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The team of Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony set a standard that has rarely been equalled. We’ll hear this dream team in two of Mozart’s most beloved symphonies and a Mozart moment from Reiner’s time in the opera pit.

This week, we celebrate the June birthdays of composers Edward Elgar and Mikhail Glinka. We'll hear Glinka's barn burner of an overture to his opera "Ruslan and Ludmila." We'll also hear Edward Elgar's first symphony led by guest conductor Michael Francis alongside a performance of his violin concerto featuring Pinchas Zukerman.

Not only was Austrian composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold a brilliant film composer, he also wrote acclaimed works for the concert stage. We'll hear the Kansas City Symphony perform his Symphonic Serenade and Symphony in F sharp. Co-hosts Michael Stern and Dan Margolies delve into his composing technique and explain how he borrowed material from his own film scores. We'll also hear "Amen!" by modern American composer Carlos Simon that pays homage to his gospel influences.

This week we'll celebrate the birth of Robert Schumann with performances of his Overture, Scherzo and Finale, and his A minor Cello Concerto featuring soloist Narek Hakhnazaryan. Also, bassist Xavier Foley is featured on his own composition "Soul Bass," and we'll hear a world premiere by Angel Lam. The program closes with Alberto Ginastera's "Variaciones concertantes," where everyone in the orchestra gets a moment to shine.

As Michael Stern's time as Kansas City Symphony music director comes to an end after 19 seasons, he and co-host Dan Margolies put together a very special program of music from two of Stern's favorite composers: Leonard Bernstein and Richard Strauss. We'll hear Bernstein's shore leave ballet "Fancy Free," and Strauss tone poems "Death and Transfiguration" and "A Hero's Life."

Summerfest is the annual series of concerts that brings some of the best chamber musicians in the region to Kansas City to perform together each July. Brooke Knoll speaks with Summerfest musicians and artistic advisors Jane Carl and Evan Halloin about the upcoming season. We'll hear music from Ludwig van Beethoven and Olivier Messiaen.

Classical KC's Brooke Knoll speaks with outgoing Kansas City Symphony music director Michael Stern about a brand new album for the group called "Brahms Reimagined" that features orchestral arrangements of Brahms' music by Virgil Thompson, Bright Sheng and Arnold Schoenbeg.

Conductor and composer Matthias Pintscher joins Michael Stern and Dan Margolies for a look back at his recent appearance leading the Kansas City Symphony, as well as a look ahead to Pintscher taking over for Stern as music director. We'll hear works by Ligeti, Ravel and Scriabin, plus a work composed by Pintscher.

Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote the score for the 1948 film “Scott of the Antarctic” – a dramatization of the ill-fated expedition led by Capt. Robert Falcon Scott to be the first humans to the South Pole. Vaughan Williams’ inspiration was such that he expanded the film score into a five-movement symphony that is both compelling and moving.

This week we'll hear the Kansas City Symphony perform a delightful early symphony by Franz Joseph Haydn known as "The Philosopher" and Ludwig van Beethoven's groundbreaking third symphony: "Eroica." We'll also hear two crowd pleasing tone poems: Richard Strauss' "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks" and Ottorino Respighi's majestic "Pines of Rome."