The signature jewel in the cultural crown of North Central Washington, the Wenatchee Symphony Orchestra, completed, last month, its Diamond Anniversary season.
Seventy-five years ago, in 1947, a group of classical musicians gathered, at what was then the Wenatchee Junior College, to rehearse for a series of free concerts played in Wenatchee’s Liberty Theatre on Mission Street. Today, the full-sized orchestra’s home is the Numerica Performing Arts Center (PAC); it perennially takes on an ambitious repertoire of musical performances.
After a tumultuous end to its 2019-20 season, followed by a year of online concerts in 2020-21, all due to Covid-19, the Orchestra kicked off the 2021-22 season last October with an audience – both in-person at the PAC and livestreamed over the internet. That hybrid model continued throughout the season.
The highlights of that first concert, in its “Diamonds” themed season, included a Haydn cello concerto and Mozart’s 29th Symphony. The core of the season concerts followed in November, February, and April, featuring iconic pieces by some of the great master composers, including Dvorak, Shostakovich, and Tchaikovsky. Performances also included works by lesser known, but no lesser inspiring or worthy artists such as Mazzoli and Okoye.
In addition to what the Orchestra calls its “core concert dates,” there are also a series of “special concerts,” that annually include Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker in December and the Independence Day Fireworks Concert on the banks of Columbia River on the 4th of July. The 75th anniversary season also included an “Outdoor Pops” concert on Mother’s Day, and, in January, a performance aimed at the youngest attendees: Mozart’s Magical Voyage.
“For sure my favorite work this season was Handel’s Messiah, which we performed with the Columbia Chorale,” stated Michelle Vaughn, concertmaster (and librarian) of the Symphony Orchestra. “We initially prepared that concert over the winter of 2019-2020 with the [Columbia] Chorale and soloists. It was a lot of hard, collaborative work, and we were prepared to present it in March [of 2020]. Then we were shut down because of Covid. It was heartbreaking. However, we rebooted it this past April. It was a notable and wonderful concert. It’s surely one of the most beautiful pieces ever created, and is about rebirth – the Resurrection. It was a rebirth for us, too: a rebirth of the Orchestra and audiences post-Covid restrictions. It really was moving.”
Sophomore Caroline Menna, a regular symphony concertgoer, attended that concert, as well as two others this past season. Menna echoed Vaughn’s sentiments stating that “it was really nice to be able to attend concerts – including the symphony – in person again after such a long time away. Being there is an incomparable experience. The emotion brought out by the musicians to the seated audience is visceral.”
“I mean, I love Taylor Swift and Harry Styles as much as anyone,” continued Menna as she spoke to why classical music is for everyone, including high school students. “I’ve seen the Lumineers, the Rolling Stones, the Avett Brothers, the Head and the Heart and many others live at The Gorge and Red Rocks and other great venues; those shows were amazing. Equally amazing though, is a great classical music symphony played by a talented orchestra like the Wenatchee Symphony. I think there is room in all of us for more than one type of music genre. On a cold evening, nothing beats a nice dinner followed by sitting in a cozy, warm concert hall to listen to a performance of timeless music.”
Vaughn, also a music teacher in the Wenatchee School District, relayed another argument in favor of getting acquainted with classical music: “Attuning oneself to classical music has so many little benefits. As I watched recently with my husband the latest Avengers movie, I noted to him that it ended with Beethoven's 7th Symphony playing. It made me smile to think what Beethoven would have thought had he known his music would be used in a futuristic movie, if he could even contemplate such a thing.” Vaughn continued her evangelizing of attending the Symphony Orchestra by reminding all “that it is not quite as stuffy as you may imagine, especially here in Wenatchee. It’s so easy: free parking, nearby restaurants, no intimidation, even spur of the moment availability. We are always excited to have new audience members.”
The success of the Wenatchee Valley Symphony Orchestra’s 2021-22 season will, of course, be followed by its 76th - themed “American Beauty.” The coming season will feature music about the “New World” from the likes of Mozart and Falla and music from the “New World” from the likes of well-loved, home-grown composers such as Aaron Copeland. If you regularly attend the symphony, you have another inspiring season to which you can look forward, beginning in September. If attending the symphony would be a novel outing, the coming season is an inviting one. Classical music, in the symphony setting, combines history, performance, and a composer’s imagination to create an expansive and rewarding listening experience for any attendee.
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