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André De Shields to host CT Orchestra Lumos' season opening performance

The Orchestra Lumos.
Tony Melone
The Orchestra Lumos.

Based in Connecticut’s Fairfield County, musical group Orchestra Lumos is set to begin their performance season this weekend with two creatively paired evenings that take the audience from the “depths of Hell, and back;” Orpheus Sings and Shakespeare in Love, showing Saturday and Sunday respectively at the Palace Theater in Stamford.

Ahead of the weekend, WSHU spoke with the orchestra’s music director, Michael Stern, to learn more. He was joined by Grammy, Tony, and Emmy-winner André De Shields, the original Hermes in Broadway’s Hadestown and the host of Orchestra Lumos’ Saturday performance.

WSHU: Michael, this season for Orchestra Lumos looks very different from an expected symphony lineup. You have hosts for your performances, hinting at a novel mixed-media experience. Tell me more.

MS: I believe passionately in music as a service. And what Orchestra Lumos is trying to do is expand not only the reach of the music that we play, but also to deepen the reason why we play it. We have this new idea this season to find these marvelous collaborators in various ways. André is here for this performance. So when I thought of fashioning this program, I was lucky enough to see Hadestown on Broadway before the original cast disbanded, and my friend here stole the show. So the idea that we should have this coming together of language and music in a way that is so important to us both is a privilege that we would like to share with the audience in the most visceral way.

WSHU: André, you’ll be hosting the first show of this ambitious season with Orchestra Lumos — it’s called Orpheus Sings. What do you aim to accomplish with this performance?

ADS: Now, we all know the purpose of classical music, and that is to charm the heart of the savage beast. And what better time to charm the heart of the savage beast than right now in 2024, when so much is happening around the globe that might give you second thoughts about music? Now, we are healers. Every artist is a healer. Every artist, if you flip the coin, is an activist. So when we get to Stamford, we will hold an offer of peacemaking to our audience through music. Not words per se, not any form of contention, but something that works as a glue for the humanity in us all.

WSHU: Who is the audience you’re looking to attract with an innovative show like this one? Who do you want to see in the crowd?

MS: We exclude no one. Let them, let them come and listen. No, seriously, young and old, people who have been listening to music in the concert hall intermittently all their life, or some people who have never been. Some people think music is exclusively pop or rock or Broadway or country. It matters not. The reason this theme, and this program, is so powerful for us is that we look at the diversity of artists since Ovid, who have been somehow captivated by this Orpheus idea. Writers, painters, playwrights, contemporary musicians, classical composers. There is something in this parable, in this story, which is so central to some facet of our shared human experience, that they can find all kinds of different takes to offer and have us deepen our experience. And so, that's what we're trying to do.

WSHU: André?

ADS: The one thing we have in common globally is that everyone is on a journey looking for some kind of salve for the wound in each of us. I say: start with our concert at the Palace Theater on Atlantic Avenue, in Stamford, on Saturday and Sunday.

Eda Uzunlar (she/her) is a news anchor/arts & culture reporter and host for WSHU.