In Saturday’s (6/16) Star Tribune (Minneapolis), Michael Anthony writes, “The final gesture in the Minnesota Orchestra’s subscription concert at Orchestra Hall Thursday night raised more than a few eyebrows and brought on applause of earthquake proportion: seven conductors, all affiliated with the orchestra, forming a line across the stage and bowing together, among them Osmo Vänskä, Andrew Litton and Doc Severinsen. It’s something not likely to be seen again on this stage. The occasion was both the end of the orchestra’s 2012-13 season and a farewell to Orchestra Hall, which undergoes a 13-month, $50 million renovation starting next week. This year’s Sommerfest will move to Ted Mann Concert Hall at the University of Minnesota, and the 2012-13 season will take place at the Minneapolis Convention Center. This isn’t a permanent departure, but it’s a significant moment in local cultural history: a farewell to Orchestra Hall as we have known it the past 38 years. … The concert mostly avoided the variety-show feel that these events often possess. The selections were interesting and unusual, by and large, the performances were alert and polished, and the concert ended with a big, exciting choral-orchestral outburst: in its first performance, St. Paul composer Steve Heitzeg’s warmhearted ‘Let Us Start the Great Round,’ a tribute both to music and to the community that creates and appreciates it.”
Photo by Chris Riemenschneider/Star Tribune
Posted June 18, 2012
