Connecticut Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra Announces 2021-22 Season

By Chris Ruel

The Connecticut Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra has announced its 2021-22 season featuring music by Mozart, Caccini, Puccini, and others in a diverse program featuring standard repertoire favorites and new music celebrating the stories of immigrants.

Performances will take place in a variety of venues and these are noted in the season listing that follows. COVID-19 protocols will be in place for all concerts and productions and will reflect the most current guidance.

Here’s what the Orchestra has in store for audiences.

Mozart’s beautifully haunting “Requiem,” featuring the Cathedral of Saint Joseph Choir and Soloists, will perform the work in memory of the millions who lost their lives to COVID-19.

Performance Date: Nov. 1, 2021 at the Cathedral of Saint Joseph in Hartford.

Next up is Francesca Caccini’sLa liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina.” Caccini’s “Liberazione di Ruggiero” premiered in 1625, just 25 years after Peri’s “Dafne,” establishing the composer as the first female to pen an opera. Alan Mann directs this fully staged production with Connecticut Lyric Opera. The presentation of the work is in association with Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art’s exhibition, “By Her Hand: Artemisia Gentileschi and Women Artists in Italy, 1500–1800.”

Performance Dates: Nov. 5, 2021 at Trinity-on-Main Arts Center in New Britain & Nov. 7, 2021 at Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford.

The Orchestra teams up once more with Connecticut Lyric Opera to present Puccini’s beloved tale of tragic love, “La Bohème,” in this production directed by Jan Mason.

Performance Date: Nov. 20, 2021 at Santo Fragilio Performing Arts Center at Middletown High School in Middletown.

For the holidays, the Orchestra will serve up its Annual Polish Christmas Concert, featuring the Moniuszko Choir of New Britain. Christmas carols and composer Ignacy Jan Paderewski’s “Fantaisie-Polonaise” are on the program.

Performance Date: Date and location to be announced.

Johann Strauss II’s operetta “Die Fledermaus,” flitters in to close out December and usher in 2022 with this Jan Mason-directed production with Connecticut Lyric Opera.

Performance Dates: Dec. 26, 2021 at Trinity-on-Main Arts Center in New Britain & Dec. 30, 2021 at The Bushnell Performing Arts Center in Hartford. The company will hold additional performances in Middletown and New London in January, 2022.

A Mini Bach Festival is slated for February, and will showcase three works by the composer: “Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C major, BWV 1066”, “Kunst Der Fuge” (Selections), and “Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B minor, BWV 1067”.

Performance Date: Feb. 24, 2022 at First Presbyterian Church in Hartford.

The Orchestra’s spring opens with a special collaboration celebrating immigrants’ stories with The New Britain Museum of American Art. “We the People” – Immigrant’s Stories, Part 1, will feature spoken word and art, along with the premiere of Italian-American composer Ernesto Ferreri’s String Symphony, and Octet for Chamber Orchestra. Also on the program is Italian composer Niccolo Paganini’s “Campanella, Respighi: Il Tramonto, Ancient Airs and Dances, Suite III”.

Performance Dates: April 1, 2022 at First Presbyterian Church in Hartford & April 10, 2021 at The New Britain Museum of American Art

Verdi’s hit, “Otello,” kicks off the Orchestra’s spring, with Connecticut Lyric Opera’s fully staged production of the composer’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s play.

Performance Dates: April 22, 2022 at Trinity-on-Main Arts Center in New Britain & April 30, 2021 at The Bushnell Performing Arts Center in Hartford. The company will hold additional performances in Middletown and New London in May, 2022.

In June the season closes with “We the People” – Immigrant’s Stories, Part 2. The Orchestra once more collaborates with The New Britain Museum of American Art to present world premiere music by Jewish/Russian/American composer and jazz pianist Alex Nakhimovsky. Prokofiev’s Symphony No.1 op. 25Classical”, Mahler’s “Adagio” from Symphony No. 2, Rachmaninoff’s “Vocalise”, and Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony op. 83a, are also on the program.

Performance Dates: June 9, 2022 at First Presbyterian Church in Hartford & June 12, 2021 at The New Britain Museum of American Art

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