Our season begins with three very different stories. Verdi’s La Forza del Destino Overture plunges us into a world of passion, conflict, and the relentless force of fate. Aida Shirazi’s The Distorted Reminiscences of a Guardian explores memory as something fragmented and shifting, grounded in a Persian folk song and transformed through the distinctive voice of a Persian composer. Her music offers an authentic voice of the region alongside Rimsky-Korsakov’s richly imagined, romantic vision of the East in Scheherazade, which carries us into a world of storytelling, danger, adventure, and wonder.

What connects these works is their fascination with the forces that shape us: destiny, memory, and the stories we carry with us. In a season about finding our ground, Grounded in Story asks where our stories begin—and how they change as we pass them on.