GBS Up Beat

Welcome to the GBS UP BEAT: Articles, News and Insights by Phyllis A.S. Boros, a feature writer, who previously was the award-winning senior entertainment/arts reporter for Hearst Media/Connecticut. In these periodic updates, Phyllis will offer everything from behind-the-scenes tidbits to what you can expect at coming concerts.

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Posted on September 28, 2025

“New Horizons” 80th Anniversary Season Grand Opening

by Phyllis A.S. Boros

The countdown to the opening of the Greater Bridgeport Symphony’s new era is underway, with novel programing and ambitious objectives set for its 80th anniversary season.

On the podium for the Oct. 4 season-opener was the orchestra’s new music director/conductor: Brazilian-born Eduardo Leandro, whose appointment was announced in March.

The “New Horizons” season will celebrate the ancient Western philosophical thought that there are five “root” elements of life: air, fire, quintessence (ideas), earth and water. Each program will have a specific theme focusing on one element. Unlike in recent years, the orchestra will use two venues; the Klein Memorial theater will host three of its five-concert season: Oct. 4 “Air”; the Dec. 20 “Quintessence” holiday event with noted Bridgeport chanteuse Maureen Hamill; and the season closer, “Water,” on April 11.

The Nov. 15 “Fire” concert and the March 14 “Earth” program will be presented at Mertens Theatre on the University of Bridgeport campus.

All events, at 7:30 p.m., will be dedicated to Fairfield philanthropists and long-time GBS supporters Doris and Herbert Harrington, who died within weeks of each other earlier this year.

Leandro is only the sixth music director/conductor in the storied history of GBS, which from its beginning has attracted renowned conductors such as Hollywood legend Jose` Iturbi (1967-1972) and the late Gustav Meier (1972-2013), who was considered one of the world’s greatest teachers of conducting. (Leandro studied privately years ago with Meier.)

In addition to the Greater Bridgeport Symphony, Leandro’s affiliations are many: conductor of the New York New Music Ensemble, associate professor of percussion at Stony Brook University in New York and artistic director of the Contemporary Chamber Players at Stony Brook. He also performs throughout the country as a featured percussionist. (In 2024, Leandro performed on marimba with the orchestra, much to the audience’s delight.)

Leandro says he is anticipating a very exciting and special 80th season. “This will be the first season we work together with GBS as a long-term relationship. It’s a unique proposition in that we have three large concerts (at the Klein) and two chamber concerts (at Mertens Theater at U.B.), as well. So we’ll have a wide range of music, from large symphonies by Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich, to pieces that are smaller in number of players, but very exciting and challenging for the ensemble.

“We have sometimes the wrong idea that the number of musicians is proportional to how exciting a concert is. We are trying to prove this wrong, and we hope our audience gives us the chance to do just that.”

For his first year at the helm, Leandro says he has several goals in mind. “The orchestra is coming from a long [two-year] search process, and I wanted to challenge the musicians with repertoire that has a healthy mix of established known works; and very demanding, lesser-known music. It’s important for the orchestra to feel challenged with many solo parts that showcase how good these musicians are.

“For our audience, the goal of the season is to entertain them with exciting music, but also to challenge them to listen to new pieces. I want to have a permanent conversation with our community through the music we play and the way we play it.”

Perhaps the most unusual concert of the season is the April “Water” event, which promises to be fascinating. Featured will be the Water Concerto by Oscar-winner composer Tan Dun, performed as a “tour de force … by the orchestra and soloist percussionist extraordinaire Ji-Hye Jung.” As the score requires, she will use percussive instruments in, on and above large bowls of water, Leandro explains. Also on the bill is Debussy’s “La Mer” (The Sea), “one of the finest pieces of orchestration ever written.”

Leandro points out that “in contrast, the October concert featured such familiar pieces as Vaughan Williams’ “Lark Ascending,” a “haunting piece for solo violin and orchestra, played by the virtuoso Brunilda Myftaraj, after an also hauntingly beautiful and wistful piece for strings by Caroline Shaw (Grammy- and Pulitzer-prize winner who lives in Connecticut), and concluded with Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony, an ode to survival in challenging times, and a score that has one of the most elating last movements of any symphony.”

GBS is also embarking on a fund-raising campaign to sustain it and to expand its various programs for children and older students. The “80-for-80 Fund” is asking for 80 donors to give shares of $1,000 each to strengthen the organization as it enters its ninth decade in Bridgeport.

“We are currently working on expanding (the) pool of benefactors who would like to partner with us to promote both our concerts and our educational and outreach efforts,” he says.

“GBS can fulfill an indispensable role within Bridgeport and adjacent towns. We are the largest professional music institution in the area, and we have a responsibility towards our audience to educate our young population. We want them to not only come to our concerts, but to feel comfortable and have fun while they do it. For that to happen, we need to go to them first, both in schools and in after-school programs. That’s the only way to make sure we have a continuing audience who is interested in what an orchestra concert experience can feel like.” (GBS is offering family packages, with free admission for those under 19 years of age.) It is amazing that the Greater Bridgeport Symphony has persevered for decades through the region’s economic boom-and-bust cycles, he says. “The real strength of GBS is its audience and its loyalty to the orchestra.

