SSO to Produce Six Concerts for 2022-23 Season

SPRINGFIELD — The Springfield Symphony Orchestra (SSO) announced it will produce a 2022-23 season that will include at least six concerts at Symphony Hall, and that tickets are now on sale for the first of two spring concerts to be held on Friday, April 22 at 7:30 p.m.

SSO interim Director Paul Lambert said the SSO is planning a season of at least six concerts at Symphony Hall. Performances are being scheduled while the SSO and the musicians’ union continue contract negotiations.

Lambert said tickets for the SSO’s first of two spring concerts, “Of Heroes and Poets,” are now on sale to the public. Tickets for the April 22 concert, featuring Cuban-American cellist Thomas Mesa, can be purchased at www.springfieldsymphony.org/event/of-heroes-and-poets or by calling the SSO box office at (413) 733-2291. The box office is open Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Tickets for the SSO’s May 13 concert, “Dances of Spring,” are also on sale on the SSO website. More details about that concert will be forthcoming.

Mesa, the featured visiting artist on April 22, is a musician affiliated with the Detroit-based Sphinx organization. Focused on increasing representation of black and Latinx artists in classical music, Sphinx is a social-justice organization dedicated to transforming lives through the power of diversity in the arts. Mesa will perform Antonin Dvorak’s Cello Concerto. The symphony will also present William Grant Still’s Danzas de Panama and Robert Schumann’s Symphony #2.

Mesa has received numerous awards and recognitions and has appeared as a soloist with orchestras in the U.S. and Mexico, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, Santa Barbara Symphony, Southwest Florida Symphony Orchestra, and the Cleveland Orchestra.

Mark Russell Smith, who previously served as music director and conductor of the SSO from 1995 to 2000, will serve as guest conductor for both the April 22 and May 13 concerts. Smith is music director and conductor of the Quad City Symphony Orchestra. He has worked as director of New Music Projects for the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and artistic director of Orchestral Studies at the University of Minnesota, and has also served as music director for the Richmond Symphony Orchestra and Cheyenne Symphony Orchestra.