Symphony Gives Summer A Send-Off

FOR THE RECORD, August 30, 1996: Correction: Spokane’s park system was designed by the firm headed by the sons of Frederick Law Olmsted, landscape architect of New York’s Central Park. An article in Thursday’s IN Life credited the wrong person.

The Spokane Symphony’s Labor Day concert Monday at Comstock Park promises to be just another little family picnic. The “little family” does include an audience that may reach 10,000 or so, along with 75 musicians, two (maybe even three) conductors, truckloads of instruments, a portable band shell and cannons.

The symphony’s music director, Fabio Mechetti, will lead the orchestra in such favorites as Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever,” selections from Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” and music from the film “Mr. Holland’s Opus.”

Dave Broom, president of the symphony’s board of trustees, was the successful bidder for podium time at the 1996 WAMPUM auction. Broom will conduct Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance” March No. 1.

The cannons are reserved for the traditional bang-up ending to these Labor Day events, Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture.”

Jonathan Martin, the symphony’s executive director, hints that “another conductor Spokane may be seeing more of next season may be in attendance Monday.” Martin would not reveal who the mystery conductor might be. It should be noted, however, that the orchestra recently appointed a new associate conductor, Jung Ho Pak. And the symphony must soon announce a successor to Randi Ellefson, who resigned this summer as chorusmaster of the Symphony Chorale to join the faculty of the University of Chicago.

The symphony has been playing free Labor Day concerts at Comstock Park for 11 years now, ever since then-music director Bruce Ferden was given a tour of Spokane’s parks and began to visualize a local combination of the summer band concerts he knew as a child in the Midwest and the concerts in New York’s Central Park he heard as a young assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic. Ferden was intrigued that Spokane’s park system was designed by the firm headed by Frederick Law Olmstead, the architect of Central Park.

Starting at 4 p.m., food and drink will be available for those who do not choose to bring their own. The music starts at 6 p.m.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Drawing

MEMO: See related story under the headline: Concert tips

This sidebar appeared with the story: CONCERT The Spokane Symphony will perform at 6 p.m. Monday at Comstock Park. Free.