“A symphony orchestra for San Antonio was bound to materialize sometime, but the fact that it happened in 1939 reveals volumes,” writes David Hendricks in Saturday’s (4/4) San Antonio Express-News (subscription required), in an article that traces the San Antonio Symphony’s history from its founding by Jewish Italian conductor Max Reiter, who fled Europe following a fascist demonstration in Rome. Hendricks relates the orchestra’s artistic development and financial challenges over its 76 years. Hendricks writes, “The last three and a half decades of the San Antonio Symphony have seen interruptions because of financial difficulties…. The last few months of each of the 2009-11 seasons were marked by financial emergencies in which the musicians took pay cuts to complete those seasons’ concerts.” Current Music Director Sebastian Lang-Lessing arrived in 2010 and is under contract through 2018-19. “It’s that dedication from the musicians that motivated Lang-Lessing the most to come to San Antonio, he said. The musicians have taken ownership of the organization, he said. ‘It’s our flexibility and creativity that will change the function and the reality of the situation…. We are a major icon of San Antonio,’ Lang-Lessing observed, ‘like the Spurs … and all the other wonderful things in San Antonio…. Our mission can expand even more. We can reach more people. That’s our ultimate goal.’ ”
Posted April 8, 2015
Pictured: Sebastian Lang-Lessing leads the San Antonio Symphony at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts
