When Bruce Sorrell founded the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra, one wonders if he realized that he was founding one of Kansas City’s most important and enduring cultural organizations. His ensemble has become essential to Kansas City’s cultural life, presenting a rich repertoire of music that would otherwise never be heard, while at the same time commissioning new works and nurturing talent that has bloomed and still shares their gifts with us today.

Arts groups are always up against enormous challenges, so what is the secret to the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra’s success?

“I don't know that there is any secret except for, I don’t want to say stupidity, but maybe bravery,” Sorrell said. “I think in so many ways what the orchestra has represented for almost the entire time we’ve been playing is that we’ve created opportunities for the professional musicians who are living and working in Kansas City. And I think that's the proudest thing about it for me.”

In 2012, Sorrell was also appointed executive director of Chamber Music Tulsa, but he always maintained his role as music director of the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra. 

“I just wanted to make sure that we were still making concerts that people love coming to and also funneling these opportunities into the hands of our wonderful professional musicians in town,” Sorrell said.

After Sorrell graduated from William Jewell College, he began his master’s studies and founded a small orchestra in Dallas. He also went to London to study. When he returned home, he pondered his next steps. He realized there was a need for a chamber orchestra in Kansas City, and, at about the same time, violinist Ben Sayevich moved to the area to become violin professor at the University of Kansas. He was also the chamber orchestra’s first concert master, and the ensemble was set in motion.

“It kind of just came together,” Sorrell said. “I've been cleaning out a lot of archive material that's eventually going to be stored at the UMKC library, which I think is really great. They'll have all of our programs and everything from 40 years of history. There were a lot of great moments and there were times when things were sort of iffy, but we made it through. Yes, I know there were some challenging times. Keeping anything going really does take a lot of commitment. And I think we've had a really loyal base of people who love coming to the concerts, and that makes a big difference. And a loyal group of players who love showing up and playing and doing these great pieces together.

As Sorrell and the orchestra begin their countdown to their very important 40th anniversary season, they have put together a 39th season that has all the hallmarks that make this conductor and his band unique and irreplaceable.

As a teaser, there’s a delightful pre-season opener Music in the Garden Sept. 7 at 6 p.m. at the John Wornall House Gardens. Carolyn Watson, the principal guest conductor of the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra, will conduct. It’s been a tradition for the orchestra to start off its season with an outdoor concert.

“That developed out of the pandemic when we were looking for ways to get music to people,” Sorrell said. “It's a great way to kick off the season. There's some Mozart and some Vivaldi that will showcase what’s coming up later in the season. It'll be a lot of fun. Bring the family. It's on the front lawn in front of the house. Hopefully it won't be too terribly hot this year. There'll be food trucks and . . . it’s free!”

The opening concert of the season is Autumn Romance for Strings with guest soprano Victoria Botero Sept. 26 at 7:30 p.m. at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral. The concert will feature music by Heitor Villa-Lobos, Benjamin Britten and Edvard Grieg.

“I first worked with Victoria when we did Purcell’s The Fairy Queen together,” Sorrell said. “I don't even know what year that was at this point, but it was one of the magical moments in our history. I was very excited to have her join last year for the Vivaldi Gloria, and this year she’ll be singing one of Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras, or Brazilian pieces in the manner of Bach. The fifth one, which she’ll be singing is very famous because it's got the most gorgeous melody. It’s a work that when I listen to it, I almost start to weep. It's so pretty. It really is gorgeous.”

The theme of the concert is composers paying tribute to their predecessors. Just as Villa-Lobos paid tribute to Bach, Benjamin Britten honored his teacher and mentor Frank Bridge.

“I really wanted to revisit Benjamin Britten's Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, which is one of the great masterworks for string orchestra,” Sorrell said. “He pays homage to the various kinds of influences that he sees in Frank Bridge's personality. The piece, for me, goes beyond that in that it there's almost a depiction of the way Europe is self-imploding in the 1930s. I love the piece for that reason.”

Edvard Grieg paid tribute to the father of Danish and Norwegian literature, Ludvig Holberg (1684–1754), in his delightful, neo-baroque Holberg Suite, which is also on the program. Surprisingly, the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra has performed the Holberg Suite only one other time. Its sprightly vivaciousness is right up their alley.

Benjamin Britten

Frank Bridge

Victoria Botero

Heitor Villa-Lobos

Edvard Grieg

During the holidays, the orchestra always provides festive music that is an alternative to the same-old, same-old. This year they’ll perform a program of Vivaldi and tango master Astor Piazzolla at in a candelight concert at Country Club Christian Church at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 2. 

“Violinist Tamamo Gibbs told me she would love to do Piazzolla’s Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, and I'm like, oh man, that sounds terrific” Sorrell said. “I think that will be a terrific offering during the holidays. It pays homage to Vivaldi and his Four Seasons. People have really fallen in love over the past decade or more with the music of Piazzolla. It's classically based, but tango influenced.”

And there will be Vivaldi! Oboist Margaret Marco, cellist Larry Figg and flutist Christina Webster will all perform various concertos by Venetian master.

Tamamo Gibbs

MARGARET MARCO

Larry Figg

Christina Webster

Speaking of holidays, the orchestra will celebrate Valentine’s Day with For the Love of Music with guest conductor Watson. The concert is at 6 p.m. on Feb. 14 at a venue still to be determined. The program will, of course, be heavy on romantic, swoony music, and will include dinner and wine. It’ll be the perfect Valentine’s date.

Carolyn Watson

With its fresh and lively sound, the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra always puts on the perfect spring concert. On April 30, Sorrell and his band will end the season with a concert featuring Mozart’s Symphony No. 39.

“It is a great symphony,” Sorrell said. “In one of the summers close to the end of his life, Mozart wrote Symphonies 39, 40 and 41, basically one a month. He just poured into them the most imaginative,wonderful kind of music. We've only done Symphony No. 39 one other time in all these years. Too much music, not enough time. I'm really looking forward to coming back and revisiting that particular symphony and bringing it alive for our audience.”

But the highlight of the concert is a work that the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra commissioned almost 20 years ago and is bringing back for an encore performance.

“Forrest Pierce, who's on the faculty over at the University of Kansas, had approached me and said, ‘I would like to write a work for you’” Sorrell said. And I'm like, okay. And then he gave me a proposal about what he wanted to do. And I'm like, oh my gosh, this sounds utterly amazing. And so it became a work called The Twelve Kisses. It's a setting of various parts of the Song of Solomon, partly in Hebrew, partly in Forrest's poetic translation of it. I asked Victoria Botero if she would come back at the end of the season and do this fabulous work, and she is. It’s for soprano strings, a wind instrument, which can be either oboe d'amore or clarinet and piano. It just gives me chills to think about doing it again.”

Forrest Pierce

Solomon by Arent de Gelder, 1685-90

6 p.m. Sept. 7. Music in the Garden with guest conductor Carolyn Watson. John Wornall House Gardens, 6115 Wornall Road.

7:30 p.m. Sept. 26. Autumn Romance for Strings with soprano Victoria Botero. Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral, 415 W. 13th St.

7:30 p.m. Dec. 2. Candlelight Holiday Concert with violinist Tamamo Gibbs, oboist Margaret Marco, cellist Larry Figg and flutist Christina Webster. Country Club Christian Church, 6101 Ward Parkway.

6 p.m. Feb. 14. For the Love of Music with guest conductor Carolyn Watson. Venue to be announced.

7:30 p.m. April 30. Spring Concert with soprano Victoria Botero. Venue to be announced.

Bruce Sorrell