Marin County audiences lost a fine season of music planned by the Marin Symphony last year. But the good news is that some of that season is being salvaged as the orchestra comes back for its 70th year, a 2021–2022 season of four concerts of beloved classics combined with a few modern American pieces to keep things interesting. The orchestra, in its home at the Marin Center Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium, also presents two “pops” programs, a kid’s concert, and a holiday choral concert.
Beginning with Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto, with Orli Shaham as soloist, and Brahms’s First Symphony to follow (Nov. 6, 7), and continuing with Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, with Joyce Yang, coupled with Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements (Jan. 9, 30), the orchestra plays to their base. In addition, the superb Vadim Gluzman plays Beethoven’s Violin Concerto on a concert anchored by another massive work, Camille Saint-Saëns’s Symphony No. 3, the “Organ” (March 5, 6, 2022). Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana finishes off the subscription season (April 23, 24).
The planning gets a bit more adventurous with the table-setting works for these concerts: Jessie Montgomery’s Banner (2014), Jennifer Higdon’s blue cathedral (2000), Anna Clyne’s Masquerade (2013), and Mason Bates’s Liquid Interface (2007), giving Marin audiences a taste of four highly successful contemporary composers at their crowd-pleasing best. If the aim is to get the audience back in the hall, this season, with these soloists, should do that, and with any luck, the renewed support will keep the orchestra healthy for years to come.
