On Saturday night, Maestro James Sinclair plans to look out over the musicians of Orchestra New England, raise his baton, and cue in Charles Ives and Joseph Haydn—a familiar, now-beloved ritual in almost 50 years of concerts. In return, musicians will lift their instruments, take a beat, and ring in New Haven music history.
Sinclair is the music director at Orchestra New England, which will have its 50th anniversary in New Haven next March. On Saturday evening, it will celebrate its 800th concert with a performance at the Unitarian Society of New Haven, located at 700 Hartford Turnpike in Hamden. Tickets and more information are available here.
"It's a point of pride," he said in a recent short interview for "Arts Respond" on WNHH Community Radio. "There are very few orchestras that have played that many concerts in their years."
Orchestra New England was born in March 1974, which marked the 100th anniversary of Charles Ives' birth in Danbury, Conn. At the time, Sinclair had been living in New Haven for just two years, as director of the Yale Symphony Orchestra and and assistant professor and visiting lecturer in music at Yale. He wanted to find a way to honor Ives' career, he said, "playing music that no one had heard."
In March of 1974, the orchestra premiered 14 of Ives' works. It landed them a recording deal with what is now Sony Records.
"It was a huge hit," Sinclair recalled of the show. The students in the orchestra, who had never signed up to stay on, asked if they could keep playing together. Orchestra New England was formally born.
For Sinclair, there was never a plan to keep it going for five decades and 800 concerts. But something about Ives' music, with which he described himself as "smitten," kept audiences coming back. As the orchestra grew, members performed across Connecticut, then across the Tri-State area, then down the Northeast Corridor as far as Washington, D.C.
They folded in a "Colonial Concert" each fall, and at their peak were performing 55 concerts a year. Some musicians, who attended Yale and then left New Haven, still return to play with the orchestra each year.
"We get excited about playing together, we celebrate together, we have fun together," Sinclair said, nodding to the principal cellist, who still flies in from Florida. "The rehearsals are focused on the music but there's also fun ... Players are so dedicated to each other because they don't want to miss making music together."
As he was building the program for Saturday's concert, he gravitated toward Haydn's "Mercury" symphony because it was one that the group had not yet performed. Then he selected Ives' "The Camp Meeting," a nod to the composer's father that transports a listener to the early 20th century. The work later won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1947. From concert regulars to newcomers, he said, he's excited to welcome attendees into the space.
"You sit closer, and you hear better, and it's a number of short movements and such, and you get involved," he said. "I talk to an audience, I give them a program note, I give them a way to focus and enjoy the music. It's a very friendly environment, and the players ... exude a certain joy that just envelops an audience. So I think it's one of your best classical music experiences."
For the full interview, including a discussion of Orchestra New England's work during the pandemic, listen to the audio above. Thank you to our community partners at WNHH Community Radio for hosting "Arts Respond!"
