Over the decades, the Richmond Symphony Orchestra has often punched above its weight for a city our size. It comes into the 2024 fall season promising to extend the artistic trajectory of its Valentina Peleggi-led era. Under her skillful direction, RSO performances are often revelatory, making familiar works vitally new, new works sound like classics, and providing popular works, such as movie scores, with the sonic breadth only possible from massed acoustic instruments in a great hall.
The upcoming season continues a varied programming approach, mixing classics with appeals to new and younger audiences. The classical track opens Sept. 13-15 with Strad Fest, a celebration of the legendary Stradivarius stringed instruments featuring nine violins handcrafted between 1685-1725 by Italian luthier Antonio Stradivar. The fest closes with an afternoon performance and talk by violin legend Itzhak Perlman. (Note: The RSO also has a free outdoor performance of Barber’s Adagio for strings, among other works, at Pocahontas State Park in Chesterfield on Sept. 21).
From Oct. 13-14, the RSO takes on Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring,” a piece whose dissonant rhythms shocked audiences at its 1913 Paris premiere, but sonically shaped all that came after. November’s program contrasts Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8 and Brahms violin concertos. The first half of the season ends, appropriately, with Richard W. Robbins, new chorus director, conducting Handel’s “Messiah” on Dec. 1-2.
The popular music season, Currents, opens Oct. 5 with Richmond bolero group Miramar, whose 2021 appearance with the RSO showed how this meltingly romantic music is perfectly suited for orchestral accompaniment. The weekend of Oct. 12 brings a one-night only performance of music from video game “Final Fantasy” at Altria Theater, and on Oct. 26, there is an afternoon concert/movie performance of “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.”
Music Director Peleggi leads a salute to the work of conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein on Nov. 9 at the Carpenter Theatre. The U.S. Naval Academy Glee Club joins the symphony for an afternoon concert on Nov. 10. and the annual “Let It Snow” holiday gala, featuring “American Idol” contestant Carrie Brockwell, takes place Nov. 30.
Peleggi, the first Italian woman to enter the conducting program at the Royal Academy of Music in London, has become known for taking audiences on a journey, even as she maintains a busy travel schedule herself. “I travel and experience orchestras all over the world,” says Peleggi, who just led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival in Illinois, and has fall performances scheduled in Europe at the Hague and in Liege. “The Richmond Symphony is playing really, really at their top.”
She describes season opener, “The Rite of Spring,” as probably her “dream concert.” And while she has said similar things about previous programs, that does not mean it is not true; Peleggi attacks every performance with intense, transformative passion.
Lacey Huszcza, president and CEO of the Richmond Symphony, is seeing the results both from audience attendance and growth.
“Valentina brings extraordinary enthusiasm, excitement, and big artistry to our stage,” she says, adding that her work with the musicians, and their response to her, create moments of deep emotional connection. “She does really incredible things [like] moving things around on the stage to find the best sound for each piece in this hall. She is such a technician of the work that, even if you have heard a piece many times before, you are going to hear something new and different.”
Huszcza describes the operations of RSO as being like a “three-legged stool,” with Peleggi responsible for artistic growth, the board for governance and fundraising, and herself for hitting the fiscal and strategic benchmarks vital to sustaining a complex organization. While her contributions are mostly behind the scenes, Huszcza is in the lobby after every performance gauging the result.
“After a concert, I can see the emotion in their eyes when they stop to tell me how they love something,” she says. “[Peleggi] brings palpable energy into our concert hall. It is growing the orchestra, growing the work that we do, and really making sure that we are creating unique experiences for listeners and for our city.”
These powerful experiences are realized in enclosed expanses like the Carpenter Theatre at Dominion Energy Center. The restored movie palace is a fantasy garden, layers of tiered seats edged by backlit statues and twining vines, beneath cutout clouds and a deep blue sky set with winking electric stars. It’s all illusion, until the music starts.
