“At this time of year in a pre-COVID-19 world, we’d be a concert or two into a Waco Symphony Orchestra season and about the same for the Baylor Symphony Orchestra, both of which are led by Stephen Heyde, the music director of the former and the conductor-in-residence for the latter,” writes Carl Hoover in last Friday’s (11/6) Waco Tribune-Herald (TX). “We’re not, which makes a livestreamed Baylor Symphony Orchestra strings-only concert Nov. 16 notable as a rare opportunity…. Heyde and the BSO’s 66-player string section can be seen online Nov. 16 at a livestreamed BSO concert at 7 p.m. He’ll lead them in the ‘Adagietto’ movement from Mahler’s Symphony No. 5…. Given … current COVID-19 limits on ensemble size and concert lengths … full-blown Mahler (and Wagner, Brahms and Beethoven, for starters) won’t be on anyone’s symphonic season for some time. Graduate student Matthew Hagensteun will conduct the balance of the Nov. 16 concert, leading the 66-player ensemble in Arvo Pärt’s ‘Fratres,’ Tchaikovsky’s ‘Serenade for Strings’ and Jessie Montgomery’s 2012 string orchestra piece ‘Starburst.’ The Baylor concert can be accessed for free online through the [Baylor University] School of Music’s website.”
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