Music

San Antonio Symphony returns to the stage Friday after almost a year off because of coronavirus pandemic

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After a nearly yearlong absence, the San Antonio Symphony returns to the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts this weekend for a pair of performances.

“We’re excited,” said Corey Cowart, the symphony’s executive director. “It’s been a very long time.”

The orchestra’s last performances were Feb. 21-22, 2020. The musicians were in rehearsals in March when shutdowns designed to stem the spread of the pandemic forced them to go dark.

The Friday and Saturday night concerts are the kickoff to a season that has been cut back to nine classical performances because of the pandemic. The original plan for the 2020-21 season held 13 classical performances starting last September.

The performances that will take place have been shaped by safety considerations.

This weekend’s program — featuring works by Haydn, George Walker, Tauský and Mozart — will run around an hour with no intermission, cutting back on the amount of time everyone is in the building.

San Antonio Symphony

When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday

Where: Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 100 Auditorium Circle

Tickets: Non-subscribers can get on the waiting list by emailing [email protected]


Musicians will be tested for the coronavirus, and string players and percussionists will play masked. The number of musicians onstage will be capped at 35, allowing them to spread out.

As announced in November, David Danzmayr will conduct, but London-based pianist Stephen Hough, who had been slated to play, will not. Booking guest artists, particularly those based outside the United States, is tricky right now because of the coronavirus, Cowart said.

“As quarantines in some places started ticking up and other engagements may have fallen through, it made less and less sense for guest artists to make it,” he said. “Stephen is a wonderful pianist. We’re looking forward to having him back in the future.”

The safety of the audience is another consideration that has been factored into plans for the concerts. The nearest listener will be about 20 feet from the musicians.

The Tobin Center’s COVID-19 protocols call for temperature screenings before anyone is admitted to the hall. Masks are required when people enter and any time they are away from their seats. In addition, a limited number of people will be permitted inside the restrooms and elevators at the same time.

And there will be far fewer people in the audience than usual: About 275 people will be socially distanced throughout the H-E-B Performance Hall. To put that in perspective, a typical symphony concert in the pre-pandemic era would have at least 1,000 subscribers in the audience, as well as hundreds of single-ticket buyers, Cowart said.

Because of the limited number of seats available, subscribers will have first dibs. Once as many subscribers as possible who want to attend have been accommodated, symphony staffers will start contacting people on a waiting list.

Even with all of the complications of producing a live event as safely as possible in this era, mapping out a season and preparing for musicians and patrons to share space again marks an important step toward normalcy, Cowart said.

“That is something that has been on pause from March until mid-December,” he said. “So it’s been refreshing.”

[email protected] | Twitter: @DeborahMartinEN

The San Antonio Symphony will perform at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the H-E-B Performance Hall of the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 100 Auditorium Circle. Seats will go to subscribers first; non-subscribers can be placed on a waiting list by emailing boxoffice@symphony. Info, sasymphony.org.

Read more at www.expressnews.com

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