Publication: Richmond Times-Dispatch
Byline: Clarke Bustard; Contact Clarke Bustard at (804) 649-6362 or cbustard@timesdispatch.com
Date: 03-16-2003
Edition: City
Section: Art & Travel

For the Richmond Symphony in 2003-04, some things will remain the same: Both its music director, Mark Russell Smith, and associate conductor, Eckart Preu, have extended their commitments with the orchestra.

A lot, however, will change next season. The orchestra will perform in at least one new venue. Its traditional pair of season- opening concerts have been replaced by a single fund-raising gala, with pianist AndrO Watts as the guest star, Sept. 13 at the Carpenter Center. And it will give its first live radio broadcast in memory.

Monday performances in the Masterworks series will move to a suburban venue, St. Michael Catholic Church in Glen Allen. The plan, broached in January, has won "a wholly enthusiastic response" from patrons, said David Fisk, the orchestra's executive director.

"We've heard from a number of people saying, `We're going to start coming back to symphony concerts,' " Fisk said. "At the same time, some patrons are swapping their Monday tickets for Saturdays at the Carpenter Center, which will enable us to accommodate both audiences."

The sanctuary of St. Michael, at 4491 Springfield Road, has seating for about 900. The Carpenter Center holds nearly 2,000.

Concerts at the church will be staged in the round. The orchestra's placement will be shifted 90 degrees at each concert, so it will be seen and heard from four angles from the same seat over the course of the season.

Monday "Masterworks West" subscribers will be polled to see whether they would prefer the concerts to begin at 7:30 or 8 p.m. Saturday Carpenter Center concerts will start at 8 p.m.

The symphony will run a shuttle-bus service linking the Carpenter Center and downtown parking lots for Saturday Masterworks patrons, and may do so for Pops concerts if there is sufficient demand.

Baroque and Beyond, the symphony's four-concert chamber- orchestra series, will open in Vlahcevic Concert Hall at Virginia Commonwealth University's Singleton Performing Arts Center. Three subsequent concerts will be in Camp Concert Hall of the Modlin Center for the Arts at the University of Richmond.

Other concerts in suburbs and nearby communities are likely to be added to the schedule as the symphony begins making use of grant money and marketing assistance from the Richmond office of Northwestern Mutual Financial Network, which announced a $300,000, three-year partnership with the orchestra earlier this year.

A six-concert Pops series will be staged entirely at the Carpenter Center, with no dates scheduled at Richmond's Landmark Theater.

Smith, who has renewed his contract through the 2005-06 season, will conduct the season-opening gala, five of the seven Masterworks and two of the four Baroque and Beyond programs. He also will lead Pops concerts with Jubilant Sykes, a singer noted for his crossover classical-jazz-gospel repertory, and with Richmond's Page Wilson and his "Out o' the Blue Radio Revue."

The "Out o' the Blue" show, also featuring singer Terry Garland and the Jackie Frost Trio, will be broadcast live as part of Wilson's weekly series on WCVE (88.9 FM).

Preu, who will continue with the symphony on an annually renewable contract through 2005-06, is scheduled to conduct four Pops concerts and a Masterworks program, as well as youth, family and community concerts.

Thomas Wilkins, former associate conductor of the symphony, now resident conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, will return for a pair of Masterworks concerts.

Erich Stem, a Richmond-born composer who served for a time as an intern with the symphony and has won several awards for his works, will have his "Escape" (2002) performed in a Masterworks program in May 2004.

Karen Johnson, the orchestra's concertmaster, and Katherine Needleman, its principal oboist, will be featured soloists during the season.

William Preucil, concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra and former first violinist of the Cleveland Quartet, will spend two weeks with the symphony in March 2004, playing Beethoven's Violin Concerto in Masterworks concerts and playing and directing a Baroque and Beyond program of Mandelssohn, Mozart, Bach and Haydn.

Other guest soloists include:

• Violinist Vera Stankowic, concertmaster of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Vienna Chamber Orchestra, playing the Brahms Violin Concerto.
• Cellist Clancy Newman, a 2001 winner of the Naumburg Competition, playing Samuel Barber's Cello Concerto.
• Pianist Mei-Tung Sun, winner of last year's International Piano- e Competition in Minneapolis, featured in Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 2.
• A soloist to be announced in Copland's Clarinet Concerto.

Pops guests, in addition to Sykes and Wilson, will include the "Bravo Broadway" cast of singers, pianist William Wolfram in a Gershwin program, and clarinetist-conductor Carl Topilow with singer Susan Hesse in "Swing and All That Jazz."

Among major orchestral works planned for 2003-04 are Mahler's Symphony No. 5, Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10, Berlioz's "Symphonie fantastique," Mozart's "Prague" Symphony, Sibelius' Third Symphony and two jazz-accented symphonic pieces from the 1920s, Gershwin's "An American in Paris" and George Antheil's "Jazz Symphony."

The Richmond Symphony Chorus, directed by James Erb, will join the orchestra in a November Masterworks program, singing works of Handel, Poulenc and Randall Thompson; the traditional Christmas performances of "Messiah" and the "Let It Snow!" Pops program (the latter with the Greater Richmond Children's Chorus, Hope Armstrong Erb directing); and, in a continuation of its springtime Bach cycle, the "St. John Passion" at St. Michael and another area church in April 2004.

"The chorus members will be placed among the listeners," Fisk said. "The idea is to give the audiences the feeling that they are part of the performances, making the experience unique."

Here's the schedule for next season. For ticket information, call (804) 788-1212.

