct. 6); and baritone Frank Hernandez, a Whitworth College alumnus (Oct. 20). Powerful soloists new to Spokane include three outstanding violinists: Jennifer Frautschi, who will join Cohen for an evening of Brahms concertos (Oct. 6); Jennifer Koh, with the Szymanowski Concerto (Nov. 17); and Sarah Chang, who will play the Sibelius Concerto for Violin (March 9). Saxophonist Tim Ries will perform Yoshimatsu’s “Cyberbird” – the Japanese composer’s tribute to jazz legend Charlie Parker (Jan. 26) – and the Israeli piano duo Sivan Silver and Gil Garburg will play works by Mozart and Poulenc (Feb. 9).

In addition to Severinsen, the SuperPops series will feature the gypsy fiddler Roby Lakatos (Nov. 11) as well as evenings devoted to George Gershwin (Feb. 3), Tony Award-winning musicals (March 17) and two nights of “hare-raising music” from the classic Warner Bros. Bugs Bunny cartoons, which will be projected onto a large screen behind the orchestra (April 21-22).

Two choral blockbusters are scheduled: Johannes Brahms’ Requiem, with Hernandez (Oct. 20), and Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana” (April 13), featuring a combination of choirs from the region’s universities and colleges.

Music director Eckart Preu will again share the podium with the symphony’s associate conductor, Morihiko Nakahara.

The season also will see the return to the Opera House stage of Schuller, the orchestra’s music adviser and principal conductor in the 1984-85 season, for the first time since 1999. He’ll serve as guest conductor for the March 23 classics concert.

“We are also going to be doing some of my personal favorite hidden treasures – music that I discovered for myself through the years,” Preu says.

“The Khachaturian Piano Concerto with the return of pianist Terrence Wilson (Sept. 15) is one of them,” he says. “I first heard it because I bought a CD by a conductor that I wanted to hear, and the Khachaturian was also on that disc, and I fell in love with it.

“And the Gliere ‘Ilya Murometz’ Symphony is maybe the most interesting and beautiful of the ‘forgotten’ pieces we will play this season.”

As a part of a multiyear project, Preu also has chosen some works from the huge store of music that is a part of the Moldenhauer Archives.

Hans Moldenhauer, a German-born musicologist, collector and teacher, lived in Spokane from 1939 until his death in 1987. He amassed a monumental collection of manuscripts that range from the Middle Ages to the late 20th century.

“Exploring the music in the Moldenhauer Archives gives us the opportunity for some very adventurous programming,” Preu says, “not only because the archive is mainly 20th-century music, but it also includes some very interesting music from the past that has not been performed before and some of those pieces have never even been published.

“This is a great opportunity for a regional orchestra like ours,” he adds. “It feeds into some interesting programming of music that is connected with Spokane.”

Among next season’s works from the Moldenhauer Archives are Ernest Bloch’s passionate “Schelomo” for Cello and Orchestra (March 23, with Schuller), as well as the Variations from the “Lulu” Suite by Alban Berg and Arnold Schoenberg’s arrangement of Handel’s Concerto, Op. 6, No. 7.

Alongside the new and unfamiliar music next season are such repertoire staples as Beethoven’s symphonies No. 7 and 8, Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fantastique” and Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra.

The symphony has announced a change in the scheduling of its Casual Classics series at The Met. Next season will see concerts on Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon, replacing the Sunday-Tuesday pairing of the past.

The new season will also see two performances of the Symphony on the Edge concerts at the Big Easy Concert House, a couple of concerts in Coeur d’Alene and a continuation of the popular, often sold-out, Chamber Soiree programs at The Davenport Hotel.

Alberta Ballet will return for two evening and two matinee performances of Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker” on Dec. 8-10.

For a season brochure, call the symphony ticket office (624-1200) or go online to www.spokanesymphony.org.