Sault Symphony to perform Broadway favourites this month

The Sault Symphony Orchestra will present On Broadway as its final performance of the 2023-24 concert season beginning at 2 p.m. Sunday, May 12 at The Machine Shop.

The orchestra typically performs one light programme each concert season.

“Broadway’s lighter but it’s not lightweight. There’s a lot of really great stuff on Broadway. That’s why we chose it and our library has a pretty good collection of Broadway music so we’ve gone with that,” said Stephen Mallinger, Sault Symphony Orchestra’s artistic director and conductor, in an interview with SooToday. 

“They’re all really strong,” Mallinger said of the songs on the show’s programme.

“Porgy and Bess is incredible music and this is a really great arrangement, so that stands out for me. Fiddler on the Roof is going to be very powerful. We’ve got Aaron Fisher who sang the lead role with the Musical Comedy Guild’s production of it last fall and my wife Anya plays the famous violin solo at the beginning. And, I like the old chestnuts from Rodgers and Hammerstein.”

The show includes a short sampling of Swedish supergroup ABBA’s material, including Dancing Queen, Mamma Mia and I Have A Dream.

“One that I like a lot is Can You Feel the Love Tonight. I wrote that arrangement and my friend Michael Connell plays the piano and he’s going to sing it, and he sounds great. He sings it really well. We’ve also got a young girl named Elise Hopper singing Where Is Love? from Oliver!” Mallinger added. 

The orchestra’s 2023-24 concert season has been well attended and well supported, Mallinger said.

“This has been a great season. We had a lot of success with The Nutcracker in December in particular. We had a great turnout for that. The orchestra has really gelled because we’ve had stable membership for several years now and we’re really playing well together. The audiences have been really enthusiastic about where we’re going as an orchestra.”

The May 12 performance will include the orchestra’s usual 40-member group but will also feature extra brass instrument musicians to give the show a strong Broadway sound, Mallinger said.

The orchestra is planning its 2024-25 concert season that will include a performance entitled Time Travels including Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 and Sinfonia Concertante by Mozart. 

The On Broadway programme follows: 

• A Salute to the Big Apple, arranged by Calvin Custer
• Porgy and Bess, George and Ira Gershwin, Dorothy and DuBose Heyward
• Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better), Irving Berlin
• If I Loved You (Carousel), Oscar Hammerstein and Richard Rodgers
• The King and I, Oscar Hammerstein and Richard Rodgers
• Oliver!, Lionel Bart

Intermission

• Fiddler on the Roof, Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock
• The Best of ABBA, arranged by Ted Ricketts
• The Phantom of the Opera, Andrew Lloyd Webber
• Can You Feel the Love Tonight, Tim Rice and Elton John
• Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda
• Wicked, Stephen Schwartz

Tickets for On Broadway are available through the Sault Symphony Orchestra website and the Sault Community Theatre Centre website.

Tickets are $50 for adults and seniors, $30 for students 13 to 18 years of age, free admission for those 12 and under.

Prior to On Broadway, the Sault Symphony Orchestra will host another Mini Maestros event at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, May 11 at St. Andrew’s United Church, 712 Wellington St. E.

“The last Mini Maestros at St. Andrew’s in February was completely packed. It was standing room only,” Mallinger said. 

The orchestra’s Mini Maestros events are for children to enjoy and be introduced to orchestral music in a more informal environment. Mini Maestros performances have had attendees as young as four weeks old up to 15 years of age.

Admission to Mini Maestros is free.