“Branford Marsalis, former band leader for ‘The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,’ will headline Allentown Symphony Orchestra’s 2016-17 season” on opening night at Miller Symphony Hall, with Villa-Lobos’s Fantasia for Saxophone and Orchestra, writes John Moser in Friday’s (2/19) Morning Call (Allentown, PA). Also planned during the season are “an organ festival and pops concerts featuring the music of Disney, music from Academy Award-winning movies, classic rock and pop from the 1970s and ’80s and a show pairing chart-topping singer and pianist Jim Brickman with the orchestra…. Music Director/Conductor Diane Wittry and Associate Conductor Ronald Demkee will talk about the season and programming … before concerts at 6:15 p.m. March 12 and 1:45 p.m March 13…. In all, the orchestra announced five shows each in its classical and pops series. More shows will be announced…. Other highlights of the classical series include Viennese Nights program … with the orchestra featuring the newly merged Bel Canto Children’s Chorus of the Bach Choir of Bethlehem…. This January’s scheduled performance of ‘Lynnie Godfrey Embraces the Standards’ with the orchestra, which a blizzard forced to be the first Allentown Symphony Orchestra concert in 60 years to be postponed, is rescheduled for 7:30 p.m. Aug. 27.”
Posted February 23, 2016
