The Brandywine Valley boasts many superlatives, among them: The Brandywine River Museum, Longwood Gardens and the Winterthur Museum and Gardens.
But there’s one more to add — The Kennett Symphony Orchestra.
Yes, Kennett Square. The little town on a hill known for, well, mushrooms.
Confession #1. I hate mushrooms.
The Kennett Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1940 as an all-volunteer community orchestra, is now the only professional symphony orchestra in Chester County, with top musicians traveling in from not only Pennsylvania but Delaware, New York, Maryland, and New Jersey.
Confession #2. I’m a music snob. I have a master’s degree in music, which can be a curse when attending a local performance of a choir, orchestra, or concert band. I tend to get critical as in, “Did you hear that French horn warble that note?”
Confession # 3. I’m addicted to the Kennett Symphony Orchestra. My test: the upper string section sings as one. In fact, the entire orchestra performs as one finely tuned instrument.
My favorite venue in which to hear them is the elegant and soaring Grand Ballroom at the Mendenhall Inn, where director Michael Hall started the “Reimagined Concert Experience.”
Hall sets the orchestra in the middle of the ballroom, while the audience sits all around them and may vicariously experience playing the violin, trumpet, French horn, tympani, or even being the conductor.
Confession # 4. I wish I could play the violin.
Their reimagined concert on Nov. 5, featured Beethoven’s 6th Symphony, known as The Pastoral, written in 1808.
Before the afternoon’s main performance, Hall spoke to the audience about Beethoven, and the symphony, using the orchestra to play excerpts from the symphony as illustrations.
Ludwig von Beethoven (1770-1827) was the rebel who bridged the Classical and Romantic periods in music. In his 6th Symphony, he expanded the form from four to five movements and had all but dropped the classic “Sonata Allegro Form” as used by Haydn and Mozart. The third movement continues directly into the fourth, and the fourth movement into the fifth, without an ending cadence or perceived ending. In addition, the 6th Symphony is a “programmed” symphony as it describes elements such as a brook, birds, a storm, and joy.
Sadly, by this point in Beethoven’s life, he was becoming profoundly deaf, a condition that he tried to hide from everyone. Hall read from a letter Beethoven wrote to his two brothers in 1802, now known as the Heiligenstadt Testament, which reads in part,
“ But what a humiliation for me when someone standing next to me heard a flute in the distance and I heard nothing…Such incidents drove me almost to despair, a little more of that and I would have ended my life. It was only my art that held me back.”
After the concert, I spoke with principal violinist, Eliezer Gutman. Now living in Wilmington, Gutman came to the United States from Israel in 1990. His violin was made for him by Yuval Adereth in Italy. This is the quality you will find in the Kennett Symphony Orchestra.
Confession #5. The energy, musicianship, and inspiration of Michael Hall are some of the best things to happen to the little town on the hill known for mushrooms.
Hall has conducted all over the world, was a finalist in the International Conducting Competition in Besançon France, and was awarded Third Prize in the Cadaques Orchestra International Conducting Competition in Spain.
Just take the word of this music snob.
You can find the Kennett Symphony Orchestra at https://kennettsymphony.org/.
About Sally Denk Hoey
Sally Denk Hoey, is a Gemini - one part music and one part history. She holds a masters degree cum laude from the School of Music at West Chester University. She taught 14 years in both public and private school. Her CD "Bard of the Brandywine" was critically received during her almost 30 years as a folk singer. She currently cantors masses at St Agnes Church in West Chester where she also performs with the select Motet Choir. A recognized historian, Sally serves as a judge-captain for the south-east Pennsylvania regionals of the National History Day Competition. She has served as president of the Brandywine Battlefield Park Associates as well as the Sanderson Museum in Chadds Ford where she now curates the violin collection. Sally re-enacted with the 43rd Regiment of Foot and the 2nd Pennsylvania Regiment for 19 years where she interpreted the role of a campfollower at encampments in Valley Forge, Williamsburg, Va., Monmouth, N.J. and Lexington and Concord, Mass. Sally is married to her college classmate, Thomas Hoey, otherwise known as "Mr. Sousa.”
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