A symphonic love note
Dear Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra:
Wait! You can’t leave this quickly! It’s not even May!
And yet, away you go.
Another superb season — conductor Toshiyuki Shimada’s 14th! — is almost in the books. But at least we’ll have Saturday’s finale to happily anticipate. Nice program, too: You’re opening with Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass featuring soloists Sarah Joyce Cooper (soprano), Ziwen Xiang (tenor) and Eliam Ramos (bass) — plus pleasing vocal clusters from the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Chorus and director Daniel McDavitt.
Following that are works by Dan Perttu (Phoenix) and John Williams (Fawkes the Phoenix from “Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets”). Clever: both contrasting
AND empathetic!
And I love that you’re doing a special memorial performance of Higher
Than High by former ECSO personnel director Rich Dumas. He passed away in November, and the work takes on even more meaning as it was arranged by Dumas’s son Chris.
And then you bid a fond goodbye — until September, anyway — with Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite. Y’all always did know how to go out in a big way. Have a great summer!
— Rick Koster
Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Garde Arts Center, 325 State St., New London; $15-$71; ectsymphony.com, (860) 444-7373.