Music Director Roger Kalia acknowledges Symphony NH musicians at the orchestra’s 100th anniversary concert on April 29. Photo by Keith Spiro.
“Symphony NH, which performed its first concert on April 29, 1923, celebrated its anniversary with a performance exactly to the day one hundred years later,” writes Keith Spiro in Monday’s (5/1) Manchester Ink Link. “The result was an outstanding concert, played to a full house. The venue was the lovely new Nashua Center for the Arts…. Symphony NH Executive Director Deanna Hoying added a couple of nice surprises to the welcoming thank yous. First was a proclamation from the State of New Hampshire … marking April 29, 2023 as ‘Symphony NH Centennial Day’ … followed by ‘Symphony No. 100,’ a poem written and read aloud … by NH State Poet Laureate Alexandria Peary. The concert opened with Dvořák’s Cello Concerto in B minor [with] cellist Amit Peled who … had performed with Symphony NH back in 2001…. The concert included two pieces [by Schubert and Strauss, Jr.] that were performed at the historic first concert of April 29, 1923… Conductor and Music Director Roger Kalia … looked about the full house and said, ‘this is just amazing.’… The new performance space, the full house, the renewed energy and an expanded mission to bring live concerts to every county in the State of New Hampshire, brought a standing ovation.”
