Conductor Kevin Rhodes Asks: When Is Bigger Better?

In Friday’s (12/15) Cleburne Times-Review, Kevin Rhodes, artistic director and principal conductor of Michigan’s Traverse Symphony Orchestra, writes, “As a conductor of usually large orchestras (on average between 65-80 musicians in the approximately 100 performances I do each year around the world) … [I] decided to analyze … Is bigger really better?… Looking backward in time … performances of instrumental music went from being a pastime of the royalty and nobility with private performances … or music for use in the church, to public performances for everyone!… The 19th century saw the development of municipal orchestras as a source of pride, playing concerts for anyone who wished to come, with music celebrating the human spirit … Music needed ever-larger groups of musicians to express these ever-larger emotions, hopes, and dreams of the ever-larger populace…. At the Traverse Symphony Orchestra, we are right now involved in plans for upcoming concerts … Why not just take an easier path, and play small concerts with small ensembles? Well, anyone who asks that question has clearly not been part of a room when a piece by Tchaikovsky comes screaming to a conclusion, or Brahms brings you even closer to heaven with his orchestral hymns, or Beethoven … makes all of us feel like we somehow count in the grand scheme of things.”