“When we last looked in on the Hartford Symphony Orchestra a little more than three months ago, the management and players had just settled on a new four-year contract,” writes Steve Metcalf on Thursday (5/12) at Connecticut radio station WNPR. “In the ensuing months … the HSO has done many of the things that everyone hoped and expected it would do…. The challenge facing the HSO—and for that matter all part-time regional orchestras—is … whether communities like ours will support a professional orchestra in the most fundamental way: buying tickets and attending concerts. … Hartford has always been pleased to define itself as a place where the performing arts are especially prized and practiced. Yet among musical organizations, the Hartford Symphony is the lone large-scale player standing. Yes, the city’s choral groups have hung in there, and we have some high-quality opera, albeit on a modest scale. Yes, the Hartt School serves up a fine array of performances…. Yes, we have our civic and community orchestras…. And we have some small-ensemble and chamber organizations doing terrific, inventive things. But a city’s symphony orchestra is its musical standard-bearer…. It really does make our lives better.”
Posted May 13, 2016
