Sarah Adam, pianist and singer, practices her piano skills on Feb. 16, 2021.
The Lethbridge Symphony is an orchestra located in Lethbridge, Alta. The symphony plays a wide range of repertoire, which includes Beethoven, Bach, Mozart and many others.
The Lethbridge Symphony was started in 1961, which means this year it’s celebrating 60 years of providing music to Lethbridge and the surrounding area. Vicki Hegedus, the executive director, says they plan to celebrate by playing 60 years worth of music.
“We’re going to take some music from each of the decades that the Symphony has been around. Because the Symphony was started in 1961, we’re going to choose some movie music from the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s, early 2000s and then 2010 to 2020.”
Hegedus says it’s going to be a great performance.
Due to COVID-19, the symphony decided to cancel the 2020-2021 season. Hegedus says it was very disappointing for people, but they ultimately made the right decision.
“That was pretty disappointing for people, but we knew that we really didn’t have a choice and we needed to keep our patrons safe. It was the right thing too because then after that we’ve, you know, we’ve had other lockdowns. We’ve had limits to how many people can gather indoors or outdoors, we’ve had limits on not only how many people can gather, but how close together people can sit?” she questioned.
Throughout the pandemic, the symphony has received donations from their patrons, which they’re very grateful for.
“They have helped us immensely because as you can imagine, being shut down, budget and funding has been a real issue. So, it’s taken a lot of support and donations from our patrons to help us get through this year and we want to celebrate that too,” said Hegedus.
Glenn Klassen has been the Music Director of the symphony for 17 years. His favourite part about being the music director is he gets the opportunity to grow the symphony.
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“I think one of the things that I have enjoyed most of all my time here is working at growing the organization and by that, I mean both artistically, in terms of the budget and in terms of growing the community that we reach and also in our partnerships.”
One of its partnerships is with the University of Lethbridge, specifically with its bachelor of music program. Hegedus says the University of Lethbridge has a good fine arts department and great professors.
“So, its bachelor of music has fantastic professors and a lot of the students who are there have to participate in it as part of their studies.”
Klassen finds partnerships to be special because it’s something that has to be done with multiple people, it can’t be achieved alone. He adds that friendships and relationships can also come out of partnerships.
According to Klassen, one of the great parts about being part of the symphony is making music.
“It isn’t instruments making the music, it’s the people who are behind the instruments that are making the music and I think that’s one of the really great things about playing in a Symphony Orchestra.”
Some of the most memorable songs the symphony has played are Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Carmina Burana, Gustav Holst: The Planets and Shostakovich Symphony #5.
When asked about his favourite performance the symphony has put on, Klassen said it was Carmina Burana. The performance had around 300 performers participate in it and they were all local musicians.
The groups involved in that performance were Vox Musica, the Chinook Chamber Singers, the University of Lethbridge singers and High School choirs.
If it can reopen for the next season, Hegedus says the symphony has a lot of great plans.
“We’ve got a program that brings in local professional musicians, we are coordinating with some fabulous guests which is really exciting for us. One of our concerts will be the movie, you know the six decades of movie music to go along with our 60th anniversary.”
