Tucson Symphony, Connecting with Multiple Communities

In Sunday’s (4/5) Deseret Magazine (Salt Lake City), Valerie Braylovskiy writes, “A grand array of [Tucson Symphony Orchestra] musicians clad in black play ‘Les Offrandes oubliées’ by French composer Olivier Messiaen…. Paul Meecham … is the Tucson Symphony’s president and CEO. He greets donors and longtime patrons before nearly every performance … Before Tucson, Paul Meecham was CEO of the Utah Symphony and Opera for three years. Meecham lives for the music, but it’s his job to ensure that the orchestra survives. Artistry alone is not enough. When he took the post in 2021, symphonies were struggling across the country … The pandemic struck them … He knew the symphony had to change, to make its work matter to people again…. As Music Director José Luis Gómez puts it … ‘The Tucson Symphony has to breathe like Tucson, it has to look like Tucson, it has to sound like Tucson.’… Each September, the orchestra partners with the Mexican consulate to give a free concert with mariachi music for that country’s Día de la Independencia…. For America’s upcoming 250th anniversary, the symphony presented a national portrait through Tucson’s lens—playing Bernstein’s ‘West Side Story’ alongside works by Duke Ellington, contemporary Hispanic composers and patriotic classics. ‘We tried to change people’s perceptions of a traditional symphony orchestra,’ Meecham says, ‘by making it more relevant to all of the community.’ ”