Symphony season ends on high notes

The San Antonio Symphony, in a season that often featured revolutionary compositions, performed its last program of 2017-18 on Friday night by celebrating the two men who upended Broadway, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein.

The orchestra, in a

Pops concert, performed 19 pieces selected from 10 shows dated between 1927 and 1959.

Led by Assistant Conductor Noam Aviel, the orchestra was joined by two veteran Broadway vocalists, Alli Mauzey and William Michals, plus a 42-member local chorus.

Composer Rodgers and lyricist Hammerstein were known for creating shows with expanded themes and deeper plots. But Friday night, the concert was all about inspired songs that have endured for decades and certainly were beloved by the audience of nearly 850 people.

A few songs in the concert’s first half were pieces with earlier collaborators of Rodgers and Hammerstein before they teamed up in the early 1940s. An example was “Ol’ Man River” from 1927’s “Showboat,” by Hammerstein and Jerome Kern. Michals wowed the audience at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts with his rich baritone voice. That same deep baritone produced an entertaining “Some Enchanting Evening” from 1949’s “South Pacific.”

Mauzey likewise im- pressed with her yodeling ability in “Lonely Goatherd” from 1959’s “The Sound of Music.” Her pixie-like voice added a spritely edge to “Shall We Dance” from 1951’s “The King and I.”

The two guest singers often invited the audience to sing along, and it did with pleasure for pieces such as “Edelwiess” from “The Sound of Music” and “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” from “Oklahoma!”

Their gleaming on-stage presences were both entertaining and imaginative.

The chorus added spaciousness to “Climb Every Mountain,” also from

“The Sound of Music,” and to the windy title song from 1943’s “Oklahoma!” — the groundbreaking first collaboration between Rodgers and Hammerstein.

The concert’s encore was “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from 1947’s “Carousel.”

This was a troubled season for the symphony, with the cancellation of several classical and Pops concerts after a mid-season management collapse. It was nice, therefore, for the season to end with a happy, fun, trouble-free program.

Before the concert, Music Director Sebastian Lang-Lessing, in a video, announced the departure of violist Terry Stolow. Stolow is performing her last concerts this weekend, after 35 years with the orchestra, to begin a new law career.

The Pops program repeats at 2 p.m. today at the Tobin Center.