Mid-Columbia Symphony: Anticipating the Renaissance

Renaissance of course means ‘rebirth,’ and it is what most of us in the arts community, and the Mid-Columbia Symphony in particular, are eagerly awaiting – when we can return to live performances and the live audiences that all of us, and especially our orchestra members miss so much.

We were forced to indefinitely postpone and eventually cancel the two concerts that were planned for last spring and did not schedule a 2020-2021 season when it became apparent that the COVID crisis and rules to help safeguard our collective health were going to impact us for a while. One great disappointment to all of us was this meant that we would not get to do a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, with the support of the Mid-Columbia Mastersingers, in celebration of Beethoven’s 250 birthday.

One aspect of this hiatus turned out to be somewhat fortuitous because Richland High School (our normal venue for performances) and Kennewick High School have been undergoing significant renovations this year, meaning that finding suitable performance venues was going to be a challenge.

When we return to live performances, it will be in a newly renovated auditorium with amenities and design features that will make it more accessible to those who are mobility challenged, quiet-closing doors like theaters and performing arts centers, upgraded seating, and more restrooms.

Until we have a performing arts center (hint, hint), the RHS auditorium is a wonderful stand-in that can accommodate large audiences and that has wonderful acoustics. We are grateful for this community resource.

While we have not been able to do live performances, we have not been idle. We have hired a new operations manager; we have reinvigorated our communications with our supporters and patrons and are working on recording small ensemble performances for web viewing. We have done one of the recordings and are working on a few more.

If you visit the MCS website (www.midcolumbiasymphony.org), you will also find recorded interviews in which Maestro Nick Wallin speaks with several of our orchestra members. This is an opportunity for the community to get to know both our principal conductor and some of our orchestra members.

Perhaps one of the more interesting developments of this past year was the “rediscovery” of archived recordings going all the way back to the 1960s. The recordings had been in good storage conditions and were well-preserved. They included reel-to-reel and high-quality cassette recordings.

They are being transferred to digital format by one of our dedicated board members who has both the passion and the skills for this effort. As you might imagine, digitizing 50-plus years of recordings takes time and the work is ongoing, but a large number of these recordings are now available on our website for folks to listen to. So, we encourage you to check it out.

Our youth symphony and cadet strings groups have continued to be active under the able leadership of our assistant conductor, Adrienne Fletcher. While they are also restricted from group rehearsals and performances, Adrienne has kept the program going through virtual classes, tutorials and remote performances. This is helping to ensure that these students, and the next generation of future musicians, continue to be served.

We are currently planning for a full 2021-2022 season of live performance (restrictions permitting) and are looking forward to re-engaging with the community, giving our audiences the “musical hug,” they so richly deserve.

This story was originally published April 30, 2021 at 12:32 AM with the headline "Mid-Columbia Symphony: Anticipating the Renaissance."