ProMusica to present in-person ‘SpringFEST’ concert

On Apr 11, 2021

ProMusica Music Director David Danzmayr conducting members of the orchestra at The Fives during a performance last autumn.

Last summer, the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra made a commitment to continue performing during the pandemic.

Starting last August, ProMusica launched a series of festival-style performances presented either in nontraditional venues or recorded for online viewing. And, as virus numbers in central Ohio ebbed and flowed, so, too, did the orchestra’s plans.

“The best way to describe it is ‘SummerFEST’ was fully outdoors; ‘AutumnFEST’ indoors, safely; ‘WinterFEST’ was no live audiences; and ‘SpringFEST’ springs eternal hope,” said ProMusica CEO Janet Chen.

Indeed, “SpringFEST” will kick off next weekend with the orchestra’s first concerts for live audiences since mid-November: On April 17 and 18, a reduced ensemble of orchestra musicians will perform Gustav Mahler’s “Symphony No. 4” at the event space The Fives. The concerts will be restricted to 100 patrons; masks and social-distancing are required.

Music Director David Danzmayr, who will conduct the concerts, has enjoyed leading online offerings but is glad to be back in front of audiences, however limited.

“Without an audience, it’s really more like a recording,” Danzmayr said. “You give your all and everything, but you know that the audience is not there.”

To accommodate socially-distanced attendees and musicians, Danzmayr had to turn to an unusual arrangement of Mahler’s “Symphony No. 4,” a work that, if performed by a full-size orchestra, would call for around 80 instrumentalists. If ProMusica performed the piece during a normal, non-pandemic year, its full roster of about 37 musicians would be on hand.

For the upcoming performances, though, an arrangement for just 14 players was chosen.

“When I do it with a regular orchestra, I try to do it as big as possible,” Danzmayr said. “But, the way it’s written, it’s very, very different than other Mahler symphonies in some ways.”

The reduced arrangement, the conductor said, will work particularly well during the first and second movements.

“The third movement is the one that’s the most tricky in the small version, but we have very good players,” he said. “There is where I would say, in some places, the huge string sound is missing, but you still have the emotion.”

And the fourth movement, featuring soprano Martha Guth, will also benefit from minimal instrumentation, Danzmayr added.

“The singer can just really shine,” he said. “Everybody can play full-out and we’re not covering up the singer.”

“SpringFEST” will continue April 23 with the premiere of a recently recorded digital concert to be posted on the orchestra’s website, promusicacolumbus.org. Wind serenades by Dvorak and Strauss will be featured.

The latter piece put the on-the-move conductor — who this fall will split his time between Columbus and Portland, Oregon, where he will lead the Oregon Symphony — in the mind of his home country of Austria.

“It made me very homesick because it sounds like the mountains of Austria,” Danzmayr said. “It’s a very emotional performance for me.”

Also on the bill for the digital concert are works for strings by Anna Clyne and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.

Additional in-person concerts, currently being planned for dates in June, will round out the season — an unusual one but one that Danzmayr speaks of with a sense of appreciation.

“We’re all tired,” he said. “But I think I’d rather be on the side of tired and feeling rewarded than just sitting around.”

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At a glance

The ProMusica Chamber Orchestra will perform the in-person concert “SpringFEST: Mahler 4” at 7:30 p.m. April 17 and 2 p.m. April 18 at The Fives, 555 W. Goodale St. Tickets, limited to 100 patrons, cost $58. Visit promusicacolumbus.org.