After 10 years anchored at the 1,300-seat Glad Tidings Church, the Sudbury Symphony Orchestra is "breaking out and spreading around a little bit," says executive director Jennifer McGillivray.
For its upcoming 2017-2018 season, the symphony will mount performances in not one, but three prominent venues in Greater Sudbury.
It's sparked by a diversification of the symphony's programming, egged on by a change in audience demographics and habits.
"Fewer and fewer people are subscribing, we're getting more and more young people in, and this is really a good thing," said McGillivray. "Unfortunately, it's resulted often in Glad Tidings only being half-full, which means that we find ourselves spending money that we should be spending creating great art and hiring great artists instead of using it on a venue that's outsized for us."
Glad Tidings will host just one symphony performance next season: Humperdinck's family-friendly opera "Hansel and Gretel" on Nov. 25, the third opera the company has produced in as many years.
Beyond that, McGillivray has tapped two other well-known venues: The 550-seat All Nations Church near downtown and the 660-seat Fraser Auditorium at Laurentian University.
McGillivray said the upcoming season's programming plays to each venue's strengths.
"If you want to see a mainstage symphonic concert, it's right there for you at Fraser Auditorium," said McGillivray. "If you're more interested in chamber music, the space at All Nations is absolutely gorgeous and it has a fantastic acoustics just right for those types of events."
The All Nations Church will host a pair of chamber concerts — classical shows played by a small group of instruments compared to the full orchestra. The Fraser Auditorium shoulders the bulk of the season, hosting four concerts including a "Best of Broadway" revue on Oct. 14 and the company's first piano concerto, "From Russia with Love", on April 21, 2018.
Despite mixing locations, McGillivray says ticket prices will be consistent across all concerts, with premium seating available at both Glad Tidings and the Fraser.
McGillivray says the move is part of offering a more customizable experience to audiences in the coming season.
"What I really want to focus on is that each and every one of these venues will give people a new opportunity to experience the symphony in a new and better way," said McGillivray. "It's really about moving into spaces that will best-suit the kind of performances that we are doing.
"One of the advantages the Fraser has is an absolutely beautiful piano. That means we'll be able to do our first piano concerto. Glad Tidings is a wonderful acoustic space and it's very large. And the All Nations Church, which is more intimate and has a different-sized stage, is absolutely perfect for chamber music, which has a much more intimate, close-up feel."
While McGillivray expects some challenges as the symphony navigates the season ahead, she maintains it's all about moving forward.
"I can promise you that your Sudbury Symphony Orchestra is still growing," said McGillivray. "We're still here. We're really, really excited about these changes that are coming up and we promise that this will be the most engaging season we've presented to-date. "
The Sudbury Symphony Orchestra will officially launch its 2017-18 season in the spring.
