Sarasota Orchestra plans return to normal for 2021-22

After a season of chamber concerts performed for limited audiences and offered for home streaming, the Sarasota Orchestra plans to return to a full schedule of Masterworks, pops, Discoveries, Great Escapes and chamber programs and resume its search for a new music director in the fall.

“It’s been extraordinary to us how much people have missed the orchestra. I hear that continually,” said Joseph McKenna, president and CEO. He said the digital versions of live concerts presented in Holley Hall “let people know we were still in the business of nurturing the human soul. That’s what led us to imagine the season of 2021-22. We’re planning a relatively normal programmatic season.”

Ticket Newsletter:Sign up to receive the latest news on things to do, restaurants and more every Friday

More:Sarasota to reopen Payne Park and other city sites to Sarasota Orchestra

The pandemic hit while the orchestra was in the middle of a search to find a new music director to succeed Anu Tali, who stepped down in 2018 after six years. Several of the seven conductors set to lead Masterworks concerts, the organization’s centerpiece programs, are returning from past seasons, including Marcelo Lehninger, who opens the season, JoAnn Falletta and Bramwell Tovey.

Others, like Teddy Abrams, music director of the Louisville Orchestra, and Stephen Mulligan, associate conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, were booked for last season but didn’t get to appear.

“It’s going to be a further exploration and getting-to-know-you process,” said Concertmaster Daniel Jordan. 

Returning to Van Wezel and Neel

The orchestra once again plans seven Masterworks series concerts in the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall (and Bradenton’s Neel Performing Arts Center in February and March). Being back is important for the survival of the organization and for the spirit of the community, McKenna said. 

“We have heard a lot from people about how much they’ve missed live music, interactions and human connection,” he said. “There is a tremendous need to reconnect.”

But that doesn’t mean audiences will rush back to performances, even with safety measures still in place. 

“With the expansion of the vaccine program, what we anticipate will be an incremental improvement of the public mindset,” McKenna said. He expects audiences will be more prepared to return in larger numbers by the time of the first Masterworks concert in November.

In addition to the seven Masterworks concerts, there will be three Pops concerts, six Great Escapes concerts in Holley Hall, three Discoveries series concerts at the Sarasota Opera House and eight chamber programs.

It may be a return to “normal” for the organization, but it will also be a time for readjustment for the musicians, who will be performing once again in a large ensemble after a year of intimate indoor concerts featuring a dozen or so mask-wearing, socially distanced instrumentalists. The orchestra kept wind and brass musicians working with a series of free outdoor programs in area parks.

“We’re all going to be rediscovering ourselves as a big group of musicians,” Jordan said.

Kerry Smith, the orchestra’s director of artistic planning, said the Masterworks and Discoveries concerts will “look very familiar” with returning soloists and conductors and those whose appearances were postponed because of the pandemic.

Guest conductor schedule

The season opens Nov. 5-7 with Lehninger, the Brazilian-born music director of the Grand Rapids Symphony, leading a program that includes guest artist Blake Pouliot performing Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto, and a performance of Mussorgsky “Pictures at an Exhibition.”

“I imagine when we play the first notes of ‘Pictures of an Exhibition’ it will be very emotional,” Jordan said.

Abrams will conduct a program (Dec. 10-12) that includes his own “Overture in Sonata Form,” Ellein Reid’s “Petrichor” and Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring” and guest pianist Conrad Tao performing Beethoven’s Piano Concert No. 1. 

Jeffrey Kahane, the company’s artistic advisor and director of the Sarasota Music Festival (which has been canceled for the second straight summer) leads the Jan. 7-9 concerts that feature pianist Garrick Ohlsson performing Rachmaninoff’s Concerto for Piano No. 3. The program also includes Brahms’ Symphony No. 2.

Yaniv Dinur will conduct concerts Feb. 3-6 with violinist Augustin Hadelich performing Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. The program also includes Gabriella Smith’s “Field Guide” and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4.

Jordan described Hadelich as “a fabulous violinist and a sensitive soul” and said the Beethoven concerto is “one of the greatest pieces ever written.”

Falletta, the longtime music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, returns Feb. 25-27 with pianist Aaron Diehl performing Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F Major on a program that also includes Ravel’s “Mother Goose Suite” and Rachmaninoff’s “Symphonic Dances.”

The “New World” concert planned for March 10-13 features two pieces by American composers – Jim Beckel’s “Toccata for Orchestra” and Samuel Barber’s Concerto for Violin (performed by Simone Porter) – and Anton Dvorak’s ode to the nation in Symphony No. 9 (New World Symphony).

The Masterworks season closes April 1-3 with Tovey, the principal conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra leading the “Breaking Boundaries” concert. It features violinist Angelo Xiang Yu performing Korngold’s Concerto for Violin on a program that also includes Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s “Ballade for Orchestra” and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7. Tovey led the orchestra’s “Sounds of Nobility” concert in Feb. 2020.

Beethoven is featured in three of the seven concerts in a delayed celebration of his 250th birthday, Smith said. 

Discoveries, Pops and Great Escapes

The Discoveries concert series, designed as an introduction to orchestra performances, will have a Mozart focus. 

The series begins Oct. 2 with conductor Kensho Watanabe leading pianist Dominic Cheli on Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20, K. 466, as well as Schumann’s Symphony No. 1 (Spring) and Valerie Coleman’s “7 O’Clock Shout.” Sameer Patel will lead the orchestra in the Winter Dreams concert Dec. 22, which includes Vivaldi’s “Winter” and Mozart’s Symphony No. 31 (Paris), with guest artist Geneva Lewis, and it closes May 14 with Stephen Mulligan and cellist Ifetayo Ali-Landing in a program of Britten, Tchaikovsky and Mozart.

The Pops series features a January salute to the Beatles, A March program featuring songs that won Grammys, Tonys and Oscars, and an April program featuring hits from the “Great American Songbook.”

The six Great Escapes series concerts will feature music from the Roaring ’20s (Oct. 13-16), a holiday salute (Dec. 1-5), songs from musical comedy (Jan. 12-16), a romantic Valentine’s Day program (Feb. 9-13), a trip on the Orient Express (March 16-20) with music from murder mysteries, and music from Westerns (April 20-23).

The chamber series begins Sept. 26 with “Music of Youth” and continues through April 10, with more music by Coleridge-Taylor.

Subscriptions for different series are now available through the Sarasota Orchestra box office: 941-953-3434; sarasotaorchestra.org

Jay Handelman, arts editor and theater critic, has been an editor and writer at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune since 1984. Read more of his arts and entertainment stories. And please support local journalism by subscribing to the Herald-Tribune.