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The KPAC Blog features classical music news, reviews, and analysis from South Texas and around the world.

San Antonio Symphony Presents Rach 2 At The Majestic

San Antonio Symphony
Sebastian Lang-Lessing

This week’s San Antonio Symphony performance at the Majestic Theater features the second Sergei Rachmaninoff piece of the new symphony season, Piano Concerto No. 2.

"At least in the top five of the most famous of piano concertos, or the most popular ever written," Lang-Lessing said.

The featured soloist is a highly regarded pianist originally from the Philippines.

"We are very, very lucky to have the wonderful Cecile Licad playing with us this weekend, and she’s really a wonderful artist," Lang-Lessing said.

Lang-Lessing said it is fun to stretch the symphony in new directions.

"Yeah, that’s the goal of the balanced season I think," he said. "You challenge the players—and the audience—with something new and something different. The styles always vary during the season."

We asked Lang-Lessing if his desire to build a music academy had been positively received since his five-year contract extension.

"I find a lot of support for that, and now since we are in the black this year there’s not so much worry about finance short term," Lang-Lessing said. "And we have a far better long-term strategy and more stability with H-E-B and Valero really stepping up. It is really now also time to intensify our education mission."

He’s got support from the city, from the county and from private investors, but it's a long-term project.

"So nothing needs to happen in a rushed way because we want to make it a real success story for the symphony and the city."

Jack Morgan can be reached at jack@tpr.org and on Twitter at @JackMorganii