Before they ever actually met, Chuck Mangione brought Jeff Tyzik to Rochester. All it took was hearing his music.
“Somebody sent me a Chuck Mangione recording, and when I listened to that, I was inspired by his music enough to want to come to Rochester and study at the Eastman School [of Music] where he was teaching,” Tyzik told WXXI in 2025 after Mangione’s death.
Eventually, Tyzik played lead trumpet in Mangione’s jazz ensemble before assuming his current position as the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra’s principal pops conductor in 1994 .
Next year, he’ll have the chance to return to his roots, honoring Mangione with a tribute show as part of the RPO’s 2026-27 season.
“Tyzik’s Jazz & Mangione,” with Tyzik as conductor and Alexa Tarantino on saxophone, is one of many programs that color the RPO’s new season, announced today. The two-night affair, set for May 21-22 of 2027, is also perhaps the most heartfelt, featuring special guests and a direct, personal connection thanks to Tyzik himself.
“Celebrating Mangione’s music is a chance to honor our hometown legend in style,” Tyzik said in the new season’s program guide.
The Mangione tribute will end the RPO’s Pops season. Long before that, the Philharmonics season begins with “Contemporary Works with Theremin,” the RPO’s special show as part of the 2026 ESL Rochester Fringe Festival on September 19, 2026.
Centering theremin player Carolina Eyck, the program offers a celebration of the science fiction-sounding electronic instrument that’s long been at home both in the classical and pop-music spheres.
The showcase features forward-thinking works by Mason Bates, Régis Campo and John Adams, with RPO music director Andreas Delfs conducting.
Delfs will also lead the world premiere of composer Michael Torke’s new commission “Voices of Today” as part of the season’s opening night, September 26 (with a matinee the following day). The show features violinist Leila Josefowicz; the program also includes John Adams’ “Violin Concerto” and Dvořák’s: Symphony No. 9 “From the New World.”
Following the Eastman School’s inaugural Soundtrax Film Music Festival in 2025, the RPO continues to bring music of the big screen to life with special concerts. “Symphonic Cinema: Korngold, Strauss & Williams” in February 2027 presents Max Steiner’s overture to “Gone with the Wind” and John Williams’ iconic score from “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial” along with works from Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Richard Strauss.
Conductor and composer Jeff Beal — who is readying his newest album, “New York Études, Vol. II,” for a March 27 release — takes the helm for an evening scoring the landmark 1927 Fritz Lang silent sci-fi film Metropolis on March 5, 2027. Along with his wife, Joan, Beal is the namesake of Eastman’s Beal Institute for Film Music and Contemporary Media.
The evening fits well with a Pops program dedicated to “Raiders of the Lost Ark” as well as a celebration of the 94-year-old Williams, who has scored dozens of Hollywood blockbusters and won Oscars for scoring “Schindler’s List,” “Jaws,” “Star Wars” and more.
“Film music reminds us that the orchestra is one of the greatest storytellers we have,” Delfs said in the RPO’s new program guide.
Naturally, these are only some of the highlights. The RPO’s bold Piano Festival fills four concerts in October 2026 with Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Brahms. On the other end of the spectrum, Tyzik will lead Pops celebrations of Aretha Franklin, Billy Joel and Southern rock acts like The Allman Brothers Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd as well. Look for those throughout the season.
More details, including ticket information, is available at rpo.org.
