February 11 2009
I've just come back from a week of outreach for, and playing with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra (WSO), rolling out my Symphronica jazz-meets-orchestra project.
The WSO does not have the profile of the Toronto, Montreal or Chicago symphonies. It lives in a city of about 218,000, bordering Detroit (south of it, by a freak of geography), struggling because of the turbulent auto industry, without a strong symphonic culture.
And yet...
The WSO is a marvel. A group of committed music-makers, dedicated to the joys of art, over the airs of aesthetes.
There is a raw dedication to orchestral music. With its gifted, firecracker Music Director John Morris Russell, the WSO is exploring innovative programming- not of the who-cares-what-the-audience-thinks kind, but the roll-up-your-sleeves what can I do to please you, while maintaining musical integrity type of innovation.
The WSO and JMR (as everyone calls John Morris Russell) stand as a part of real Windsor society. It is not the upper caste bauble some orchestras become. People came to my WSO concerts for a joyous time, not because social pressures guilted them into it.
Still, the WSO has work to do. It does not have its own concert hall. It's working to get one built. For now, it rents an all-purpose auditorium. The WSO needs to broaden its donor base.
The WSO needs to persuade Windsor's citizens of what was obvious to an outsider like me: that it has the potential to become an attraction, drawing people to Windsor, like the Winnipeg and Montreal symphonies. The WSO has the potential to become not only a presence on the classical music scene, but an integrated component in the tourism industry, contributing to the overall prosperity of the municipality.
All of this socio-economico-anthropological stuff aside, there's a bottom line: the WSO makes great music. JMR has the vision, and the WSO has the potential to take symphonic music to a future where it remains fresh, alive, and popular in the original sense of the word, retaining a connection with audiences. It can be a model for the 21st century orchestra. A part of the arts community. Not a cudgel of privilege. A uniting force, not a pawn of division.
There we were, Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, 2 hours after we began playing, JMR and I, looking into a hall with over 1200 people. They were standing. We were standing. They were clapping. We were bowing. They were happy. we were thrilled.
Isn't this what music is about?
Bravo WSO. Bravo JMR. Onward and upward.
- Click here for the Windsor Symphony Orchestra's web site
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A brilliant adventure. On his latest recording, My Mother's Father's Song, Ron Davis embraces both his family's rich cultural heritage, and boldly re-engages with the jazz standard.
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