Wild Carrot
SPRINGFIELD MUSEUM OF ART FRONT LAWN, 107 CLIFF PARK ROAD, SPRINGFIELD
937-325-8100, www.springfieldsym.org
The Lunch on the Lawn series will conclude with a performance by the Cincinnati folk group Wild Carrot, featuring vocalists and musicians Spencer Funk and Pam Temple. Sack lunches can be purchased for $6. 11:30 a.m. Friday free
Rainouts aren’t reserved for baseball games; they can also happen at classicalmusic performances.
Last August, ProMusica Chamber Orchestra was in the midst of its annual three-day Summer Music Series at the Topiary Park on East Town Street. Before the start of one of the concerts, however, rain began to fall.
“A number of times, we had to wipe down the stage,” Executive Director Janet Chen said. “There are equipment concerns.”
About an hour before the show was set to begin, Chen decided to pull the plug, resulting in the first weatherrelated cancellation in the five-year history of the series.
“You work so hard toward something, and then when you don’t have the opportunity to present it, it was very disappointing,” concertmaster Katherine McLin said.
For this year’s edition of the Summer Music Series — with concerts Thursday, Saturday and Sunday at the Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens — the orchestra is hoping for better weather.
Saturday’s concert will feature the pieces that had been prepared for the canceled concert: “Concierto Para Quinteto” by Astor Piazzolla and Symphony No. 7 by Ludwig van Beethoven, while a group of cellists from within the orchestra — Joel Becktell, Nathaniel Chaitkin, Cora Kuyvenhoven and Marc Moskovitz — will perform “Ave Maria” by Wilhelm Fitzenhagen and “La Muerte” by Piazzolla.
The musicians were not the only ones disappointed by last year’s cancelation. That night, Chen was approached by a woman who was among a group of attendees to brave the weather.
“She said, ‘Oh, will you
bring this back next year? Because I listened to the Beethoven symphony all week wanting to hear it, and I brought my son, who loves the cellos,’” Chen said. “Knowing that there is love in the world for the repertoire we put together for this, we felt we had to do it again.”
Saturday’s performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 will kick off ProMusica’s Beethoven Cycle, which calls for the orchestra to perform each of the composer’s nine symphonies. This season, Symphony No. 5 will be played in October; Symphony No. 3 in December; and Symphony No. 1 in April. Symphony No. 7 will be repeated in May.
“It gives the orchestra a chance to absorb the piece more before we play it in the season,” Music Director David Danzmayr said. “It’s also a great outdoors piece because of the spirit and the way it’s written.”
Before turning to Beethoven, ProMusica will wrap up its Schubert Cycle — that is, Franz Schubert — with a performance of the composer’s Symphony No. 2 on Thursday.
Rain or shine, the piece will prove challenging in an openair environment.
“When it’s really, really, really hot and muggy, everybody’s fingers get really sweaty,” McLin said. “It is really difficult to play fast passagework when your hands are sticky.”
For the concluding concert on Sunday, the orchestra’s 21-member string section will perform “Romanian Folk Dances” by Bela Bartok, “Coral” by Piazzolla and “Serenade for Strings” by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
This year’s series marks ProMusica’s return to the Franklin Park Conservatory, which hosted the orchestra’s summer concerts from 2012 to 2015. A scheduling conflict led to last year’s relocation to the Topiary Park, but the orchestra recently reached an agreement with the conservatory to perform there each summer through 2019.
Such consistency is a plus for fans of the series, Danzmayr said.
“People get used to it, and they know in the second week of August, ProMusica will play a concert there,” he said. “It’s good to keep with that tradition.”