Back to the stage: Toledo Symphony, Ballet raise the curtain on a new season

Sep. 12—IF YOU GO:

An Evening with Rhiannon Giddens is 7 p.m. Sunday at the Toledo Museum of Art Peristyle Theater, 2445 Monroe St., Toledo. At the artist's request, a negative coronavirus test or proof of vaccination is required to attend this performance.

Giddens also presents a free public lecture at 7 p.m. Monday at the Peristyle.

For more information, including on how to purchase in-person and streaming tickets, go to toledosymphony.com.

HOW TO WATCH:

Patrons can view this season's performances this year in person or via livestream.

Tickets can be purchased through the Toledo Alliance for the Performing Arts Box Office, 1838 Parkwood Ave., Toledo, by calling 419-246-8000, or online at toledosymphony.com or toledoballet.com.

TAPA Streaming offers single-ticket, several ticket, full series and full season packages. Virtual ticket holders can view on-demand performances on their computers, phones, tablets, as well as the TAPA Streaming apps on Apple TV and Roku devices. For more information, go to stream.artstoledo.com.

A lockdown proved a creative opportunity for Rhiannon Giddens, the celebrated musician whose latest album, They're Calling Me Home, bears its insights and its influence.

Likewise for the Toledo Symphony Orchestra's Alain Trudel, who found the time and the inclination to tackle a piano concerto that he'd started and put aside years ago. Ditto, too, for Michael Lang, who was inspired by the healing arts on which he leaned during the pandemic to choreograph a ballet unlike any he's created for his dancers in Toledo.

They'll all be integrated into the upcoming season of the Toledo Alliance for the Performing Arts, on which the curtain is raised on Sunday. An Evening With Rhiannon Giddens is slated for 7 p.m. at the Toledo Museum of Art's Peristyle Theater.

A multi-instrumentalist and classically trained vocalist, Giddens is a Grammy Award winner and a MacArthur "Genius Grant" recipient who is also known to audiences for her recurring character on the fifth and sixth season of Nashville. In her most recent album, a collaboration with Francesco Turrisi during their lockdown months in Ireland, she explores a "longing for the comfort of home as well as the metaphorical 'call home' of death," according to record label ― "a tragic reality for so many during the COVID-19 crisis."

Giddens is expected to perform selections from the new album in what's touted as a "genre-busting" evening of jazz, blues, country, gospel, and Celtic; she'll be accompanied by members of the Toledo Symphony Orchestra.

If the pandemic is to be a key influence in this first performance and others in the upcoming season for the Toledo Symphony Orchestra and the Toledo Ballet, though, it also isn't expected to define it to the same extent that it defined last year's unusual season.

Expect ballet dancers to wear masks in Coming Up for Air on Sept. 18, for example, but don't expect them or their counterparts in the orchestra to keep up social distance onstage: "Right off the bat," Trudel said of the first concert of the ProMedica Masterworks Series, "we'll be at almost twice the numbers we had last year."

Expect streaming access to continue through TAPA Streaming, including a new and expanded "all-access" package covering all performances for an annual fee of $149.99 or a monthly fee of $14.99. But the arts alliance is also hoping to see more seats occupied ― albeit by masked patrons, at least for now ― in the Peristyle, Valentine, and Stranahan.

They'll be starting the season with a seating capacity around 75 percent, and adjusting as needed through the season, said Vanessa Gardner, the alliance's director of marketing and communications; in-person patrons can request socially distanced seating, but they aren't beginning the season with this arrangement as the default.

Count on things to feel a little more "normal" this year.

Toledo Symphony Orchestra

The Toledo Symphony Orchestra isn't mounting any sort of "make-do" programming in the second year of a pandemic, its music director said. In fact, in his fourth season at the helm, Trudel said this is perhaps the season of which he's been most proud.

"You can find something for everyone in this season," he said.

You can take him at his word on that, too: Trudel and violinist Merwin Siu, as well as others who weigh in on programming for the symphony, came together in a conscious effort this season to feature artists and composers whose diverse backgrounds better reflect the local and national community — so "not just dead white guys," Trudel quips. That effort is particularly seen in the ProMedica Masterworks Series, beginning on Sept. 24-25, where they've included at least one such under-represented composer in each concert.

