Editor’s note: Saturday, September 20, 2025, offers those in the Morrison, IL, area a triad of art experiences: painting, sculpture, and orchestral music. After the street painting, attend a public reception, to showcase sculptors at Morrison Institute of Technology. The college’s first Sculpture Show begins at 6:00 p.m. You will have time to drive to Clinton, IA, for the opening Symphony Concert at 7:30.
The Clinton[, IA,] Symphony Orchestra’s 72nd concert season opens at 7:30 p.m., on Saturday, September 20, 2025. It will celebrate two innovations. Dr. Silas Nathanial Huff will lead the Orchestra as Interim Music Director and Conductor. This concert will be the Orchestra’s first in the new Durgin Performing Arts Center, inside Clinton High School, 817 8th Avenue South, Clinton, IA 52732.
Huff was Guest Conductor for the Holiday Concert in December 2024; he and the Orchestra formed an immediate bond. He has conducted hundreds of concerts across America, and abroad in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Jordan, and Russia. He is Director of Maestro Masterclasses and Co-Director of the International Conducting Institute. He is a U. S. Army Music Officer, and has conducted concerts at the White House, U. S. Capitol, Arlington National Cemetery, Pentagon, and other important monuments and landmarks in Washington, D. C.
Reconstruction at Clinton High School has included a Fine Arts wing, which includes the Durgin Performing Arts Center. The theater is complete, although other parts of the building are still under construction. Easy entrance to the theater is from a spacious parking area on the south (back) side of the campus.
For the season’s opening, Huff has chosen an overture by French composer Louise Farrenc, followed by the epic En Saga by Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, and a Spanish Dance from Manuel de Falls’s opera “La vida breve.” Following intermission, the 50 musicians will play the fourth and final symphony by composer Johannes Brahms.
Admission to the concert is by season ticket, or individual concert ticket available at the door, $20 for adults. By long-standing tradition, all students are admitted free of charge, and a student’s adult companion is eligible for half-price admission.
Full information on the composers and music to be performed is available online at www.clintonsymphony.org. The website also offers information on upcoming concerts, and ways to give financial support to the 72nd season of one of the area’s most venerable arts institutions.