Music is in Dr. David McConnell’s blood. His innate forte for the industry and deep love for orchestral music turned into his coveted career and ultimately ushered him toward achieving his lifelong dream of starting his own orchestra in 2014. Little did he know it would unfold in Berks County.
Q: What brought you to Berks County?
I came to Berks County in 1996 to take a position at Trinity Lutheran. I've been here ever since and met my now wife and stepchildren here. I came with a big-city attitude: that maybe the musical life wouldn’t be as active or as varied as I could experience in Philadelphia, but that has certainly been disproven in my time here.
Q: What drew you to the local music community?
Getting to hear the different musical groups, attending Berks Jazz Fest and going to concerts by the Reading Symphony Orchestra and Choral Society, I got to see that a lot of different groups were interested in different things. I also think the Reading Musical Foundation is really important because they actively support all music activities happening in the area and get them to work together. We are always invited to learn what one another is doing. That cooperative spirit is something I have not seen modeled in other places. Reading Musical Foundation, I think, is the key to the success of all that diversity here. Cooperation with and celebration of each other is a far healthier and more realistic way to do things these days.
Q: When did you know you wanted to pursue music as a career?
It has always been a part of my life. My parents were both musicians. Now, I have my doctorate in choral conducting, but I always loved orchestral music. Vocal music can obviously be deeply profound, but you are essentially being told how to feel about that song. However, you can play a piece of orchestral music for a room of 150 people, and there are probably 150 different reactions to it. I took as many opportunities as I could to study orchestral conducting, but ultimately when Andy Cassano, James Gilmer, Kathleen Bahena and I got together to create the Berks Sinfonietta, it was fulfilling a long-held dream of mine.
Q: What is something about the Berks Sinfonietta that someone may not expect?
We made a conscious decision several years ago that we wanted to introduce our community to more music by women and people of color. For the last five years, there have been five or six works each season by women. We also did Florence Price’s first symphony. She is the first Black woman to graduate from the New England Conservatory and the first woman composer to have a symphony premiered by the Chicago Symphony. I see the players’ and audiences’ joy in discovering something new. So, people can expect to hear a well-established masterpiece, but they'll also hear something that they probably don't know, that we think deserves to be better known.
Learn More
Finding Joy.
McConnell also conducts the Wilson High School musical. He expressed that the enthusiasm, happiness and pride the students evoke serves as a reminder of his “why.”
Season 11.
Berks Sinfonietta kicks off its next season on August 17. See details and additional show dates from June through the rest of 2024 at berkssinfonietta.org.