8 p.m. Saturdays at Carpenter Center, 7:30 or 8 p.m. Mondays at St. Michael Catholic Church. Carpenter Center series tickets: $142- $435 (eight concerts), $76-$224 (four concerts). St. Michael series tickets: $252-$280 (eight concerts). Single tickets: $24-$65 (Carpenter Center), $36-$40 (St. Michael).

SEPT. 20/22 -- Mark Russell Smith conducting, with violinist Karen Johnson. Elgar: "In the South"; Bruch: "Scottish Fantasy" (Johnson); Ravel: "Tzigane" (Johnson); Gershwin: "An American in Paris."

NOV. 1/3 -- Smith conducting, with pianist Mei-Ting Sun. Dukas: "The Sorcerer's Apprentice"; Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2 (Sun); Berlioz: "Symphonie fantastique."

NOV. 22/24 -- Smith conducting, with Richmond Symphony Chorus, James Erb directing. Kernis: "Musica Celestis"; Poulenc: "Videntes stellam" from "Four Christmas Motets" (Symphony Chorus); Thompson: "Choose Something Like a Star" from "Frostiana" (Symphony Chorus); Handel: three choruses from "Roman Vespers" (Symphony Chorus); Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 4, "Italian."

JAN. 24/26, 2004 -- Thomas Wilkins conducting, with clarinet soloist to be announced. Antheil: "Jazz Symphony" (ensemble version by Milton Phibbs); Copland: Clarinet Concerto; Haydn: Symphony No. 8; Beethoven: Symphony No. 8.

FEB. 21/23, 2004 -- Eckart Preu conducting, with cellist Clancy Newman. Grieg: "Peer Gynt" (excerpts); Barber: Cello Concerto; Sibelius: Symphony No. 3.

MARCH 20/22, 2004 -- Smith conducting, with violinist William Preucil. Wagner: "Siegfried Idyll"; Bartok: Divertimento for strings; Beethoven: Violin Concerto (Preucil).

APRIL 24/26, 2004 -- Smith conducting, with violinist Vesna Stankovic. Tchaikovsky: Polonaise from "Eugene Onegin"; Brahms: Violin Concerto (Stankovic); Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10.

MAY 22/24, 2004 -- Smith conducting. Berlioz: "Le Corsaire" Overture; Erich Stem: "Escape"; Mahler: Symphony No. 5.

8 p.m. Saturdays at Carpenter Center. Series tickets: $122-$326 (seven concerts), $76-$192 (four concerts). Single tickets: $24- $54.

SEPT. 27 -- Preu conducting. "Bravo Broadway" with singers Debbie Gravitte, Christiane Noll and Ron Raines.

DEC. 6 (8 p.m.), 7 (3 p.m.) -- Preu conducting, with Richmond Symphony Chorus, Erb directing, and Greater Richmond Children's Choir, Hope Armstrong Erb directing. "Let It Snow!" holiday program.

JAN. 10, 2004 -- Preu conducting. "A Night in Old Vienna."

FEB. 7, 2004 -- Smith conducting, with baritone Jubilant Sykes.

MARCH 6, 2004 -- Smith conducting. "Out o' the Blue Orchestral Revue," with Page Wilson & Reckless Abandon, Jackie Frost Trio and Terry Garland. (Broadcast live on WCVE-FM).

APRIL 3, 2004 -- Preu conducting. "A Gershwin Celebration," with pianist William Wolfram playing "Rhapsody in Blue." MAY 1, 2004 - - Carl Topilow conducting and playing clarinet. "Swing and All That Jazz," with singer Susan Hesse.

3 p.m. Sundays in Camp Concert Hall, Modlin Arts Center, University of Richmond, unless otherwise listed. Series tickets: $126-$140. Single tickets: $31.50-$35.

NOV. 9 (Singleton Performing Arts Center, Virginia Commonwealth University) -- Smith conducting, with oboist Katherine Needleman. Stamitz: "Sinfonia pastorale"; Dvorak: "Czech Suite"; Martinu: Oboe Concerto (Needleman); Mozart: Symphony No. 38, "Prague."

JAN. 18, 2004 -- Smith conducting. Roussel: Sinfonietta; Lully: "Le triomphe de l'amour"; Ravel: "Pavane pour une infante defunte"; Gounod: Symphony No. 1.

FEB. 15, 2004 -- Symphony members in chamber works. Zelenka: Trio Sonata No. 5 for two oboes, bassoon and continuo; Villa-Lobos: "Quintette instrumentale"; Varese: "Octandre"; Dvorak: String Quintet in G major.

MARCH 28, 2004 -- William Preucil conducting and playing violin, with violinist Karen Johnson. Mozart: Divertimento, K. 136; Mendelssohn: Octet; Bach: Concerto in D minor for two violins (Preucil and Johnson); Haydn: Symphony No. 88.

SEPT. 13 (8 p.m., Carpenter Center) -- Smith conducting, with pianist AndrO Watts, in gala opening concert. Beethoven: "Leonore" Overture No. 3, Dvorak: Symphonic Variations; Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2 (Watts). Tickets: $40-$65.

DEC. 5 (8 p.m., Carpenter Center) -- Smith conducting, with Richmond Symphony Chorus, Erb directing, and vocal soloists to be announced. Handel: "Messiah" (excerpts). Tickets: $10-$35.

APRIL 2/5, 2004 -- (St. Michael and another church to be announced; times to be announced) -- Erb conducting, with Richmond Symphony Chorus and vocal soloists to be announced. Bach: "St. John Passion." Tickets: $25.

Series tickets: $55 for adults, $27.50 for children.

Two Kids Classics concerts at Carpenter Center (fall and spring dates to be announced).

One Community Concert (choice of Henrico County or Chesterfield County location, dates to be announced).

One holiday concert (choice of Dec. 5 "Messiah" or Dec. 7 "Let It Snow!").