Musicians of the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony.
In Monday’s (6/9) San Francisco Classical Voice, Keith Gleason writes, “When Martha Stoddard conducts the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony’s annual Pride Concert this weekend, she won’t just be leading a celebration. She’ll also be giving an audition. On June 14 at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Hume Concert Hall, BARS is set to conclude its season and its music-director search, following the departure of Dawn Harms last summer after 12 years … Stoddard will be the final candidate in a series of four to take the podium with the 70-member volunteer ensemble, founded in 2008 to support and promote LGBTQ musicians and composers. She’s looking to bring to the gig not only a wealth of experience—as artistic director and principal conductor of the Oakland Civic Orchestra and as a frequent guest conductor of the Bay Area’s Awesöme Orchestra—but also a penchant for intriguing programming…. The upcoming Pride Concert … will be highlighted by the U.S. premiere of Juan Sebastián Cardona Ospina’s Timpani Concerto … with Jimmy Chan as soloist.” Other works in the program include Grażyna Bacewicz’s Overture, Benjamin Britten’s arrangement of Gustav Mahler’s “What the Wildflowers Tell Me,” and Jean Sibelius’s Third Symphony. “The other [music-director] contenders … are John Kendall Bailey, Robert Mollicone, and Sixto Montesinos Jr.”
