Las Vegas Philharmonic’s season begins with female composer’s music

In addition to Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, the Las Vegas Philharmonic will perform Anna Clyne’s “Masquerade” and Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” at its opening night concert Saturday.

The evening represents a correction of something conductor Donato Cabrera says that orchestras, historically, have not done very well.

“I think that the music world, and particularly orchestras, have traditionally not been good at featuring music by people of color and women composers,” he says. “There’s a shift in the last year or two to right that wrong. I want to be part of that change.”

For Cabrera, righting that wrong is easy. After all, there is plenty of great music by women, including Clyne’s “Masquerade.”

Other season highlights for Cabrera include November’s Danny Elfman concert, which will feature the music from Tim Burton movies such as “Beetlejuice,” “Edward Scissorhands” and “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”

The timing also provides the opportunity to collaborate with the Neon Museum, which will open a Tim Burton exhibition in October, a partnership Cabrera has long wished for.

Antique Italian violins will make a return to the stage in March with the “Vivaldi Four Seasons — March Into the Stradosphere” concert in which violinists will each play a movement on famed Stradivarius violins.

The season will close out with music from Tchaikovsky, R. Strauss and Gabriela Lena Frank.

Frank’s “Three Latin American Dances” draws on her multicultural background and her mother’s Peruvian heritage.

“It stands to reason that an orchestra and the art it performs should represent the community in which it lives. Next season is a reflection of that,” Cabrera says. “By beginning and ending the season with two women composers, I think we’re moving in the right direction.”