Scott Speck

Scott Speck is a conductor appearing multiple times with the Mobile Symphony Orchestra in Mobile, Alabama, across the 2026-2027 season. The programs range from Berlioz and Mussorgsky showpieces to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, a Vivaldi and Piazzolla "Four Seasons" pairing, and a concert featuring pianist Emanuel Ax. Listeners can expect a season built around familiar orchestral favorites alongside newer works.

Speck's Mobile Symphony season mixes orchestral showpieces with audience-friendly framing devices. Berlioz's "Le carnaval romain" opens with a big, swaggering tune before rushing into fast, dance-like passages, and Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" gives the orchestra a chance to sketch ten different scenes, from a lumbering ox-cart to a chiming, golden-domed finale. The "Beethoven & Blue Jeans" program pairs a rhythmic, horn-driven curtain-raiser by Valerie Coleman with Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, whose four hammered opening notes return throughout the piece, and his final piano concerto. Later programs set Vivaldi's original "Four Seasons" violin concertos against Piazzolla's tango-inflected answer, and close the season with a Chopin concerto framed by lesser-known overture and symphonic repertoire. Expect brisk tempos in the virtuoso showpieces and more spacious phrasing where the music calls for lyricism, typical of a conductor programming for a general audience rather than specialists.