Stephen Marc Beaudoin takes a look at this year’s OSO programming, and he doesn’t like much of what he sees.  Here’s a brief sample:

The Oregon Symphony is playing fifteen Classical Series concerts this season. Five of the programs are terrible. I will hasten to add that an additional two of them are mediocre.

Of the fifteen, I find but three of them to be really inspired and hey, three out of fifteen is a good place to start, Oregon Symphony. The rest I could take or leave (but won’t attend). So on the whole, I find more than half of the Symphony’s Classical Series concerts to be utterly and thoroughly uncompelling. I’m sorry, more than uncompelling: dead on arrival. (Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart and Tchaik make a number of appearances)

Read the complete post here.

It’s one of those posts that have me straddling the fence - I’m not so much opposed to the content as in the way it is presented.  I do have to say that I’m shocked that anyone would hate the Brahms Violin Concerto so much, but it is possible that Anne Midgette has made anti-Brahms sentiment the critical default mode.

Part of the puzzle of putting together programs is that to get a “name” artist, you have to book several seasons ahead.  At that time, there is often no repertoire attached to the artist - you don’t know exactly what the artist will have on offer until maybe a year ahead of time.  So, while Josh Bell could play Corigliano or Bernstein, he wasn’t offering those pieces this year, so we got Mendelssohn.

What you see this year is programming that is trying to tread a delicate balance between being stimulating for the cognoscenti and at the same time having no small amount of populist appeal (i.e., butts in seats).

The Oregon Symphony has a cool new promotion that they’re kicking off this week - it might be of interest to many of you in the area:

The concerts you want - when you want them. Pick 3 or more concerts from our exciting season for just $33 each! Choose your night, choose your concert, choose how many seats – all allowing you maximum creativity and flexibility, along with all the great perks that come with subscribing†. The only question is: Which 3 concerts will you attend?

†A great perk of subscribing is the ability to exchange your tickets if you have a schedule conflict. For this special rate subscriber exchanges are limited to the programs within this offer only.

There’s a good selection of concerts available to choose from, including the Brahms Violin Concerto, Jun Iwasaki’s concerto debut with the OSO, and more.

You can make your own series online by visiting http://www.orsymphony.org/cyo.

This offer ends October 17th.