Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra’s virtual concert season opens Oct. 24 with “Back to Bach,” streaming live at 7:30 p.m. from the stage of Greensburg’s The Palace Theatre.
The Bach listed in the program is not Johann Sebastian, but rather Carl Philipp Emanuel, son of the renowned composer and also a musician and composer of the German Classical period.
The orchestra will play CPE Bach’s Flute Concerto, featuring soloist Lorna McGhee, principal flute of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.
“The audience will have the pleasure of hearing one of the foremost flute players on the planet,” said WSO Artistic Director and Conductor Daniel Meyer. “She suggested the piece, which I have not conducted before, and I jumped on the opportunity.”
Also on the bill is a multimedia experience melding composer George Walker’s “Lyric of Spring” with photographs by Pittsburgh photographer Charles “Teenie” Harris projected onstage. Presented in collaboration with the Carnegie Museum of Art, this portion of the program is part of a series celebrating people of color and female composers.
A photographer for the Pittsburgh Courier, one of the nation’s prominent black newspapers, Harris documented Pittsburgh’s African American community from 1935 to 1975.
In 1996, musician and composer Walker became the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music.
“With our arts partners, we’ve been reevaluating programming paying attention to voices that haven’t been heard as they should be,” Meyer said.
Meyer said the Walker piece is reminiscent of Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings”: “It’s very beautiful, very elegiac and slowly unfolding. It deserves to be heard as much as possible.”
The evening also will include Edvard Grieg’s “Holberg Suite.”
Playing to the audience
Although the concert will be presented virtually, Meyer said, the musicians will perform with the audience in mind — including donning their typical formal concert wear, along with their masks.
“We’ll be reminding ourselves that the audience plays an important part in the spirit of the performance,” he said.
“Back to Bach” is the first of five livestream Front Row concerts planned for WSO’s 2021 season. Other dates include “Home for the Holidays,” Dec. 19; “Classical Heart,” Feb. 13; “Mozart & Copland,” March 20; and “Maxim Returns,” with piano virtuoso Maxim Lando, a favorite of WSO audiences, May 1.
“I’m just very excited, with so many arts groups on intermission, that our organization has been able to plot a course forward,” said WSO Executive Director Endy Reindl. “I’m pleased and proud that we can gather together virtually to partake in the music that we all love.”
“The alternative was not to play, and that was not an alternative,” Meyer said.
“Back to Bach” will be the first presentation to employ The Palace Theatre’s recently installed livestreaming system.
Tickets for individual Front Row concerts are $35 each. Three, four and five-concert packages, including at-home concert guides, gifts and exclusive digital content, also are available.
Details: 724-837-1850 or westmorelandsymphony.org
