Music director’s death leads to changes in Sarasota Orchestra season

With its new season, the Sarasota Orchestra plans to honor the legacy of Music Director Bramwell Tovey, whose sudden death in July came just a few months before he was able to fully take over artistic leadership of the organization.

The 69-year-old Tovey, who signed a five-year contract in August 2021, died July 12 after a reoccurrence of a rare form of sarcoma, from which he had been briefly cancer free.

He had already mapped out a season that was to feature him prominently in the orchestra’s Masterworks, Discoveries, Pops and Chamber Soirees series. Those concerts will still feature some of the soloists and rising composers he championed.

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Because of Tovey’s passing, the orchestra has made some adjustments to the lineup, bringing in extra guest conductors and changing some of the music where necessary but sticking primarily to what he set up.

“Bramwell put together a brilliant arc for the season. He really envisioned his first season as a renaissance, bringing people back to the concert hall, post-COVID, even though COVID is still here,” said CEO Joseph McKenna. “A big part of it is to get back to a sense of humanity and the shared experience and doing it through incredible repertoire, fabulous soloists and some wonderful new composers.”

Tovey was selected as music director to succeed Anu Tali, who left Sarasota after the 2018-19 season after six years. The search was extended an extra year because the pandemic forced the cancellation of several concerts in 2020, but Tovey was hired just as that second year of guest conductors was getting underway. He led a special added concert in the Sarasota Opera House in October, and a previously scheduled concert in May.

In addition to his musicianship and a resume that included conducting and leadership roles with Calgary Opera, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, Rhode Island Philharmonic and Orchestre Symphonique de Quebec, Tovey was selected in part because of his experience leading the effort to build a new music center in Vancouver, where he spent 18 years as music director of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.

In March, the Sarasota Orchestra announced it had purchased land for a new music center on Fruitville Road between Honore Avenue and Cattlemen Road, just west of Interstate 75.

McKenna and Kerry Smith, the orchestra’s director of artistic planning, said the majority of the concerts originally revealed in April for the 2022-23 season will go on as scheduled.

The season includes more contemporary works by Quinn Mason, Nina Shekhar, Jessica Hunt and Sarah Gibson, whose world premiere in the final Masterworks concert is part of the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation Commission.

“Bramwell thought it would be great to close his first Masterworks season by highlighting Virginia’s leadership of support of the orchestra and in recognition of Sarah Gibson, a rising composer in her own right,” McKenna said.

Tovey planned to conduct three of the seven Masterworks concerts, the first of three Discoveries concerts and one of the three Pops series concerts and to play piano, including his own compositions, in a February Chamber Soiree.

The opening Masterworks concert will now be led by David Alan Miller, the Grammy winning conductor of the Albany Symphony, who made his debut in Sarasota last season as a last-minute replacement for guest conductor Jeffrey Kahane for a Masterworks concert that was ultimately canceled because of COVID.

Peter Oundjian, former director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, will fill in for three concerts that Tovey planned to lead. He will conduct The Jan. 5-8 “Mahler: View of Heaven,” which features violinist James Ehnes, a Sarasota resident and longtime Tovey collaborator, and the Feb. 2-5 “A Romantic Affair” concerts that will feature the Sarasota debut of Japanese pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii, performing the Rachmaninoff Piano Concert No. 2. Oundjian also will lead the orchestra for the annual gala, which features acclaimed cellist Yo-Yo Ma on March 2.

Nic McGegan will lead the opening Discoveries series concert “Mozart and Tchaikovsky” featuring cellist Zlatomir Fung, the first prize winner at the International Tchaikovsky Competition, playing Tchaikovsky’s “Rococo Variations.”

The Discoveries concerts represent Tovey’s desire to “explore influences between composers or pieces that influenced other composers,” Smith said. “Tchaikovsky was very inspired by Mozart and almost obsessed, which is why he delved into Mozart’s specific form.”

The other concerts in the series feature Australian conductor Sarah Ioannides leading “The French Influencers” (Dec. 21) and Joseph Young leading the May 13 “Musical Postcards.” The December concert explores the influences of Louis Farrenc, a 19th century French female composer and Bizet. And Joseph Young, described as a “wonderful up and coming conductor,” put together a concert that focuses on pieces inspired by composers’ travels, with works by Mendelssohn, Rodrigo and Villa-Lobos. It will feature guitarist Bokyung Byun.

McKenna said Tovey “had such excitement about the future” which factored into the way he designed the season, with soloists who are new to the orchestra and rising composers.

Tovey was scheduled to perform Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” and his own piece, “Pictures in the Smoke,” but that Chamber Soiree program on Feb. 19 will be replaced by Orchestra musicians Natalie Helm, Bharat Chandra and Jennifer Takada playing three different Sonatas, joined by Kahane, music director of the Sarasota Music Festival, at the piano.

Other chamber programs include the Sarasota String Quartet performing Shostakovich and Ravel, pianist Orion Weiss and Friends, the Sarasota Wind Quintet, a program of Schumann and Brahms and “Scottish Songs,” featuring Mezzo-soprano Susan Platts.

Tovey was planning to conduct the “Hits of the Brits” Pops concerts on March 3-4. That will be changed to “Gershwin, Berlin and Friends” that will be led by musician Byron Stripling.

The Pops series opens Jan. 20-21 with conductor Stuart Chafetz leading “The Music of Billy Joel and Elton John” with pianist and singer Michael Cavanaugh who performed Joel’s music in the Broadway hit “Movin’ Out.”

Singer Carmen Ruby Floyd will joined conductor William Waldrop for the final Pops concert “Broadway Bound” April 21 and 22.

There will be six Great Escapes concerts that include “A Night at the Movies,” “A Little Night Music” “Date Night” presented in Holley Hall from October through April.

McKenna said musicians and conductors from around the world reached out to Sarasota Orchestra to offer help after Tovey’s death.

“He was really one of the finest musical citizens in the world and his untimely passing led people in the conducting field to say if there’s a way for us to help based on our schedules, we want to help Bramwell and the orchestra,” McKenna said.

Though “we are all still feeling a little raw” after Tovey’s death, McKenna said the board, staff and musicians will likely to start formulating plans for a new search for a music director in September.

Discounted subscriptions for different Sarasota Orchestra series are now available online. Single tickets go on sale Sept. 6. 941-953-3434; sarasotaorchestra.org 

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota Orchestra honors legacy of late music director in new season