The Kalamazoo Junior Symphony Orchestra performed a tribute concert honoring former music director Robert Ritsema, who led the orchestra for 22 years.
The program, titled “Remembering Robert Ritsema,” featured Beethoven’s Allegretto from Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E Minor, Kabalevsky’s Colas Breugnon Overture, and Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg Overture. The concert also included side-by-side performances with two of KJSO’s feeder ensembles: the Preparatory Concert String Orchestra performed J.S. Bach’s “Sheep May Safely Graze,” arranged by Sieving, and the Preparatory Symphonic String Orchestra performed Britten’s Sentimental Sarabande from Simple Symphony.
The Elgar concerto featured cellist Oliver Mar, the 2025 bronze medalist at the Stulberg International String Competition. Mar, 15, is a New Zealand-born cellist who studies at the Juilliard Pre-College program in New York. The Stulberg competition’s bronze medal traditionally includes a guest performance with KJSO.
Ritsema conducted KJSO from 1978 to 2001, one of only two conductors in the orchestra’s history to lead it for more than 20 years. He was also a longtime professor of cello and orchestra at Hope College. Andrew Koehler has served as KJSO’s music director since 2007.
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