In Sunday’s (4/24) Springfield News-Sun (Ohio), Andrew McGinn writes, “For one concert next season, the Springfield Symphony Orchestra will finally play the classics—‘Uptown Girl,’ ‘Only the Good Die Young’ and ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire,’ to name a few. … The SSO has every right to devote an entire concert to [Billy] Joel’s music, as it will do in December, particularly if it’s trying to attract those people who don’t think of Liszt as the one true Piano Man. ‘Hopefully we’ll see some people we don’t see all the time,’ said David Deitrick, the symphony’s executive director. The real star of the six-concert, 2011-12 season, however, will still be the orchestra itself. Conductor Peter Stafford Wilson will celebrate his 10th season—and it won’t stop there. Wilson, who also serves as associate conductor of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, has renewed his contract with the SSO through 2014. ‘The way the world’s going, people don’t hang around that long,’ Deitrick said. ‘We’re very pleased that Peter will be with us for at least another three years. The audience loves him, and the orchestra and the chorale like working with him.’ ”
Posted April 25, 2011