After a season of creative virtual concerts using smaller combinations of players due to the COVID-19 pandemic, music director Anne Harrigan says she is thrilled to bring the Battle Creek Symphony Orchestra back on stage again in front of the public at 7:30 pm on Saturday, Oct 2 at W.K. Kellogg Auditorium.
Harrigan and Cara Lieurance talk about her music choices: classic American works like Copland's Appalachian Spring and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, as well as Peter Boyer's New Beginnings (premiered by the Kalamazoo Symphony in 2000) and an Armed Services Salute. She says the program started with wanting to bring back Kevin Cole, today's foremost interpreter of Gershwin's music. He joins the conversation with a positive remembrance of performing with the Battle Creek Symphony 20 years ago, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.