Movements And Momentum

Last year was the Fort Smith Symphony's 90th, and the organization celebrated. That celebration came with a gala event but was also reflected in the size of the orchestra and its collective onstage ambitions.

"We've made some great strides, even in the last year," says John Jeter, the group's artistic director and conductor.

Where does that leave the symphony for the upcoming 2014-15 season? With "Greater Expectations," the organization believes. That's the theme of the season, which was announced earlier this summer. Renewing subscribers got the first chance at tickets, and now season tickets are being offered to new members. The seats that remain after season tickets are claimed -- and there won't be many, as the shows at the group's longtime home at Arkansas Best Performing Arts Center almost always sell out -- go on sale in early September.

Symphonies don't get to play Beethoven's Fifth Symphony every year -- that's the famous one with the "da-da-da-dummm" combination at the start -- but it's on this year's roster for Fort Smith. Similarly, the orchestra will present linchpins of the classical music repertoire such as Ravel's "Bolero," Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 3 and Gershwin's "An American in Paris."

"We're doing more standards, crowd favorites, with the bigger and better orchestra," Jeter says.

The symphony has yet to tackle several of these works, or it's been several years, Jeter says. "Bolero," which shows up on the program of the season's first concert Oct. 4, was last performed by the organization five or six years ago. Haydn's Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra, which will be presented on Jan. 24, was last attempted near the beginning of Jeter's tenure in Fort Smith, which began in 1997.

But the collection of programs in 2014-15 isn't just a greatest hits collection. Jeter preaches both artistic growth and balance for each season, which is why there are three programs full of classics and three featuring pops elements. The Oct. 25 program "Pops on Broadway" sees the orchestra backing vocalists who have appeared on Broadway and London's equivalent West End district. The next pops program, "Spontaneous Christmas," lives up to that name. Electric violin player Doug Cameron worked with the Fort Smith Symphony several years ago. More recently, he sent a recording of Christmas songs to Jeter, and taken aback by the quality of the recording Cameron had dubbed "Spontaneous Christmas," the local maestro invited him to perform it.

"It's a kind of world premiere," Jeter says.

The finale of the pops programs features vocalist Dee Daniels performing a series of songs by the late, great Ray Charles.

"It's a fun concert, and a fun era of music," Jeter says. "It's a real high-energy, American evening."

The symphony routinely offers educational programming, and those opportunities are again expanding after a year of stasis while focus turned to the 90th anniversary. During the 2014-15 season, the symphony will for the first offer the Story Book Strings program, which will set popular books to classical music. The new program will visit third graders at the 20 elementary schools in Fort Smith. It comes in addition to the previously existing Symphony in the Schools programs for fifth graders and the popular Earquake series, which will bring in 4,000 students from River Valley schools to a symphony performance.

Jeter says he just finalized the schedule for the 2015-16 season, even though it won't be revealed until this time next year. To balance out this year's headfirst dive into the classics, the 2015-16 season will focus on newer compositions, he says.