Twin Cities-bred Broadway star Laura Osnes will make her first professional Minnesota performance in nearly a decade as part of the Minnesota Orchestra's Sommerfest.
The Eagan High School grad, who left town in 2007, will sing a Broadway revue July 10 with Santino Fontana, the University of Minnesota grad who was her "Cinderella" co-star on Broadway in 2013 and now has regular roles on the TV series "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" and "Shades of Blue."
This year's Sommerfest will offer 12 concerts over three weeks — five of them in the first weekend.
The annual summer festival opens July 8 with an eclectic program that includes Liszt, Copland, Saint-Saens and Ravel and that features the Minnesota debut of Chinese pianist Zhang Zuo.
There are two concerts on July 9: Pianist Andre Watts, an orchestra favorite, plays the Piano Concerto No. 2 by Edward MacDowell. Earlier that night, Sommerfest artistic director Andrew Litton conducts Rachmaninoff and Brahms.
July 10 is also a two-show day. Osnes and Fontana will sing an evening program (but not with the orchestra); Litton leads a chamber program of Poulenc, Miguel del Aguila and John Harbison in the afternoon.
Litton returns to Brahms with the composer's Double Concerto on July 14-15. Violinist Nicola Benedetti and cellist Leonard Elschenbroich are the soloists. Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture and his 4th Symphony complete the program, each on successive nights.
Alec Wilder's Octets are served by a chamber grouping in the early show July 16, with the Beethoven Triple Concerto headlining the nightcap, again with Benedetti and Elschenbroich.
