New name, new home: New England Symphony Orchestra is now the Worcester Symphony Orchestra
WORCESTER — It's a captivating looking program with wonderful works by Beethoven, Bach, Brahms and Arvo Pärt. The tried and true orchestra coming to Mechanics Hall March 11 to perform the program has had several fine moments there before, and the music director and conductor, Roderick MacDonald, is a world-renowned trumpet player who has become a familiar face as a conductor to regular local concertgoers.
But perhaps the most interesting aspect of the "Masterworks" concert at Mechanics Hall at 7:30 p.m. March 11 will be the name of the orchestra performing it.
It's the Worcester Symphony Orchestra — formerly the New England Symphony Orchestra.
The New England Symphony Orchestra had performed several concerts in Mechanics Hall both before the pandemic and also in 2021 and 2022 as MacDonald intimated that the orchestra was considering Mechanics Hall and Worcester as a potential new home base for its performances after many years in the Fitchburg/Leominster/Lancaster area.
Now Worcester has a new orchestra.
The move to Worcester
"We hope to live up the name and will push our buttons," said MacDonald, who is now the music director and conductor of the Worcester Symphony Orchestra.
The name was changed last summer.
The orchestra's stated mission is: "The Worcester Symphony Orchestra enriches and inspires lives through music, community engagement, and education, while maintaining financial stability."
"We have a lot of ambitious plans," MacDonald said. "But Worcester is going to be our home base, and Mechanics Hall is world class."
The Worcester Symphony Orchestra concert March 11 will include the Coriolan Overture by Beethoven, Contemporary Estonian composer Arvo Pärt's Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten, J. S. Bach's Keyboard Concerto No. 1 with guest piano soloist Father Sean Brett Duggan, and Brahms' Symphony No. 1.
Beethoven's Coriolan Overture has "a lot of power," MacDonald said. Arvo Pärt's work is "very modern," and will show the orchestra's versatility, MacDonald added. Pärt is "a great composer." J.S. Bach's Keyboard Concerto is "very dramatic."
Father Duggan is a Benedictine monk. In 1983, he won first prize in the Johann Sebastian Bach International Competition for pianists in Washington, D.C. He is currently on the piano faculty at the State University of New York at Fredonia and is in the midst of recording Bach's complete (non-organ) keyboard works for commercial release. MacDonald, who is also on the faculty at SUNY Fredonia, knows him well.
"He's a great guy," MacDonald said.
The concert will conclude with Brahms' Symphony No. 1. "One of the chestnuts," MacDonald said. "Warmth and grandeur. A very young Brahms."
Brahms at the time was in love with Clara Schumann. "Just beautiful music. The second movement is kind of a love letter to Clara," MacDonald said.
Looking ahead
Upcoming performances for the Worcester Symphony Orchestra include a "Film Music Concert" May 4 in Mechanics Hall, and an "Open Air" concert May 20 at New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill in Boylston. MacDonald said there have been talks with the Worcester Red Sox about a possible performance at Polar Park this summer.
The Worcester Symphony Orchestra will return to Mechanics Hall Sept. 23 for a concert featuring award winning young violinist Sirena Huang performing the famous Brahms Violin Concerto.
The future schedule also includes a "Winter Scenes" concert at Mechanics Hall Nov. 25; and a March 9, 2024 concert in Mechanics Hall celebrating the 100th anniversary of George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue." Another "Film Music" concert is also lined up in Mechanics Hall for May, 2024.
The Worcester Symphony Orchestra hopes to tour and also bring in soloists for concerts.
"The big names maybe someday. Now we're going for young talent — give them a chance," MacDonald said.
A storied history
The orchestra dates back to 1974, when it was founded as the Thayer Conservatory Orchestra and loosely affiliated with the Thayer Conservatory at the former Atlantic Union College in Lancaster. The orchestra later changed its name to the Thayer Symphony Orchestra as it no longer had ties with the college and performed regularly at the Dukakis Center for the Performing Arts in Fitchburg and other locations.
In its heyday, the Thayer Symphony Orchestra, conducted for many years by the beloved Toshimasa Francis Wada, performed up to a dozen concerts a year. The orchestra changed its name to the New England Symphony Orchestra in 2016. The orchestra's professional musicians are drawn mostly from the Worcester, Boston and Rhode Island area.
MacDonald grew up in Foster, Rhode Island, and earned his master's degree in music at the New England Conservatory in Boston. In 1989, he was hired as principal trumpet of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, one of the world's oldest symphony orchestras, by Kurt Masur.
As a concert soloist he has appeared with ensembles worldwide and is also a founding member of the Leipzig Baroque Soloists. His discography consists of more than 25 recordings.
After returning to New England, MacDonald has sat on the principal trumpet chair with ensembles and stood on the conductor's podium. MacDonald is also associate professor of music at State University of New York Fredonia.
MacDonald was a guest trumpet player with NESO and became its music director in 2014. But by the time of his appointment there had been dwindling attendance and constantly reduced concert schedules along with many appeals for support.
