The Rochester Philharmonic kicks off a new Thursday night and it will be a year of transition in a number of ways.
The RPO concerts Thursday and Saturday nights kick off a season with a number of guest conductors after the controversy earlier this year surrounding the firing of music director Arild Remmereit.
The orchestra management is still in the process of looking for a permanent replacement, but in the meantime they say they have a lineup of impressive guest conductors including this week's Mahler symphony conducted by German conductor Jun Märkl.
RPO Board Chair Dawn Lipson says season subscriptions are down a bit, with more people opting to buy tickets to single performances, and that she says, seems to be a nationwide trend.
"Communities change, people change, people change the way they consume entertainment and we're going to change the way we present that so that we have the maximum accessibility for the members of our community."
Lipson says this upcoming RPO season will feature some standard classical pieces that people may not have heard for a while as well as some less familiar works. Lipson says a big positive is that the orchestra is coming off its annual campaign which set an all-time record for the RPO for annual giving.
