A community orchestra in Concord, Massachusetts

The members of the Concord Orchestra are amateurs led by Richard Pittman in challenging and exciting programs. I am second horn, librarian, and a former Managing Board member.

The season is generally as follows:

• Symphonic concerts in October, January, March
• Family concert the first Sunday in December
• Pops concerts two weekends in May
• Concerts at 51 Walden Street (sometimes at Sunbridge Auditorium)
• Rehearsals on Tuesday evenings, 7:30 - 10:15, Sept - May

51 Walden Street, Friends of the Performing Arts, where the orchestra rehearses and performs. It was originally a veterans building. Soldiers going off to the Spanish-American war left from this building.

Dick Pittman and his wife, Lore, are given a ride in a vintage taxi owned by a member of the Model A Ford Club that attended a Concord Orchestra Pops concert in May 2001. This photo appeared was taken by Richard Cass, a violinist in the orchestra. A similar photo appeared in the Concord Journal.

The 2001-2002 season includes the following works:

• Tchaikovsky - Romeo and Juliet
• Lutoslawski - Symphony No. 4
• Strauss - Till Eulenspiegel
• Haydn - Symphony No. 100
• Schubert - Symphony No. 3
• Bartok - Concerto for Orchestra

Past seasons have included the following works (not a complete list):

• John Adams - Short Ride in a Fast Machine, Chairman Dances
• Barber - School for Scandal, Knoxville Summer of 1915, Violin Concerto
• Bartok - Violin Concerto #2, Viola Concerto, Deux Images
• Beethoven - Symphonies 4, 5, 7, 9, Overtures Fidelio, Leonore 1, 3, Piano Concerto 3
• Berlioz - Symphonie Fantastique, Rob Roy Overture, Beatrice & Benedict Overture, King Lear Suite
• Bernstein - West Side Story, Candide Overture
• Brahms - Symphonies 1, 2, 4, Piano Concerto 2
• Bruckner - Symphony 9
• Busoni - Piano Concerto, Lustspiel
• Copland - El Salon Mexico, Appalachian Spring, Fanfare for the Common Man, Old American Songs, Red Pony
• Debussy - Pealleas et Melisande (complete), La Mer, Prelude to Afternoon of a Faun, Iberia
• Dvorak - Symphonies 8, 9, Noon Witch, In Nature's Realm, Waldesruhe, Heirs of the White Mountain
• Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue, Concerto in F, American in Paris
• Morton Gould - American Symphonietta, American Salute, Tropical
• Harbison - Remembering Gatsby
• Haydn - Symphonies 88, 92, 99
• Bernard Hoffer - Piano Concerto (premiere), Fanfare, Adagio & Dance, Concord Rag
• Humperdink - complete Hanzel & Gretel
• Ives - Three Places in New England, Decoration Day, Variations on America
• Janacek - Sinfonietta, Jealousy
• Mahler - Symphonies 3, 4, 5, 6
• McCabe - Concerto for Orchestra
• Mozart - Symphonies 36, Violin Concertos 3, 5, Piano Concertos 20, 24, Don Giovanni Overture, Cosi fan tutte Overture
• Prokoviev - Symphony 5, Love of Three Oranges, Peter and the Wolf,
• Ravel - La Valse, Don Quichotte a Dulcinee, Mother Goose Suite
• Respighi - Fountains of Rome
• Rossini - William Tell Overture, La Gazza Ladra Overture
• Schumann - Symphonies 1, 2, 3, 4
• Schubert - Symphonies 5, 8, 9
• Shostakovich - Symphonies 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, Six Poems
• Grant Still - Danzas de Panama
• Strauss - Don Juan, Ein Heldenleben, Death & Transfiguration
• Stravinsky - Rite of Spring, Symphony in C, Chant du Rossignol
• Tchaikovsky - Symphonies 1, 4, 6, Swan Lake Suite
• Verdi - A Masked Ball, Macbeth, La Traviatta, Rigoletto (all complete)
• Wagner - Siegfried's Rhine Journey, Immolation Scene, Ride of the Walkyries, Rienzi, Flying Dutchman

The orchestra toured central Europe (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, and Hungary, playing concerts in Brno, the Haydn Hall at Esterhazy, Budpest, a palace near Brno, and Prague) in 1998 and is planning another tour in 2003. The program for the 1998 tour included Dvorak Symphony No. 8, Morton Gould's Symphonietta No. 2, and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue with Randall Hodgkinson.

The Concord Orchestra with piano soloist Randall Hodgkinson in the church of Saints Simon and Juda in Prague at the conclusion of the 1998 tour of Central Europe. The photo was taken by Robert Pittman (Dick's son) with Richard and Linda Cass's film. Bill Moran and Richard Cass made the photo into a digital image when they were both working at Iris Graphics, using Robert's negative and the high end scanners at Iris.

Concord Orchestra Home Page