GRACE LIU ANDERSON
New Jersey Symphony will perform at Branch Brook Park in Newark, June 26.
New Jersey Symphony traditionally presents a series of free park concerts during the summer, but there will be only one this year: June 26 at Branch Brook Park in Newark. The Symphony will offer a series of free library concerts in Jersey City, though, and its first Jersey City Music & Arts Festival, Sept. 24-Oct. 3 at Jersey City’s Provost Square Plaza (where the Symphony’s new Symphony Center is being built).
According to a press release, the mobile stage that the Symphony uses for its summer park concerts needs to be replaced. It was “deemed beyond reasonable repair after an electrical fire and a subsequent hydraulic failure” after the 2025 concerts, according to the press release, which also states that the Symphony is seeking funding to replace it and “will continue to search for funding support from many sources and hopes to deliver the entire series of much-loved summer parks concerts again in 2027.”
KYLE RITENAUER
The June 26 concert, as well as the Symphony’s performance at Morris Arts’ ticketed “Giralda: An Evening of Pure Imagination” fundraiser at St. Elizabeth University in Morristown, June 20, will feature conductor Kyle Ritenauer, and the program will include John Stafford Smith’s The Star-Spangled Banner (arr. Walter Damrosch); Leonard Bernstein Overture to Candide; Duke Ellington! A Medley for Orchestra (arr. Calvin Custer); Igor Stravinsky “Infernal Dance” and “Finale” from The Firebird Suite (1919); Valerie Coleman’s Seven O’Clock Shout; Aaron Copland’s “Variations on a Shaker Melody” from Appalachian Spring; John Williams “Main Title” from Star Wars; Armed Forces Salute (featuring works by various composers); and John Philip Sousa’s The Stars and Stripes Forever.
The Symphony will also perform at this year’s edition of the annual Edward T. Cone Composition Institute Concert, July 18 at The Richardson Auditorium at Princeton University. Eric Jacobsen will conduct this ticketed concert, and the program will include new works by T. Gregory Bloomfield, Apollonio Maiello, Gillian Rae Perry and Max Vinetz; and selections from Institute Director and concert host Steven Mackey’s Concerto for Orchestra.
The library concert, to be called Symphony in the Stacks, will feature chamber music for both children and adults, and will take place at The Jersey City Free Public Library system’s Priscilla Gardner Main Library, July 22 and Aug. 13; Earl Morgan Branch, July 29 and Aug. 5; Five Corners Branch, Aug. 6 and 10; Glen D. Cunningham Branch, July 15 and Aug. 22; and Miller Branch, Aug. 8 and 12. Although these performances are free, registration is required.
At the Sept. 24-Oct. 3 Jersey City Music & Arts Festival, Symphony musicians will perform chamber music, and there will also be offerings by Nimbus Dance, Riverview Jazz, Kulture Kool South Asian Cultural Center, Let’s Talk Women’s Health and Wellness, and others. The festival will include a Kids Day on Sept. 26 with a celebration of Bollywood dance, opportunities to try out orchestra instruments, Zombie Opera performances, the Jersey City Free Public Library bookmobile and more.
For information on the Symphony in the Stacks shows, visit jclibrary.libcal.com/event/16920141. For everything else, visit njsymphony.org.
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