Richmond Symphony Announces 2021-2022 Season

Season opening features Valentina Peleggi conducting Dvorak’s stirring New World Symphony
Focus on Virginia talent with Sterling Elliott’s artist residency and work by Adolphus Hailstork
50^th Anniversary Celebration of Richmond Symphony Chorus with choral favourites
Pops & LolliPops include holiday favourites, local talents and newly created programs
Chamber concerts across the region from Randolph-Macon College to Perkinson Center for the Arts with Hardywood Brewery in the middle!

Music Director Valentina Peleggi [Photos: James Loving Richmond Symphony]

Throughout history, music has the universal power to bring people together and uplift the spirits in uncertain times. The Richmond Symphony’s 2021-22 season promises to connect the Richmond community with a bold and broad range of programming that includes orchestral greats, contemporary masterpieces and a dynamic range of chamber concerts. The season also offers livestreamed Masterworks performances so audiences can watch from the comfort of their own homes.

“We are delighted to welcome new and renewing patrons to a full schedule of in-person concerts for our 2021-2022 season,” said Lacey Huszcza, executive director of the Richmond Symphony. “The season celebrates hope and resilience through deepening the Symphony’s connections to the greater Richmond community. We will be presenting incredible local talent alongside international artists, performing a diverse array of composers in our home at the Carpenter Theatre and all over the region. There’s something special to engage and inspire audiences of all ages in our Masterworks, Pops, Lollipops and Metro series concerts. On behalf of the Richmond Symphony and Music Director Valentina Peleggi, we look forward to an exciting new chapter in the Symphony’s great legacy.”

Tickets are free for under eighteen and start at just $10 for most concerts. The Richmond Symphony School of Music will be working closely with schools and communities in the region with a hybrid model of online and in person programs.

MASTERWORKS

The eight program Masterworks series, performed at the Dominion Energy Center’s Carpenter Theatre, will engage audiences with a symphonic repertoire featuring the best of new, historically excluded and traditional classical music artists. Below are highlights of the 2021-22 Masterworks season:

The Richmond Symphony’s Opening Weekend will take place on Sept. 25-26, 2021, with Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9, From the New World, more popularly known as the New World Symphony, an homage to his deep appreciation for uniquely American music and themes. This program will be complemented by Florence Price’s romantic Piano Concerto in One Movement and Virginian composer Adolphus Hailstork’s Fanfare on Amazing Grace.
The Symphony will present the eagerly awaited world premier of Roxanna Panufnik’s Alma’s Songs, commissioned for Music Director Valentina Peleggi.
The Symphony will perform a thrilling rendition of Rachmaninoff’s uplifting Piano Concerto No. 2 on Feb. 26-27, 2022, along with the Symphony No. 5 by Shostakovich.
Patrons will be taken on a lively trip to the Scottish Highlands on March 19-20, 2022, with Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy and Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3 Scottish.
The Symphony will honor the 50^st anniversary and contributions of the Richmond Symphony Chorus on April 9-10, 2022, through the performance of Haydn’s beloved choral work, The Creation.
The Season Finale concludes with a flourish on May 21-22, 2022, with Valerie Coleman’s Umoja, Joel Thompson’s An Act of Resistance and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 Choral, the composer’s final complete symphony. First performed in 1824, the Ninth is one of the first known examples of a choral symphony. Richmond Symphony Chorus will join the Richmond Symphony for the season finale.
Masterworks will showcase the virtuosity of exciting guest and featured artists including pianist Louis Schwizgebel (Sept. 25-26, 2021), Virginian cellist Sterling Elliott (Oct. 23-24, 2021), violinist Stefan Jackiw (Jan. 29-30, 2022), pianist George Li (Feb. 26-27, 2022), and Symphony Concertmaster and violinist Daisuke Yamamoto (March 19-20, 2022).

SYMPHONY POPS

The Symphony Pops series features guest artists performing joyful favorites in pop, jazz, classical, Broadway repertoire and more, alongside the Richmond Symphony at the Dominion Energy Center’s Carpenter Center. Below are highlights of the 2021-22 Symphony Pops season:

Family favorites Let It Snow! and A Baroque Holiday are back again to celebrate the start of the holiday season starting on Thanksgiving weekend.
Jazz & Swing – A Classic Tribute will feature vocalists Capathia Jenkins and Tony DeSare as the legendary Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald in a magical night of jazz on Feb. 5, 2022.
Warner Bros. presents Bugs Bunny at the Symphony on Feb. 13, 2022 at the Altria Theater. This concert will bring the world’s classic Looney Tunes cartoons projected on the big screen while the Richmond Symphony performs beloved favorites such as “What’s Opera, Doc?” and “The Rabbit of Seville” and more!
International soloist and VCU Professor of Trumpet and Jazz, Rex Richardson salutes the smooth, seductive sound of Duke Ellington and jazz standards by Billy Strayhorn, along with the debut of a new work composed by Trey Pollard of Richmond’s Spacebomb Records on April 23, 2022.
In a galaxy far, far away known as Richmond, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back will play on the big screen of the Altria Theater on May 15, 2022. See it again with John Williams’ memorable music performed by the Richmond Symphony.

METRO

The three-program Metro series is made up of chamber orchestra favorites featuring Richmond Symphony musicians as soloists in the more intimate settings of Randolph-Macon College and the new Perkinson Center for the Arts. Soloists this season will be Mary Boodell (flute) and Thomas Schneider (bassoon). The music highlights are CPE Bach, Schumann, Mozart, Anna Clyne and an exciting chamber arrangement of Mahler’s poetic 4th symphony.

Atlantic Union Bank LOLLIPOPS

This three-program series explores our dynamic world through sound.
The series highlight is a new concert Dreams of Freedom which celebrates the life and times of Dr. Martin Luther King. The concert features a poetry competition open to all greater Richmond young people under the age of 18 and music gems to intrigue and uplift from a century of Black composers. The series is bookended by Halloween with a festive, costume crazy “Spooktacular” and closes with “Peter and the Wolf” the classic piece that explores the world of the orchestra and animals.

Subscription packages are on-sale for the Richmond Symphony’s Masterworks, Symphony Pops, Lollipops and Metro series concerts. Subscribers enjoy a variety of benefits, including priority seating, priority booking for Beethoven’s Ninth in May, 20% off single ticket prices, flexible ticket exchanges, pre-sale opportunities for special events and concerts, and much more.

To renew a subscription or to become a new subscriber, please call 804-788-1212 or visit richmondsymphony.com.