“There would be no orchestra if the community around us didn’t want it to exist. It’s that simple. The cultural landscape is impossibly challenging for all of us at this moment, as funding for most artistic institutions is taken away overnight, and we all compete for the same scarce sources left.

“We do live in a time of uncertainty, but I have enormous faith in what this community can do. I’ve seen it.

For me being in touch with the Bridgeport community is fundamental. I don’t want to be an outsider, but rather an integral part of the music-making collective in the area. The way to make sure we continue to exist is to be indispensable to the social and cultural life of our town.”

The maestro adds that Bridgeport is unimaginable without the Greater Bridgeport Symphony. And to make certain that it doesn’t disappear, the community and orchestra must work together to ensure that “we will be here for the next 80 years.”

For information on ticket prices and programs for each concert, visit GBS.org. Cost-saving subscription tickets and full-price individual tickets are available.

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Posted on March 15, 2025

GREATER BRIDGEPORT SYMPHONY NAMES EDUARDO LEANDRO

MUSIC DIRECTOR AND PRINCIPAL CONDUCTOR

by Phyllis A.S. Boros

As the Greater Bridgeport Symphony prepares to embark on a new era, it is doing so with enormous anticipation and excitement. So says Mark R. Halstead, president of the orchestra’s board of trustees. “We have such a lot of great news as we move forward to our 80th anniversary season with a new music director and principal conductor, Eduardo Leandro,” Halstead said recently.

Following an exhaustive two-year search, the orchestra has named Leandro, of New York, to the orchestra’s top musical position. In his new role, Leandro — a touring percussionist, educator and conductor — will be responsible for designing and executing each new season.  

 Board Trustee Richard A. Cerrato, who served on the search committee, noted that in May 2023 the GBS “embarked on a new search for its sixth conductor in its nearly 80-year history. The GBS board of trustees charged a search committee, made up of its musicians and board members, to find a worthy candidate to succeed its two most … beloved maestros, the late Gustav Meier [who served for more than 40 years] and Eric Jacobsen, who have led the orchestra since 1972. 

“The search committee received more than 160 applications from candidates in a worldwide search. It then recommended four finalists to conduct concerts in 2024. . .

“After all was said and done, the (board) voted to engage the dynamic, and talented Eduardo Leandro to lead the orchestra.“ Cerrato, a Bridgeport lawyer, said that while all four finalists were exceptionally gifted conductors, Leandro was deemed “the best fit,” a musician who would “enable the orchestra to continue its mission to celebrate, educate, inspire and provide excellence in musical programming.”

Bridgeport Mayor Joseph P. Ganim said in a prepared statement that Leandro, “a newly-sworn U.S. citizen born in Brazil has demonstrated qualities of talent, generosity, civic pride, dedication to the arts, concern for the inner city and cultural ambassadorship which show the best of what Bridgeport is and can be.”

When hearing the news, Leandro, who celebrated his 54th birthday on March 4, said he is “so happy to help this amazing institution move forward. “

Among his goals, said Leandro, is to ensure that the orchestra’s home in Bridgeport is ”considered as a community center, a place where you can feel welcome, a place for everyone who wants to hear great music without feeling intimidated.”

The multi-lingual Leandro, a commercial pilot with his own airplane, will continue as associate professor of music at Stony Brook University on Long Island and as conductor of the New York New Music Ensemble. Leandro, who had studied conducting privately with the Swiss-born Maestro Meier, served as principal guest conductor for the GBS’ 78th season, on the podium for all five season concerts.

Leandro’s inaugural concert, was sponsored by the Ernest and Joan Trefz Foundation, on May 10, 2025 at the Klein Memorial Auditorium and featured pianist Andrew Armstrong, who over the years has proven to be one of the GBS’ most popular soloists. (Armstrong performed Rachmaninoff ’s Concerto No. 2 in C minor.)

The entire 80th anniversary season will be offered in honor of the late Fairfield philanthropists Herbert F. Harrington Jr., founder of Rotair Aerospace Corp., and wife, Doris Domonkos Harrington, former vice president of Rotair, who for many years served as GBS president and board chairwoman. Both, in their 90s, passed away recently.

Herbert and Doris Harrington

Tickets, tickets, tickets

Subscription packages for 2025-2026 season are available, according to Phyllis Rhodes Cortese, the GBS’ executive director. Concerts are slated for the Klein Memorial Auditorium, 910 Fairfield Ave., Bridgeport and The Mertens Theatre at University of Bridgeport, 84 Iranistan Ave. Bridgeport.  

For additional information/tickets, visit GBS.org or call 203.576.0263.

Phyllis A.S. Boros is a feature writer who previously was the award-winning senior arts/entertainment reporter for Hearst Media/Connecticut.

