The Score | Anniversary Celebrations

How are orchestras celebrating anniversaries during a pandemic? With music, of course, but in new ways. The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra originally planned to perform its 125th-anniversary season finale on May 16. Instead, it streamed a small-scale, live, socially distanced concert from an empty Music Hall. The concert featured Mahler’s Piano Quartet in A minor played by Concertmaster Stefani Matsuo, Principal Viola Christian Colberg, Principal Cello Ilya Finkelshteyn, and Pianist Michael Chertock—all wearing masks. Principal Oboe Dwight Parry, standing alone in the balcony, performed the world premiere of Matthias Pintscher’s short fanfare vibrant vitres (fragment…). The Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s training group, cancelled its 100th-anniversary concert. Instead, the young musicians recorded excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, led by Principal Conductor Ken-David Masur, in a composite video; the orchestra also commissioned and premiered short compositions by Josh Fink, Nathalie Joachim, Ted Moore, Peter Shin, Liza Sobel, Martha Tiesenga, and LJ White. The San Francisco Symphony had planned a grand concert in June to honor Michael Tilson Thomas, completing his 25th and final year as music director. That was replaced by 25 Days/25 Years, a 25-day streaming project, with each day focusing on one of Tilson Thomas’s seasons, culminating with a June 28 virtual event featuring musicians of the SF Symphony and Chorus, plus guest artists. The Utah Symphony marked its 80th anniversary with an online gala featuring interviews with Music Director Thierry Fischer and guest violinist Augustin Hadelich, and a “virtual lobby fest” where online audiences were encouraged to wear birthday-bash clothes and chat with orchestra musicians. West Virginia’s Wheeling Symphony Orchestra streamed a virtual 90th-birthday event with performances by musicians as well as Music Director John Devlin, who played clarinet.