Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Music Director Marin Alsop says “we?re well into the 21st century” when she talks about her first season, which includes revolutionary programming and access for a wider audience.
All Joseph Myerhoff Symphony Hall subscription seats for 2007-08 are $25 thanks to a $1 million grant from the PNC Foundation, the charitable giving arm of The PNC Financial Services Group.
The BSO will open the Meyerhoff at 9 a.m. Saturday for sign-ups, ticket purchases and seat selection. This is the Meyerhoff?s 25th year.
The tradition-breaking price is backed up by an innovative schedule of concerts mixing classics, works by 11 major contemporary composers, composers conducting their own music, 17 BSO premieres, a U.S. premiere and nine artist debuts.
Alsop said she wants to try to “take out the stuffiness” and open the symphonic experience to more people. The calendar promises a season that “boldly goes where no orchestra has gone before,” she said.
Edward “Ned” Kelly III, chairman of Mercantile Bankshares Corp. and vice chairman of PNC, which merged Tuesday, said the goal of the grant is to “make the music and the BSO more accessible.”
In a prepared statement released at the announcement in the American Visionary Arts Museum Tuesday night, Kelly said, “We recognize the benefits the performing arts provide in contributing to the community?s social and economic vitality.”
Alsop plans the first complete Beethoven symphony cycle in BSO?s 91-year history, woven into a season of more than 150 events ranging from Art Garfunkel and George Takei (Mr. Sulu on “Star Trek”) to a “CSI: Beethoven” program bringing together scholars, doctors and other experts to discuss the great composer?s life, death and music.
The season runs from the Sept. 11 preview concert through the June 22 grand finale featuring Beethoven?s “9th Symphony” with the Baltimore Choral Arts Society.
BSO plays at the Meyerhoff, 1212 Cathedral St., Baltimore, and the Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda. “Composers in Conversation” is at the Theatre Project, 45 W. Preston St., Baltimore.
