Return of its mighty organ will highlight Northrop auditorium's 2018-19 season

After 18 months and $3 million, the Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ at Northrop Auditorium will be heard again this fall.

The famed instrument, whose nearly 7,000 pipes were packed away during a renovation of the venue five years ago, then sent to Boston for painstaking restoration, will feature in the Oct. 12-13 world premiere of "What Do We Make of Bach?" by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Harbison, a commissioned work to be performed by the Minnesota Orchestra.

The concerts are part of the Northrop's 2018-19 season announced Saturday, two separate schedules of music and dance that intersect in a Nov. 8 performance by the Pittsburgh Ballet — making its Northrop debut — and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. "Mozart in Motion" features the choreography of George Balanchine and Jiří Kylián.

Twin Cities audiences also will get to see Joffrey Ballet's newest work, "Anna Karenina," just a week after its premiere in Chicago (March 2-3, 2019).

The Northrop Dance Season kicks off Oct. 4 with Ballet Hispánico in a program of works by women choreographers. They include Houston-born Michelle Manzaneles ("Con Brazos Abiertos") and Belgian-Colombian dancemaker Annabelle Lopez, whose "Sombrerisimo" playfully tackles machismo.

"We're always looking for female choreographers to showcase," said Northrop director Christine Tschida.

Tschida curated the season with some themes in mind, including how people interact with art. France's Company Käfig uses a 3-D digital landscape for "Pixel," a mix of circus-inflected hip-hop dance from French-Algerian choreographer Mourad Merzouki (Nov. 3). French contemporary-dance choreographer Angelin Preljocaj returns with his Ballet Preljocaj to perform "La Fresque (The Painting on the Wall)," a work based on a Chinese folk tale about two travelers so entranced by a painting that they become part of it (March 30, 2019).

American Ballet Theatre, which performed for Northrop's reopening in 2014, returns with Alexei Ratmansky's folk-inspired "Songs of Bukovina," Jerome Robbins' "Other Dances" and Twyla Tharp's "In the Upper Room," set to the music of Philip Glass (April 2, 2019). David Roussève's troupe Reality presents "Halfway to Dawn," a multimedia dance/theater piece about Duke Ellington collaborator Billy Strayhorn (April 13, 2019).

In the season finale, Northrop teams up with Walker Art Center for an ice-dance show, "Vertical Influences," by Montreal's Le Patin Libre, that combines elements of street dance, tap and theatrical choreography. It will take place at the Breck School/Anderson Ice Arena in Golden Valley on April 25, 2019 and at the Charles M. Schulz Highland Arena in St. Paul two days later.

Season packages are on sale now for both the dance season and the Northrop Music Series, which also includes a solo organ recital Dec. 4 by Nathan Laube and a Nov. 11 concert marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. That concert will feature the American premiere of composer Patrick Hawes' hour-long "The Great War Symphony," performed by the Oratorio Society of Minnesota Chorus and the U of M Men's and Women's Choirs with organ accompaniment.

Single tickets go on sale June 4. Go to northrop.umn.edu or call 612-624-2345 for information.

612-673-4390 • @rohanpreston