The Hawaiʻi Symphony Orchestra has been through nearly two years of pandemic impacts and challenges. Because of this, President and CEO Dave Moss said they’re even more excited to begin a new season.
He added that listening to live music is like opening a bottle of wine – it’s always best when served with others.
“Hearing a live performance, it happens that way once, just that time with the people you’re in that hall with. Just like opening a bottle of wine, it’s the air, it’s how long the bottle has been sitting there,” he said. “It’s really that same experience that can’t be replicated in a movie theater or at home on the couch.”
HSO recently announced its concert lineup that runs from October through May. It includes popular returning series, such as the Halekulani Masterworks, HapaSymphony and “Peter and the Wolf” narrated in pidgin, ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi and English.
New this year is Beyond the Music. It’s an educational series that features stories from composers and musicians and how they all relate back to Hawaiʻi. HSO also recently ratified a new four-year contract with its musicians.
“We feel like it’s an arrival point for the symphony and really an opportunity to look forward as to what a symphony orchestra can do for a community,” Moss said. “It’s no longer about just attending performances but really ways that the symphony can be reflective of the community here.”
Moss said he doesn’t think that things “will ever be normal again.”
“And so at this juncture, I think it’s impossible for us to go back and try to recreate things,” he said. “I think what this season and what the stability of the past three years has given us is the opportunity to be incredibly creative and to maintain the fiscal stability that we have, to be artistically innovative, to try things.”
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Editor's note: The Hawaiʻi Symphony Orchestra is an HPR underwriter and arts partner. And HPR-2 broadcasts HSO concerts as part of its classical music programming.
