Missouri’s Springfield Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Kyle Wiley Pickett.
In Monday’s (7/9) Springfield Daily Citizen (Missouri), Jeff Kessinger writes, “The Springfield Symphony Association began in 1934 as an idea to bring together local musicians who wanted to perform for the community. The first Springfield Symphony concert was played on Feb. 26, 1935. The Springfield Symphony Orchestra is ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’ in its 90th anniversary season, with nine shows at Juanita K. Hammons Hall for the Arts. In a press release, the organization noted it has performed every year since 1935, through war and peace, prosperity and poverty—and even a pandemic…. The ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’ theme ties into the orchestra’s 1930s origins. The decade was a time of political upheaval and the Great Depression. It was also an era of transformative new movements in the arts, including Art Deco and the solidification of jazz as a true American art form. The season starts at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 14 … The show includes Rimsky-Korsakov’s triumphant ‘Procession of the Nobles’ and, for the first time in the Springfield Symphony’s history, Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony, a musical portrait of life in Russia under Stalin.” The article includes descriptions of each of the season’s programs.
