Review: SPCO Musician Appreciation Concert

01 March 2025

The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra hosted its Seventh Annual Musician Appreciation Concert at the Ordway Center for Performing Arts. A quick chat with staff helped describe this unique event, where all proceeds for the evening go directly to the musicians of the Chamber Orchestra, a decidedly pro-worker stance. It’s also a great reminder of the rarity of the fact that the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra does not have a conductor, but is artist led. In a clever bit of whimsy, the printed program set the evening up as a musical dinner menu, starting with antipasti and working through the meal to the dolce.

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The final number before intermission was Henryk Wieniawski’s Scherzo-tarantelle [...] This featured viola player Lisa Sung and was a vibrant and complicated number. The stylistic runs highlighted Sung’s outstanding capabilities and the rest of the strings get their moments of support. Given the night’s focus on appreciating the musicians, this was an inspired choice and the audience burst into a standing ovation at its conclusion.