• Music

  A resilient Atlanta Community Symphony Orchestra thrives, launches 66th season with guest conductor Phillip Allen

  Posted by Music on November 14, 2023 at 5:52 pm

  SPOTLIGHT & CONCERT REVIEW:

  Atlanta Community Symphony Orchestra
  November 5, 2023
  Church at Weiuca
  Atlanta, Georgia – USA
  Phillip E. Allen, conductor.
  “An evening of French Fantasie”
  Hector BERLIOZ: Roman Carnival Overture, Op. 9
  Charles GOUNOD: March Funèbre d’une Marionette (orch. Tomáš Köppl)
  Jules MASSENET: “Meditation” from Thais (arr./orch. Phillip E. Allen)
  George BIZET: selections from L’Arlesienne Suite, Nos. 1 & 2
  Claude DEBUSSY: Clair de Lune (orch. Tomáš Köppl)
  Claude-Michel SCHÖNBERG: selections from Les Misérables
  

  Mark Gresham | 9 NOV 2023

  Any large city that boasts a resident major symphony orchestra ought also to have at least a handful of semi-pro and volunteer community orchestras as part of its artistic ecosystem. Atlanta is no exception; examples abound within the city proper and its surrounding suburbs. The oldest of the city’s volunteer community ensembles is the Atlanta Community Symphony Orchestra.

  In the summer of 1957, under the auspices of the Atlanta Music Club, what was then called the Atlanta Community Orchestra was conceived to expand what was then only nominal opportunities for serious instrumentalists in Atlanta to perform together in a large amateur orchestra.

  Now known as the Atlanta Community Symphony Orchestra, its first free public concert took place on May 12, 1958, under the baton of Harry Kruger, a cellist and educator who would later become music director of the LaGrange Symphony Orchestra and the Columbus Symphony Orchestra.

  The ACSO’s most recent artistic director and conductor was Juan Ramírez-Hernández, a composer and longtime violinist with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

  With the 2018-2019 season, Ramírez concluded his 22-year tenure with the ACSO, after which he became its conductor emeritus. His departure began a transitional period for the ACSO and the initiation of a conductor search in the 2019-2020 season.

  During the candidate interview process, the operational flow was disrupted by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in a temporary suspension of activities.

  It was during this hiatus that ACSO leaders conceptualized the “In Your Neighborhood” series of concerts, offering an avenue for members to showcase chamber music in outdoor locales such as restaurant patios, ‘Porchfest’ in Virginia Highlands, gardens including the Smith-Gilbert Gardens and the Atlanta Botanical Gardens, as well as on neighbors’ lawns, backyards, and cul-de-sacs. This initiative proved to be an enjoyable means for the ACSO to connect with the community.

  The pandemic necessitated creative thinking about performance venues, and this adaptability evolved into a gratifying method of community engagement. As the global situation gradually returned to normal, the ACSO, like numerous small organizations, encountered financial challenges and decreased attendance.

  The conductor search resumed in the 2021-2022 season, reaching a final candidate. However, the quest for a new artistic director was ultimately not successful. In 2022-2023, the ACSO embraced a mostly conventional season featuring guest conductors on the podium and the decision to present all concerts at a single venue temporarily.

  “In our 66th season, 2023-2024, we are actively reconnecting with our core values as a community orchestra,” says ACSO board chairman and principal oboe Amy Ross. “Our concert season has taken on a new form, once again playing at different venues throughout the city and reintroducing the ‘In Your Neighborhood’ series. We have reassessed our mission, succinctly restating it as ‘Building our community through the power of music.’ Initiatives like our inaugural ‘Art in Music’ competition aim to involve the community in our musical endeavors. While the new structure is still undergoing a trial run, the ensemble has thoroughly enjoyed traditional full orchestral music and chamber ensembles in a more intimate setting, as evidenced by our first concert cycle with Phillip Allen.”

  Those two season-opening concerts with guest conductor Phillip E. Allen on the podium occurred last week. The first was on Sunday, November 5, at the Church on Weiuca (formerly known as Weiuca Road Baptist Church), a French-themed program for the whole orchestra. That Thursday, November 9, ACSO members performed a second, lighter chamber orchestra “In Your Neighborhood” concert with Allen conducting at St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church.

  An Atlanta native, Allen has made his way as conductor, composer, and keyboardist in what he calls “two very different worlds of music making”: professional secular music, dramatic theatre, and show business, and what he describes as “the deeply rewarding and spiritually fulfilling ministry of church pipe organ and orchestral music,” so he is well in tune with the tenants of community music-making.

  

  Phillip E. Allen (credit: Stanley Carlton)

  Under Allen’s capable baton, the group played with enthusiasm, warmth, and a big heart. The program opened with the festive Roman Carnival Overture, Op. 9 by Hector Berlioz, and concluded with selections from Les Misérables by Claude-Michel Schönberg. In between came what we used to call “popular classics” by Gounod, Massanet, Bizet, and Debussy — some of them in arrangements/orchestrations by Allen himself or the Slovak conductor Tomáš Köppl.

  Although we were unable to be at the November 9 concert, word comes that it was a more light-hearted and more of a pops and “Introduction to a Symphony Orchestra” style, with a more relaxed and laid-back mood, topping out at just under 60 minutes duration.

  In each performance, Allen invited the audience to come forward and meet the players post-concert — a gesture very much in the best spirit of ACSO’s community music and outreach mission.

  ACSO concerts are free to the public, although donations are encouraged. Happily for the orchestra, word comes that the support donations from Sunday’s concert alone were more than all of the previous season’s at-concert donations combined. It appears ACSO’s star is on the rise again. ■

  EXTERNAL LINKS:

  

  About the author:

  Mark Gresham is publisher and principal writer of EarRelevant. he began writing as a music journalist over 30 years ago, but has been a composer of music much longer than that. He was the winner of an ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award for music journalism in 2003.

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