New Delaware Symphony Orchesta Executive Director J.C. Barker at The Grand. Photo by Joe del Tufo
FRESH LOOK Orchestras need a strategic restart and J.C. Barker has some ideas By Ken Mammarella
T
he Delaware Symphony Orchestra’s Classics Series that begins Jan. 21 includes works by Rachmaninoff, Beethoven, Holst, Brahms and Bach, but the repertoire for the 2022-23 season will look far beyond the dead white European males who make up the Western orchestral canon. The DSO this month is starting to rethink its mission, said J.C. Barker, its new executive director. “We need to shift the way of what we do and where we do it,” Barker said. “Orchestras have become very siloed.” Among other issues, he hopes the process uncovers orchestral works “by composers of color and women and of all different genres.”
Barker, who worked in various roles for the Mobile Symphony in Alabama for 13 years, replaces Alan Jordan, DSO’s executive director from 2015 to 2019. At the DSO, he is reconnecting with music director David Amado, classmates 30 years ago at the Juilliard School with Amado’s wife, Meredith. When asked what he told Barker to encourage him to come here, Amado said: “I made an effort to present to him a clear, honest picture of what we are, where we are and what we do. Like with so many jobs, it is as much about skills as it is about fit. I tried (thankfully successfully) to lay out what we were, are and want to be, and tried to give J.C. the space to evaluate the potential fit.” ► JANUARY 2022 2022 | OUTANDABOUTNOW.COM XX 45 JANUARY
