The Sarasota Orchestra is hoping to make it easier and more comfortable for newcomers to attend symphony concerts by launching a new Discoveries series of shorter and more conversational programs with lower ticket prices.
“A shorter program without intermission is attractive to people with a busy lifestyle,” said Joseph McKenna, the president and CEO of Sarasota Orchestra.
Three different conductors, two of them new to Sarasota audiences, helped put together each of the three concerts, built around themes to highlight both contemporary composers and soloists from the Sarasota Orchestra.
“We thought it would be great to invite three different conductors so no program would have the same author and they would bring in the personality of the conductors who would react to the criteria we established,” McKenna said. The series will also feature work by at least one living composer in each concert. The series is “very much designed for first timers to the symphony. I think it’s going to be a great way for people who have been curious about going to a Sarasota Orchestra concert but never have,” said Aram Demirjian, who will conduct the final program in the series on May 5. He said many people may have issues with tickets costs or don’t necessarily “know about classical music or feel comfortable at a concert. This is a great way to break through those perceived obstacles.”
Tickets for the each of the Discoveries concerts will be $25 to $55, compared to $33 to $95 for typical Masterworks programs. Each program will run about 75 minutes (compared to roughly two hours for Masterworks concerts) and will be followed by a brief and optional conversation with the conductor. The conductors also plan to provide background about some of the music during the concerts.
The series, which will be presented at the Sarasota Opera House, begins Sept. 23 with a program called “Renaissance,” conducted by Steven Jarvi, in his Sarasota debut. Jarvi recently completed his tenure as resident conductor for the St. Louis Symphony and music director of the St. Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra.
The concert will feature principal flute Betsy Traba in Lukas Foss’ Renaissance concerto, in a program that also includes Ottorino Respighi’s “Ancient Airs and Dances, Suite 1,” George Walker’s “Lyric for Strings” and Mozart’s Symphony No. 25.
Stefan Sanders, who conducted a Sarasota Orchestra chamber orchestra concert last October, returns to lead “Musical Landscapes” on Jan. 6. The program features “The Moldau” by Bedrich Smetana, Eric Whitacre’s “The River Cam,” with cellist Natalie Helm as soloist, Aaron Copland’s Suite from “The Tender Land,” Samuel Barber’s “Souvenirs” and Maxwell Davies’ “An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise,” highlighting bagpiper Gary Reinstrom.
Sanders, who was recently appointed music director of the Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra and is resident conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, shared an apartment suite with Whitacre while they both attended the Juilliard School.
“One of the neat things about being a conductor is that you come across composers and compositions that you’re passionate about through your life,” he said. “You just need to find the right opportunity to program their music and now I’m finding the right opportunities to perform Eric’s music.”
The choice of “The River Cam” — which he said creates “the idea of a slow-moving river in the English countryside” — led him to the concert’s other selections. “We decided to continue with the river theme, which led to “The Moldau,” which flows through Bohemia to Prague, one of the most important rivers in all of Europe. It’s a piece people will recognize. From the opening theme, people will say ‘I know this one.’ With the other selections we wanted to feature some American music.”
Demirjian’s program on May 3 is titled “City Sounds,” which he said “is an idea that I have been toying around with in my brain for quite a while. Every piece on the program is somehow connected to an urban area. There are a lot of pieces of classical music written about nature that are very pastoral. But increasingly, particularly coming into the 20th century, the idea of the city has been a source of fascination for composers.”
The program opens with Beethoven’s Overture to “The Ruins of Athens,” and features Luigi Boccherini’s Quintet No. 2 (“Night Music of the Streets of Madrid”). “It was written in the 17th century, but quite literally, it tries to imitate the sounds you would hear sitting out on a plaza in Madrid 300 years ago,” he said.
In contrast, Richard Addinsell’s “Warsaw Concerto,” featuring pianist Jonathan Spivey, comes from the 1941 British film “Dangerous Moonlight,” about the Polish struggle against the Nazis. Demirjian, music director of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, said he is most excited about the last three pieces, which all focus on New York — Leonard Bernstein’s Three Dances from “Fancy Free,” a ballet that led to the musical “On the Town”; Aaron Copland’s “Quiet City”; and H.K. Gruber’s “Manhattan Broadcasts,” which “reimagines the orchestra as a radio jazz band broadcasting from Radio City Music Hall.”
While the programs are intended to attract newcomers, McKenna said he also expects them to be popular with some of the orchestra’s regular subscribers “because people will get to hear things they wouldn’t otherwise hear and hear some of our own musicians as soloists with new conductors.”
