Orchestra delays musical director’s farewell concert
The Oklahoma City Philharmonic will have to wait a little longer to say a proper goodbye to its retiring Maestro Joel Levine.
The arts organization announced Thursday that it is postponing Levine’s May 12 farewell concert as he battles cancer.
The orchestra’s founding musical director, Levine was diagnosed last fall with early-stage cancer. The cumulative effects of his chemotherapy treatments over the past several months have proven more challenging than anticipated, according to the announcement, so the conductor has decided it would be best to allow himself plenty of time for recovery.
The philharmonic will announce a new date for the farewell concert, which likely will be moved to autumn, once the calendars for Levine, the orchestra and the Civic Center Music Hall can be aligned.
All season and single tickets for this event will be valid for the rescheduled date.
“These are tough moments and decisions, with many factors to consider, and postponing any concert is clunky, at best,” OKC Philharmonic Executive Director Eddie Walker said in a statement.
“But our primary desire was to allow Joel plenty of time to build back the strength to fully enjoy his finale. To simply ‘carry on’ with a concert on the night that was to have been his celebrated farewell just didn’t seem right.”
The May 12 concert was to serve as a farewell to Levine, who is retiring after 29 seasons as the OKC Philharmonic’s founding music director and conductor.
Levine, who first came to Oklahoma City in 1976 as music director for Lyric Theatre, had planned for the orchestra to perform Ravel's “Bolero” and Tchaikovsky's “Symphony No. 4,” two works that also were on the program for the first concert the OKC Philharmonic ever played. The free show on Oct. 16, 1989, marked the end of two years OKC went without an orchestra with the dissolution of the Oklahoma Symphony.
“There were a lot of people involved in getting this orchestra off the ground, and after 30 years, there are quite a few new people to the orchestra,” said Levine, who was hired in 1980 by the Oklahoma Symphony, the OKC Philharmonic's predecessor, told The
Oklahoman in August.
The program for his final concert as the philharmonic's music director also was to include Copland's “Lincoln Portrait,” another selection he said has significance.
“‘Lincoln Portrait' has a purpose that I'm going to keep secret for now, but it will be revealed down the road,” Levine said, adding that the reveal would come before the nowdelayed concert. “It will all become clear.”
It's unclear whether the programming for Levine's postponed farewell concert will change.
After a 2½-year search and selection process, Alexander Mickelthwate was named Levine’s successor last May and has spent the 2017-18 season as the orchestra’s music director designate. The OKC Philharmonic recently announced the programming for its 2018-19 season, which will be Mickelthwate’s first as music director.
For more information, go to www.okcphil.org.