The Symphony Orchestra of Northern Virginia has a new maestro for the first time in 15 years.
Get to know new music director Ethan Lolley at a meet-and-greet at Lost Boy Cider in Alexandria, Virginia, on Tuesday.
“We’re going to be having a happy hour meet-and-greet where I can get to know the musicians and also get to know members of the community and our patrons,” Lolley told WTOP. “We’ll also be selling our season tickets there. And one perk if you buy your season tickets there, you get a free SONOVA T-shirt.”
Lolley brings tons of experience from Walt Disney World and Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida, where he led the CFCArts Young Artists Orchestra and CFCArts Symphony Orchestra. In the D.C. area, he leads D.C. and Maryland choirs as choral conductor for the nation’s largest choral organization, Encore Creativity for Older Adults, while simultaneously serving as choral director at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Alexandria, Virginia.
“It’s a dream come true for me,” Lolley said. “I grew up in small-town Alabama and slowly made my way north. … Jeffrey Dokken has been the maestro for SONOVA since its inception … and his last concert, his last hurrah, he unfortunately had to have surgery on his arm, so they had to find someone last minute. I worked with Jeff in a different organization and he said, ‘Do you think you can work up Beethoven’s ‘Fifth Symphony’ and conduct it?'”
Now, Lolley is taking over for the 2023-2024 season, conducting roughly 60 professional and recreational musicians for four concerts at the George Washington Masonic National Memorial Theater in Alexandria, Virginia.
The season kicks off in October with a Halloween-themed concert called “Symphonic Spooks” on Friday the 13th.
“This is gonna be classic masterworks, masterpieces throughout the classical orchestra period that you don’t really recognize as horror until you hear it and you’re like, ‘Oh, I’ve heard that in so many horror films and it’s so iconic, I can’t believe that was written in the 1700s,'” Lolley said. “We’ll also incorporate some modern horror film scores. … You might hear a little ‘Addams Family,’ you might a hear a little bit of John Carpenter’s ‘Halloween.'”
After that, the orchestra will perform a winter-themed concert called “Snow Daze” on Dec. 9.
“I would definitely say holiday tunes, but we take it a little bit further,” Lolley said. “We’re really centering it around snow and a ‘snow day.’ I remember as a child, I grew up in Alabama, so we didn’t get a whole lot of snow days, but when they came, we sure were excited about them. Everyone could be happy on a snow day because they get to stay home, they didn’t have to go to work or school, so all the celebratory music that goes along with that.”
The third concert echoes Porky Pig with “That’s All Folks: SONOVA Goes Looney” on March 3, 2024.
“We’re going to be featuring some of the iconic classical masterpieces that were featured on Saturday morning cartoons, (namely) ‘The Looney Tunes,'” Lolley said. “Growing up as a kid, that was my introduction to classical music, so I’m super excited about bringing in the cartoon aspect of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, the Road Runner, Tasmanian devil, all that together with iconic classical music and you’ll see iconic cartoons behind us as we play.”
Finally, the season wraps with a creative concert called “Elements of Earth” on April 14, 2024.
“We’re gonna actually partner with a local dance company, Next Reflex Dance Collective,” Lolley said. “We’re going to feature the four elements of Earth through music. … We know about the four elements, including wind, water, fire and earth, and we’re going to try to recreate that as audience members hear music for each of those elements. Maybe you’ll feel some wind as you’re listening to music that relates to wind.”
Listen to our full conversation here.
