Even as performing arts organizations worldwide cancel or delay 2020-21 seasons in response to the coronavirus pandemic, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra has planned a compromise for its September through November schedule.
Most previously announced dates for both classical and pops concerts are being maintained, but for safety reasons programs are being adjusted to use smaller ensembles of musicians. Audiences in the 2,000-seat Meyerson Symphony Center will be limited to between 50 and 75 people for each performance.
“We did some concerts in June, and tested protocols for very small audiences and ensembles, checking safety measures, seeing if the orchestra was comfortable,” said Kim Noltemy, the DSO’s president and CEO. “There was a lot of enthusiasm among the musicians for performing in the hall, but it will still be on a voluntary basis.”
This will be Fabio Luisi’s first season fully in place as music director, but at least the fall season will be lower key than planned. Gone from the schedule are the season opening gala and large-scale works like the Verdi Requiem and symphonies by Bruckner and Shostakovich.
But Luisi, Noltemy and Peter Czornyj, the DSO’s vice president of artistic operations, have done an inventive job of preserving previously announced dates, guest conductors and soloists. Programs have been adjusted to use a maximum of 40 musicians at a time, with a stage extension allowing at least six feet between performers.
Programs will be shorter, without intermissions, to reduce interactions among audience members. New remote-control cameras and existing audio equipment will allow live and delayed streams of performances.
The Fort Worth Symphony earlier announced that it’s maintaining much of its original schedule of symphonic programs at Bass Performance Hall, but it too is replacing larger-scale works with ones using fewer musicians. Audience numbers will be restricted, although details have not been announced. Pops concerts will move to Will Rogers Auditorium.
Nationally, orchestras including the New York Philharmonic and Chicago Symphony have canceled all performances through the end of the year. The Nashville Symphony canceled its entire 2020-21 season and furloughed its musicians and most of its staff.
For Luisi’s first concerts of the season, a program originally including the U.S. premiere of Unsuk Chin’s Frontispiece plus Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1 and the Copland Third Symphony is being replaced by a pairing of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and Symphony No. 8.
An Oct. 9-11 program that was to comprise Strauss’ Four Last Songs (with soprano Anne Schwanewilms) and Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony will instead be devoted to Arnold Schoenberg’s chamber ensemble version of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, with mezzo Tamara Mumford and tenor Stuart Skelton. The Verdi Requiem will be replaced by a program of the composer’s arias and overtures, retaining the originally announced singers: soprano Krassimira Stoyanova, mezzo Jamie Barton, tenor Piero Pretti and bass Wenwei Zhang.
In the “Dallas Symphony Presents” series, the opening Toy Story movie in concert will be replaced by music for brass, organ and percussion. The opening pops series program will feature trumpeter Byron Stripling in ragtime and jazz in place of the “Music of Selena” originally announced. In place of the originally announced movie in concert presentation of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, guest conductor Andrew Grams will conduct Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker. Some originally planned pops programs will be rescheduled in 2021.
An organ recital by Todd Wilson has been rescheduled for Nov. 22 and the DOS is working to reschedule organist Cherry Rhodes in the 2021-22 season. New to the schedule is a Nov. 11 “Concert to Honor Lives Lost to Racial Violence and Injustice,” including baritone Reginald Smith Jr., dancers from Dallas Black Dance Theatre and musicians of the DSO Young Strings Program.
The DSO is holding off on updating December performances, usually a bunch of Christmas programs and a New Year’s Eve concert. These and subsequent concert plans will depend on the course of the pandemic.
Reduced income from concert cancellations that began in March prompted the DSO to impose administrative salary cuts and furloughs starting in June. A loan from the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program covered salaries for two months, and the orchestra is hoping for more help from the next federal assistance program. At present, all musicians remain on contracted salaries.
Subscribers can switch tickets to concerts later in the season, arrange for musicians to perform in their homes or receive refunds. For further information, call 214-849-4376 or go to mydso.com.
CORRECTION, July 31 at 6:13 p.m.: An earlier version of the story on an updated Dallas Symphony Orchestra fall season did not include later information supplied by the DSO. The “Dia de los Muertos” concert will be performed as scheduled on Oct. 31. The organ recital by Todd Wilson has been rescheduled on Nov. 22, and the DSO is working to reschedule organist Cherry Rhodes in the 2021-2022 season.
