Miami University Symphony Orchestra, student-athletes present ‘Playing Together: Music + Sports at Miami' Nov. 20
The concert explores the shared demands of music and athletics: preparation, precision, timing, leadership, trust, and teamwork
Miami University Symphony Orchestra, student-athletes present ‘Playing Together: Music + Sports at Miami' Nov. 20
The concert explores the shared demands of music and athletics: preparation, precision, timing, leadership, trust, and teamwork
The Miami University Symphony Orchestra (MUSO) and Miami student-athletes will join forces for “Playing Together: Music + Sports at Miami,” a free concert at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 20, in Hall Auditorium.
The collaboration brings together two highly recognized areas of Miami student achievement. The MUSO, conducted by Ricardo Averbach, director of Orchestral Studies, won The American Prize in Orchestral Performance, 2025, in the college/university division. The RedHawks won their second-straight Reese Trophy (and 27th overall) as the top men's athletic program in the Mid-American Conference (MAC) and captured their second-straight Jacoby Trophy as the top MAC women's program, in 2025-2026.
The concert explores the shared demands of music and athletics: preparation, precision, timing, leadership, trust, and teamwork, Averbach said.
The program will open with John Williams’ “The Olympic Spirit,” followed by Benjamin Britten’s “The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.” This piece features a newly created narration that will be delivered by Miami student-athletes from RedHawks softball and men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams. Humor and interaction will be incorporated into Britten’s celebrated showcase of the orchestra and its instruments, Averbach said. The orchestra will also perform the final two movements of Tchaikovsky’s “Symphony No. 4. ”
The audience will be invited to join the finale — a distinctly Miami work by senior Music Composition major Vincent Oliver. His “Fanfare from the Hillcrest” is built around the Miami Fight Song and Miami University Alma Mater.
“Athletes and musicians spend countless hours developing individual skills, but when the performance begins, individual excellence is no longer enough. You have to listen, react, trust the people around you, and create something together that no one person could accomplish alone”, Averbach said. “That is where the worlds of music and sports truly meet.”