Woodstock Symphony Orchestra
This season, 2024-2025, is the forty-fifth season of the Woodstock Symphony Orchestra, the outgrowth of the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra, officially re-named in 2018. In 1980 this orchestra was born as the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra.
The idea for the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra came from three local musicians, Judy Leopold, Ellen Ohm and Jeannette Ellis, who thought that an arts community like Woodstock could foster a small orchestra. They contacted musicians they knew and put together a small group which held its first rehearsal on January 27, 1980 — not coincidentally the 224th anniversary of the birth of Mozart. Melissa Sweet, the flutist for the new orchestra, brought in her husband Al, not only to play second flute but to be the manager of the orchestra as well, a task well-suited to his IBM management skills.
The orchestra’s first music director and conductor was Henry Bloch, with the late Kurt Grishman serving as assistant conductor (as well as playing in the violin section). The new orchestra’s first complete season was 1980-81. Within a few years the WCO was performing five concerts a season in local churches, most often St. John’s in West Hurley. The repertoire grew to include major symphonies of Mozart and Haydn, as well as works for orchestra and chorus, often with the Woodstock-based Ars Choralis, (initially constituted as the Woodstock Chamber Chorus). Around this time the orchestra became sufficiently successful to pay the musicians rather than asking them to volunteer their services.
From the early 1990s to 2005 the orchestra flourished under the direction of a new conductor, prize-winning cellist and classical guitarist the late Luis Garcia-Renart (1936-2020), who also taught at both Bard and Vassar and worked with the Hudson Valley Philharmonic. Under Garcia-Renart’s direction the orchestra built on its tradition of premiering new music by local composers with works by Joan Tower, Kyle Gann, Benjamin Boretz, Richard Teitelbaum, Jay Ungar, and Peter Schickele, among others. During this time the orchestra also expanded its venues to include the Bearsville Theater in Woodstock, Holy Cross Church in Kingston, and Olin Hall at Bard College.
After Garcia-Renart’s retirement from conducting in 2005 the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra held a conductor search season, screening candidates from around the country, and even some from outside the U.S.A. David Leighton was selected; his experience with vocal and choral music particularly enhanced the WCO, resulting in several concerts incorporating vocal music, many with the fine Kingston High School chorus. The new concert venue of Pointe of Praise in Kingston was added to the orchestra’s schedule.
2009 brought the retirement, after thirty years of service, of the late Al Sweet from the position of Executive Director. That job was filled over the next few years by Natalie Robohm, Maria Todaro, and since 2012, Dana White-Marks. The orchestra at this time also began performing at the newly refurbished Woodstock Playhouse (fulfilling one of Al Sweet’s dreams).
The Woodstock Chamber Orchestra’s next conductor, Nathan Madsen, was chosen through another search during the 2011-12 season. During his term the orchestra began performing in Quimby Theater at SUNY Ulster in Stone Ridge, developing an audience further afield from its Woodstock roots. After Madsen’s resignation near the end of the 2015-16 season the orchestra launched another conductor search during the 2016-17 season and chose Jonathan Handman as the orchestra’s fifth music director.
In his first seasons, Handman drew on some of the orchestra’s traditions and also brought new ideas to the orchestra, including a bluegrass-orchestral fusion concert and the continuing “Woodstock & Beyond” concerto competition. Handman resigned his position with the WSO at the end of the 2021-2022 season, having helped the WSO make it through two pandemic-fraught years of altered seasons that included concellations, videographed chamber concerts with safety precautions that were streamed online, and the gradual resumption of regular live concerts. The WSO wishes Jon continued success in his career and appreciates all he gave to the WSO.
Once again, in 2022-2023, the WSO presented a Conductor Search season, having lined up four talented, experienced musicians vying to become the next Music Director of the orchestra. Each concert featured a Beethoven symphony along with works chosen to highlight each candidate's interests and strengths. At the end of the season, the seach committee chose Mina Kim, Music Director of the Purchase Symphony and a concert pianist, vocal coach, and chamber music performer, to lead the WSO.
In her inaugeral season, 2023-24, Mina programmed concerts that included the Vivaldi Guitar Concerto in D, featuring as soloist longtime WSO board president Gregory Dinger, symphonies by Dvorak, Mendelssohn, and Brahms, Resphighi's Ancient Airs and Dances, and the Saint-Saens Violin Concerto No. 3, with soloist Sophia Steger, among other works.
Our current season, 2024-25, will include Mozart's Sympony Concertante, featuring soloists drawn from the orchestra, symphonies by Tchaikovsky and Schumann, Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, new works by Jessie Montgomery and Joey DeSanctis, and a concert featuring classical pieces influenced by jazz and a jazz ensemble.
Dana White-Marks, violist, string teacher and conductor, continues to serve as the Executive Director of the WSO. Her success with the orchestra includes navigating the challenges posed by the pandemic, attracting and maintaining a roster of high caliber players, and producing the most recent Conductor Search season. Her efforts were part of what led to the Chamber Orchestra becoming a Symphony Orchestra.
You can keep up with what the Woodstock Symphony Orchestra is doing at: woodstocksymphony.org and follow us on Facebook too.
