About This Program

​Celebrate the end of The COT’s 2025-26 Season and the universality of music with Music Beyond Borders. Bedrich Smetana brings one of Shakespeare’s greatest tyrants to life with dark intensity in his dramatic symphonic poem Richard III. Brazilian composer Clarice Assad’s Sin Fronteras (“Without Borders”) offers a rhythm-infused fusion of global musical traditions, blurring the lines between classical, jazz, and folk. And what better way to close out the season than with one of the greatest concertos of all time?! Written during his visit to the United States, Antonin Dvroak’s Cello Concerto is a masterpiece of deep emotion that marries a longing for the composer’s Bohemian home with the expansive spirit of the New World.