Posted on March 11, 2024

Reflections on a youth well spent

There are few ways better to celebrate the season of rebirth than with concerts full of joyous music.

A few odds-and-ends, thoughts and reminders follow.

Introducing kids to the arts at an early age can have an enormous influence on how they develop into curious adults. Psychologists agree.

It is no wonder, then, that I would become a “culture vulture” at a very young age, having enjoyed the benefits of a Stratford public schools education that was then committed to exposing students to a world view.

With French classes, we visited restaurants and cafes in New Haven and Manhattan, where I tasted my first onion soup gratinee and escargots swimming in butter, and bantered with waiters in a “foreign” language; with mixed chorus, we headed to Lincoln Center, where I experienced my first opera, Puccini’s “Tosca”; with English classes, we were introduced every spring to numerous plays by the Bard and Shaw at the renowned (hometown) American Shakespeare Festival Theatre; with music appreciation classes, we became familiar with some of the greatest orchestral music ever composed. Wonderful memories.

Nowadays, however, with public arts budgets shrinking, the job of culturally educating our children falls primarily to families. And making that responsibility a bit easier are community nonprofits that offer substantial discounts for family groups. The Greater Bridgeport Symphony is one of these.

The orchestra is now offering a Family Pack Deal: All those under age 19 are FREE for any seat in the house, when accompanied by adults, who will be given a 15 % discount on their tickets.

GBS has an annual budget of about $480,000.  Of this, only about 21% comes from ticket sales — still down significantly from pre-Pandemic days.  A good deal of the rest comes from grants, foundations, local businesses and advertising.  The Annual Fund is an essential part of operating revenue.  Made up of donations from patrons (the majority below $500), the Annual Fund accounts for over 20% of the annual budget.  For the 2024-25 season, the Annual Fund Drive netted a bit more than $100,000 from patron donations.  “Costs have risen dramatically, so our Annual Fund and Corporate Sponsorships are more vital than ever” said GBS Executive Director, Phyllis Rhodes Cortese.  A new Annual Fund Drive for 2025-26 began at the April concert with season subscriptions for the GBS 80th season going on sale.

Money matters

Keep in mind that arts organizations are still recovering from Covid-created financial concerns.

“More than ever, the GBS needs your support so that we may continue to grow and thrive,” according to a recent statement from the orchestra. “Like all arts organizations, we are coming back from a very hard time, and it will be awhile before audiences return to levels we have seen in the past.”

In order to survive, GBS audiences need to embrace the orchestra as its own and commit to supporting this community gem,” said Maestro Eduardo Leandro.

In the early 1990s, when the city and symphony were struggling, the late GBS Maestro Gustav Meier repeatedly observed that audiences had traded attending live orchestral concerts for “cocooning” at home with their sophisticated sound systems, electronic games and home theaters. Meier opined that the situation would eventually change when music-lovers tired of being home-bound and came to realize that few musical experiences can top a live performance. True, then and now.

Orchestra memories

Bolstered by a growing economy, many post-World War II Americans were eager to spend money on new or better homes, furnishings and autos and on having fun — dining out, nightclub entertainment, theater-going and concerts.

In the pages of the Bridgeport Post, Sunday Post and morning Telegram, news stories often accompanied by several photos would reflect the excitement and glamor of concert nights — men in suits and tuxedos and women in cocktail dresses and gowns.

Audiences came in this boom era to hear magnificent orchestral music from various periods — in particular classical, romantic and modern. Composers such as Brahms and Mozart, Tchaikovsky and Gershwin come to mind. And they also came to be part of a community celebration.

Eduardo Leandro, who also enjoys successful careers as a solo percussionist and educator, says he is committed to turning concerts into gala events. In a recent interview, Leandro said in many cultures, orchestra halls are considered as community centers, ”a place where you can feel welcome, a place for everyone who wants to hear great music without feeling intimidated.”

Long line of greats

Leandro follows in a line of distinguished conductors to helm the GBS. Owing to its proximity to the Yale University graduate music school and the New York metro area, the GBS has always been able to draw from a highly talented pool of musicians and conductors.

On the podium for the first concert in February 1947 was Canadian-born Daniel Saidenberg, who would go on to open a Manhattan art gallery and serve as Pablo Picasso’s American representative. He was followed by Jonel Perlea (1955-65), who had conducted the Bucharest (Romania) Opera, Milan’s La Scala and New York’s Metropolitan Opera. Jose Iturbi — pianist, conductor and MGM film star — was on the podium until 1972, followed by Meier.

The Swiss-born Meier, considered among the best conducting teachers in the United States, was music director/conductor for more than 40 years, creating a legion of devoted followers. Eric Jacobsen, who was named music director in 2014 and served through April 2023, now wears many hats, including as music director of the Orlando Philharmonic and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra.

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Phyllis A.S. Boros is a feature writer, who previously was the award-winning senior entertainment/arts reporter for Hearst Media/Connecticut.

For further information, call (203) 576-0263.