Return to Live Was Pure Magic

2021-2022 RETURN TO LIVE WAS “PURE MAGIC”

Last night was my first concert in several years, due to COVID. What I heard was different: richer, fuller. The musicians are engaged with renewed intensity and precision while displaying huge dynamic range. The connection between conductor and ensemble was awe-inspiring. This is hard to pull off and is pure magic.

–AUDIENCE MEMBER–

There has been much written nationally about the negative impact of the pandemic on performing arts—and it has indeed inflicted dire hardship—but one clear positive is that, at least in the case of WMS, the ensemble has emerged with a renewed artistic vibrancy. And the audience is responding to it.

Last season, WMS transitioned back to in-person concerts after 15 months of virtual-only, performing the entire series live with CDC-recommended safety protocols in place and continuing a video-streamed option for those not ready to return to the hall. We began the season with reduced-size, physically distanced ensembles; by the June finale, we were back to the full symphonic roster.

They say necessity is the mother of invention. We may have thought we were just adapting to circumstances, but the pandemic changed WMS in important ways. More than ever, we value the tradition from which the symphony stems—but we are holding it more lightly. There is a newfound sense of freedom in shaping performance content, and a willingness to try new things.

2021/22 was an inflection point in another important sense. In the summer, we entered the public phase of the Play Your Part Education & Endowment Campaign. Jan Deur and Kay Olthoff chaired this effort to grow WMS’s Endowment and expand its youth education footprint. Both of these objectives are beginning to bear fruit, as you will read below. We are grateful for their leadership!

As we reflect on the challenges of the past several seasons, and celebrate the “pure magic” of our music making together during 2021/22, these words of T.S. Eliot come to mind:

The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

Thank you for your support!

With gratitude,

Susan Cloutier Crain Chairperson Scott Speck Music Director Andy Buelow President/CEO