Orchestras in Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, and Texas are among those announcing details of their 2009-10 seasons. The recently formed Heartland Festival Orchestra in Peoria, which held its inaugural concert on August 28, will perform four programs. Under Artistic Director David Commanday, the orchestra’s season performances will include Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony, Op. 110a, Stravinsky’s A Soldier’s Tale; waltzes by Johann Strauss Jr., and others; Ginastera’s Variaciones Concertantes; Haydn’s Symphony No. 82; Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons; and Piazzolla’s The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, with violin soloist Lara St. John. The Riverside Symphony in New York City will offer three programs at Alice Tully Hall, featuring Debussy’s Danse sacrée et profane, Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, Hartke’s Alvorada, Sibelius’s Rakastava, Busoni’s Concertino for Clarinet and Chamber Orchestra, with Alan R. Kay as soloist; Mozart’s Symphony No. 36 (“Linz”); and Bolcom’s Cabaret Songs with mezzo-soprano Rebecca Jo Loeb. The Boston-based Longwood Symphony Orchestra—most of whose musicians are doctors and other medical professionals—will continue its “Healing the Community through Music” series of benefit concerts. The orchestra’s 2009-10 partners are the Dr. Susan E. Spencer Memorial Epilepsy Research Fund; The Food Project; ATASK—Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence; and Berkshire Children and Families. The orchestra will perform Sibelius’s Tapiola; Giya Kancheli’s STYX for Viola, Chorus and Large Orchestra; and Gene Scheer’s Albert Schweitzer Portrait, which the orchestra co-commissioned in 2009 with the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship to honor Schweitzer, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, musician, physician, and humanitarian. The 2009-10 season will mark the orchestra’s first performance at Seiji Ozawa Hall in Lenox, Massachusetts, in June. The River Oaks Chamber Orchestra in Houston will offer the world premiere of Brad Sayles’s Buffalo Bayou Suite, written for Endangered Species Media Project’s media documentary about Buffalo Bayou, a waterway in Texas. Pianist Simone Dinnerstein will perform Bach’s Piano Concerto in D minor, and the orchestra will introduce a series of solo recitals by members of the orchestra, including violinist Brian Lewis and Kana Kimura; oboist/orchestra founder Alecia Lawyer; violist Suzanne LeFevre; bassist Erik Gronfor; and clarinetist Maiko Sasaki.
Posted September 11, 2009
