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Euan Kerr

Former conductors returning for MN Orchestra's 2016-17 season

Sir Neville Marriner in 1979
Neville Marriner led the Minnesota Orchestra from 1979 to 1986.
Courtesy Minnesota Orchestra

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The Minnesota Orchestra will perform with a number of its former conductors during the 2016-17 season announced today.

Sir Neville Marriner, who led the orchestra from 1979 to 1986, will return, as will Conductor Laureate Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, who was music director from 1960 to 1979.

The orchestra's principal cellist, Tony Ross, said he's also excited by a third former conductor's visit.

"We have Edo de Waart coming back and doing the Elgar 'Dream of Gerontius,' which is an incredible work that rarely gets performed," he said. He added that he hopes the public's lack of familiarity with the piece doesn't keep people from attending, "because it's an incredible, beautiful, moving work."

Current Music Director Osmo Vanska will conduct 14 weeks of concerts during the season. As in recent years, the orchestra is also experimenting with presenting music in different ways and with smaller groups. The orchestra will accompany two movies live this year: "E.T." and "Ratatouille." It will also play with local poet and performer Dessa.

The orchestra also plans a tour to some of the Minnesota communities that have hosted the popular Common Chords program over the years. Ross says musicians made real connections with local people during those visits.

"We have relationships in those communities we've built," he said, "because those Common Chords weeks are where we kind of infiltrate the community for a week, and play at public schools, play at nursing homes, play at the Post Office, and then do a really big orchestra concert also."

The week-long tour will go to Grand Rapids, Bemidji and one other community to be announced later. The orchestra will also tour Florida communities in January, and then embark on a European tour in August 2017. Details of that tour will be released in coming weeks.