The “San Antonio Symphony Broadcasts” showcase the very best of the San Antonio Symphony’s previous artistic season. Classical music lovers have an exclusive opportunity to relive the world class performances or experience them for the very first time. The annual summer series brings San Antonio’s vibrant classical music community to the Texas Public Radio airwaves with full concert broadcasts, plus artist interviews with Symphony musicians, conductors and guest performers.

This year’s “San Antonio Symphony Broadcasts” are hosted by Ricardo Chavira, star of ABC's "Desperate Housewives," and feature handpicked performances from the debut season of Symphony Music Director Sebastian Lang-Lessing. Internationally praised by both audiences and critics, the renowned conductor and dynamic performer ushered in a new era at the San Antonio Symphony with a season of innovative programs and performances.

Highlights of this year’s “San Antonio Symphony Broadcasts” include “Meet Your New Maestro,” Lang-Lessing’s debut concert; “Colors of Mexico,” featuring guest conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto taking a helm at the podium; plus performances of music by Phillip Glass, Gershwin, and Stravinsky. This summer’s series also includes broadcasts of performances from the Tchaikovsky Festival, the month-long celebration of one of classical music’s titans. The festival, spearheaded by Lang-Lessing, united several of the city’s classical music performance organizations and provided a rare opportunity to experience all six of the Russian master’s symphonies, plus his two piano concertos during nine days of performances.

Complementing the concert broadcasts are artist and performer interviews with John Clare, producer and host of Texas Public Radio’s “Classical Spotlight,” a weekly program that puts local classical music artists and organization center stage with weekly highlights of area concerts.

The "San Antonio Symphony Broadcasts" are made possible by the Elizabeth Huth Coates Charitable Foundation of 1992, and the Zachry Foundation.

Airs: Sundays at 2 p.m., July 10 through September 26 on KPAC 88.3 FM and KTXI 90.1 FM

About the Host

A native of South Texas, Ricardo Antonio Chavira was born in Austin and raised in San Antonio, where he graduated from Robert E. Lee High School, now the Performing Arts School, and Incarnate Word College. Chavira received his MFA from the highly regarded UC-San Diego’s Professional Actor Training Program in 2000, and moved to Los Angeles shortly thereafter.

Since that time, he has worked consistently in all areas of the entertainment industry – film, television and theatre. He was most recently seen in “Piranha 3D”. His additional film credits include Touchstone’s “The Alamo” and several independent films. His television credits include a series regular role on “The Grubbs,” recurring roles on “Six Feet Under” and “The Division,” and guest starring roles on “Monk,” “Joan of Arcadia,” “Kingpin,” “24,” “George Lopez Show” and “JAG,” as well as “NYPD Blue” and two other Steven Bochco series, “Philly” and “City of Angels.” He also co-starred in the A&E film, “Kings of South Beach.” He is currently working on his seventh season of “Desperate Housewives.”

Brodcast Schedule

July 10: “Meet Your New Maestro.” Mahler, Symphony Number 1, “The Titan”; Bizet, “Children’s Chorus” from CARMEN; Brahms, “Lost Youth,” “In Silent Night,” “Evening Serenade.” Featuring the Children’s Chorus of San Antonio, and the Mastersingers.  Sebastian Lang-Lessing, conductor.

July 17: Tito Muñoz conducts a program featuring George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” and “An American in Paris,” as well as Stravinsky’s “Symphony in C,” and Ravel’s “Concerto for the Left Hand,” featuring pianist Ryo Yanagitani.

July 24: Rising Mexican conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto joins the orchestra for a program titled “The Colors of Mexico.”  You’ll heard Revueltas’ “Redes,” as well as the “Horsepower Suite” by Carlos Chávez.  Violinist Elena Urioste performs Glazunov’s “Concerto in a minor,” and the San Antonio Symphony also includes American Samuel Barber’s “Symphony No. 1.”

July 31: Ricardo Cobo takes a turn in the spotlight for two guitar concertos, by Vivaldi (“Concerto in D major”) and Leo Brouwer (“Concerto Elegiaco”).  Also on the program is Beethoven’s “Grosse Fugue” and Manuel de Falla’s “The Three-Cornered Hat.”

August 7: Violinist Robert McDuffie joins the San Antonio Symphony for their first ever performance of a Philip Glass work, the “American Four Seasons” concerto.  The Symphony brass section is spotlighted with Gabrieli’s “Canzon,” and we’ll hear a suite from Rameau’s “Naïs,” Stravinsky’s concerto “Dumbarton Oaks,” and Handel’s “Royal Fireworks Music.”

August 14: Mendelssohn’s “Hymn of Praise” takes up the bulk of today’s program, which also includes a Mozart Clarinet Concerto featuring principal clarinetist Ilya Shterenberg.

August 21: The Tchaikovsky Festival Part I: Piano Concerto No. 1, Symphony No. 1.  Freddy Kempf, piano.

August 28: The Tchaikovsky Festival Part II: Piano Concerto No. 2, Symphony No. 2.  Freddy Kempf, piano.

September 4: The Tchaikovsky Festival Part III: Symphonies 3 and 4.

September 11: The Tchaikovsky Festival Part IV: Symphonies 5 and 6.

September 18: Robert Schumann’s Cello Concerto in a minor, featuring soloist Alban Gerhardt, is the highlight of the program, which also includes Schumann’s “Manfred Overture.”  Get a preview of next season’s Beethoven Festival with Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 8 in F major,” and hear Mozart’s Symphony No. 31 in D major, “Paris.”

September 25: The San Antonio Symphony broadcast season concludes with Beethoven’s Violin Concerto (Vadim Gluzman, soloist), and Richard Strauss’s “Also Sprach Zarathustra.”