Bruce Sorrell, music director and conductor of the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra

Spring in Kansas City is a feast for the senses. The flowers with their sweet perfume mixing with the ozonic fragrance of spring rain is intoxicating. 

Along with the beautiful sights and smells, the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra always provides the soundtrack.

The orchestra conducted by Bruce Sorell will present its annual spring concert at 7:30 p.m. May 1 at Country Club Christian Church. Spring Glories features the Serenade for Strings by Samuel Barber, The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring and a Nordic Suite arranged by the Danish String Quartet.

This is the 38th season for the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra, founded by its artistic director Bruce Sorrell, while he was still in school, after he finished his post-graduate studies.

“I had done my graduate work at SMU (Southern Methodist University) with the great conductor Anshel Brusilow, who was a fabulous violinist as well,” Sorrell said. “He was concert master of the Philadelphia Orchestra in part of the Ormandy years. So that was really terrific. And then I went to London and was studying and thinking what's the next step going be.”

Sorrell had the idea that Kansas City didn’t have a chamber orchestra, and, lo and behold, that’s how the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra was born.

“I hadn't anticipated returning to the Midwest at that point in my life,” Sorrell said. “It's been a great several decades now.”

Kansas City needed a chamber orchestra to fill in an important gap. The Kansas City Symphony is a big orchestra that does big pieces, but there's so much wonderful repertoire for chamber orchestras that is begging to be heard.

Spring Glories is an example of music perfect for a chamber orchestra. Appalachian Spring, the centerpiece of the program, is often performed by a large orchestra, but it sounds completely fresh and new when performed by a chamber orchestra. In fact, it was originally scored for a 13-piece chamber orchestra for Martha Graham’s original ballet.

“It's brilliantly economical and evocative, and the sounds, the instrumentation, it's all just delightful,” Sorrell said. There's no question why it is a masterpiece. When he orchestrated it for full orchestra, it's equally delightful. But we're going to perform the original 13-instrument version.”

Excerpt from the original ballet Appalachian Spring choreographed by Martha Graham.

Another American master on the program is Samuel Barber. He’s best known for his mournful Adagio for Strings, featured in the films The Elephant Man and Platoon and was played at the funerals of Albert Einstein, John F. Kennedy and other notables. On this program, however, his lesser known Serenade for Strings will be performed.

“It behooves us to hear more of his pieces outside besides the Adagio,” Sorrell said. “Like the Adagio, the Serenade was written for string quartet, and it's actually his Opus One. He was an older teenager when he wrote it. Barber is a great composer and one we should hear more of. This is a way to to do that. Let's explore and learn a little more about him. This is the only piece in the concert that we have not played before, and I’m looking forward to getting into it and sharing it with the audience.”

Samuel Barber

Birds are a perennial symbol of spring, so Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending is a perfect work to welcome the season. This haunting “romance,” as Vaughan Williams called it, was inspired by a poem of the same name by the English novelist and poet George Meredith. Vaughan Williams wrote out twelve lines from the poem at the top of the score:

He rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound,
Of many links without a break,
In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake.

For singing till his heaven fills,
'Tis love of earth that he instils,
And ever winging up and up,
Our valley is his golden cup
And he the wine which overflows
to lift us with him as he goes.

Till lost on his aerial rings
In light, and then the fancy sings.

Originally written for violin and piano, Sorrell, of course, will conduct the version for violin and orchestra. The violin soloist is Rena Ishii, who is also a violinist with the Kansas City Symphony.

“Vaughan Williams captures the sort of modal, interesting melodic textures and scales we associate with Renaissance madrigals,” Sorrell said. “The work feels very very calming and peaceful and it’s very evocative of the English countryside by capturing this bird soaring up high. I've only ever performed this piece one other time and it hasn’t been for a number of years.”

Sorrell is noted for his attention to detail, and this concert is a perfect example. Sorrell is hiring a percussionist just to play the triangle in The Lark Ascending.

“When you think of the piece, you think of strings and winds, but then there's a triangle part,” Sorrell said. “As a conductor and somebody who's watching the budget, I look at the score and think it's not a difficult triangle part. But I'm not going to do it. I said, hire a professional, please. There are lots of great percussionists in Kansas City. That's the only thing the person will have to play on the concert.”

Ralph Vaughan Williams

George Meredith

Danish String Quartet

Rena Ishii

One of the things that makes Sorrell’s programming so fascinating is that he will put together a concert that features beloved works like Appalachian Spring and The Lark Ascending and then add a rarity, perhaps a new composition or a work that has been lost to time. But the piece is always appropriate and always complements the other works on the program. In this case, the work is the Nordic Suite arranged by the Danish String Quartet.

The Danish String Quartet first performed at the Copenhagen Summer Festival in 2002, and have since exploded in popularity winning many international awards. Their performances are often informed by Scandinavian folk traditions, and even, sometimes, use the traditional Norwegian hardanger fiddle. 

“In my work in Tulsa as Executive Director of Chamber Music, Tulsa, we've had the Danish String Quartet in at least three times since I've been there,” Sorrell said. “They're an incredible group. They’ve done a whole set of folk music they’ve arranged for string quartet. The ones we’re doing they’ve arranged for string orchestra. They’ve done a fantastic job arranging this wonderfully evocative Scandinavian folk music. Audiences just eat it up.”

Hardanger fiddle

Spring is, indeed, a glorious season, and Sorrell and the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra have captured its quintessence. Enjoy the blooming flowers, the green bursting forth everywhere and nature’s heavenly perfume, and don’t forget the musical Spring Glories.

7:30 p.m. May 1. Country Club Christian Church, 6101 Ward Pkwy, Kansas City, MO. kcchamberorchestra.org, 816-960-1324.

Tickets available at  https://KCCOSpringGloriestickets.eventbrite.com or

Bruce Sorrell conducting the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra