David Wroe will conduct The New Jersey Festival Orchestra in concerts in Westfield and Basking Ridge.
Conductor David Wroe will show his affection for popular orchestral works that evoke folk cultures in “The Gypsy Spirit,” the concert that will open New Jersey Festival Orchestra’s 2025-26 season, Sept. 27 at The Presbyterian Church in Westfield and Sept. 28 at The Sieminksi Theater in Basking Ridge. Lively, uplifting pieces by Leoš Janáček, Max Bruch and Manuel De Falla, flavored with exotic folk elements, will stir the spirit with romantic, energetic and ecstatic rhythms.
“The folk element in much of this music is there, particularly demonstrated in a joyous fashion, so we thought the title was a nice catch-all to capture the flavor of these culturally connected pieces of music,” Wroe says.
XIAO WANG
Guest artists will include Xiao Wang for Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 and the Westfield-based British-style brass band Imperial Brass for Janáček’s Sinfonietta (in Westfield only). The program will also include De Falla’s “Three-Cornered Hat, Suites Nos. 1 & 2.”
The Sinfonietta’s earthy melodies “are identifiable as the genre of Eastern European folk melodies,” Wroe says, “and the De Falla ‘Three-Cornered Hat’ is full of Andalusian flamenco-style rhythms and melodies.”
With such vivacious dance motifs, will concertgoers be encouraged to dance? “Wouldn’t that be great?” Wroe laughs. “We would love to have dancing if the space was there. The two venues we perform at unfortunately do not have removable seating to accommodate dancing, but in our minds, there is definitely dancing!”
Imperial Brass will show off their spirited style and passion for brass music with Janáček’s majestic fanfare, padded with extra brass and alluring harmonic and rhythmic shifts. The Czech composer’s last and most beloved orchestral work was written in 1926 as a tribute to the Czech military and inspired by military bands he had heard in southern Bohemia.
This will be the first collaboration between NJFO and Imperial Brass, and the occasion couldn’t be more poignant: The group — founded in 1991 by Rutgers’ alumni as The Rutgers Alumni Brass Band — recently moved its operations to the Westfield church that NJFO has played at for over 40 years. “We thought it would be apropos to welcome them and also find a piece that we could collaborate with and give them an opportunity to shine,” Wroe says.
As a gesture of goodwill and friendship, Wroe will turn the spotlight on them. They will open the concert with a piece of their own selection led by bandmaster Ronald Waiksnoris. “Then we will come together in this grand piece, the Sinfonietta, to round out our collaboration with them,” Wroe says.
Members of Imperial Brass.
The initiative is part of NJFO’s mission to foster community engagement and partnerships. “On occasion we partner with local community ensembles to advance our mutual goals of bringing beautiful music to our communities, and it just seemed like a natural fit,” Wroe says.
NJFO — which mainly performs in Union, Middlesex and Morris counties — was founded in 1983 as a fully professional symphonic ensemble called the Westfield Symphony Orchestra with the scope of activity focused around town. In 2013, Wroe, who has been the orchestra’s music director since 1998, ushered in a new era of accessibility and artistic diversity. His leadership is centered on dynamic programming and a high artistic standard.
Folkish elements will also be heard in the two suites from De Falla’s “Three-Cornered Hat,” drawn from his 1919 ballet “El sombrero de tres picos” that was commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev for Ballets Russes. The ballet, based on Pedro Antonio de Alarcón’s novella, blends Andalusian folk traditions with classical symphonic style. Both suites are memorable for their Spanish dance rhythms, colorful orchestration and dramatic storytelling.
Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 will be the romantic heart of the program. The German composer is known almost exclusively for this passionate and richly shaded 1866 masterwork, revised two years later into its final form by the Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim. For the musicians, there are dazzling rhythms and lush melodies; for the soloist, strenuous virtuoso solo passages and tricky finger work.
“It is a fantastic piece for the violinist to express both his interpretive acumen and his virtuosity,” Wroe says. “It has got it all there — beauty, sensitivity and fireworks.”
Wroe shares a deep personal connection to both the composer and the piece. Years ago, he was invited to conduct in Nordhausen, Germany, and had the opportunity to walk in Bruch’s footsteps in the nearby town of Sondershausen while working with the orchestra. From 1867 to 1870, Bruch was the court music director there, composing and performing in the residential palace and castle.
“I remember walking around the castle and the grounds, knowing that 150 years prior to me being there, Bruch was working in these same halls and playing in these concerts, and indeed he wrote his famous violin concerto in this very town,” Wroe recalls. “It added an element of intensity, knowing that a great masterpiece was written in the same rooms that you were working in, and walking around the same grounds that he walked with his notebooks, writing down all sorts of things. It was really quite magical.”
DAVID WROE
NJFO has an ambitious season planned. In December, it will continue its annual “Home for the Holidays” tradition with a festive seasonal concert called “Return of the Holiday Tenors,” which will feature guest tenors in holiday classics, seasonal arias and Neapolitan fare. The orchestra also traditionally invites student choirs from the surrounding school districts for cameo appearances. Past participants have included Westfield’s Jefferson and Franklin elementary schools.
“It has proven to be one of the more successful concerts of our season, and we sprinkle it with community love with one song that includes elements of the community, in this case being local elementary schools,” Wroe says.
This year, the orchestra will welcome school choirs from Westfield’s Holy Trinity School, Dec. 6 in Westfield; and Madison’s Central Avenue School, Dec. 7 in Madison. Students will perform the holiday standard “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.”
Another concert tradition is a New Year’s symphonic tribute to Broadway’s greatest hits. This season’s program, “Broadway Through the Ages,” will feature three Broadway stars alongside members of the Dance Theater of Harlem for favorites from The Great American Songbook. The concerts will be on Dec. 31 in Westfield, and Jan. 1 in Basking Ridge. “We do a slightly earlier time on New Year’s Eve at 5 p.m. so people can come to the concert, and then go and have a nice dinner and celebrate the rest of the evening, ringing in the New Year,” Wroe says.
The season wraps on May 30 in Westfield with an “Ode to Joy” concert featuring Beethoven’s monumental choral masterwork, The Ninth Symphony. It will open with Joaquín Rodrigo’s “Fantasía para un gentilhombre” by Slovak guitarist Karol Samuelčík, presented in collaboration with the Slovak-American Cultural Center, a nonprofit based in New York that promotes Slovak heritage.
Wroe has performed Beethoven’s seminal work with NJFO only once before. “We believe it is time to bring it back,” he says.
They are still in the early stages of planning but Wroe hints at singers packed to the rafters. “It’s going to be massive,” he says. “Last time we did this, I think we had a choir of over 100 up in the balconies and we’re aiming to achieve the same goal.”
One of the participating choirs will be from Arts High School of Newark. Other local community choirs, and the soloists, will be announced at a later date.
If concertgoers are eager for more, Wroe says a couple of events are being planned for early 2026, with details to come.
New Jersey Festival Orchestra will present “The Gypsy Spirit” at The Presbyterian Church in Westfield, Sept. 27 at 7 p.m., and at The Sieminski Theater in Basking Ridge, Sept. 28 at 2:30 p.m., with pre-concert lectures one hour before showtime by Yifei Xu. Visit njfestivalorchestra.org/concerts.
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