Sara Davis Buechner is at the piano in the first concert of the series with a piano concerto by Florence Price, for example. Price is recognized as the first African American woman to achieve national status as a composer.

Her concerto is paired in this case with works by Johann Sebastian Bach and Edward Elgar. In this opening concert and others throughout the season, Trudel said it's not about cutting out the usual suspects ― the Beethoven and the Brahms, whom he said he loves as well.

It's about complementing them.

"We want to reflect the world that we live in, while playing beautiful music," he said.

Symphony programming runs through June, 2022, with pops, chamber, and family series concerts as well as spotlight and special events.

The KeyBank Pops Series covers tributes to Tony Bennett on Nov. 13, to the Queens of Soul on Jan. 29, Judy Garland on March 19, and John Philip Sousa on May 27; Trudel, also an accomplished trombonist, performs alongside Aubrey Logan on Feb. 26

(His new composition is featured in the final Masterworks performance of the season, America in the Key of Gershwin, on June 3.)

Anderson Family Events this year include Christmas at the Peristyle on Dec. 4, Science and Symphony on Nov. 11, and Superheroes on Stage on Feb. 24. And special guests include actresses Jane Lynch and Kate Flannery on Oct. 30; Janinah Burnett on Jan. 15; Canadian Brass on Feb. 18-19 and Golden Globe and Tony Award-winning actress Bernadette Peters on April 9.

Handel's Messiah returns to Rosary Cathedral on Dec. 5. For the full season's program, go to toledosymphony.com.

Trudel begins his fourth season at the baton on a positive note: He's just renewed his contract for at least three more years in Toledo.

"I am particularly pleased to begin, in earnest, the next phase of our symphony's history with Alain Trudel at the helm," Kirk Toth, the symphony's concertmaster, said in a statement. "Alain brings a deep musical sensitivity and an encouraging, collegial approach to music making that will, I believe, bring out our finest performances."

Trudel, for his part, said he's looking forward to continuing what he's started.

"Toledo seems to be on the upswing, and the symphony very much is on the upswing," he said. "Of course I want to partner with something like that. I want to continue the good work we've started together."

Toledo Ballet

There's a buzz in the air at the Toledo Ballet.

Auditions are underway for The Nutcracker, the annual performance that's so far proven to be the best attended offering of the Toledo Alliance for the Performing Arts. After rising case counts pushed last year's performance exclusively to the screen just before of opening night, Lisa Mayer-Lang and her company are optimistic things will be much closer to normal by this year's run on Dec. 10-12 at the Stranahan Theater.

"We're just really hopeful to be in person this whole year," said the artistic director, "and to have more of an audience than we had last year in person."

That begins with Coming Up for Air, a work that at its outset predicted a waning of the pandemic, an opportunity to regroup after a year like no other. If that hasn't quite panned out, its themes remain relevant in the beginning of a second pandemic season.

"What it's turned out to be is almost a guide for the audience, to grab onto for anything they may be going through in life," said Michael Lang, a resident director and choreographer for the Toledo Ballet. "Whether that's COVID, the whole situation with the pandemic, or a divorce, or my boss is driving me crazy ― whatever the situation in life where it feels like you just need to take a breath, or take some time, or put things outside your own thoughts."

Coming Up for Air is inspired by the tai chi-like qigong, as well as other healing arts and wellness exercises that its choreographer leaned on during the pandemic. In the extra hours and days afforded him under last year's lockdown, Lang explored ways to incorporate these into dance.

"I'm hesitant to even call it a dance," Lang said of the performance, which values the collective over the individual and aims for the audience to feel as if they're a part of it, too. "It's more movement. I'm trying to make the stage in unison."

It's set to Ólafur Arnalds's take on the music of Frédéric Chopin.

Coming Up for Air is the first of three performances lined up this season for the Toledo Ballet. After The Nutcracker in December, they'll continue into Sound of Silence, another original work choreographed by Lang, on May 6-7.

"We're excited for another season of having three solid shows," Mayer-Lang said.