"We're finding our audience difficult to convince to come to our concerts in Fitchburg-Leominster," MacDonald said in 2018.
As an initial "litmus test" concerning Worcester, NESO put on a Halloween concert in Mechanics Hall in 2018. More plans were in the works, but then came the pandemic.
The orchestra increased its use of video programming during the pandemic through such initiatives as New England Symphony Orchestra At Home (downloadable videos of small groups of NESO musicians in intimate settings) and the co-production of "Amahl and the Night Visitors" with VOX New England.
On Sept. 11, 2021, NESO was in Mechanics Hall for its first live, in-person concert since the pandemic, "Re-opening: Bach, Beethoven and Beyond." In December of that year, the orchestra was back with "Festive Baroque & Beyond" in a concert that also included the Worcester Children’s Chorus led by its music director Pamela Mindell.
On April 9, 2022, the orchestra presented its third concert at Mechanics Hall for the season titled "From the 'New World. The program included Haydn's Trumpet Concerto with MacDonald the trumpet soloist, and Symphony No. 9 "From the New World," by Antonín Dvořák.
A couple of months later, the orchestra had a new name.
Finding its own identity
The Worcester Symphony Orchestra is a nonprofit organization governed by a volunteer board of directors and also includes the Friends of the New England Symphony who augment fundraising activities and assist professional staff.
"We had discussed it for a year," MacDonald said of changing the name.
"I think there were a couple of people who are nervous about changing it," he said.
That was mainly because it had only been six years since the orchestra had changed its name to the New England Symphony Orchestra, he said.
"At first it sounded great," MacDonald said of the New England Symphony Orchestra name. But it turned out that there were about four different orchestras that referred to themselves in the first two words as "New England."
There was a feeling the name was "separating us" from the Worcester community that the orchestra now wished to be part of, he said.
"You need buy in from the people in your area," MacDonald said. "We want to have a good name with a good concept playing regularly."
In terms of having Worcester in the name, there is a Worcestershire Symphony Orchestra in England, but MacDonald said "we didn't figure there was going to be any competition there."
The Worcester Youth Orchestras here go back 75 years, but the Worcester Symphony Orchestra is not a youth ensemble and is not connected to WYP.
There was a Worcester Orchestra that was prominent long ago, and a Worcester Symphony Orchestra, closely related, was once formed in 1997. Then the archives seem to disappear. "I think anyone involved has moved on," MacDonald said.
Overall, "everyone loves it," he said of the new name. "The reaction has been generally positive. I haven't heard too much negative."
Welcome to the neighborhood
The Worcester Symphony Orchestra isn't the only orchestra in town.
The Massachusetts Symphony Orchestra has had a long history in Worcester that includes summer concerts at Institute Park (the late harry Levenson, the orchestra's founder and conductor, began what is currently known as the “Summer Family Concert Series” in Institute Park in 1951), and the annual Holiday Pops Concert at Mechanics Hall, which dates back 42 years.
In an earlier interview MacDonald said, "Worcester needs a top symphony orchestra which will regularly perform great music from the past and advocate for music yet to come. Just as Worcester needs good schools, hospitals, police, and clean water it too needs a fine symphony orchestra to serve its ambitious and exacting audiences. Yes, we hope Worcester will choose us for this role."
Kathleen M. Gagne, executive director of Mechanics Hall, said: "We are excited for the Worcester Symphony Orchestra as it settles in among the great musical organizations in Worcester. Their artistic programming is creative and entertaining for audiences of all ages and musical tastes.
"We applaud the WSO‘s interest in developing high-level musicianship within the orchestra. We are delighted that performing in Mechanics Hall will heighten the musician experience and that the WSO will be providing new audience opportunities. The world needs all the music it can hear — how blessed we are to hear it in Mechanics Hall!”
The Worcester Symphony Orchestra is hoping to draw "sponsors to come in and be associated with us," MacDonald said. It is making connections in the community and trying to build up its social media presence.
"We're getting more and more traffic," he said.
And he wants to hear from people.
"I want to hear things when we're not perfect ... Do they want us to do more jazz? I want to hear it," he said.
Attendance so far in Worcester is "not great," MacDonald acknowledged. "We'll see. There's reasons for it. People are afraid to go out. A year ago, COVID wasn't over."
WSO will be looking at the attendance figures for its upcoming concerts.
"If there's a rise in attendance that will bode well for our future. So we will see," he said.
MacDonald is scheduled to give a pre-concert talk at 6:30 p.m. March 11 to outline plans for future orchestra programs and the development of an ongoing local orchestral presence in Worcester.
Then after the name change, all the discussions and talk it will be time for the Worcester Symphony Orchestra to play music.
For more information, go to worcestersymphony.org
Worcester Symphony Orchestra
When: 7:30 p.m. March 11
Where: Mechanics Hall, 321 Main St., Worcester
How much: Floor — $42; seniors $40; students, $12; Balcony — $35; seniors, $32; students, $12; mechanicshall.org
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: This orchestra has a new name: The Worcester Symphony Orchestra
