Dear Longwood Symphony Orchestra Community,
As the seasons change outside my window, I am cozily watching this late winter finally bring this year to a close. For those of us in the orchestra, these silent rests from our rehearsals can only mean that we just crossed the halfway mark of our incredible 2025-2026 journey together! So far, this season has been full of wonderful music making!
In October, we celebrated our 3-year partnership with ProjectSTEP, culminating in a beautiful concert inspired by the friendship that we built together. We hosted masterclasses taught by our wonderful guest soloists Karla Donehew Perez and Paul Laraia, we shared our concert stage with several of ProjectSTEP's talented student musicians, and finished the evening with Edward Elgar's joyous Enigma Variations! While our formal partnership with ProjectSTEP may have concluded, the friendship between our organizations will certainly continue. Just last week, our musicians performed jolly holiday music with a few ProjectSTEP students at Boston Children's Hospital. It was such a gift to be able to share music with our community in this way.
Our December program was an especially eventful week for us - full of many LSO firsts! We hosted a week-long Boston residency for our guest soloist Joshua Roman for his Immunity Project. In various venues throughout the city, including Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, Joshua performed and shared his personal ongoing physical and mental health challenges, caused by long-COVID. Joshua also performed for us our very first LSO Well-Being Concert in partnership with Carnegie Hall. Of course, this was all in addition to his incredible performance of the Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto with the orchestra! Through his beautiful playing, Josh embodies such powerful musical healing. It was an honor to perform the concerto alongside him as we honored Tunefoolery and their mission of musical healing. Finally, Joshua's encore performance of The Swan (also by Saint-Saëns) led so wonderfully into our magical performance of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake! A week full of memories and a concert full of chills!!!
Behind the scenes (and rehearsals), 2025 has been an exciting year of change for us. We welcomed both Executive Director Hannah Collins and Operations Manager Miguel Petris to our small-but-mighty team! Both Hannah and Miguel have been such wonderful partners in keeping the Orchestra of Boston's Healthcare Community sounding beautiful. But now, I am looking forward to all of the amazing work we will do together in 2026!
At this cold and silent halfway point of our season, I am warmed by all of our amazing musical memories and feel so grateful for being able to share my love for music with you all. Every concert we perform together, we are healing our community through music. With you and with our shared purpose, this is the most beautiful orchestra in the world.
I hope you all have a wonderfully warm holiday season. I am looking forward to even more awe-inspiring concerts with you for the second half of our season!
Cheers!
Jotaro Nakano, Music Director
Please enjoy this holiday message from the LSO featuring behind-the-scenes footage from our December 6th dress rehearsal with cellist Joshua Roman