Piedmont Symphony Has Plenty to Celebrate

Piedmont Symphony Has Plenty to Celebrate

By Leonard Shapiro

The Piedmont Symphony Orchestra celebrated its 25th anniversary season in 2022, and there will be far more to celebrate in this, its upcoming 26th year of providing superb high-quality concerts every time they take the stage.

Glenn Quader, conductor and director of music for the Piedmont Symphony Orchestra

After all, face masks and proof of vaccination for Covid no longer will be necessary, either for the audience or the musicians. Wind instruments no longer will have to be totally sidelined, as they were for many months, nor will they be relegated to playing in an alcove away from the rest of the orchestra, as they were for several rehearsals at Buchanan Hall in Upperville last year.

When the orchestra does rehearse, they won’t have to stop after the first 30 minutes, leave the building to air it out, then come back 15 minutes later to continue preparations.

Best of all they’ll be performing again in front of live audiences at their home base at Warrenton’s Highland School Michael A. Hughes Performing Center with a full season of five concerts. The first will be at a different venue when the PSO and The Reston Chorale present: “Bohemian Rhapsody: The Music of Queen” Sunday, Oct. 23 at 4 p.m. at the Capital One Hall in Tysons, Virginia.

Despite all those recent roadblocks, the PSO still was able to make sweet music on a regular basis during the pandemic. Instead of live concerts, they performed for audiences watching and listening on their computers.

Upcoming concerts will remain available via streaming, but musical director and conductor Glenn Quader and PSO Board president Ernie Hueter hope audiences will return to get their music live, up close and personal. They’re also trying to attract new patrons and sponsors for what promises to be a spectacular season.

“We had a lot of challenges the last couple of years,” Hueter said. “Dealing with masks, keeping the orchestra together. Some of our artists were performing from home and we were showing it on our web site, too. When we did finally have live concerts, people were concerned about returning because of Covid.”

Said Quader, “the video helped us a lot. We did a lot of it at Buchanan Hall (in Upperville), a great venue acoustically and visually. Last year, we were able to get the wind instruments and percussion back in, and by the end of last season the masks came off. It’s started to feel like we were really performing again.”

In addition to his wonderful work with the PSO, Quader also is involved with several other area orchestras that encountered similar problems. Some musicians declined to be vaccinated “and just checked out,” he said. “This year is different. A lot of my colleagues do this as freelancers and they’re now back in the saddle and able to make a living.”

One of the PSO’s missions also involves outreach to local schools. That also was curtailed over the last two years. Previously, orchestra members visited schools to work with aspiring young musicians and their teachers. Quader is in the process of reconnecting. It’s been a bit complicated because all but two of those Fauquier music teachers are new to the system.

The orchestra is now inviting students to sit in on rehearsals at Highland and play with them on stage, a process that also will accelerate this year.

And there’s also a push to get more young people to attend concerts. The good news there: anyone under 18 gets in free, another reason to celebrate the upcoming 26th year of the PSO.