In Wednesday’s (2/26) Indy Week (Durham, N.C.), Todd Morman writes that at the North Carolina Symphony, Artistic Administrator Amy Russell and Vice President and General Manager Martin Sher “have already done the hard work to attract new music fans to the symphony, as the newly announced lineup of the next season greatly expands the mission and repertoire of the local outfit.” In addition to standard repertoire, the orchestra will “play two new commissions by Judd Greenstein and Sarah Kirkland Snider … [and] offer work by genre-bending young composers like Timo Andres, whose influences include Sigur Ros and Brian Eno, and Mason Bates…. Modern pieces by Derek Bermel … and the German clarinetist Jörg Widmann mark additional highlights.” The current season “included just three works written by living composers…. But according to Linda Charlton, the symphony’s vice president for marketing, it also set sales records: ‘We can always fill seats by programming Beethoven Nine,’ she says…. [The orchestra’s] new scholar-in-residence, occasional INDY critic and saxophonist William Robin, will smooth the way for more contemporary music by explaining its historical context…. ‘We’re coming to a place where people just eat it up when we play them samples of what we’re doing next year [says Sher]…. ‘That’s boosted our confidence to try something new.’ ”
Posted February 28, 2014
