Tom Cimarusti
2025-26 Season Subscriptions Orders for new subscribers will be available starting Monday, August 11.
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Hearing the Rainbow
Harold Arlen's Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Wednesday, November 19, 2025, 10am
John and Jeanne Rowe Performance and Learning Center
Tom Cimarusti, Ph.D., Program Coordinator and Professor of Music History, Florida Gulf Coast University
Join Tom Cimarusti as he explores the greatest song of the 20th century, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, the song sung by Judy Garland in 1939’s Wizard of Oz. In this conversation, Cimarusti explores the musical gem, the song’s genesis, its melodic simplicity and harmonic sophistication.
Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 “From the New World”
and the Creation of an American Sound
Wednesday, January 7, 2026, 10am
John and Jeanne Rowe Performance and Learning Center
Tom Cimarusti, Ph.D., Program Coordinator and Professor of Music History, Florida Gulf Coast University
Before you see Artistic and Music Director Alexander Shelley lead the Naples Philharmonic through one of the most popular of all symphonies, Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s Ninth, known as the New World Symphony, join Tom Cimarusti in exploring Dvořák’s creative process and the background that led to its creation.
Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2
In Search of Eternal Life
Wednesday, March 11, 2026, 10am
John and Jeanne Rowe Performance and Learning Center
Tom Cimarusti, Ph.D., Program Coordinator and Professor of Music History, Florida Gulf Coast University
Join Tom Cimarusti as he investigates Gustav Mahler’s obsession with death and the afterlife, themes the composer explored in his second symphony known as the Resurrection. Learn about Mahler’s magnum opus before Artistic and Music Director Alexander Shelley leads the orchestra through the piece on March 19 and 20.